But an empire is an empire, and the nature of an empire is to eliminate those who stand in the way of empire business. There are those who benefit from the advance of the empire and those who do not, and independent entities of any kind within the books ecosystem are among the latter. There may be temporary appeasement of the empire (like what Lando Calrissian tried in “Empire Strikes Back”), but in any relationship with an empire, the empire will always have the upper hand. And if it wants to seize your Cloud City or cut your margins, it will.