Moving into the idea of a NRP before the climax of societies powers.


There are a lot of options. A sci-fi nrp dosen't have to have ships. Maybe ships are an additional extension of the army and not the bulk. Like, fleets of space navies exist but unless you want to bombard a planet into crisp. Figuratively, doing so in a pre-ftl stage of tech for empires would be like nuking Earth.
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Could be interesting to have a war in a smaller, more contain nugget of galaxy. Maybe even say...a stand off between races/planets for a single galaxy that have sent ships before hand decades ago. So the powers that be could be strong, even advanced. But the numbers there are limited.

once the faction already there is gone. That's it. No other of the empires ships are coming for like 50 years. Even then, any ships that arrive would be crazy out of date to attack said galaxy. That way..we can have a galactic war thats tone down, while having the big, crazy societies and races. Defeat is not some dramatic fall of an empire, just the start of a new space colonial age and an indication of who is going to have a good start.


Possibility for a continuation of story later on too despite who wins.