"put down rebellions,"

[Yef]

I wish we get more diplomatic options in SE5.
Granting independance, real rebellions, as in civil wars, with half your fleet going over the rebels, political simulation, with everything from political parties, dinasties, castes, megacorporations buying politicians and mining in non-controlled space, independent colonists, random pirates, trade lines, letters of privateer, and so on.
I can see myself passing laws against independent colonization.
I wish we could influence, and define an empire, by passinf laws. That would be awesome.
If our world today is politically complicated, imagine an Space Empire with 100 planets.

I can see certain colonist exterminating the local predators, while a animal rights group on the Homeworld trying to get to goverment to stop them, not to mention colonists getting in trouble with local primitives, and local primitives buying a nuke from some gunrunners, and nuking the colony, and full out war, and at Last when the goverment intervine it actually tries to separate the sides, but the colonists see that as treason from the gov., as siding with aliens, and so on, and so on.

Heck, I'm dreaming too much today.