What if, the Federation wasn't this big happy family and the humans weren't in charge but were only some minor part of some larger alien empire?

I enjoyed this book, it has a lot of politics; if you found the scenes in The Expanse around the earth parliament annoying, this book is not for you.

It also explains in an entertaining way how tricky being a Galatic Empire is, even (or perhaps because) you have the ships with the Big Guns.