So there is no denying two things, The Federation and the Empire are the unquestioned heavyweights of human society. The second is that they aren't terribly fond of each other. Yet in all their history, war between them has been rare and short. Here's why I think war is not likely to break out in the present either.
The older society is the Federation, forming out of modern liberal society and representative democracy. Yet as the diaspora begins those liberal values inevitably become challenged and a group of Federation citizens choose that they would form a colony and start over. Yet it was clear even then that the Federation did not have much tolerance for this brash desire for independence, so the Colonists choose a home vastly distant from the normal colonial trend. They settled on Achenar and Formed a new society, but in a tragic and suspicious death their benevolent leader was killed and her brother assumed her role. Yet he was a different sort and named himself the first monarch of Achenar and would later be seen as the first in the lineage of the Imperial Emperors. Time passed and Imperial Prosperity grew, the Federation full of corruption saw this new jewel in the sky as their rightful prize to be returned to it's rule. Yet they needed a narrative, they were after all a democracy.
So the Federation accused the Empire of Xenocide of a potentially sentient race on one of the Achenar's colony worlds, naturally their daughter colony needed be brought to justice and be returned to the family. Thus a invasion was sent, but it failed. The Federation expedition was defeated, along with it public support for further campaigns. Time has past and we enter the present, the Empire has grown rich and the Federation chaotic through it's own corruption. With the death of the Mad Emperor what better time to unite the Federation and ignite the cold war they've forever brewed.
Yet it wasn't so, was the throne race of the Empire more a mere spectacle for the masses, Or Hudson's Power merely too weak in his own government. These things may indeed be true, but the true peacekeepers I believe to resist this conflict were; not the leaders, nor the populace. Rather it was the Admirals. This thesis is based on one primary assumption: That the Federation would invade the Empire, note this doesn't claim that the Federation fires the first shot. Preemptive strikes are rational when you know you enemy is approaching. But my claim and I will defend it later is that the Empire would not invade the Federation.
Lore is a fickle master and is slave more to the authors convenience than the readers passionate following. Therefore apart from the vague tale I've told in the paragraphs above I will not be citing lore to endorse my arguments. Rather I will look at the makeup of each superpowers fleet vessels, and their capabilities as demonstrated in game to justify my thesis. Of other note: We have not seen if larger more powerful military mega ships exist in the ED universe, however their presence or lack thereof will not change my thesis and indeed I will also account for their possible effect in this thesis as well.
Dramatis Equiptment:
Federation: The Federation Fleet is built around a tactic of unstoppable firepower and not yielding any progress they acquire, yet their ships are slow and limited in jump abilities
Farragut Battle Cruiser
The Farragut is the most powerful human ship yet seen by the players in this game, it is appropriately named too. While sometime in fiction a starship is classed to have a cool sounding name, the Farragut does accurately fulfill the Battle Cruiser role. "Kill everything Smaller, Run from anything Bigger." is the creed of the battle cruiser. A ship with guns like a battleship and lighter armor for better speed and acceleration like a cruiser. The Farragut anchors the flotilla with a tough hide and big guns while still can try to keep pace with her more numerous escorts. She is designed to dominate any engagement she enters and win her every battle. They are the heart of the Federation military Strategy, and they also function as carriers to assist their escorts who posses limited jump drives.
Federal Corvette
The Corvette like it's larger peer is a perfectly named ship, it also perfectly fulfills the role its name suggests. It is quite slow but makes up for this with both sustained firepower and quick turning, a Corvette in a wing is many times more deadly than on it is solo.
Federal Gunship
The gunship fully embodies federal doctrine, strength in numbers and concentrated firepower. Yet like it's brothers it is slow, trading speed for greater offence.
Federal Dropship
While many pilots find this a redundant ship in their tasks, the Dropship is a key resource offered the Federation. It is relatively fast and nimble with tough armor, though it lacks for good shielding. It is the choice ship for boarding orbital stations and keeping constant supplies to any troops anywhere. While also being quite handy to offer fire support in any arena.
Federal Assault ship
Very much the alter ego of the dropship, essentially trading internal volume for more speed and maneuverability. Inevitably the Federation needs one fast ship and the FAS does this with intimidation. However in keeping with federal doctrine it likely had to sacrifice shields to have both speed and firepower.
