stage 0: egoist eden
Once upon a time there was no morality. All gods were demons and all men were knaves.
The world wasn't a guignol of horror: people loved their friends and families, they feared revenge. Far-sighted princes would pass laws saying we'll kill you if you kill someone else, and sometimes the guy who backstabbed his way into power after that would keep the law around (while carving an exception for themselves.) Neighbors often cooperated, both because it's more pleasant and less dangerous than the alternative. The rich might feed the poor, the same as you might feed some ducks, and the poor might feed the rich, same as you might feed a tiger. People told the truth often enough - to maintain a reputation, to economize on memory - that there was some evidential value to listening to them, under most circumstances.
But compared to today, life was nastier, more brutal, and shorter.
stage 1: masochist mystery cult
Back in those days, no more people were motivated by pure nastiness than they are today. But among those who were was the Shaking Empress. Like other petty abusers, she liked to hurt other beings to feel powerful. Like some of them, she was already plenty powerful herself (a demon-queen, in fact.)
Some such abusers offer a false pretense of love. Some offer power. The Shaking Empress offered - offers - nothing. She feels best when creatures grovel before her knowing they get nothing, zilch, nada in return. The Shaking Empress cannot hurt you if you do not pledge yourself to her, and if you do, all she gives you is hurt. Any deviation from making yourself as meek and pitiful as possible will result in you being tortured in your dreams, in your afterlife, and maybe even in your waking life.
If you hold yourself with pride and say you are better than the meekest worm - if you assert your power over the meanest churl - she'll hunt you down. Not because she disapproves of being prideful or cruel, but because she believes the supreme honor of these excellent things ought be reserved to herself.
None but a masochist would accept this offer. None but masochists did. At first.
stage 2: scale-dependent group selection effects
Places dominated by the cult of the Shaking Empress are not great. People are constantly getting attacked or forced to hurt themselves by the Empress themselves. There's a lot of pressure to engage in ugly self-criticism sessions. But her devoted are not likely to leave you for dead on the highway. Until they invent heroism (an advanced theological doctrine which the Shaking Goddess let out to defend her cult in a moment of weakness and has regretted ever since) they are easy to conquer and a positive delight to rule. Places with a bad case of the Shaking Goddess can, under some circumstances, become an enviable place to join, or to emulate.
stage 3: prison planet
I emphasized at the beginning that, before the Shaking Empress began her reign, people were not all nasty. But I emphasize this for a simple reason: to not pledge your soul to the Empress now is to mark yourself out as one who longs for nastiness. To be, yourself, proud and cruel, rather than offering those on up to the terrible demon-queen.
Even those who, in their hearts, reject her dominion, who do not sell themselves over to her - feign sleepless nights of being attacked, just so their neighbors know they are vulnerable. Some might feign being so meek that the Empress spares them - but few would believe that. Better to say you were under assault for lesser crimes, that no one could think you capable of greater ones.
The Shaking Empress could not be more pleased. When whole societies worship her, they punish each other for not being meek enough. When societies stray from her, they punish each other by not being meek enough - driving themselves back into her cruel, clutching arms. From the depths of her pride and greed, she crows, in a few short aeons she will be the only enlightened, the only evil, being left.
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