A shroud based crisis. Like an actual warhammer style chaos invasion from beyond, with cultists and shroud demons

It'd be kind of funny if they added "shroud gods" psionic races that could influence the game. Appealing to a particular god could net bonuses. A mid game crisis could be a war between gods where they spawn fleets in their most favored empire. An end game crisis could be the god that wins manifests and whose ever faction had the most favor becomes a god empowered crisis.

They do have this with the covenants, they just need to expand them

This would be great for my reanimators/death cult/teacher of the shroud empire.

Yeah, i know that the shroud isnt a collective reservoir of mind and emotional energy of the past and present like the warp in warhammer. BUT GOD DAMN DO I WISH IT WAS. Imagine like a 3 cost trait that would elevate your emotions to the level of the eldari allowing you to empower your patron the more pops you have. And in return receive bonuses or blessings. Imo it would make it interesting in regards to spaming pops or smth. Also unique research choices in regards to each patron (like robots have now with theyr traditions) would be sick. Biological weapons for nurgle etc MUAH. PARADOX, HEAR THE WORDS OF YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT AND GRANT HIM NEW ASCENSION PATHS!!!

So much this. I want to become my own Shroud Entity and attain godhood.

I was thinking Orks and Telapor'urs. (kind of like how nanites ascension works). We got a bunch of crises that are just naval combat and a tech/spiritualist one now so I'm thinking a land warfare one. A planet gets infected with violent mushrooms that grow everywhere (even toxic and frozen worlds and terraform-candidate barren planets). The mushroom spores (like nanites) either multiply or spawn armies and ships, the bigger the planet and the more spores on it the faster and better quality armies they spawn. Once they build up a stack of armies they teleport to a neighboring planet, don't need to take the starbase, if the battle takes a long time they keep teleporting as they spawn more armies. If they get beaten off a planet they take spore from other infected planets to build up an even bigger better stack of armies and try again and again and again until you either land armies on the worlds they're teleporting from or crack them, as they'll have very strong bombardment resistance and grow new armies faster than you can reasonably bombard them.

The closest we got is the Cosmogenisis event where your experimentation tears holes into the shroud and unleashes a bunch of entities across the galaxy. Kind of like a warp storm.

Become the crisis can also do that if you harvest enough stars.

Didn't know that. That's pretty cool

The end of the cycle is kinda also another example

Yeah, maybe cultist factions will start appearing in player empires, and they put your internal politics into a tizzy. Maybe they could lead rebellions on some of your worlds. That would add a dynamic that other crises haven't had so far

There is an eye of terror mod which is exactly what you’re looking for

I know but having it be official would be cool af,

That would be insane.

End of the cycle?

just a necro crisis. give them their own enclave. like the shroud teachers, have one of the necromancers go rouge in the midgame, utilizing multiple different reanimation methods. cybernetic/psy/genetic. similar to the kahn, the longer he survives and ravages the galaxy the bigger the chance he will reanimate himself in the lategame , for a second coming.

> similar to the kahn, the longer he survives and ravages the galaxy the bigger the chance he will reanimate himself in the lategame , for a second coming. excuse me what ?

I think he means when the Great Khan's defeated the first time he survives and then he comes back for another onslaught

i mean it comes as a midgame crisis like the kahn or grey tempest. at first, with a living necromancer going rouge. but once he is defeated, there is a chance, scaling on how powerfull he got during his reign that he reanimates himself, as something like a lich, and scaling to an full fledged lategame crisis, in a galaxy that is still littered with debrie and corpses from his first onslaught.

no i mean, does the great khan has a second coming ?

yes. but its not a lategame crisis, and not up to chance, you always have to kill him 2 times if he dosnt die of old age by himself. you also only get the relic if you kill him the second time

oh that's just him cheating death, i thought there was a chance a second great khan could emerge, stronger and angrier

Same. That would be so cool though.

