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Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2
As for empires, the same empire can be a force for good, for evil, for law and order and for oppression, all at the same time, in different places, esp. if interstellar communication and travel are slow or expensive.
A good worked example of an empire that is benevolent 'from a certain POV' would be the Empire of Man in The Mote In God's Eye and related Pournelle novels.
The EoM is dedicated, as a matter of official policy, to politically unifying the human race, by persuasion if possible, but by force where necessary. 'No' is not an acceptable long-term answer to a request to join the Empire.
The Empire is theocratic to a point (officially Christian) but allows extensive freedom of worship on the subject worlds.
They bring their conquered worlds law and order, with reasonably humane laws, and they bring advanced agriculture, medicine, and other benefits of high-technology civilization to worlds that in many cases have backslid to Stone Age levels.
OTOH, the large hereditary component in its constitution brings with it the potential for all the usual issues of hereditary authority, and the great noble families are always looking for new territories for younger offspring. The Empire will not permit secession, responding to the threat of such by force up to and including planetary sterilization.
Is the EoM good or evil? Oppressive or liberators? It depends very heavily on your point of view, as Kenobi might put it.
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This could set up a good fight. Picture two basically good but deeply flawed societies each spread among the distant stars; the Imperium and the Union. Basically, improved versions of the UK and the USA circa 1870. We'll have each of them be less racist and sexist. Each has values that it can't see surviving in the other. The Union sees the Imperium as corrupt and archaic. The Imperium sees the Union as corrupt and anarchic. Each sees the other as a threat that can't tolerate the continued existence of an alternate society.
Because both the UK and the USA had other threats to fear and other fish to fry, the bitterness between the two was put aside. First for cold neutrality then for guarded friendship. But in this set up there are no distractions or other considerations. Each sees itself as the only moral answer, the only valid path. The Union, being democratic, and the GOP of the 1870s was very much Lincoln's party and nobly democratic and progressive, doesn't want war. The Imperium is only as democratic as the UK of 1862. They can engage in warfare with less political cost. Otherwise neither is more agressive than the other.