Emperor Scientist

All my machines are made for destruction!
I will build my empire!
I will succeed, and you will see
With my machines, there is no retreat!

"Everything was a game to the Sovereigns. That's what came of a life lived completely completely disconnected from real consequences. Especially to the basilisks of the Vritra Clan, who looked at the world like one big laboratory, everything inside of it an experiment. War, disease, natural disasters... little more than opportunities for the Vritra to dissect the aftereffects."

— Seris Vritra, The Beginning After the End

When the Mad Scientist gains enough knowledge of technology, genetics, or the innermost workings of the laws of the universe, as they sometimes do, and the ambition to go along with it, they sometimes go ahead and act on it, unleashing hordes of genetically engineered beings created according to their own designs of a perfect form of life, Super Soldiers created and trained by them, reality-bending physics projects, or other such means of takeover, and thus become the supreme ruler of a world or galactic superpower. The Emperor Scientist is born.

It's important to note that not all Emperor Scientists are Evil Overlords working their way on up towards becoming the next Galactic Conqueror or Dimension Lord. At least one out of every three you'll see will usually be a Reasonable Authority Figure, or at least a Well-Intentioned Extremist (or Knight Templar... or Dark Messiah) presiding over an empire that, while it still may be... well... Imperial (meaning it may not quite be The Good Kingdom), is not evil, but instead does what it has to do to ensure the Advancement and Prosperity of Human Civilization. In rare cases, he may even be a benevolent and pacifistic ruler, which would make him a Philosopher King.

Emperor Scientists can commonly be found hanging about in various types of Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Schizo Tech, Future Badass, and Used Future worlds, where they will typically be the guy (or gal) in charge of one of the two Empires or warring factions that tend to be battling it out over what's left of those sorts of places. Bonus points if it was their superscience that actually caused The Cataclysm, either indirectly or unintentionally, or directly and intentionally. Expect them to try to pursue Transhumanism and immortality, and/or outright make the jump (but may not) to actual God-Emperor territory, using their superscience to partially ascend to a higher plane of existence while still keeping enough of their physical form around to be visible to their subjects. It is also common for an Emperor Scientist to rule over a Proud Scholar Race.

Rank Scales with Asskicking means they'll often qualify as a Genius Bruiser. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, though, if it provides a cool, legendary central character to build a universe around.

As a final reminder, this trope applies where a character attains supreme power through their superior knowledge or The Spark of Genius. Literal Emperors who also happen to be scientists (and there have been a couple) are Royals Who Actually Do Something.

Compare Sorcerous Overlord, whose power is derived from magic rather than science; if the setting has Sufficiently Analyzed Magic, the two archetypes can overlap.

Technocracy is the Real Life equivalent, although that requires multiple Emperor Scientists while this trope usually deals with one.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Perhaps the archetypal example, Jung Zorndyke from Blue Submarine No. 6, who flooded the world because he believed Humans Are the Real Monsters and engineered a bunch of sentient sea creatures to inherit the Earth.
• Code Geass: Charles zi Britannia. At least, by the standards of science set in the show, since he seemed to have spent a great deal of time working on the Sword of Akasha, and had a near-complete understanding of the Applied Phlebotinum found in the show. His (technically older) twin brother V.V. is a much straighter example — he's the head of the Geass directorate, which studies Geass powers, and would have been emperor if he hadn't received a Code when he was a kid, making him an immortal prepubescent boy. Since we know so little of Charles' past, however (other than him and V.V.being survivors of a particularly bloody royal fratricide that killed their mother and forever traumatized them), the extent to which his understanding of the show's technology and Applied Phlebotinum allowed him to come to power in the first place is up for debate. Advanced Knightmare Frames and a desire to get ahold of the precursors' Lost Technology definitely played a big role in his conquest of over one-third of the world, however.
• Dr. STONE:
  • Senku Ishigami is a benevolent example. After waking up in a stone-age world thousands of years (during which every human on 21st century Earth was petrified), Senku uses his knowledge of science, ranging from engineering to cooking to medicine, to aid his comrades, and uses it to elevate a small village he discovered into the Kingdom of Science. His ultimate goal is to use science to bring back all 7 billion petrified humans.
  • On the reverse end of the spectrum is Dr. Xeno, a NASA scientist that woke up in post-petrification America and uses his science to form his own empire, complete with airplanes and machine guns. He believes that science can be used to control the masses, and even in the 21st century, he was open with his co-workers about how he would use his knowledge to conquer the local humans if he was sent to the distant past. As a matter of fact, he was Senku's science mentor in the 21st century, and his talk about how science can be used to harm people inspired Senku to research how to use science to help people, such as traveling to Africa to study how to fight Ebola when he and Xeno discussed plague-carrying missiles.
• Arguably Father from Fullmetal Alchemist. Only the top tier of the military even knows he exists, but he's engineered the entire history of Amestris from its founding, and the nominal ruler, President Bradley, is a Homunculus created by Father to serve as a figurehead.
• In Neon Genesis Evangelion, while Supreme Commander Gendo Ikari isn't an Emperor technically speaking, he's an extremely ruthless Manipulative Bastard who holds a lot of power in the already nigh-almighty NERV organization and has overseen/ordered many experiments to create/improve the EVA's and fight against the Angels. His actual goal is to be reunited with his wife Yui, whose soul is trapped inside EVA-01 — and if he has to damn the world, his surviving son, and himself to do it, so be it.
• One Piece: Vinsmoke Judge is not only the ruler of the Germa kingdom, but is also a scientist who specializes in cloning and gene modification, and (presumably) was the creator of his family's Raid Suits. This stems from his past time as a former colleague of Dr. Vegapunk, during which they made the revolutionary discoveries that made Germa an infamous military power. However, it's deconstructed; when the World Government came after Judge's research team for their experiments, he fled, abandoning Vegapunk and most of their peers to their fates. Judge proceeded to use his scientific discoveries for conquest, breeding clones specifically for cannon fodder and meat shields and genetically on his children to rid them of all 'weaknesses' and raising them on his philosophy of superiority through strength. This drove his wife Sora to try save her children in desperation, but only succeeded with Sanji and killed herself in the process. While his family appear to be successful on the outside, much of its dysfunction can be traced back to him — Reiju is a self-loathing Stepford Smiler who wants to die to atone for her family's atrocities, Sanji ran away from home to escape the horrific abuse he suffered as a child and utterly loathes his family (save for Reiju) as a result, while Sanji's brothers become cruel sociopaths who literally can't understand empathy thanks to Judge's experiments. And when Judge decides to ally his family with Big Mom, it backfires in his face spectacularly, ending with his family name irreparably ruined, his royal privileges revoked by the World Government, and his dreams of conquest crushed — a Fate Worse than Death in the world of One Piece.
• Dessler from Space Battleship Yamato. He actually designed those weapons named after himself.
• Lordgenome from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann genetically engineered the Beastmen and other strange creatures that populate the surface of the planet to generate no spiral energy (thus avoiding the wrath of the anti-Spirals) while still being powerful enough to keep the humans in their subterranean villages.
• The Vision of Escaflowne: Emperor Dornkirk is the ruler of Zaibach, and is an incredibly talented genius. He is actually Sir Isaac Newton magically transferred to a fantasy world, and modernizes the nation he finds himself in with a heaping helping of Magitek and Steampunk.
• In Voltes V, Prince Gohl, a man from a Slave Race despite his Royal Blood, overthrows corrupt Emperor Zambajil Zu after creating a Super Robot to thwart off the Boazanian's Alien Invasion and spearheading a slave rebellion aided by the Earthlings.