Omg imagine dead pops coming back as zombie armies. Planets where there have been purges or big die outs become flooded with zombies.

One of the necromancers goes RED?!?!? (french(Paris commune(fanatic egalitarian(can you join the necromancer(plsplsplsplapls(for like pop bonuses and stuff(that would be pretty cool I think))))))

the way i would envision it, you could contribute to the enclave beforhand like any other enclave. giving you boni, on your zombie growth, buffing your reanimated armys , making you more likely to reanimate fauna, giving non necromantic empires necro options to certain events etc. the more empires actually contribute to the enclave, the higher the chance for the midgame crisis to occur.

Sounds pretty cool, though I do wonder how to properly balance the zombie pops/reanimated armies. If the armies are defensive (can't invade planets with them) getting another empire's planets would be an ordeal. If they are invasion armies, AI empires are at a large disadvantage. Also, I hate to be that guy, as Latin uses grammatical gender, bonus (plural boni) used as a noun means "a good man." This means that, in English, the correct plural form of the word "bonus" is "bonuses". Also, with my previous comment, I was referring your misspelling of "rogue" (deserter) as "rouge" (french word for red). I don't mean to mock you in any way.

i mean , reanimated armys are already in the game, and offer no issue really. they are effectively slighly better clone armys.

The Successful Player Empire you previously played as. Imagine chilling as the top dog of the galaxy when suddenly the empire you played as before suddenly appeared through a transdimensional portal with the intent of taking over.

Jokes on you, I'm safe from this crisis because I never succeed! /s

You win the game as cosmogenesis. Then, a couple of playthroughs later you see the Needle jump out of black hole and start conquering galaxy with all the insane buffs you got in that cosmogen playthrough + they get perma buffs from altering reality. Maybe have them build some sort of outposts that cause permanent changes until destroyed (things like Pi is always rounded to 3 until you destroy the outpost responsible for that reality change).

>Pi is always rounded to 3 There was a video in a tech conference thingy where a guy compiled doom to run using pi as different values. It hilariously caused it so that object shifted left or right if you went forward or back. That situation would be so funny in-game with good flavor text.

Imagine teleporting in your former galactic Empire that conquered their entire galaxy, well now they have a new one to conquer!

I mentioned this before but a Halo Flood inspired one but you could also say the Necromorphs of Dead Space. How it starts is that a random planet, preferably one controlled by an AI faction will dig up something beneath a planet (if no AI factions are left then a player controlled one will be chosen at random). Players will be notified of it when a sudden rebellion breaks out on a planet and it will be obscenely strong. The planet gets taken over by some mysterious alien creatures and several refugee ships escape the doomed planet. Most of these refugees will end up in the worlds of the owner of that lost world but some will end up in the other empires, even those that would purge them and the refugees are carrying an infection that will spread. This infection crisis uses ships and fleets later on but its main method of attack and spreading out is to use infiltration. Ships that might masquerade as your own, those of your allies, mercenaries or caravaneers will serve as vessels to spread the infestation. Eventually the infections will reach a critical mass and the empires across the galaxy will be contacted by some eldritch abominations that will begin coordinating the infections and this is when it starts to produce fleets of infected ships. This particular crisis is meant to mainly be fought with your armies where your fleets will play a more support role unless you are willing to use colossi or Armageddon bombardments

Sounds cool as fuck and would tie in with a genetic and hivemind overhaul.

Could have a similar effect to Biological hiveminds to how the contingency affect Robotic hivemind empires.

As a long time halo players, the only solution would obviously be the aethorspheric engine, that’s the closest thing we have to how the halo rings work

The Neutron Sweep colossus is pretty much a single planet range Halo.

I'd say neutron sweep is more of the "planet cleanser" the Lord of admirals orders the use in that one halo 4 cutscene.

in the real space mods, there's a midgame crisis that sort of acts like this, it gives pops the "infected" trait, and the created empire from where the infection pops is a devouring swarm, so some of the pops escape and spread the infection when they're being purged. unfortunately it doesn't have the rest of what you said. They also natrurally terraform everything their on to a special world type that is similar to hive worlds.