Imperial Fleet
Majestic Class Interdictor
This is a somewhat baffling ship. While it is credited as a Capital class ship which would imply it is a Battle Cruiser, I would personally call it a Heavy Cruiser. Unlike the Farragut which is a battle driven design; the Majestic is almost political in its form. Indeed I feel this is it's primary function to not fight outside Imperial border but strictly within. It is without doubt an inspiring ship that as it's name suggests, majestically represents Imperial prosperity. Clearly "Showing the Flag" was a key design feature. Still it does have a sharp edge, if the Farragut is built for domination the Majestic is build for more deft methods of control. Equipping dramatic lasers and a mass shadow generator, this ship is an unholy terror to supply ships. a pattern that will repeat with other Imperial ships. It is well optimized for patrol and is a very easy ship to decide to deploy which is good as this offers a high degree of crew readiness, while as a commerce protection vessel is far easier to justify the construction cost of these ships.
Imperial Cutter
The Empire's Corvette class ship, and the heart of the Imperial Navy. That's right not the Majestic but the Cutter is the heart. This is perhaps the greatest ship to ever be equipped with an FSD, Not only is it massive, but also fast and extremely well shielded. As usual everything comes with a price, and the cutter pays in full with less weapons, smaller capacitor, and too much inertia. However these do not impair the primary combat role of the Cutter, but what is this role? The Cutter is at its core a long range deep penetration raider, its job is to get there, get in, drop some energy blow stuff up, and get gone. It's a ship designed to get back home so it can do its job over and over and over. But there is more too, the Empire seems to have taken a page out of the old British Sailing navy. See the British would remove the weapons from their warships in peace and press those ships into merchantmen. In many ways the ships could pay for themselves while offering priceless sea experience for the crews. Likewise the Cutter can be pressed into a near limitless number of roles in peacetime as well, this both allows higher crew experience, more numbers of Cutter to be built, and a ready reserve of obscenely capable ships to respond to any crisis.
Imperial Clipper
Many see this ship as the Cutter's little brother and that description is partially accurate. What most people are ignorant of is that the Clipper is The Best armed scout in the game. Amazing speed, generally good firepower and class for days. It is probably the best ship for hunting and intercepting traders and logistic ships. Able to focus on it's target and literally ignore the escorts. It can boast big sensors and with extra internal space it can haul almost anything. It's one fault is no large pads leaving the Empire lacking in their true companion to the Federal Drop ship. All the while having the same peacetime usability as the Cutter.
Imperial Courier
The messenger that's secretly a space superiority fighter. Did you know that this ship can jump over 30 ly unengineered? The courier is the messenger of the fleet but a short moment in a space dock and it fast becomes one of the deadliest ships in the human arsenal. Like it's siblings it shows a bias for speed, jump range, and shields, though it's generally slower than the clipper without special equipment. In wartime you would find this ship escorting the Cutters letting them focus on the mission. The need for a messenger means for massive insane production quantities of this ship, again offering an unnatural supply of vessel and pilots should war break out.
Imperial Eagle
This little guy doesn't really fit into Imperial Navy tactical doctrine, fundamentally it's a modernized version of a cheap but effective fighter. While no match for anything in the Federal Navy it can surely distract and otherwise occupy it's combat betters. While being a general terror to ship launched fighters. In peacetime it offers itself as a trainer and thanks to much component parody with the Courier it allows for greater quantity for spare parts for that ship too. As well it doubles as a police craft and pilots can be rotated into it for combat experience against pirates.
Doctrine
Federation
As I've alluded the Federal doctrine is Conquest in Detail, it has powerful units that progress slowly from system to system. Great for expanding territory in a methodical way, but very slow to respond and redeploy. The Federal Navy is unmatched in battle and when the tide reaches its critical point their opponents are wise to retreat. While in a defensive role the federal Navy is nearly invincible and only with huge numerical superiority can their opponents capture territory under Navy guard. Ultimately the Federal Navy is built to take territory and hold on to it.
Pros: Win, Win, Win battles. High attrition cost to their opponents thanks to concentrated firepower. Dense supply lines. Perfect Deterrent
Cons: Must concentrate, nearly useless for raiding, must defend captured territory. Highly reliant on supply lines. Slow to redeploy. Useless in peacetime other than as deterrent.