Comic Books

• Doctor Doom, main enemy of the Fantastic Four, with a side-order of Sorcerous Overlord — he started out as just this, but more and more stories have been building up his use of magic.
• Subverted in the original Buck Rogers comics. It turns out the Yellow Peril villain he'd been fighting was actually a nice guy who'd just got caught up in his scientific pursuits & left the running of his kingdom to corrupt advisors.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Warlord Julian Kintobor, AKA Dr. Ivo Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics). The whole "turn everyone into mindless robots" thing is only the tip of the iceberg of the mad science he unleashes to conquer the world and then enforce his rule. And then there's his Alternate Universe counterpart, Eggman, who replaces him in the main universe after the original's death, and manages to be even more depraved in his actions.
  • Dr. Ivo Robotnik from Sonic the Comic. Indeed, he was able to rule the majority of Mobius with an iron fist using his advanced robots and technology, until Sonic was able to arrange for a global EMP blast to short it all out and overthrow him.
• Legends of the Dead Earth: In Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #5, Lex Luthor plundered the ruins of the dead Earth to locate advanced pieces of technology (including a Green Lantern Power Battery and Doctor Fate's helmet) which he could use to conquer other planets and establish an empire.
• The High Evolutionary in the Marvel Universe created a race by forced evolution of animals and called them New Men. Then he created an entire planet, Counter-Earth, where they could live. Then he evolved himself into a godlike being and outgrew this trope.
• In Les Légendaires, the Big Bad Darkhell is hinted to have been this in the country of Shiar: the only army he ever used for his world-conquest projects was mostly made of creatures he Maginetically engineered himself. Even his own daughter Tenebris is later revealed to have been conceived through his magic.
• In the first Micronauts comic series, the main villain, Baron Karza, was originally Chief Scientist of a benevolently ruled Microverse. He was a figure of high influence with the the ruling family for a thousand years due to his ability to extend life via his body banks. Then, when he was ready, he made his coup and slaughtered the ruling family (except for Princess Mari) and ruled with an iron fist except for the interference of The Resistance.
• Wonder Woman Vol 1: Queen Atomia is the Mad Scientist ruler of her Atom World and every single one of her "subjects" has been subjected to her experimentation and forced to become mindlessly loyal to her.

Fan Works

• A Spark of Genius: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer, DC Universe and Girl Genius crossover has Xander, that's right. Xander become the ruler of Romania which he rapidly turns it into the leading scientific nation which all began with the infamous 'Halloween episode' turning him into the son of Agatha Heteordyne and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, son of the man in the picture above.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami has Keeper Mercury accidentally turning into this, being a Teen Genius Science Hero who conquered a continent from a previous illegitimate ruler who called himself Emperor, and was bestowed with the title legitimately by The Light.
• Tarkin's Fist: Kuantus Kuat held this position as the former ruler of his homeworld of Kuat and Governor of the Kuat Sector. As Kuat of Kuat, Kuantus was expected to not only be a political ruler but also a man dedicated to scientific research.

Film — Animated

• King Malbert, the ruler of the country Malaria, from Igor is a Mad Scientist just like all of his citizens.
• The King of Siam in The King and I prefers to think of himself as a "modern king" and spends much time experimenting with Western technology, such as hot air balloons.

