Violently. Even the Federation has grown and expanded through violence and gunboat diplomacy.
You say things will change in unforseable ways. I disagree. Right now, there is nothing in the sociopolitical or military landscape that will prompt any ‘unforeseeable’ changes. The Amarr have been adopting a less violent, less confrontational approach… since being met with violent resistance they could not overpower. Nothing else has changed their calculus. Ever. And since that time, they have consolidated, re-entrenched, and engaged in a military buildup. Their international moves have been power plays to serve either their own military readiness—such as probing strikes into the Federation—or to weaken their prospective victims while feigning magnanimosity.
As for ‘adjusting’… the adjustments they will make are the same ones they have made again and again over their history: they’ll adjust whose blood they’re using to ink their scriptures, and not a damned thing otherwise. As you say: the Amarr are very patient. And they are ambushers, murderers, rapists. Have they shut down the breeding facilities? Have they repudiated striking down an unknowing, unaware, peaceful society that offered them no thread?
Have they even apologized? Or are they even now, in this thread, complimenting themselves on the civilized behavior of murdering, pillaging, and kidnapping defenseless civilians who didn’t even know they exists, let alone harbor any ill-will?
I think you’re deluding yourself, Aria, because you don’t want to believe anything less of them. You are surrounding yourself with illusions, and you offer nothing more than ‘because I like to think of it this way’ as evidence, when the history of the people whose virtues you extol indicates precisely the opposite.
PS: I know you are, yes. That doesn’t mean all of the people observing this discussion are. And maybe some of them will take a long, hard look at themselves. Maybe some of them will just take a long, hard look at a 1400mm artillery barrel and wonder if they really want those pointed at their children. Because until they renounce the Reclaiming, they are a direct threat, and they should expect that threat to be met just as directly.