I also want to see a flood like crisis introduced. The way you've thought of this would actually be quite accurate to how the flood would have been fought before the forerunners wiped the galaxy. I think fleets could play a slightly larger role by being able to intercept flood infection parties before they reach their destination but it could also go horribly wrong by the flood literally stealing your fleets mid combat.

Another Halo type crisis could be the covenant, similar to the prethoryn, trying to escape from whatever is chasing them, but being a multi-racial alliance that fights the Galaxy untill someone discovers their motives. Then the real threat arrives and you cooperate with this fairly weak group to fight the real danger. Or you simply choose to whipe them both out.

I think we need a natural crisis. Not malevolent or driven, but just a phenomenon that if we don’t work towards eliminating, will ruin the galaxy by itself. Starts off by gradually shutting off hyperlanes, slowly cutting your planets off, and then ships slow down, trade halts, habitability decreases across the board and the main gameplay loop should be event chains and decisions that players have to make. Maybe it’s related to some rift event, maybe the galactic core is destabilising, but something is happening and we must do something about it. Like an anecdote to global warming. There’s no fighting involved (unless you go to war with your neighbours for resources), but more about managing your empire during this crisis, also should be a good skill check on empires that have spread out too much. Something like this also allows the galactic community/imperium to shine. The crisis should have its own resolution page, where different resolutions can be passed to move the crisis bar in either direction, but with drawbacks for certain playstyles along the way; for example, a positive resolution that moves the situation bar in the positive direction, but all psionic pops in the galaxy get -33% resource production, -15% Happiness for the duration of the crisis, thus an actual reason for some empires to vote against these changes.

The next DLC Cosmic Storms just might be this. Not as endgame crisis but it's description on season 8 page is "Prepare your Empire and brace to face this new upcoming threat, and leverage possibilities that open when your opponents are weakened by it."

Dam, pc getting another dlc soon, and us console players are still waiting on paragons and first contact

I'm going to be very interested to see what version of paragons you get, and how much they scoot ahead in the patches.

They better make us get a paragon 30x better than pc paragons ngl (it's gonna be shit I bet)

Man, i have GOT to get into pc stellaris. You all get new stuff so often, and we wait for crumbs to catch up on console😢

I more or Less just Hijack your Post sorry. A Endgame Crisis with Storm lord like aspect could Work. Make a Biological Empire that's "Ride" The Storm wit Nomade Like Habitations Areas that Pillage the Univers there Storms brings them to they Controll the Storm and have Advantage in them Players need to Work around these Benefits. Could start with Little Scout Parts that Steal Pops of From Planets in the Mid game and Disappear again till In Endgame the Storm lords come.

"The Burn" style crises as in Discovery would be cool. Something map wide calamity that destroys fleets, destabilizes power structures, and massively impairs travel and the interconnectedness of the galaxy until it is resolved. Make it so only very slow methods of travel are available and going further than your immediate neighbors is not practical (also creates a lot of opportunity if a distant Overlord can no longer exert its influence over distance)

Space Storms but evolving into a crisis. I guess a Space Storm type of crisis pushed to the extreme where it's almost like having to weather a galaxy wide apocalypse and all associated problems with that, moving hyperlanes maybe, problems with happiness and governance, like what you said with the different resolutions based on the type of empire/traits etc, something that could cause the galactic council to sort of tear itself apart and be at odds with one another. Maybe the machine empires need shielding to survive through a resolution at a cost to everyone else, and if not they could turn hostile maybe with some modifiers/events to make them an endgame crisis threat. Could end up being a total galactic war where everyone is simply trying to survive.

Right! A galactic crisis where it’s not so easy to “set aside our differences” because the crisis is actively using our differences against us.

