Mith

Well, no. Taking the Federation is going to require a large, massive fleet that the Empire simply can't take away from their fight against the Rebels. We can see this from their inability to take out Mon Calamari because the Rebels had stretched the already thin Imperial fleet thin, like Frodo over the one Ring. To say the least, an invasion with even weapon odds would require tens of thousands of ships, not to mention thousands of credits being poured into searching and establishing new lanes in Federation space. Unfortunately, Imperial ships are not even close to being on par with their Federation counterparts. As we know, their highest yield capabilities, range up to 5-15 megatons if we assume a literal translation from Revenge of the Sith. More reasonable interpretations suggest kilotons to low megatons. We know that a stolen Klingon Bird of Prey was capable of using a full spread to destroy a 'few hundred' kilometers of the planet's surface, suggesting 1,025 megatons. If we extrapolate that and use it as a basis for what ships can take, we know then that ST ships have low range gigaton weapons. Even 15 megatons vs. 1,025 megatons isn't even a contest. It would require hundreds of thousands of ships to invade the Federation--and then if we have the Klingons (who are allies) join in, the game goes even further to hell. More so if the Federation decides to deploy superweapons. The only way the Empire might be able to afford such an action is if they manage to keep the Death Star from going bottle up, as the station is capable of taking out any planet that rebels against the Empire. But if that goes--or if Palpy decides to use it against the Federation (and chances are, he will after the first three months prove entire armadas can be taken down by one ship), then chances are he's also going to lose that when Starfleet notices the ventelation shaft or just notice that parts of the shield will drop up to 20% and fire a concentrated volley on those portions of the shield to allow them to get at the armor beneath it. Or they turn it into a moon with the genesis technology

Actually, you should watch the later seasons of Enterprise. Archer starts winning fights towards the end of Season 3 and continues to do so in Season 4. His entire character pretty much does a 360 as of Damage.

It's utter bunk. First off, blasters are shown to routinly deal serious or lethal damage to storm trooper and clone trooper armor. There are times when for some reason (often plot related) that they do offer resistance, but we've never seen their armor do anything more but make them look cool and scary. Furthermore, they're attempting to say that because y blocks x, it must also block z. Phasers don't operate the same way as blasters, which is suspected to be plasma based. Fortunately, phasers are designed as technobabble weapons capable of 'vaporizing' stuff. On lower settings, we've seen that their phasers are about as lethal as blasters with similar burn marks left on victims. On higher settings, their victim is a burn mark. On the ground.