Empire
The Empire already controls more territory than the Federation, furthermore the Empire has fewer neighbors and can more easily expand as needed, eliminating the need to capture territory from their neighbors. To this end they don't need to win a war with the Federation, they simply need for the Federation to loose and loose badly. To this end the entire Imperial Navy is built to troll the Federation war effort. I'll get more into this as I breakdown the war scenario. While in peacetime the Navy supports the day to day needs of the Empire.
Pros: High readiness and large supplies of equipment and personal. Can raid and escape with near certainty. Can dominate logistic routes.
Cons: Weak in traditional battles. Must always have superior numbers for success in traditional battles. Multirole nature of ships marginally limits their combat potential.
WAR
The Federation is smaller than the Empire from a territory perspective but is far more dense inside that area as far as industry and population are concerned, while Imperial industry is located well away from the borders. This means that the Federation forces prewar are heavily concentrated, and the Empire begins with great defensive depth. It's unclear how the war would kick off, either the Federation launches a wave of fleets to capture multiple Imperial boarder systems or sensing Federal attack the Empire launches a preemptive strike hoping to dull that Federation first wave. The Empire will trade some of it's defensive depth allowing the Federation to gather Imperial territory, Due to the concentration of the Federal fleet this first outcome is already inevitable so why spend good units on territory you can't hold. Once the Feds have advanced they will become ever thinner spread, yet the Empire needs them spread as thin as possible. After the first wave of Federal expansion the feds will need to regroup and resupply while pacifying the populace and establishing supply bases, before marshaling their forces and expanding in another wave of attacks.
Yet due to doctrinal choices the Empire has essentially zero hope of counter attacking to reclaim territory. But worry not should the Imperial Admiral for their fleet is built to do other things. Remember how I said the Cutter not the Majestic was the core of the Imperial Navy: and how that vessel was built for deep raids. Also the Clipper was both scout and transport hunter, while the Courier is a natural escort for the Cutter. Well the Imperial response is to raid the ever loving hell out of the Federation. Striking targets anywhere and everywhere inside federation borders. Be it core industrial facilities, food production, mining operations, trade routes and especially logistics for the Federal Navy. Plus they can also engage in the day to day disruption of the Federal internal power infrastructure as Power play underminers do during peacetime. These raids will have the effect of forcing the Federation to essentially try to guard everywhere all at once. As effective as the Federation is at winning battles the Empire is even more effective at raiding. Worse yet because of the specific qualities of Imperial craft the deployment of Federal guard forces will not be able to prevent these raids, they will likely diminish the damage of each raid, and occasionally force a raid to abort. But the speed and shields of Imperial craft means they will escape to fight another day. Furthermore any rear echelon concentration of Federal forces means less forces to invade more Imperial territory.
"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."
- Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980
Let's progress this war, The Federation would continue to expand into Imperial territory yet with every expansion the Federation is less able to proceed with the next. Until eventually the feds are at critical saturation and cannot advance further. The true question is whether the Feds have acquired enough territory to cripple the Empire. If Yes then the Feds can conquer the Imperial Navy in detail knowing every Imperial unit destroyed will not be replaced. But if the Empire is still strong enough then the war would appear to enter a stalemate, neither can the the Feds advance or the Empire counter attack. Only it wouldn't be such, the Empire is still successfully raiding the ever loving hell out of the Federation. By this point the Federation is very badly hurt in their industrial and logistical capacity. Ships and factories can be rebuilt but the trained personal are not replaceable.
Why Doesn't the Fed navy raid the Empire? Well they probably would but never to the same scale and success as the Empire does. Remember that Federal doctrine seeks a concentration of forces and they just didn't build their ships to shoot and scoot. The FAS is really the only raider they have and it really is only effective against transports. Furthermore the Empire can focus Cutter production and press them as their transports, Cutters are extremely hard transports to kill often escaping to deliver their cargo. This is an expensive solution but would pay dividends in the long term, when you need to replace far fewer ships. Fundamentally Federal Raids would see much higher attrition compared to Imperial Raids, furthermore they also don't possess an Interdictor, yeah those fancy beasts don't seem so baffling now. The Majestic gets to stay closer to home and ruin the Federal navy resupply routes.
Here we must answer the question that decides the war, Does the Federation capture enough territory to topple the Imperial Navy? If yes the Federation Wins and the Empire is no more. This will likely take years to end but end it would. But if the Answer is No then the Federation looses. Yes I said Fed looses not Imps Win. We'll get to what a win for the Empire looks like in a bit.
