Weird colony issue in SEIV Deluxe

[Suicide Junkie]

I myself once made a sacrifice play with almost all of my navy to get a colony ship through two neutral systems in CBmod (Neutrals are very tough customers in CB, often having more warships than the normals since they don't waste them in wars)

I got to the far side with very heavy casualties, only to discover that I'd forgotten to bring colonists!

Fortunately, nobody else took the opportunity to smash through my warppoint bases before I was able to start rebuilding my navy.