Film — Live-Action

• Rotti Largo from Repo! The Genetic Opera is a brilliant scientist pioneered a cure for a pandemic of organ failures and now controls world government through his biotech megacorporaton. Overlaps with Corrupt Corporate Executive.
• Then there's a rare female example from Sax Rohmer's The Million Eyes Of Sumuru. The scientifically-savvy title character wants to eliminate love and control an Empire where women are in charge.
• The Big Bad from the second Heroic Trio film fit this trope as a mad scientist taking over Hong Kong using his scientific intellect.

Literature

• The Beginning After the End has Agrona and the Vritra Clan, the rulers of Alacrya and the main antagonists of the novel. They are near-immortal malevolent deities who view everything through the lens of cold and empirical analysis, a mindset that stems from before their exile from Epheotus as they were renowned for their research into mana. They uplifted the mortal populace of Alacrya and created a magically capable civilization of lessers whom they rule over as the Supernatural Elite. On top of that, they experimented upon and interbred with said inhabitants over the course of millennia to create superpowered mages and monsters to act as their army for their inevitable war with Epheotus. Agrona himself stands out among his clan for the fact that he is constantly looking to uncover new methods to gain an edge over his nemeses. His research is what led him to discover the Legacy and her power, which led him to research the art of reincarnation and thus summon her and her childhood friends into his service.
• Justinian in Belisarius Series is a subversion. He is a scientist and he is an Emperor, but he became emperor by ordinary means of political scheming and his scientific side was just a hobby until the war with the Malwa made him put his mind to new military technology.
• City of No End: Lord Pontius Arkentek, like all prior Lords of Fibre Tower, is a Sorcerer who practices Sufficiently Advanced Technology and leads a Proud Scholar society.
• Dune:
  • Leto Atreides II has actually become the God-Emperor of the Universe to carry on with a gigantic genetic breeding experiment.
  • Before him, Dr. Kynes became leader of the Fremen because of his attempts to terraform the planet Arrakis.
  • The cymek titans, philosopher kings and scientists, particularly ones that dealt with robotics, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence.
  • Though not canon, the prequels state that one former Padishah Emperor, working under a false name, was an accomplished chemist that discovered the properties that made Spice so important. The original books state it was a chemist working for that emperor, so it all depends what you want to believe.
  • Muad'dib himself was known as the Mentat Emperor. Considering he was the prophesied Kwisatz Haderach, this isn't surprising. Subverted in that ultimate trajectory of events was beyond even his control, and he knew it.
• Mercedes Lackey's Mage Wars trilogy has both types: the evil Ma'ar, creator of the makaar, and the benevolent Urtho, creator of the gryphons (who regard him as an almost godlike being who created them as an improvement over all other sentients)
• In The Island of Doctor Moreau, Dr. Moreau rules over an island full of Uplifted Animals that he created through mad science. This was about 60 years before the discovery of DNA made the idea of "genetic engineering" a thing; he accomplished his bio-engineering feats entirely through surgery.
• In the New Jedi Order, the Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong is ideally supposed to excel at the areas of all the major Vong castes, including the Shapers, and the current Supreme Overlord, Shimrra, frequently indicates that yes, he is a skilled Mad Scientist. Except that Shimrra is a mind-controlled shell. The Man Behind the Man is the Mad Scientist.
• In Noob, the Empire, the technology side of The Magic Versus Technology War, started out as an alchemist finding Imported Alien Phlebotinum, figuring out how it worked and using the knowledge to make new appliances. His descendants have added on to his work with the long-term purpose of gaining independence from the world's Physical Gods and were eventually Offered the Crown of an Emperor who had no heir. Keynn, the current-day descendant, is still perpetuating the tradition via a consequential Bio-Augmentation program and is actually a millennia-old man who looks in his thirties thanks to the more recent discoveries on longevity.* The concept of The Philosopher King from Plato's The Republic might just as well be the Ur-Example in an era when what we know as Science per se is but a subgenre of Philosophy.
• In Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief the seven Sobornost Founders are implied to have been the first group of scientists who figured out human mind uploading and quantum entanglement, and realized that this puts them above any corporation or government on Earth in terms of power if they keep it for themselves. By the time of the book is set in they rule most of the inner Solar System.
• Dayless the Conqueror in Shadow of the Conqueror. Despite the martial title he later acquired, he always thought of himself as an engineer first and foremost, born just high enough to be thoroughly educated. When he set out to Take Over the World, he put his Gadgeteer Genius skills to work in creating engines of war that allowed him to forge the Dawn Empire.* The Silmarillion: Fëanor, the High King of Noldor. Likewise, Sauron in his empire, albeit more a subversion.
• The Eternal Emperor of the Sten series. A brilliant engineer, his twin discoveries of the super-efficient power source Anti-Matter Two and the means of obtaining immortality allowed him to become ruler of the known Universe for thousands of years.