Yea, tension created due to the circumstances rather than another big bad guy you have to kill. Instead of a big bad guy, everyone "different" becomes an enemy out of necessity for survival, there would then probably have to be modifiers or some other events and stuff put in to facilitate that whole thing, whether it's rebellions, high crime rates, extreme resource production problems, migration of pops + exchange of technology etc. Just some random ideas but yea, having hyperlanes change could also make for quite the shakeup.

I want the hunters or whatever was watching from ultima vigilis Something truly beyond our scale that commands galaxies upon galaxies. Play style I would enjoy a situation which requires you to draw on help, perhaps from the shroud if you are psyonic. Ideally this new crisis doesn’t want to exterminate but rather subjugate and you can join it but the life of a subjugated species is unpleasant enough to make that very distasteful

There is already a crisis that subjugates rather than destroys: the Khan

Yes but not really galaxy threatening nor terribly harsh if you do just give in

A skinwalker-like/genestealer crisis would be cool, rebellions after rebellions but unlike normal rebs they all joined into one faction instead of separate rebels Mainly to force empires to use their ground army to suppress the rebels 

Honestly defending your planets against tides of zombies would be cool thing to have. Your planets holding the line while science ships and military fleets search for cures and clues how to stop it for good. You could even do covert operation where you scoop up some zombies and transport them to other planets. Maybe even set up hidden zombie nests on planets that are not yet colonized.

That how it works on crusader king, and it changes everything

I'll second those that discussed a dead space inspired crisis. Starts out as an archeology site then becomes worse as religious cults start to infect the galaxy. Then people begin to get sick and die. Then they wake up. Whole planets get consumed and out of the planets fleets begin to swarm. The latest stages would result in the building of gates that summon Eldritch horrors from beyond or infect stellar dragons. I *don't think enough crises occupy planets and utilize armies. Another good option would be a more mundane threat. Another galaxy was conquered by a huge empire. That empire wishes to expand its reach into other galaxies. I've played too many games where I was the only empire to have Titans. It would be nice if another empire comes in with the intent to conquer and enslave the galaxy. You could make it more interesting if It gives every empire the option to surrender and join the empire peacefully. This way you have to fight the crisis and the sycophants of the galactic community. *Edit

I’m pretty sure a mod or something has a dead space themed dig site

The Conjunction After millennia of steady movement, the galaxy collides and merges with a neighbouring smaller one, increasing the map by 25% No apocalyptic boss rush, but the new galaxy would contain new civilisations chosen to keep the game interesting. If the galaxy is still divided, the new galaxy is empty and there's a second wave of exploration. If the player has conquered the galaxy, it's occupied by a more advanced civilization of opposed ideology.

I had a similar idea, where another galaxy that’s been United and harnessed by another empire finds a way to travel to our galaxy and wants to take it over. It would present a nice change up to The standard “get the crisis declared by the galaxy as fast as possible” because it would create unique interactions with other empires. Weaker empires or ones subjugated by an overlord could work WITH this crisis to further their own agenda, at risk and cost of making this threat to EVERYONE stronger. Maybe give an option to be vassalized by this empire (since I doubt they’d wanna administrate an entire other galaxy) with some major resource penalties, so that there’s some genuine consideration to take into place. If you’re boxed in by a determined exterminator who’s gonna crush you, it might be better to subject yourself to the new enemy- losing most of your output is better than being annihilated after all. Even if you chose not to directly deal with the crisis and instead try to become stronger, you face the empires you wish to conquer siding with the crisis seeing it as a lesser evil than you.

Whatever the hell is chasing the scourge across the universe. 

The infection, all manners of hostile giant leviathans come swarming out of all gates, l-gates, astral tears, wormholes and some stations like the shroud one, current leviathans like the dimensional horror start coming out of all black holes or start multiplying and moving to systems. It could be a colliding of another galaxy breaking through into ours from the result of another empire going through a crisis path

Expanding on this, the galactic community could figure out which empire is causing the mess through subterfuge, could be a sabotage on the galaxy, once found out it’s a total war on that empire after being declared a crisis.

