Sovereign wrote: The Empire, if making contact with the Milky Way before the Rebels, would make peace with the Federation. This would happen only because the Federations Population is mostly Human. Of course the Federation would disagree with the War against the Rebel Alliance.
Do you have any evidence that the Empire is more likely to make peace with a government made up of mostly humans than it is to make peace with a group made up of aliens? The Empire, after all, is at peace with the Hutts, but at a de facto state of war with the Hapans. More importantly, the Empire can conquer the Federation virtually without effort. The Federation occupies three Imperial SECTORS. The Alpha Quadrant, which is devoid of powerful alien races willing to oppose the Empire, could be conquered relatively easily and would increase the Empire's size by about a third. The natural resources available to the Empire from their new holding would almost necessitate an Imperial war against the Federation and the entire AQ, though the time table for this is unclear.
The Empire could not just come in and attack without any knowlage of our space. They would need maps. I am sure the Ferangi could give them some, but who said they could find any or appear in this part of the Galaxy anyway? An invasion would take time, especually with the Alliance on the other side causing problems.
Thrawn charted and conquered the Unknown Regions (the size of the entire AQ) with a fairly small and insignificant force in less than a decade. The Yuuzhan Vong mapped out huge portions of the SW Galaxy in the same amount of time (though their forces are far more significant than Thrawn's). The Hapans, despite never leaving their little cluster for several thousand years, were able to move a fleet from Hapes to Coruscant, and then to Dathomir (though probably with NR assistance, for the last jump). Clearly only very large gravitational distortions must be mapped out for hyperspace travel to be possible, and this can be done with relative ease by the denizens of the SW Galaxy.
You seem to be falling for the fallacy that either an entire section of a Galaxy is mapped, or it is not and therefore hyperdrives are useless. Hyperdrives function perfectly even in a complete absence of maps, however the risk of hitting a large object in hyperspace is fairly large. Microjumping starfighters can rapidly map out areas of space, and expendable probe droids can almost certainly be used in this manner. In addition, remember that a Jedi Knight or a Force-sensitive individual does not need a map in order to use hyperspace with relative impunity. Such individuals can even "sneak" into areas that are completely uncharted in navicomputers. Usually this tactic is unused, as the dedication of a Jedi/Sith/Force sensitive to an invasion of the AQ would represent a considerable investment, but it would be highly possible for such an individual to rapidly move a fleet from place to place in the AQ during an invasion.
"Sometimes I think you WANT us to fail." "Shut up, just shut up!" -Two Guys from Kabul
Latinum Star Recipient; Hacker's Cross Award Winner
"one soler flar can vapririze the planit or malt the nickl in lass than millasacit" -
Bagara1000
"Happiness is just a Flaming Moe away."
and others would find themselves part of the "support staff" for an Imperial Admiral or Moff 
