I've just began a new pre-warp start as the human based atuuko confederacy.
After the galactic war and premature release of the doomsday virus, all advanced worlds including the human's were dying. One last colony ship could see the writing on the wall, and left to the outer rim of the galaxy on a do-or die mission to find a habitable planet.
They crash-landed on the sparse and less than ideal planet of atuuko prime, but a large proportion of the colonists survived and were taken in by the simple, but non-technological atuuk natives. Led by the human's ingenuity they set up a seat of power that would become the world government.
Many years later the republic, having lost their culture and technology, proceeded again to set out for the stars and re-discover their lost history.
After an unexpected attack by the "vicious gangster" pirate organisation, the confederacy agreed to provide tribute to the invaders to protect their early space interests. The greatest spy on Atuuk Prime, Than Undulian, was secretly ordered to board the a visiting alien ship and head out into space alone to discover the location of the group.
Within one year he returned with many miraculous stories of the technological marvels the group had at their disposal.
Most importantly however he had two concrete facts; the location of the pirate's main base of operations, and that of a relatively nearby alien civilisation of similar technological capability to the confederacy. The race were the Kanteas Gula Prime nation, Naxxilians, huge aggressive reptiles.
While intrigued by the discovery, the republic was shocked by the barbaric military culture of the race and saw them as a long-term threat to peace should they eventually discover the ability to spread into the stars with their ideology.
A phycological specialist, Kevin Walkin, was sent into space in a foreign trade cruiser to attempt to subvert the course of their civilisation to a more peaceful route, while Than was sent back out to secretly sabotage the construction of new military vessels of the gangsters which threatened the home planet.
Walkin's interference with the Naxxilians was a disaster. The military dictatorship was subverted by his rigging of their planetary todash championships (a key part of the government's cultural influence) by backing an outsider organisation. That organisation was taken over by the overpowering rule of a dictator, causing the Nation to fall into despotism.
The confederacy still intends to prevent future disaster by correcting their error and installing a just government to the Nation, but only time will tell if they can succeed...