• The Risen Emperor of The Succession Duology invented a form of Immortality to save his dying sister, and leveraged this into becoming God-Emperor of eighty worlds.
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a carnival barker from Nebraska, comes off as a Sufficiently Advanced Alien in isolated Oz and becomes its absolute ruler through his knowledge of stagecraft and showmanship.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who:
  • Davros created the Daleks and, after they turned against him, created a new race of "Imperial" Daleks and crowned himself their Emperor.
  • Rassilon, who basically made the people of Gallifrey into the Time Lords. An impressive scientist even by immortal standards, he found time to invent a bewildering number of absurdly advanced technological artifacts. Also had a bit of an ego and may have been into kidnapping beings from across space and time to fight in games for his amusement. Subsequent indolence in Time Lord society may have been a deliberate effort to curb the potential of individual members of their race from also becoming Emperor Scientist types.
    • In the Expanded Universe, Rassilon comes across as a more villainous figure, with it being heavily implied he was behind the accident that left his friend Omega trapped in a black hole. In Big Finish Doctor Who he is a massive Evilutionary Biologist, stealing the power of regeneration from the peaceful Vampires and preventing any race evolving that could threaten the Time Lords by imprisoning them in another Universe.
  • The Rani set herself up as the ruler of an entire planet just so she'd have an endless supply of test subjects.
  • The Master, who is of the same race as Rassilon and the Rani, took over the Earth by using mind-altering satellites to will the British populace into making him Prime Minister. He was also responsible for the massive Airborne Aircraft Carrier over the Atlantic as his base of operations, and created a paradox machine that allowed humans from the far future to conquer their ancestors in the 21st century.
  • The Doctor himself ends up an unconventionally unwilling version of this: by "Death In Heaven" the nations of Earth have agreed that in the event of a major threat to the whole planet, a President of Earth will be installed to coordinate the defense, and the obvious candidate they've all agreed on is the Doctor. The Doctor really does not want this kind of power, so UNIT has to literally tranquilize and kidnap him to force him to do the job.
  • The Dalek Emperor seen in Series 1 also counts, having engineered a new race of Daleks from human cells followed the Dalek Empire's destruction at the end of the Time War.
  • In "Robot", Helena Winters is trying to become one of these. She's a blue sky researcher whose followers want to reform the world based on scientific principles, which means Putting on the Reich, murdering people with a robot, and trying to start a nuclear war.
  • "The Timeless Children" has Tecteun, a Gallifreyan scientist who discovered a regeneration gene in a seemingly immortal child, extracted it and spliced it into their own DNA. They then shared it with some of their closest friends and elevated them to become the elite of Gallifreyan society, becoming the first Time Lords.
• Intergalactic: Dr. Benedict Lee is the Commonworld's Director (elected head of state), who's a very ruthless scientist (it's revealed that his regime dabbles in things like synthetic plagues). It turns out that Commonworld's constitution mandates all Directors be scientists.
• In Salvation, tech billionaire and Omnidisciplinary Scientist Darius Tanz becomes one of these after ascending to the presidency after due to his predecessor being assassinated shortly after naming him her vice president.
• Stargate-verse:
  • The Goa'uld Omnidisciplinary Scientist Anubis and Stargate expert Ba'al also started out as scientists before ascending to the role of God-Emperor.
  • In Stargate Atlantis, the commanders and scientists of the Wraith are usually the same people (always at least the same caste); most prominently, recurring Big Bad Michael and recurring Lovable Traitor Todd, both of whom had great skill in genetic manipulation. (The Wraith are normally ruled by a Queen, but the Queen of Todd's Hive died and Michael created his own armies from scratch.)
  • Todd also has extensive knowledge of nanite programming, which is amazing considering the last time they had to do that was 10,000 years ago. Then again, the Wraith have a Hive Mind of sorts that allows one to tap into the collective psychic network. It's possible that this knowledge rests there.
• Walternate in Fringe is on the way there. He is the US Secretary of Defense and appears to have nigh-unlimited authority. While his goal is not world domination, it is world destruction, just not his world. He's also just as brilliant as Walter.
• Star Trek: Voyager: Annorax in the "Year of Hell" two-parter. Somewhat of an inversion, as Annorax is not interested in conquest but merely re-writing reality to bring back his dead civilization (and wife). His myopic vision blinds him to the consequences of his action, causing a downward spiral where he's nuking entire planets left and right. He also commands his own nomadic battle cruiser and has a fanatical crew, similar to Nero from the Trek reboot movie.
• The Tribe: Ram, leader of the villainous Technos, is a genius computer scientist. After his gang takes over the city, they single-handedly raise the standard of living and level of technology back to what it was before the virus. Of course, it's the whole theme of his faction. His successor Mega continues it.

