Well, unlike past games, in this case said project is being done with the explicit stated purpose of impressing people.
> "The point is that this grand scheme of yours boils down to stealing a machine the empire could never have created by itself from its own citizen, who gets declared all but persona non grata afterward, and that machine is then used to win a fight that no one on this side of the barrier expects the empire to lose. How is that impressive? How will being nothing more than a grand-scale thug bring your world forward?"