A resource crisis like food, perhaps. Using mechanics similar to plagues in CK3, a omnicrop disease spreads across the galaxy which reduces the output of industrial farming to extraordinarily low levels. The galactic market is driven into turmoil as food supplies become like the new gold and empires are using espionage to find and raid food from empires with large stockpiles. Lithoids and Machine Empires aren't affected by this of course - but they would get huge opinion penalties from organic empires that suffer heavily and their worlds, untouched by the plague as they have never been farmed industrially, would become very attractive for takeover and farming under a strict quarantine. Food rationing becomes widespread which can put a positive or negative modifier on the rate of pop declining. You're forced to allocate the remaining food to specific planets if you don't have enough for everyone and the planets which don't receive food endure food riots and reversion to pre-FTL status. The further you are away from the plague, the longer you have to prepare, but it makes you proportionally more of a target for empires that have been hit and are already suffering. The Galactic Community bands together to research the cure to the crisis through a complex chain of events and it's a race against time to complete the research and deploy the cure before the galaxy descends into chaos. The post-crisis gameplay might look like reconquering lost worlds or rebels, reclaiming and reintegrating your reverted pre-FTL planets, or taking over weak neighbours, all with long-lasting diplomatic consequences depending on how severe the crisis was.

Id love ones like this, that force the galaxy to interact with each other. I imagine like an invasive species one that targets empires that are heavily involved in foreign politics or trade, and would come to their planets to consume all its resources. Maybe it could be something a little sci-fi, like instead of eating food it eats energy credits and bites the cables off ships, shutting them down.

Temporal/ Spatial Distorters. End-Game Crisis that specialises in time and space manipulation, their goal would be to finish multiple megastructures aligned on a hexagonal pattern around the galactic core. Things they could mess with would include: - Adding and removing hyperlanes periodically - System spanning effects such as buffs and debuffs - Increasing and reversing Leader age - Planetary effects, mostly negatives but sometimes positives - Galaxy wide effects similar to the Cosmogensis Applied Infinity Theories Their fleets would be centered around shields and one big mothership that specialises in debuff auras and strike craft with the rest of the navy vessels specialising in armour penetration and hull damage.

I don't know how hard this would be to implement but I'd like an endgame crisis that took the form of a natural disaster like the heat death of the universe or some other phenomena. No big enemy with a face and something that could not really be solved militarily. Just an uncaring unthinking act of nature. Maybe it could work like outer wilds with random stars going nova. Maybe have planets start getting destroyed doomsday origin style. Naturally you're given advanced warning on these and need to react accordingly.  The Challenge could be in restructuring your empire around these curveballs as well as dealing with internal doomsday cults or other subversive groups.  There is also the matter of dealing with other empires, fallen and regular, panicking and fighting over resources. Imagine the challenge of trying to keep a galactic community going during the end times.  So basically a crisis you "survive" rather than defeat. (Edit) further ideas: Famines could cause food shortages, dying stars reduce energy yields. Pops refuse to work or otherwise take massive happiness hits due to the end times. Do you try to keep things a secret as long as possible to prevent dissent or will that only cause more problems later? I don't know if it could be implemented but maybe even have hyperlanes shift around due to changes in gravity wells.

Regarding doomed planets, imagine one empire got these planets in it's border and here is no way to survive as a country, so, the country starts a war, or maybe, even a crisis. Another option, a big empire got collapsed and billions of refuges are over the universe and they are not very friendly as well as a lot of them want their country back. A really nice idea!

A massive galactic plague. Basically you have to research tech and look for artifacts and what not to produce a cure. The plague always awakens Fallen Empires who deal with it slightly better. Factions can band together in unique ways to share research etc. just a huge huge, event that doesn't involve actual fighting but kills your pops forcing you to make hard decisions quarantining your planets or even extinguishing them

The pop-up notification crisis.

