Season 2 of "Empire," the Fox Network smash hit, is being billed as a time of "warring kingdoms."

The initial season of the runaway hit ended with Lucious Lyon's (Terrence Howard) son being given the keys to his father's music empire, but show co-creator Danny Strong recently cautioned: "Just because you get the empire doesn't mean you get to keep the empire."

Strong later added the theme of the second season is "warring kingdoms -- so we'll see the kingdoms go to war over the throne," he said.

The show has been increased from 12 episodes in Season 1 to 18 next year and show executive producer Wendy Calhoun tells Variety she is excited about the possibility of exploring all sorts of "new relationship dynamics" this time around.

"I wanna see more Cookie and Andre," she said of the roles played by mom and son Taraji P. Henson and Trai Byers. While conceding that the pressure is on, given all of the show's early success, Strong later added: "We're just going to continue the story, because if we tried to make it bigger and better, we'd make it worse and lamer."

Calhoun admits she has long felt a responsibility and obligation to make the show the best it could be, given the lack of diverse leads already on broadcast television. She tells the story of how Howard once cautioned her: "If this show fails, they're not going to let another all-black drama on television for another 20 years."

That still resonates with her and explains why all the key executives insist they have pushed so hard for diversity on the show.

"We need to hire women directors," said Strong. "Our writing staff is incredibly diverse: white writers, Hispanic writers, African-American writers."

One frustration Strong does admit to is the network's continued push to land more big name guest stars for the show in the face of all its breakout success.

"I don't think we need to stunt cast so much, and there's pressure to," he admitted. Deadline reports the show has already landed the likes of Chris Rock, Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz for next season. More recently, there have even been rumbles that Oprah Winfrey and Denzel Washington could appear.