We will go with that (Me having blue while you have orange). [quote]And how many other countries/nations/empires are going to be there?[/quote] As many as we want; middle powers with interstellar space travel that act as allies to us will be naturally well defined. The galactic equivalent of the third world will be pretty much free to all sorts of strangeness either of us wants to occupy it with. [quote]Also, I take it that we are in control of billions of systems?[/quote] Yes. Both super powers span a large portion of the galaxy, the full extent of our power probably will be even greater than what is shown on the map when you factor in what 'alliances' we may have with lesser societies. Logistically it sounds like a nightmare, but mind that 90% of star systems are basically glorified resource caches. The 10% of stars with habitability would be at varying levels of development. Either way, we both are massive galaxy spanning super powers and have the technology and power to hold such vast amount of space while still having incentives to dominate the whole galaxy. FTL will need to be able to traverse the galaxy in days.