Music

• In Jonathan Coulton's "The Future Soon," the narrator aspires to become this when his warrior robot race takes over the world. But he'll still feel so alone....

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000:
  • While he may also be lots of other things (Dark Messiah, Crystal Dragon Jesus, etc.), it is made clear in no uncertain terms that The God-Emperor of Mankind was, during his lifetime on Terra, first and foremost a scientist who spent his time laboring away in the vaults beneath the planet building space marine genetics, creating his "children", etc, and that this was the source of his great power. Seriously. Read those Horus Heresy art books.
  • Technically, the Fabricator-General of Mars also counts as this since he rules the Adeptus Mechanicus, which is pretty much a self-contained, semiautonomous political entity within the Imperium and is only part of it by treaty. They are mostly left to self-govern by the other branches of Imperial government, even the Inquisition, since without the Mechanicus everyone else in the Imperium would quickly lose any ability to maintain a technological society.
  • Sometimes, an Orkish Mekboy or Painboy might get influential enough that they become de facto Warbosses of a Waaagh!, known as Big Mek or Painboss. Waaaghs led by Big Meks tend to be highly mechanized, sporting lots of complicated war machines and consisting mostly of Ork troops specializing in heavy firepower and vehicular warfare, while Painboss-led tribes are motely bands of apprentices Painboys and surgically-altered "Cyborks" intended mainly to collect interesting specimens for their leader. Some Warbosses consider this a sad state of affair, however, as evident by the page quote.
• Magic: The Gathering:
  • Yawgmoth was a sadistic biologist who believed in reaching immortality through cybernetic implants. His people eventually caught on to his plots and sent him through a portal to the plane of Phyrexia. Over the centuries, Yawgmoth morphed Phyrexia into his own ideal of paradise and became its Dimension Lord. He did later try to take over his birth plane, Dominaria, but Urza and the Weatherlight crew managed to stop him.
  • Before becoming a Planeswalker, Urza married the Princess Kayla bin Kroog and was appointed Lord High Artificer of the kingdom, eventually restructuring the military to revolve around war machines, then later appointed Protector of the Realm over Argive and Korlis after the Fallaji conquered Kroog. Meanwhile, his brother Mishra used his mechanical expertise (and his Weakstone artifact) to usurp control of the Fallaji tribe that had enslaved him, and then unite all the tribes into a kingdom.
• Malachite from Champions; a super-intelligent genetic experiment Gone Horribly Right who sets himself up as ruler of the Malachite Isles and uses them as a base for his plans of world conquest.
• Grandfather, the creator of the Ancient civilization in Traveller, was born as a remarkably curious and intelligent member of his species. After realizing that he'd need access to lots of resources to carry out the experiments he wanted to do, he took over his planet.
• Grand Warlord Voss in Sentinels of the Multiverse, who invented a process to "gene-bind" minions to him...and used them to conquer not only his own race but several others. He was already quite high-ranking, but not quite all-powerful; his gene-bound armies changed that.
  • There’s also a more minor example in Baron Blade, who doesn’t rule an empire but he does rule a small technologically advanced european country called mordengrad. He also has created numerous inventions and if he wasn’t so single-mindedly focused on exacting revenge on Legacy, who’s father killed his father, he might actually be able to take over the world.

Toys

• The Great Beings of BIONICLE, though they tired of the day to day workings of ruling Spherus Magna and made the Element Lords to do that part of the job for them. It didn't work out well.
• Beast Wars: Uprising: Thunderwing, known as the Last Decepticon Emperor, was apparently fond of scientific innovations in his spare time, being the one who produced the Micromaster technology, and discovering the ultimate application of Targetmaster powers, which eventually led to the extermination of the Targetmasters when both Autobots and Decepticons were terrified by the results. His reign ended when he went mad and fused with his flying fortress, forcing both sides to team up to put an end to him.

