Excellent points, thanks skiltao. Hope we can continue this debate in the spirit of friendly disagreement: what is the best, most beneficial role for fiction in the IP?
If you mean that the Warrior Trilogy would have been a better story if the Confederation had put up more of a fight, then I must object on fundamental literary grounds. Narrative tension derives from survival or condition of select individuals, not survival or condition of the faction.
A bit of a tangent to the original post, but a fun one, so let's roll with it.
Well, the two are directly linked, aren't they. I'm having a hard time thinking of any story in which protagonist A is in mortal danger, but it's perfectly clear the side they represent is absolutely crushing the antagonist.
If I may borrow your words, I object on fundamental literary grounds. Personal stakes must be tied to the overarching narrative if there is to be tension. Having one without the other just seems schizophrenic: Luke Skywalker is in danger, but the Imperials are getting slaughtered? Ultron has Thor on the ropes, but the vibranium has been found and defused and all his minions destroyed? There's a tank advancing on Private Ryan, but the US paratroopers are just making mincemeat of the Germans? See, it sucks all the tension out of the moment.
As for the specifics of the Warrior series, no, I never felt that any of the protagonists was ever in any kind of credible danger.
If you instead mean that the specific local obstacles met by individual characters lack tension, I think that's a consequence of the story's breakneck pacing and expansive scope - and your reason for arguing against these things is no longer clear. You've defined big events as only worth doing if they make everything unrecognizable: why?
I agree, this is the tricky part of my point. The basic concept that I'm suggesting is that action/war fiction requires meaningful change/consequences in order to be satisfying. That's fairly basic to the genre... Not sure how to argue further if you disagree on that point. The thing they are doing has to matter, or else why are we reading?* Anyway, stakes/consequences, as you rightly said, can be at either the personal level, or the macro level of the overall story line. I think BT is a bad fit at both levels
(FOR SPINE FICTION/METANARRATIVE STORIES):
(1) At the macro level, you can't really change the fundamentals, so you end up doing the same things in slightly different combinations. A fights B. A fights C. C fights B. A and B gang up on C. There are no stakes/consequences because everyone is going to keep doing the same things ad nauseum anyway, regardless of what anyone does or doesn't do.
(2) Because of point (1), at the personal level you can't really have any stakes/consequences, because whatever the characters achieve is going to be wiped out at the next setting reset. People in the metanarrative cannot have meaningful, consequential impact on the story line, because the essential story line itself cannot progress. Because it's a wargame. They cannot even exert meaningful impact on their own stories, because those are going to be swept away in the next Big Event in the universe.
(*Yeah, the failure to achieve change can be the point, as in Das Boot, Matterhorn, etc., if you want a downbeat story. But BT is much more in the pulp, two-fisted action hero genre, it's only when you look at the fiction as a whole body you realize all these heroes have absolutely failed to achieve anything...)
That's why I would much rather the new fiction focus on smaller, more intimate and personal stories than try to drive the story line, because in the former you have much more freedom to deliver a satisfying story.