YO THIS IS THE BEST GADDAM GAME OF STELLARIS IVE EVER HAD.
So I'm on Admiral Mode, first of all. I'm doing the usual badguy thing of "conquer a sizable swath of valuable land, vassalize the civs next to you, repeat". I'm playing as an authoritarian spiritualist military society, intentionally modeled after Sith.
I decided, however, that instead of slogging my way through the whole goddam galaxy I would sit back and develop my economy and play the diplomatic game in the senate. I'm trying to experience "Federations" content, you see. After passing some favorable resolutions to bring my voting power up to the top 3, I got elected to the 3-person council. With my economy booming I bought favors from enough member civs to vote out the weakest council member. A few more favorably maneuvered resolutions later and I'm feeling like maybe I can vote out the other guy. He's very much my equal/better in all things but pure military might and
MoRaL DeMoCrAcY to boot.
I've got all my ducks in a row, ready to call an emergency vote and blow some favors to become the senate. But then... my rival council member (On the far side of the goddam galaxy) brings up Veto Power as the next item to go onto the floor. Not as his own emergency vote, mind you. But I do some thinking and it turns out.... I spent all my influence on budding megaprojects. If he gets that resolution out on the floor, I'm going to lose my chance. He'll be able to veto any attempt to remove himself from the council. Stalemate, unless I can get rid of the veto power itself. This will set me back decades. With my vassals and the favors I can actually use, I am still just short of what I need to turn things to my own political favor. Unless I can change that.
So I waited until the last possible second, and set my gateways (a new tech to the galaxy) that were closest to his territories building. Right before it was time to hit the floor with the veto vote, I called an emergency session to remove him from power while simultaneously declaring war on him and his
PITIFUL FEDARASHUN. The voting power belongs primarily to those with the strongest military and the largest economies. I'm making a beeline for his homeworld with my entire fleet, ready to blast his military to rubble and bomb the center of his economy to bits. I have 1000 days to turn the tide.
The time has come.