Video Games

• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VI:
    • Emperor Gestahl sets out to conquer the world with an army of high-tech— or at least, high-Magitek— mechanized infantry powered by draining the life out of magical super-beings.
    • King Edgar Figaro is a Gadgeteer Genius who created the technology which allows the castle to travel underground, besides other things.
  • Final Fantasy IX:
    • Regent Cid is the regent of Lindblum, one of the biggest and most powerful kingdoms in the game. He also possesses a brilliant mind for engineering, being heavily involved in the creation of groundbreaking new airship technology, despite the fact that he has been transformed into an oglop (small, annoying creatures, similar to vermin) and later a frog And this transformation isn't because of an evil curse or experiment gone wrong. It's because his wife caught him with another woman.
    • On the darker side of this trope, there's Garland: the de facto ruler of all Terra, he's also a powerful mage and an innovative scientist; by the time you meet him, he's successfully created an entire species of soulless drones and planted an organic siphon-refinery on Gaia to slowly vaccuum Gaia's soul-cycle away. And then there's his greatest creations, his Angels of Death. Kuja and Zidane.
  • Final Fantasy XIII-2: Hope Estheim grows up to become the director of the Academy, a science-based organization, and the Academy goes on to become the main governing body of mankind. This is subverted by the time Academia is built, however; Hope used a time capsule to jump ahead a few hundred years, and when he arrived he decided to take a strictly advisory role in the government of that era.
  • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII: In the centuries to follow the Time Crash, when all people on Gran Pulse became ageless (but not invulnerable to death) in a dying world being swallowed by Chaos, Hope stepped up to be the leading figure as he and his research team tried to solve the world's problems. However, 169 years before the start of the game, he mysteriously vanished (having been kidnapped by Bhunivelze to be used as his vessel), and the leaderless people of Luxerion turned to the Order of Salvation instead.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: One of the final emperors of Ancient Allag was Amon, a brilliant (though VERY flamboyant) scientist responsible for designing the the Crystal Tower and the artificial moon Dalamud as a power source for the empire, and created cloning technology which resurrected the first emperor, Xande to lead Allag back into a new golden age. After he let Xande take back the role of emperor, Amon took on the role of Xande's chief scientist.
• Emperor Solomon Petresun from the Tribes video game series was originally a scientist who invented Cybrids, fought them into nigh extinction when they Turned Against Their Masters, made himself immortal for that purpose, and eventually took over the Earth to protect it from the Cybrid's imminent revenge. It should be noted that the above example is a retcon that first appeared in the manual to Starsiege; none of the previous games (Earthsiege, it's expansion or sequel, or Missionforce Cyberstorm) mentioned the Emperor at all.
• The Pig King in Mother 3 has aspects of an Emperor Scientist despite not being a scientist at all, and just stealing all of his technology from the aliens in the previous game and/or having Dr. Andonuts do the work for him.
• Count Raum from Primal for the PS2.
  Scree: He may be a vampire, sadist, and mass murderer but he's also quite the scientist by the look of things.
• The Cybran Nation in Supreme Commander is apparently ruled by Gustav Brackman (now a Brain in a Jar ), inventor of the symbiotic AI technology that defines his people. He's the least imperial of the setting's rulers, though.
• Andrew Ryan from BioShock, the "best electrical engineer of our generation" and "the bloody king of Rapture". However his actual in-game backstory indicates that he was actually an industrialist with little actual ability in regards to science.
• Dr. Eggman of Sonic the Hedgehog fame is the self-proclaimed ruler of the "Eggman Empire", with his life goal being to establish and expand it worldwide through his robotic expertise, along with reverse-engineering whatever supernatural power sources he can get use out of. There are strong implications that this Eggman Empire does already have a degree of territory, as Eggman has owned multiple companies, factories, amusement parks and cities across the franchise's history, but it isn't until Sonic Forces where he succeeds in taking over the world… for about six months until Sonic and pals do their usual thing.
• Kane from the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series is not only the leader of a militant cult whose power rivals that of every first-world nation combined, he's also a brilliant inventor (of weapons, naturally). He started the Third Tiberium War intended to lure aliens to Earth so he could reverse-engineer their technology.
• High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque of World of Warcraft. It counts because gnomes choose their supreme leader based on his intelligence and technological skill. Also, he will kick your ass.
• Fallout: New Vegas:
  • Robert House, autocratic ruler of New Vegas, Insufferable Genius, and a a bit of a chessmaster as well. Prior to the war, he was one of the world's richest men, with his fortune entirely self-made through his inventions. He's also the main reason why the city and the surrounding areas survived the war relatively intact, as he nearly anticipated the exact day of the impending nuclear apocalypse^note he was off by 20 hours for how much time he had, which is why the Platinum Chip was never delivered and spent over a decade of his life on planning for the event and its aftermath.
  • Father Elijah became Elder of the Mojave chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel, not as a Paladin, like most Brotherhood Elders, but as a Scribe. He is described as a genius with machines but he was The Sociopath with No Social Skills and his tactical incompetence almost caused the total destruction of his chapter.
  • The Think Tank of the Big Mountain facility from the Old World Blues DLC are this, being a collection of mad scientists who survived the Great War by preserving their brains in jars. Most of the Mojave's resident Goddamn Bats are the result of their experiments, having escaped the facility.
  • The Courier, if played with High Intelligence and maxed out skill in Science, in the Wild Card Ending and at the end of Old World Blues. Bad Karma Couriers play this straight, while Good Karma Couriers are a mixture between a more benevolent version of this and a Science Hero.
  • Caesar (Edward Sallow) is a rare example related to social sciences, he was an anthropologist and a linguist working for the Followers of the Apocalypse and due to his knowledge of both, he was not only able to communicate with the Black Foot tribe, which captured he and his crew, but also to teach them tactics of warfare so they could conquer their enemies. He ended up becoming their leader and turning the tribe into the Caesar's Legion, a faction that dominated the entirety of Arizona and New Mexico and most parts of Colorado and Utah, and as well conquered 86 tribes at the time the Courier finds them in game.
• Fallout 4: The Institute is ran by these, being a shadowy cabal of mad scientists hidden from the Wasteland at large. Deconstructed in that while they have made serious scientific advances they're only scientists and as such don't always make the best decisions.
• Emperor Andross from the Star Fox games, who invented all kinds of crazy warships and bioweapons to conquer the Lylat system, and incidentally turned himself into a giant brain for some reason.
• Dr. Edward Bilstein of Star Gladiator definitely qualifies for this. Once the top physicist for the Earth Fedearation who was responsible for the discovery of Plasma Power, Bilstein was later arrested and exiled from Earth after it was discovered that he was experiminenting on various human bodies in order to further his Plasma Power research. Breaking out of prison while placing himself into a cyborg body and gathering a cadre of fighters and forces, Bilstein had soon declared himself the emperor of his organization, known as The Fourth Empire, and that he now seeks galactic domination of the universe while continuing his Mad Scientist experiments.
• Dr. Weil from Mega Man Zero may have initially been a mad scientist, but via various plans and Chessmaster moves that landed himself as ruler of Neo Arcadia, he became a full blown Emperor Scientist. However, he has more interest in making everyone suffer a fate far worse than death than actually ruling over people.
• By Resident Evil 5, Albert Wesker has set his sights on this. Already a capable scientist, he decided to exterminate most of mankind, sparing only genetically superior individuals with himself as their ruler.
