u/ManufacturerSouth592

Villain protagonists are something I'm fine with on paper, and in fact find quite interesting as a concept. A protagonist that's allowed to have goals and opinions that clash with common morality, and can give nuance to those positions without condoning them? That's awesome! It sounds like a fun thing to experience.

But a lot of stories I've seen don't really do this. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have a protagonist who's not confined by morality, but they still want the audience to easily root for the protagonist without making them question the MC's decisions.

The easiest way to do that is by making the victims of the protagonists actions "deserving" of their fates so the audience doesn't get to uncomfortable with what the protagonist does, allowing them to commit the atrocities of a villain while still maintaining the narrative position of the heroic protagonist. These stories usually come in two flavors that are commonly mixed, these being:

A) THE VICTIMS ARE ALL UNBELIEVABLY EVIL

The most common type of this trope and by far the easier one to both write and notice is to simply make the victims rat bastard's. In this type of story the victims are the absolute scum of the earth, devoid of any redeeming qualities and stuffed full of vices and cruelty's. Almost always in positions of power whether it be political or martial (though almost never ones they actually earn through merit, but usually inheritance, luck, or corruption), these *characters* are absolutely vile. They commit endless atrocities for personal pleasure, never do good even if it would benefit them and hurt innocents even when it will hurt them.

Of the two, these victims are the most common because they are, frankly, easier to do. Creating them doesn't require you to have much understanding of writing besides the knowledge on how to describe atrocities. You don't have to employ any subtlety or risk the audience still sympathizing with the victim over the protagonist. All you have to do is write about how "Scumbag McTorture skinned a puppy alive before bed" and be done, and the audience will likely follow along.

However, there are a few major downsides to this approach. One is that it's incredibly obvious you're doing it. There's a difference between "incredibly evil" and "unbelievably evil", and it's incredibly obvious when these writers make the MC's victims cross it to justify them hurting the victims. Plus it becomes hard to take seriously if to many characters are to evil to function. The second is that it can quickly make the audience lose interest L̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶l̶f̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ because of the constant crimes against humanity their shown making them have no one to rut for. Which is why you might be tempted to

B) SUBTLY FRAM THE VICTIMS AS UNSYMPATHETIC

The more subtle of the two approaches, this route says you don't have to make the victims cartoon villains to get people to dislike them, you just need to know how to frame them like they are. Instead of making them kick puppies, you give them more subtle flaws that the audience none the less will pick up on easily. You make them rude, inconsiderate, incompetent. But that's not enough, you also have to make sure they can't make the protagonist look bad either.

If the victim and the MC have an argument, the MC will always have the last word, and always make better points, even if the victim has to miss logical counter arguments. If the victim claims they want to bring the protagonist to justice, it must be shown they have selfish motives for doing so. And above all else, the victim *must* be a hypocrite.

This approach is harder by far, as it's incredibly easy to simply tack on more and more evil traits onto the victims like option A, but when done right it's much harder to notice. It is also less likely to drive off the audience with constant gratuitous violence. However, it's also dangerous, as handled poorly it may lead to the victims becoming sympathetic if the audience isn't convinced the victims' sins make them deserving of their punishments, or that their deeds are worse than the protagonists. This is way the two approaches are always mixed to some degree, though they almost always lean one way or the other.

WHY DO I HATE THIS?

Put simply, it cheapens the whole point of a villain protagonist. The point is that the villain protagonist is allowed to be wrong and do bad things to people who don't deserve it whilst not condoning their behavior. The deserving victims trope stripes away this nuance, leaving behind a Mary Sue who is allowed to commit horrible crimes without being scrutinized for it by the text. It makes you wonder if the author ever wanted to tell a story about a villain, or a hero that does bad things but is still treated like a hero.

As the title asks, what technology level do the Saderan's need to be able to reliably challenge the JSDF, but without flipping the script and turning the show into Gate:thus the Saderan empire conquered there!

This post assumes that the Empire is still a continental superpower, and that it has all the territories, resources, and people's that it had originally. Additionally how magic has changed and evolved with advancements in science should be taken into account. Finally, assume that any kind of industrialization is relatively equal, and that every citizen* species is a decade behind on living standards at worse.

1* Slaves are not contented and are treated as they are in cannon.