Well, my first game is going interestingly so far.
Those peace-loving barn owl people? Quite dangerous when angry. One recent notification in my game told me that they were dropping explosive personnel pods onto the resident warmongers, the Burlust. Now I know why the Peltians are peace-loving; when they get angry, they blow up.
Meanwhile the Burlust are declaring war on everything whilst having approximately no ships, on account of everyone else they've declared war on being in orbit around their planet, blasting any newly-minted ships to smithereens immediately.
And apparently nobody else wants to join my Federation, because they all like money but don't like to give any of it up. Except the Boarines, who like money but don't have an option to join the Federation (due to a bug, apparently). And the Evucks, who are isolationists and don't want to be friends with the feathered death-blob that I've started. Or the Acutians, who hate me for stealing a ship... and all their technology... and blowing up their anti-Federation forces... but who aren't even a power anymore because all their stuff has been blown up, too.
Guess I'll just have to grind up enough credit to drag the Skylaxians in, then get the Boarine in via their option (if it exists), then use other means to force the Evucks, Acutians, and - if they haven't been exploded by giant peace-campaigning barn owls - the Burlust to join.
Overall - the game is interesting but could use a bit more inter-faction stuff besides the war declarations. (I assume that this would be covered by the 'other alliances' possibility which means that we'd end up having to break them up; whether this is good or bad would remain to be seen)