So how and why does the Federal loss shake out? The key factor is this; Democracies really dislike war, democratic leaders need a Short Victorious war. If they don't get this; their powerbase crumbles, and if the war stagnates it crumbles even faster. If the Federation does not capture that critical amount of Imperial territory then the war grinds to a halt. With no progress the Federal populace soon becomes tired of rationed everything, canceled vacations because it's to dangerous to travel, and most of all their dead family and friends. When you don't progress then you are warring for nothing and whats worse is all the while there are Imperial raids are at your doorstep. Fundamentally unless some religious zealot is suddenly born(unlikely), the Federal populace will demand a treaty for peace. If Hudson doesn't give it, his replacement will. Frankly Hudson will be under a ton of pressure to offer peace which gives the Empire even more an upper hand.
How the Empire Wins: At this point Imperial moral should be high, even in spite of their losses of territory. While federal moral is war weary. The Imperial populace will be willing to hold out for a better deal while the Federation will be more desperate to get peace. This means the Empire will control terms. They can reclaim prime territory that the Federation took in the war. While ditching war torn lesser territory on the Feds. This way the Feds must pay to rebuild that crap territory and at any time the Empire can campaign for systems they want to join the Empire; while the Feds will be too stretched thin to make better offers. This will secure the Empire against War for over a century as living memory will never let the Federation attack the Empire again.
My Prediction: coming back to that important question, it is my opinion that the Federation would not capture enough territory to defeat the Empire, Yet this opinion is irrelevant to the thesis. The fact is that a victory for the Federation has too small a chance of success and too high a price of failure for any Federation regime. It's just not worth the risk for the Feds.
Notes:
I've simplified the war by huge extremes, Yes there would be Imperial counter attacks and defense, I realize I make it sound like the the Feds walk into a system and the Imps walk straight out without shot fired.
Re: Megaships. Fundamentally if Mega Warships did exist it wouldn't change the narrative, they are too hopelessly slow to raid or stop raids and they don't change the balance of any battles since the Federation is dominant no matter what. This of course assumes that if one side has Megas the other does as well.
So please Discuss, throw in variables:
What if the Empire has a civil war first?
What kind of technological advantages could shift the balance of the war?
The older society is the Federation, forming out of modern liberal society and representative democracy. Yet as the diaspora begins those liberal values inevitably become challenged and a group of Federation citizens choose that they would form a colony and start over. Yet it was clear even then that the Federation did not have much tolerance for this brash desire for independence, so the Colonists choose a home vastly distant from the normal colonial trend. They settled on Achenar and Formed a new society, but in a tragic and suspicious death their benevolent leader was killed and her brother assumed her role. Yet he was a different sort and named himself the first monarch of Achenar and would later be seen as the first in the lineage of the Imperial Emperors. Time passed and Imperial Prosperity grew, the Federation full of corruption saw this new jewel in the sky as their rightful prize to be returned to it's rule. Yet they needed a narrative, they were after all a democracy.
So the Federation accused the Empire of Xenocide of a potentially sentient race on one of the Achenar's colony worlds, naturally their daughter colony needed be brought to justice and be returned to the family. Thus a invasion was sent, but it failed. The Federation expedition was defeated, along with it public support for further campaigns. Time has past and we enter the present, the Empire has grown rich and the Federation chaotic through it's own corruption. With the death of the Mad Emperor what better time to unite the Federation and ignite the cold war they've forever brewed.
Yet it wasn't so, was the throne race of the Empire more a mere spectacle for the masses, Or Hudson's Power merely too weak in his own government. These things may indeed be true, but the true peacekeepers I believe to resist this conflict were; not the leaders, nor the populace. Rather it was the Admirals. This thesis is based on one primary assumption: That the Federation would invade the Empire, note this doesn't claim that the Federation fires the first shot. Preemptive strikes are rational when you know you enemy is approaching. But my claim and I will defend it later is that the Empire would not invade the Federation.
Lore is a fickle master and is slave more to the authors convenience than the readers passionate following. Therefore apart from the vague tale I've told in the paragraphs above I will not be citing lore to endorse my arguments. Rather I will look at the makeup of each superpowers fleet vessels, and their capabilities as demonstrated in game to justify my thesis. Of other note: We have not seen if larger more powerful military mega ships exist in the ED universe, however their presence or lack thereof will not change my thesis and indeed I will also account for their possible effect in this thesis as well.
