Some more clarifications regarding lore, faction names, designs, difficulty, and all that sort of stuff:
There will be a lore contest coming up, wherein you guys try to outdo each other with the most interesting and well-made backstory for your faction. Each faction should probably try to decide in this first turn on a name and a rough idea of what you are, then start writing a story about it. The best (best, not necessarily longest) story will win a Research Credit (roll 3d4 on a design, take highest two rolls).
I won't REQUIRE you to have a faction name decided by the end of this turn, but it'd probably make it pretty hard to comprehensively describe your faction in time if you, y'know, haven't made any decisions.
As for backstories, as I ended up telling Team 1 on Discord, you can write almost whatever you want. You want to be aliens, sure! We can retcon the colony ships travelling together, I don't care. You want to be robots? Absolutely. Just note that no matter what you pick, you will gain no advantages from it, nor will you gain disadvantages. Yes, that means your robots will require spacesuits, and that your methane-breathing aliens will be just as happy on that earthlike central planet as the opposing team's humans breathing oxygen.
The GM takes no responsibility for any confusion that may ensue.
As for when the first design is going to happen, it's going to happen whenever you guys figure out what you want to do. So yeah, get planning, get voting, and let's get to the part where I get to cackle incessantly as I describe your failures. That is a thing GMs get to do, right?