Comparing empires: a benchmark without a moral ranking

The hub of the empire-comparison benchmark: eleven dimensions, sixty-one operational metrics and the coding rubrics (territorial status T0-T6, administrative reach E0-E3, measurement and causal confidence) that let empires be compared claim by claim - scale, capacity, welfare, extraction, rights, coercion, violence, culture and legacy - without collapsing them into a single moral score. Includes an annex with the benchmark's base sources and its first published observations.