Dramatis Equiptment:
Federation: The Federation Fleet is built around a tactic of unstoppable firepower and not yielding any progress they acquire, yet their ships are slow and limited in jump abilities
Farragut Battle Cruiser
The Farragut is the most powerful human ship yet seen by the players in this game, it is appropriately named too. While sometime in fiction a starship is classed to have a cool sounding name, the Farragut does accurately fulfill the Battle Cruiser role. "Kill everything Smaller, Run from anything Bigger." is the creed of the battle cruiser. A ship with guns like a battleship and lighter armor for better speed and acceleration like a cruiser. The Farragut anchors the flotilla with a tough hide and big guns while still can try to keep pace with her more numerous escorts. She is designed to dominate any engagement she enters and win her every battle. They are the heart of the Federation military Strategy, and they also function as carriers to assist their escorts who posses limited jump drives.
Federal Corvette
The Corvette like it's larger peer is a perfectly named ship, it also perfectly fulfills the role its name suggests. It is quite slow but makes up for this with both sustained firepower and quick turning, a Corvette in a wing is many times more deadly than on it is solo.
Federal Gunship
The gunship fully embodies federal doctrine, strength in numbers and concentrated firepower. Yet like it's brothers it is slow, trading speed for greater offence.
Federal Dropship
While many pilots find this a redundant ship in their tasks, the Dropship is a key resource offered the Federation. It is relatively fast and nimble with tough armor, though it lacks for good shielding. It is the choice ship for boarding orbital stations and keeping constant supplies to any troops anywhere. While also being quite handy to offer fire support in any arena.
Federal Assault ship
Very much the alter ego of the dropship, essentially trading internal volume for more speed and maneuverability. Inevitably the Federation needs one fast ship and the FAS does this with intimidation. However in keeping with federal doctrine it likely had to sacrifice shields to have both speed and firepower.
Imperial Fleet
Majestic Class Interdictor
This is a somewhat baffling ship. While it is credited as a Capital class ship which would imply it is a Battle Cruiser, I would personally call it a Heavy Cruiser. Unlike the Farragut which is a battle driven design; the Majestic is almost political in its form. Indeed I feel this is it's primary function to not fight outside Imperial border but strictly within. It is without doubt an inspiring ship that as it's name suggests, majestically represents Imperial prosperity. Clearly "Showing the Flag" was a key design feature. Still it does have a sharp edge, if the Farragut is built for domination the Majestic is build for more deft methods of control. Equipping dramatic lasers and a mass shadow generator, this ship is an unholy terror to supply ships. a pattern that will repeat with other Imperial ships. It is well optimized for patrol and is a very easy ship to decide to deploy which is good as this offers a high degree of crew readiness, while as a commerce protection vessel is far easier to justify the construction cost of these ships.
Imperial Cutter
The Empire's Corvette class ship, and the heart of the Imperial Navy. That's right not the Majestic but the Cutter is the heart. This is perhaps the greatest ship to ever be equipped with an FSD, Not only is it massive, but also fast and extremely well shielded. As usual everything comes with a price, and the cutter pays in full with less weapons, smaller capacitor, and too much inertia. However these do not impair the primary combat role of the Cutter, but what is this role? The Cutter is at its core a long range deep penetration raider, its job is to get there, get in, drop some energy blow stuff up, and get gone. It's a ship designed to get back home so it can do its job over and over and over. But there is more too, the Empire seems to have taken a page out of the old British Sailing navy. See the British would remove the weapons from their warships in peace and press those ships into merchantmen. In many ways the ships could pay for themselves while offering priceless sea experience for the crews. Likewise the Cutter can be pressed into a near limitless number of roles in peacetime as well, this both allows higher crew experience, more numbers of Cutter to be built, and a ready reserve of obscenely capable ships to respond to any crisis.
Imperial Clipper
Many see this ship as the Cutter's little brother and that description is partially accurate. What most people are ignorant of is that the Clipper is The Best armed scout in the game. Amazing speed, generally good firepower and class for days. It is probably the best ship for hunting and intercepting traders and logistic ships. Able to focus on it's target and literally ignore the escorts. It can boast big sensors and with extra internal space it can haul almost anything. It's one fault is no large pads leaving the Empire lacking in their true companion to the Federal Drop ship. All the while having the same peacetime usability as the Cutter.
