I am considering a small race of probably synthetic lifeforms, quite old in relation to many of the other empires and having witnessed the rise and fall of a number of civilizations. Since Darkmatter seems to have explained it's very difficult if not near impossible to travel through dark space for the Technocracy, I would think the same thing would apply to most of the other civilizations. Because of that, I am thinking these synthetics actually live in dark space intentionally to avoid intrusions, living on ships that tear resources from planets orbiting dim or dead stars, or even no star at all, using graviton manipulation. Which kind of ties into how they survive and travel dark space with ease; they're masters of graviton manipulation, to the point that they integrate miniaturized graviton manipulators into their suits/bodies combined with miniaturized fusion reactors to enable their individuals to move extremely quickly and potentially 'fly' for limited distances or mimic telekinesis using the graviton manipulators.

It's all very nebulous but I'm thinking they're known by much of the galaxy as the Cartographers, or Watchers, or something else. Their aim is primarily observation and exploration, as well as experimentation with primordial worlds among a few other aims. Their mastery of graviton drives combined with prior knowledge of the layout of the galaxy would enable their ships to flit from place to place extremely quickly with little warm-up or planning involved. Thus their emphasis is on avoiding conflict.

Obviously this brings up the problem of interacting with other species. Which is interesting. I'm still mulling it over but I wanted to put it out there to get opinions.

These are some pictures I liked from deviantart;

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[center][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/bQ3dNC0.jpg[/IMG][/center]