• Kastore and three companions in Might and Magic VII play a small version of this in that game (leveraging their superior scientific knowledge into becoming advisors to King Archibald, then leveraging that position to usurping the throne of Deyja), and had plans of becoming a full-scale version. Canonically, their plan failed and they never showed up again, but they were originally going to pull off the initial phase and become enough of a threat through Ancient-level science that the good guys has to resort to a magical doomsday weapon to stop them. Their 'Forge' town caused a massive backlash, however, so that plan was abandoned.
• Mao from Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice effectively becomes this. The Netherworld he lives in is one gigantic demon school called Evil Academy, his father is both Overlord and Dean, and he inherits these titles by the game's end. Unlike his father, however, Mao is a Mad Scientist whose idea of dealing with a defeated enemy is to drag them off to his lab for vivisection.
• Grandmaster Meio from Strider (Arcade) appeared over Earth one day and took over a futuristic Soviet Union. He then led russian research teams into manufacturing weapons and machines such as a gravity-control computer to which take over the other half of the world, while researching the mysteries of Creating Life on the side for ulterior motives. In Strider 2, he also dables in genetic engineering to perfect his human race.
• In Crusader Kings, the Learning Focus can lead to a character becoming this; especially if they build an observatory and come up with a heliocentric theory of the universe centuries before Copernicus. Of course Crusader Kings taking place when it does, the potential wrath of religious authorities and zealots may force the character in question to keep their discoveries a secret: openly being a scientist may (rarely) lead to a violent revocation of the Emperor part — or Excommunication.
  • The expansion pack Monks and Mystics takes this further, by allowing the player to join the Hermetic Society (early scientists, thinkers and mystics), who do stuff like publishing Research Papers, experimentation, building and operating laboratories, inventing stuff like gunpowder and doing chemical studies, but with somewhat supernatural elements thrown in (though this can be assumed as a misinterpretation of natural phenomenon, as was common for that time).
• Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri:
  • The Academician Prokhor Zakharov is the leader of the University of Planet faction and believes that the key to human survival lies on science and technology. He values research over other unnecessary things, like theology or ethics.
  • Lady Deirdre Skye, the former head of hydroponics on the Unity, the current leader of the Gaia's Stepdaughters faction, and a genius biologist and botanist. This helps her faction greatly in coexisting and utilising the planet's ecosystem.
• In Starbound, the Greenfinger of a given Floran village. Greenfingers have a natural knack for technology and excellent intellects by any standards, able to create Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology. Unfortunately, most of their efforts are spent dealing with the fact that the vast majority of their fellow Florans, though not as stupid as they seem, are childish and quite frequently insane.
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Princess Zelda aspires to be a benevolent version of this. An avid researcher into the recently rediscovered Magitek, she is more knowledgeable about the Ancient Sheikah Technology than any other non-Sheikah. During her excursions with Link, she also gets excited studying the various flora and fauna of the fields. But her father King Rhoam tells her to "stop playing the scholar" because he thinks it distracts her from her efforts to unlock her Royalty Super Power to defeat the soon-to-return Ganon (efforts that have been fruitless up to that point despite Zelda's fervent dedication to the task). ^note  This is actually what prevents Zelda from unlocking her power, since Zelda carries the Triforce of Wisdom and by stifling her from learning the king also stifled her power. He only realises this as his kingdom crumbles around him, well too late for it to do any good. A straighter example would be the unnamed Hyrulian monarch who had the Ancient Technology built in the first place 10,000 years ago (at least until he grew fearful of said tech), though said monarch doesn't get any real characterization.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: continuing from above, after Zelda returned one of her first official acts was having a school built. And becoming one of its teachers.
• Little Big Adventure: Dr FunFrock, in addition to being the supreme tyrant of the planet Twinsun, also has knowledge of cloning, which he used to create a Clone Army which subjugates the planet under his will, and teleportation, which he uses to transport his army across the planet.
• City of Heroes Gives us quite a few, but premiere among them Lord Recluse and later Dr. Aeon. Lord Recluse originally designed his army's weaponry and gear, but later recruited Dr. Aeon for that and gave him his own city to rule in-between dooms-day operations. This is all for an organization which regularly plots to take over the world with laser-rifles, inter-dimensional transport, and cybernetic spider-mutants with psychic powers.
• The Secret World features a well-concealed one in the form of Lilith. Known throughout history as the Queen of Demons, she's led armies of monsters into battle, been worshiped as a virtual goddess by vampires, controlled entire kingdoms from behind the scenes, and once legitimately ruled over one of the greatest cities of the Third Age. Plus, she's also a Humanoid Abomination who just so happens to be serving as the current chairwoman to the world's most powerful corporate group. However, what a lot of people forget — much to her disappointment — are her scientific achievements: over the course of her career, she created vampires, werewolves, the Deathless, and countless other monstrous races through the blending of magic and science, and later went on to create her own special trio of assassins by extracting a troubled young woman's multiple personalities and giving them bodies of their own. In the meantime, she's currently trying to harness the awesome power of the Gaia Engines.
• Streets of Rogue: You can become this. The Mayor has absolute power in the sprawling Wretched Hive of the setting's Mega City and by beating the game as a scientist you can secure that power for yourself. Technically due to the game's open-ended nature there is nothing forcing you to actually use your science to seize that power instead of just shooting everyone in a bloody revolution but the playstyle of the class does strongly push you towards a more strategic approach and completing your Big Quest objectives requires conducting experiments upon the population.
• Stellaris: several governments such as Technocratic Dictatorship and Rational Consensus only allows for scientists as leaders. In addition, some federations choose their leaders by contests, and some of these contests are related to research.
• The Tiamat Sacrament: Ry'jin is a Mad Scientist who uses his dragon DNA research to rule Ildria with an iron fist, and hopes to conquer the rest of the world.
• Crying Suns: Oberon invented many of the advanced technologies that exist in the setting, such as the positronic chip (which made artificial intelligence possible), the first thinking machines (which would create the OMNIs on his behalf), and his immortality technology (which has kept him alive for hundreds of years). These inventions let humanity colonize the stars and allowed him to establish a galactic empire which he has ruled for seven centuries.
• Marvel Strike Force: Recurring villain Spider Supreme (an evil version of Spider-Man who leads Advanced Idea Mechanics) has conquered his world, killed all opposition (both hero and villain) and gleefully develops superweapons for Big Bad Ultimus's campaign of multiversal domination. Not because Ultimus orders him to, mind you. He just enjoys the challenge.
• In Genshin Impact, the nation of Sumeru is a technocracy lead by the Sages, the heads of the various schools of the Akademiya, with the Grand Sage as the overall leader of both the nation and the Akademiya. While technically they're meant to be regents for their god "Lesser Lord Kusanali", worship of Kusanali has been actively condemned due to her being scapegoated for the loss of the previous god "Greater Lord Rukkhadevata". As a group, they're treated less as a think tank of brilliant scientists and more as a group of exceedingly pompous college deans with way too much power who among other things also consider the arts to be a waste of time to the point of outlawing festivals and theater performances.

