Things were definitely looking up, but this game still remained to be won. While I occupied myself with building up the former Mrrshan core worlds, the Klackons and Sakkra were finishing off the cats:
I would have taken Pollus myself, except that it's already been bombed out and has zero factories. If there's no factories, there's no chance to pick up tech, and no reason to bother invading. So instead I'll let the Sakkra destroy the last Mrrshan world and take the blame for their genocide. Say goodbye to kitty.
The main thing I need in order to win the next election is further population. This tech will go a long way towards realizing that goal:
I had been using Terraforming +30 up to that point; let's add another 30 million people on all 12 of my worlds and see how things look at the next vote! The extra 120 factories on each planet won't hurt either.
One of the techs I managed to look from the Mrrshans was an Advanced Space Scanner, finally allowing me to see a complete picture of the galaxy. Here's the Mineral situation for this particular map:
In the east, you can see that I've ended up with three former Mrrshan planets; the Sakkra will end up taking the other three. (The ones I got all came with lots of factories, however, while they're going to have to stand up their takings from scratch.) More importantly, look at how awful my situation was in the northwest corner. The Poor and Ultra Poor worlds were bad enough, but having Altair go Poor as well was a harsh turn of events. Meanwhile, the Silicoids have a disgusting FIVE Rich or Ultra Rich worlds at their disposal, which has clearly helped them out markedly. That includes a Rich world poached in my backlines, as well as ones in Sakkra and Mrrshan space. Also note the complete lack of Artifacts worlds in this galaxy, although that was probably a good thing for me.
By the time of the 2600 vote, I've reached equality with the major AI powers, and therefore a winning position:
On Impossible, if you ever manage to catch up to the other races in technology, the game's already over. (Because you'll never reach that position unless you know what you're doing, and if you know what you're doing, the AI's not going to beat you without a tech lead.) True to form, I am able to cash out with a Diplomatic Victory at the next election, with support from my Klackon and Sakkra allies:
I abstain. 
The game goes on!
What am I doing? Usually I take the first victory offered, as I'd rather just start a new game than play around with mop-up, but for once I'm not going to do that. I had to spend the first 250 turns of this game desperately playing defense, kissing AI behind and sucking up to the Klackons and Silicoids. They even had the temerity to poach planets that were rightly in MY space! Well, I'm tired of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I can finally design ships able to stand up to the AI fleets, so I'm going to kick some AI behind for the next 25 turns, and we'll see who's laughing then!
The Silicoids had been my friends the whole game. We never fought aside from some inconclusive brush wars early on. But the rocks took one of the planets in MY space, and they were going to have to pay for that! 
Oh, what a shame. The Silicoid Scatter Pack VII bases are all but USELESS against my heavily shielded Autorepair Huge designs! 
Poach my core worlds? Poach THIS! (That attack might look like overkill, but I actually FAILED to take the planet! Had to send a second wave. They, uh, had a slight edge in gropo tech. 
)
Zoctan was the Rich planet in my backlines that I had resented the Silicoids for owning all game. I grabbed quite a few factories when I took it, and of course was able to flip it around very fast after capture (it being a Rich world). From there, I next invaded Maalor, the Silicoid Ultra Rich colony, taking this as a souvenir:
Yep, that's what we were after. Probably too late in the game for this to mean much, but I've got the tech, I'll build the factories.
I had no gun technology to speak of for pretty much the entire game (Ion Cannon was the only one I actually researched), so there had been no point in building Large or Huge ships until the very end. But now I did; I picked up the Megabolt Cannon in one of my invasions (from the Mrrshans, I think) and with Andrium armor and Omega-V bombs, I was able to design one of those Huge Autorepair ships that are always so effective. The Silicoids had absolutely no answer to that ship, and so I rapidly ran over world after world. Their homeworld was simply one undistinguished target among many:
There were very few techs left to loot by that time, to be honest. By 2625, the Silicoids had been humbled:
In the space of 25 turns, I captured or planted my flag on nine different Silicoid possessions. The only thing preventing me from reaching even further ahead was a lack of Star Gate technology (which I was researching).
What a difference 25 turns can make. Now that I'm conclusively dominant in every way, there's no need to continue this game. I'll be happy to cash in my position for a win in the upcoming vote. I probably should have won the last one, but crushing the Silicoids was too much fun to pass up.
And my fleet at the end. The Stingers and Omega-V Bombers both gave me great service before becoming obsolete, but the Huge ships tipped the scales into a uncontrollable snowball. Usually I wouldn't waste two design slots on the same generation of military technology, but adding the High Energy Focus was too important not to create a better design.
Domination win in 2625, yay! Another rather late finish, but it's the outcome that counts. Quite a challenge for the first 200 turns of the game; I was extremely pessimistic for most of that time, even if it didn't come across in the report. I honestly did not see a way to win for much of the game, and considered quitting on quite a few occasions. I'm very pleased that I was able to stick it out and not only survive, but find a successful route through the tangled web of diplomacy. Attacking and capturing planets intact is clearly the way to go in this game when behind; the key breakthrough was realizing that I couldn't possible invade the Klackons and Silicoids, so I would have to catch up via invading one of the weaker races. The Mrrshans just drew the short straw. Not that I feel sorry for them, the anti-avian bigots!
I hope this was entertaining; it was quite a ride while playing. 
