The empire to the right of me(the biggest gray one) is an extreme threat looks like im going to be in war soon
(im the green empire at the bottom left) So the greys are killing every single species they encounter. They already killed my science ship's crew. Refugees from them are fleeing them and living at my planet. I'll have to build an inter galactic NATO basically and eliminate their entire species
They're some kind of hive mind things, non negotiable and can't be left alive. I'm allied with the purple empire who are pacifist and If i start a war they'll be greatly displeased and i don't want more trouble. Their army is equivalent to me
We have a defensive pact so if i get attacked then they'll help me but they won't help me if i start a war.
I'm not in a position to get in a war right now, my economy is barely stable and i can't produce ships fast enough.
The good thing is, the other empire is treated as hostile and any system i control is automatically mine. There is no claims system. So i don't need to spend shit tons of influence just claiming systems. One good war and I'll weaken them severely. Eventually I'll conquer the whole galaxy by either wars(dumb way) or by making allies it's hours of fun.
Till now my best save was managing to conquer (almost) the entire galaxy but losing out to rebels because i thought, "hey, you've got almost the entire galaxy, there's a tiny fallen empire left who's fine all by themselves, why do you even need a huge starship fleet?" And later because I retired most of my fleet the rebellion got triggered causing me loss.