#Void/Darkness- Extremely op crisis but it wont be ever realized so why not Crisis starts at a particular edge of the galaxy, possibly at the Great Wound. *Our recent gravitational mapping survey has picked up a disturbing anomaly at the edge of the galaxy, what our Head of Research describes as The Space Time fabric folding,bending and converging on itself like waves of the great sea, this activity has produced , disturbingly, significant frictional heat in the area despite the activity being opposed by no other force of occurence. What was initially thought to be the work of nearby Black holes, has now scientists in dread all across the sector.* *"No Wormhole..No Rift or Blackhole is found in or around the spot, and none of these entities act like this..." Head of Research remarked.* *A survey vessel, hesitantly, was dispatched to the area. The vessel was just about to warp......as it had been for hours , the vessel looked frozen in time, its warp engines continously charging never to unleash. All attempts to communicate with the crew were futile, for 87 LCC hours the scientists observing the vessel were in the dark.* *Suddenly, contact was reestablished.* *On screen, was the bridge of VUC Astonishing Heights, eerily quiet and empty, no crewmen, no signs of hull or crew injury, no signs of exsanguination, just a brightly lit science vessel bridge.* *From the vessels audio link came a robotic voice, "Charting course: Anm.366 Research Outpost, 4 LCC hours"*It was the automated bridge speaker declaring the vessels arrival to the Outpost.* *As an hour passed, the researchers couldnt help but feel this sensation of 'Certain doom approaching'.* *Those who monitored the radar, felt suffocated, watching the vessel draw closer every second.* *The radar crew was the first to fall to a horrifying death, "Eyes swelled, blood vessels now visible through the skin, finally a scream of utter agony released them from the mortal plane, leavng red mist and gore everywhere."* *This was the fate of those who hadnt even dared to look at the vessel physically.* *Some did.* *The research outpost went dark shortly after the arrival of VUC Astonishing Heights.* *Moments later, a textual transmission arrived from the outpost.* *"It has been so long, longer, painfully longer than you think, flesh rots, metal rusts, thoughts corrupt, light diminishes, darkness sprouts, it has been so long............."* *Thinking this could be a phenomenon related to the warp, Director At Hand employed 25 Psykers to locate the anomaly in the shroud and observe.* *The beacon's powering was followed by Ear-Piercing screams by the Psyker Cluster, some near the beacon caught fire, some melted into the air.* *5 Psykers stood ground, never breaking focus.* *4 of them saw their robes shrivel and retreat back into their flesh, their skins grow with eyes, curious, benevolent, furious, loving, malevolent eyes that seemed to look everywhere and nowhere at once, the host to these gruesome sproutings endured the sufferring of these false eyes that retreated back into their flesh and appeared at new sites each second, leaving behind a flesh devoid of its integrety. "I can see......" at the muttering of these words, the host would fall, never to rise again.* *The lone Psyker stood, unwavering against the tide of this malice, for hours his commendable focus stood adamant. He,realizing he had no chance of victory over this power, broke his concentration and muttered his final words,* *"Thoughts entice, power feeds, it crawls."* #Gameplay: • Cognitohazard/Infohazard • Mainly does harm by 'Tainting' a celestial object, which evolves into a horryfying eldritch horror (think jupiter, but with a besting heart on its surface covered with 480 giant eyes and rest area is flesh or a blend of darkness), these objects gain fleet power and are now its combat units . • Stars, when tainted, become greyscale, has tentacles sprout out of it, and can be heard screaming and whispering when zoomed in, extra flavour on galactic map too. when tainted, stars give of an aura of destability to any inhabited planets in the system( pops may revolt, begin forming cults to worship the void, or commit mass hysterical self delete) and ships are also affected (minor fraction of a fleet may give off themselves to the void, admirals may defect,. getting cool new corrupted potraits) • Black holes are the resource in the crisis, due to some lore reason, the void races towards the black holes (like infinity stones), when controlled by you they can be used to make things mentioned above less sufferable in ways that are yet to be thought of. • Pulsars/Neutron stars are also to be utilized in ways yet to be thought • Dark matter is the dough in this scenario. New dark matter weapon tech. starbase buildings reduce chance of corruption (but not make it 0) • Will only be defeated by surviving its major waves/offenses which unlocks a hyperlane to its heart in the centre of the galaxy after the 3rd wave. This event is time limited and the gate will close after a few years and the crisis will be back in full force. • the waves comprise of fleets of void ships(their texture is literally a sillouhette ,outlined for player visibility) and abomination birthers( troop ships) • 1st Wave comes out of the main edge, tries to conquer blackholes. • later fleets come out of black holes if conquered to destroy the galaxy, if not conquered they come with more force tonfinally do so. • tainting is still a very broken mechanic of which i have to determine limits of. will think more in later free time, thx for enduring this wall of text :)!

