I dunno how well this is gonna be received, but I figure I might as well mention it, since it seems at least tangentially related.
In addition to enjoying video games, I also play tabletop RPGs. One of those RPGs, Exalted, is an interesting one. It casts the players in the roles of the titular Exalted, former humans graced with a spark of divine energy that grants them vast power. There's several different kinds of Exalted, but the ones relevant to this little thought are the Sidereal Exalted, the chosen of the five Maidens of Fate. The Sidereals are the mysterious witch that gives the hero a clue on his journey, the wizened old martial artist who teaches the young firebrand new tricks, the cunning vizier that pulls the strings behind the throne. They are, in short, professional meddlers, who ceaselessly work to keep Fate on its proper track, and the world as it should be.
But they're very few in number - only 100 at any given time, often less - and a Sidereal who is slain is dead for a very long time. If a Solar is killed in glorious battle with the mad princes of the chaos beyond the world, then the spark of Solar essence that was empowering him will likely find a new host within a year, because Solar Exaltations are drawn to great heroism. Sidereal Exaltations, on the other hand, are woven into someone's fate as they're born... which means waiting for the newborn to grow up, and then spending quite a lot of time training him in all the complexities of Heaven and Creation that he has to know to do his job. It can easily take a century or more before a Sidereal's replacement is ready to do his job.
Given that, most Sidereals take an interesting approach to personal combat... it's something to be avoided if at all possible. A Sidereal cannot afford to die, and so will actively avoid situations where that's a meaningful risk. Furthermore, Sidereals are constantly busy, and so have to be very efficient in their work. If a Sidereal needs someone dead, it's much quicker to hire someone else to do the killing, or to sell them a faked treasure map that will lead them to a tomb full of deadly traps, or talk their best friend into striking them down for the good of all. If a Sidereal needs a kingdom conquered, it's a lot safer to find some lucky chump to serve as a great general and prop him up with supplies and magic than it is to personally take to the field. It's much easier to incite revolution by quietly whispering a few choice words into the right ears than by getting personally involved in the region's politics.
When I first read about The Last Federation, it struck me as being Sidereals In Space, enough so that I used that little tagline when showing the blogs to my Exalted-playing friends. And, to my mind at least, part of that would be that our brave little Hydral should, in fact, be a total coward - he's the last Hydral, and if he dies before the Federation is formed, then there's no one left to pick up the torch. Personal involvement in combat should be a last resort, unless it's such an overwhelming victory that there's really no reason to play the combat out at all, or you're up against people who are actively trying to hunt you down and murder you; subterfuge is much preferred. Don't fight that Thoraxian army yourself, sneak a bomb onto their supply station and bribe a Skylaxian commander to be in the right place at the right time. Stuff like that.