Imperial Courier
The messenger that's secretly a space superiority fighter. Did you know that this ship can jump over 30 ly unengineered? The courier is the messenger of the fleet but a short moment in a space dock and it fast becomes one of the deadliest ships in the human arsenal. Like it's siblings it shows a bias for speed, jump range, and shields, though it's generally slower than the clipper without special equipment. In wartime you would find this ship escorting the Cutters letting them focus on the mission. The need for a messenger means for massive insane production quantities of this ship, again offering an unnatural supply of vessel and pilots should war break out.
Imperial Eagle
This little guy doesn't really fit into Imperial Navy tactical doctrine, fundamentally it's a modernized version of a cheap but effective fighter. While no match for anything in the Federal Navy it can surely distract and otherwise occupy it's combat betters. While being a general terror to ship launched fighters. In peacetime it offers itself as a trainer and thanks to much component parody with the Courier it allows for greater quantity for spare parts for that ship too. As well it doubles as a police craft and pilots can be rotated into it for combat experience against pirates.
Doctrine
Federation
As I've alluded the Federal doctrine is Conquest in Detail, it has powerful units that progress slowly from system to system. Great for expanding territory in a methodical way, but very slow to respond and redeploy. The Federal Navy is unmatched in battle and when the tide reaches its critical point their opponents are wise to retreat. While in a defensive role the federal Navy is nearly invincible and only with huge numerical superiority can their opponents capture territory under Navy guard. Ultimately the Federal Navy is built to take territory and hold on to it.
Pros: Win, Win, Win battles. High attrition cost to their opponents thanks to concentrated firepower. Dense supply lines. Perfect Deterrent
Cons: Must concentrate, nearly useless for raiding, must defend captured territory. Highly reliant on supply lines. Slow to redeploy. Useless in peacetime other than as deterrent.
Empire
The Empire already controls more territory than the Federation, furthermore the Empire has fewer neighbors and can more easily expand as needed, eliminating the need to capture territory from their neighbors. To this end they don't need to win a war with the Federation, they simply need for the Federation to loose and loose badly. To this end the entire Imperial Navy is built to troll the Federation war effort. I'll get more into this as I breakdown the war scenario. While in peacetime the Navy supports the day to day needs of the Empire.
Pros: High readiness and large supplies of equipment and personal. Can raid and escape with near certainty. Can dominate logistic routes.
Cons: Weak in traditional battles. Must always have superior numbers for success in traditional battles. Multirole nature of ships marginally limits their combat potential.
WAR
The Federation is smaller than the Empire from a territory perspective but is far more dense inside that area as far as industry and population are concerned, while Imperial industry is located well away from the borders. This means that the Federation forces prewar are heavily concentrated, and the Empire begins with great defensive depth. It's unclear how the war would kick off, either the Federation launches a wave of fleets to capture multiple Imperial boarder systems or sensing Federal attack the Empire launches a preemptive strike hoping to dull that Federation first wave. The Empire will trade some of it's defensive depth allowing the Federation to gather Imperial territory, Due to the concentration of the Federal fleet this first outcome is already inevitable so why spend good units on territory you can't hold. Once the Feds have advanced they will become ever thinner spread, yet the Empire needs them spread as thin as possible. After the first wave of Federal expansion the feds will need to regroup and resupply while pacifying the populace and establishing supply bases, before marshaling their forces and expanding in another wave of attacks.
Yet due to doctrinal choices the Empire has essentially zero hope of counter attacking to reclaim territory. But worry not should the Imperial Admiral for their fleet is built to do other things. Remember how I said the Cutter not the Majestic was the core of the Imperial Navy: and how that vessel was built for deep raids. Also the Clipper was both scout and transport hunter, while the Courier is a natural escort for the Cutter. Well the Imperial response is to raid the ever loving hell out of the Federation. Striking targets anywhere and everywhere inside federation borders. Be it core industrial facilities, food production, mining operations, trade routes and especially logistics for the Federal Navy. Plus they can also engage in the day to day disruption of the Federal internal power infrastructure as Power play underminers do during peacetime. These raids will have the effect of forcing the Federation to essentially try to guard everywhere all at once. As effective as the Federation is at winning battles the Empire is even more effective at raiding. Worse yet because of the specific qualities of Imperial craft the deployment of Federal guard forces will not be able to prevent these raids, they will likely diminish the damage of each raid, and occasionally force a raid to abort. But the speed and shields of Imperial craft means they will escape to fight another day. Furthermore any rear echelon concentration of Federal forces means less forces to invade more Imperial territory.
