Originally Posted by
Mr Blobby
There's also the possibility that 'the Empire' is currently unstable and/or weakened. 'Byzantine-style' empires are autocratic in form, yet the technological level makes central control difficult. Any half-decent 'Emperor' is one who's able to perform the political 'herding of cats' to keep the show on the road. Sometimes the worst Emperor is the 'not utterly terrible' one; skilled enough to hang on to power, but too incompetent to actually to much more than that.
In situations like this, it's quite possible the Empire is running mainly on inertia and the edges are fraying. In this case, it might be possible to persuade the 'occupiers' to actually help them strike out on their own [or they might think of it themselves]. Therefore, fraternisation might be the name of the game, not hostility - to hope that when push came to shove, enough would have 'gone native' that they ignored the orders of the 'Loyalists'.