[quote=ASTA]
No. I don't see any particular reason why the vul'kruun would fear vessels equipped with beam armaments and protective energy barriers. Provided the vul'kruun's tactics are sound and they secure (and maintain) a numerical advantage, they'll destroy those vessels without suffering crippling loses. If a faction equipped with beam weapons and energy shields encountered, say, modern Earth, then yes you could probably extort them (for it would be akin to the modern US Army engaging in combat against a land force from the 1100s), but other space-faring nations are either going to scoff at you and obliterate you with impunity or they're going to put up such a fierce resistance that trying to assimilate them teeters dangerously on the edge of pointlessness.That was sarcasm. 1) I never said a beam weapon equated to a missile. 2) Any nation is going to have access to plasma windows and electromagnetic fields unless you're trying to invade WWII-era nations that have just invented the atomic bomb. And if you're invading such low-tech civilizations, I don't understand why you're using antimatter weapons or energy shields to intimidate them into submission in the first place. Just threaten them with a small asteroid. Or a slightly bigger nuclear weapon. Or a starship equipped with some dense pieces of space junk that you can fling at the planet's surface. Or, you could use AM weaponry to get the job done because Rule of Cool, which is OK.
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My point was if you were in position of the nation which lacked the numerical advantage and what you mentioned and all the space ships of a major hive turned up on your door step, not your current nation specifically. Its a bit disingenuous to replace the values of an argument simply to render that argument null, especially when its stated that these values are set for this argument.

Also, I don't think any forced assimilation action will ever be pointless. I generally stand to gain a lot more than I could ever lose. Even if a large swath of my invasion force is destroyed, they may be able to be recycled, along with every last organism and plant on the planet. If I win, my losses generally become negligible, its only when I lose that I truly lose something, though generally I will have acquired something to offset some of the loss.