"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."
- Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980
Let's progress this war, The Federation would continue to expand into Imperial territory yet with every expansion the Federation is less able to proceed with the next. Until eventually the feds are at critical saturation and cannot advance further. The true question is whether the Feds have acquired enough territory to cripple the Empire. If Yes then the Feds can conquer the Imperial Navy in detail knowing every Imperial unit destroyed will not be replaced. But if the Empire is still strong enough then the war would appear to enter a stalemate, neither can the the Feds advance or the Empire counter attack. Only it wouldn't be such, the Empire is still successfully raiding the ever loving hell out of the Federation. By this point the Federation is very badly hurt in their industrial and logistical capacity. Ships and factories can be rebuilt but the trained personal are not replaceable.
Why Doesn't the Fed navy raid the Empire? Well they probably would but never to the same scale and success as the Empire does. Remember that Federal doctrine seeks a concentration of forces and they just didn't build their ships to shoot and scoot. The FAS is really the only raider they have and it really is only effective against transports. Furthermore the Empire can focus Cutter production and press them as their transports, Cutters are extremely hard transports to kill often escaping to deliver their cargo. This is an expensive solution but would pay dividends in the long term, when you need to replace far fewer ships. Fundamentally Federal Raids would see much higher attrition compared to Imperial Raids, furthermore they also don't possess an Interdictor, yeah those fancy beasts don't seem so baffling now. The Majestic gets to stay closer to home and ruin the Federal navy resupply routes.
Here we must answer the question that decides the war, Does the Federation capture enough territory to topple the Imperial Navy? If yes the Federation Wins and the Empire is no more. This will likely take years to end but end it would. But if the Answer is No then the Federation looses. Yes I said Fed looses not Imps Win. We'll get to what a win for the Empire looks like in a bit.
So how and why does the Federal loss shake out? The key factor is this; Democracies really dislike war, democratic leaders need a Short Victorious war. If they don't get this; their powerbase crumbles, and if the war stagnates it crumbles even faster. If the Federation does not capture that critical amount of Imperial territory then the war grinds to a halt. With no progress the Federal populace soon becomes tired of rationed everything, canceled vacations because it's to dangerous to travel, and most of all their dead family and friends. When you don't progress then you are warring for nothing and whats worse is all the while there are Imperial raids are at your doorstep. Fundamentally unless some religious zealot is suddenly born(unlikely), the Federal populace will demand a treaty for peace. If Hudson doesn't give it, his replacement will. Frankly Hudson will be under a ton of pressure to offer peace which gives the Empire even more an upper hand.
How the Empire Wins: At this point Imperial moral should be high, even in spite of their losses of territory. While federal moral is war weary. The Imperial populace will be willing to hold out for a better deal while the Federation will be more desperate to get peace. This means the Empire will control terms. They can reclaim prime territory that the Federation took in the war. While ditching war torn lesser territory on the Feds. This way the Feds must pay to rebuild that crap territory and at any time the Empire can campaign for systems they want to join the Empire; while the Feds will be too stretched thin to make better offers. This will secure the Empire against War for over a century as living memory will never let the Federation attack the Empire again.
My Prediction: coming back to that important question, it is my opinion that the Federation would not capture enough territory to defeat the Empire, Yet this opinion is irrelevant to the thesis. The fact is that a victory for the Federation has too small a chance of success and too high a price of failure for any Federation regime. It's just not worth the risk for the Feds.
Notes:
I've simplified the war by huge extremes, Yes there would be Imperial counter attacks and defense, I realize I make it sound like the the Feds walk into a system and the Imps walk straight out without shot fired.
Re: Megaships. Fundamentally if Mega Warships did exist it wouldn't change the narrative, they are too hopelessly slow to raid or stop raids and they don't change the balance of any battles since the Federation is dominant no matter what. This of course assumes that if one side has Megas the other does as well.
So please Discuss, throw in variables:
What if the Empire has a civil war first?
What kind of technological advantages could shift the balance of the war?