Webcomics

• Girl Genius:
  • Most governments in the GG 'verse are ruled by Emperor Scientists; small, independent technocracies seem most common, but even most of the known royals (such as Albia of Britain and the Storm King's line) are powerful Sparks. However, there are exceptions: the more traditionally noble "Fifty Families" still exert some power, but seem to be in decline as their bloodlines peter out.
  • The foremost mad scientist and ruler in Europe is Baron Klaus Wulfenbach. However, Klaus laments that the "Emperor" part of the job description leaves him with very little time for the "Scientist" bit. There is always an uppity petty noble with a new killbot somewhere who needs smacking down. However, due to the fact that his usual adversaries are truly nasty megalomaniac Sparks, his normally highly barbaric and mutilative research into the nature of the Spark becomes merely morally questionable when he uses such defeated enemies as test subjects. As a bonus, his natural talents for Pragmatic Villainy and reverse-engineering the works of other mad scientists make it easier to assimilate the technologies, minions, monsters, and even the more reasonable Sparks from the enemies he defeats into his empire.
• Emperor Nicholas the Puissant from the Negaverse in the General Protection Fault webcomic. Conquered the earth (and at least one alien race) through a combination of Hollywood Hacking, reality-bending inventions, mind-control drugs, and sheer ruthlessness.
• In a Sluggy Freelance Alternate Universe "His Masterness" appears to be one of these. In the main universe, Dr. Steve and Dr. Schlock have this as their long term goal.
• The wizard emperor Brian Souballo, from Our Little Adventure. He implemented the process of transferring the Cosmic Lifestrand into clones grown in laboratories known as 'Training Facilities.' He has some powerful wizard lackeys who know how to use the machines but its shown that Brian or Angelo may be the only ones who truly knows how the process works.
• Kit Darling of Poppy Opossum is a queen and a dedicated magical (scientific) researcher, not to mention an inventor. Unfortunately, she's failing to achieve what she wants in either role. As a queen, she's only a nearly powerless puppet in a more-or-less self-sufficient state, propped up by her family and resented by the local population; and despite being uniquely qualified for research due to a quirk of nature, she pushes herself to exhaustion and into dangerous subjects trying to find a cure for her father without success.
• Plush and Blood: Doctor Brown takes over 80% of the entire world, using a peace-oriented political party and lots and lots of brainwashing. Unfortunately for him, two mercenaries decided they didn't want to live in a world where everyone drowns in liquid that destroys their free will, so they supernuke his capital city.

Web Original

• Doctor Insano of The Spoony Experiment, who became President of the United States by voters being Too Dumb to Live. From his view point, however, it's just a brilliant scheme of...running and being elected. Er...WITH SCIENCE!!!
• Doctor Steel wishes to take over the world and become it's emperor, by force of giant robots if necessary, so that he can turn it into a better place (for him).
• Gizmatic, the Whateley Universe supervillain and King of the Caribbean island country of Karedonia, complete with supervillain time shares.
• Doctor Horrible aspires to this, wanting leverage his "PhD in Horribleness" and knack for invention to solve the world's social ills by plunging it into "anarchy... that I run!"

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum is a scientist first, a princess second. The series reveals in its first few seasons that PB built the Candy Kingdom and all of its inhabitants herself, and regularly conducts experiments in various fields of science to better the lives of her subjects. Despite the ethical questions raised by her making a kingdom and naming herself ruler, she proves to be the Good Princess and is shown to care deeply for her subjects, regularly doing whatever she can to make sure that they are protected and happy.
• Trevor Goodchild in Æon Flux is an Omnidisciplinary Scientist who uses his skills to help him rule the nation of Bregnia with an iron fist. Different episodes vary in whether he's a total dictator or has to answer to some kind of advisory council, although this is acceptable given the show's Negative Continuity.
• Amphibia: King Andrias is this, as he's as smart as Marcy (which is the main reason why he was so charmed by her) and uses an army of robots and advanced technology as his personal army.
• Justice League:
  • Vandal Savage. In the "The Savage Time", he builds a Time Machine and sends technology and information to his past self. Past-Vandal then uses this knowledge to take control of Nazi Germany, design crazy war machines, and win World War II.
  • From the same show, Chronos becomes one, also via Time Travel, ruling over future!Gotham (and possibly the world, it's not certain) with a gang of cybernetic Jokerz as his enforcers.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM), Doctor Robotnik conquered Mobius with his machines, and held on to it for 11 years.
• Pinky and the Brain: The Brain, a genetically enhanced super-genius laboratory mouse, comes up with a scheme to take over the world and become this Once an Episode.
• Ever since she ascended into an alicorn, dorky and studious Twilight Sparkle from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a benevolent princess and she also focuses on science as well as magic while being humble royalty.
• Most of Kim Possible's Mad Scientist enemies have this as a goal. It never works out for them.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Entrapta is shown to be this from the moment she appears. She's one of the show's smartest characters who loves science, invention, and robotics more than anything. She's shown to not give too much thought to ruling her kingdom as a result, as the soul three organic people working for her are terrified of her robots, and she defects to the Horde with minimal prompting (all it took was the promise of working somewhere where her technical expertise is appreciated).

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