So, on my way to bring peace and prosperity to my (soon to be) Galactic Empire I suddenly noticed that some upstart nation I never even heard of before had become the most influential member of the GC. This of course hurt my righteous feelings of superiority, so I checked.
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Of course. It's one of those single system rebel empires the AI likes to produces. Except that this one comes from the spiritualist AE. Apparently rebelling against your vestigal overlords and stealing all their tech is enough to get on the council nowadays. Back in my day we had to work for that privilege! Oh well, the GC or it's Council won't be a problem for much longer anyway.
PS: That empire with the 9.1k voting in my favor? It's a bordering ME that absolutely hates me. The AI is weird.