Gunboat Diplomacy: The traditional Imperial diplomatic transport is a cruiser-class naval vessel. Need I say more? (And the Empire in particular is quite notorious for this; the Don Pacifico Affair would not be in the least out of character for them, because No One Gets Left Behind.)
Also, refer back to Flaunting Your Fleets.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://eldraeverse.com/2014/06/11/trope-a-day-gunboat-diplomacy