Another one, if the empires have more power than capsuleer... that about capsuleer beign the only hope against the Sansha is a bad joke, right?
No, not really.
See Capsuleer's represent in many ways the penultimate in militarized space farmers. Able to fly faster/better, with less crew, and almost zero chance of death.
This means that we are a nigh inexhaustible highly trained highly proficient killing tool that can be pitched at Sansha as long someone writes us a paycheque for it.
However....
The Empires hold the keys to our Kingdom. We exist because the Empires need us to exist. Sansha being one of those reason, our ability to explore, research, even fight their battles all represent a need we fill.
However the second capsuleer would represent a serious threat to the Empires, as Concord signatories they have access over clone stocks and all other manners that make us the powerful beings we are.
That mixed with Navies that make the combined null-sec armies look like a marching band in comparison means they could hit us harder and faster than any amount of infrastructure could recover from.
So in summation, no its not a joke because we are useful. But a capsuleer revolt would be something akin to the special forces picking a fight with the remaining combined arms of a nation.