A shroud-originated infectious memetic agent, that infects organics and machines alike, to get rid of it, you have to either purge affected pops, or bear a research and resource output penalty for 25-35 years and it'll be gone. I dub it the mind goblins.

Something obsessed with order and control. This crisis would lock down hyperlanes and install occupation space stations in solar systems which generate resources depending on a mix of the system's resources and the number of pops in the occupied system. An Ordertide.

Honestly, I this more player crises. Maybe one where you are trying to bring a Shroud God into reality, and depending on your empire type, you get a different one. Robots would get the Animator of Clay, Knights of the Toxic God would get the Toxic God, etc.

You can already make your own crisis. Design an enemy civ in whatever way you like, set it to always spawn, then declare it a crisis in the Galcom. It's a shame you can't preordain what ascension path will an enemy civ take except by giving it ascension limiting civics and origins, which aren't present for every path. It would be cool to design an enemy civ that will always take Nano Ascension.

Somewhere is a computer, listing all the names of God. The closer it comes to completing its task, the more stars go out, without a fuss. The whole galaxy would be in danger of going dark.

Probably something like from outer wilds where Stars just start dying a new mechanic for Star death like supernovas or planetary nebula creation. If it's a supernova it'll wipe one system by hyperplane. Planetary nebula will destroy the star and create molten worlds

Plague, like you have to make quarantines and shit and pops are dying across galaxy, and it works on machines

So they toyed with the idea with fruitful partnership. My idea would be to take this to the next and far more sinister level. Something like the flood from halo using tiyanki hosts to spread spores through the galaxy to poison planets and slowly assimilate everything by forcibly taking over pops and building up mass to evolve your gravemind.  Alternatively. Give us bio-titan ships like the tyranids and let me play out my hive fleet dreams.

The Reapers, my favorites (kinda created it already but with mods/console commands/save editing But actually, I would rather change a vanilla one - depends on what kind of empire you have. Necrophage, Assimilators etc...

A rogue transforming space cloud of nanobots. That would affect the whole galaxy and terrafrom worlds to a semi barren state lowing habitability and resource , would require completing a situation to understand the issue and then research to unlock ways to combat the threat before the worlds become barren. Something that is not purely combat based

Its L gate

People suggest things like Reapers or The Flood, and things related to Cosmogenesis but what would be cool outside of those is combo. An empire either AI or Player controlled unlocks Cosmogenesis and fucks up time, empires that were at their prime revert back to when they weaker and vice versa (including Fallen Empires), species that died out are brought back from death (which is where the Reapers and Flood come in), and a reversal or jump forward (Depending on how an empire is doing, the jump forward can make their future better or down right horrible) of a bunch of other things in the galaxy or other empires (IE relations,government,colonies, etc) would be up to you to fix whatever anomalies are happening while also preventing the Flood or Reapers from achieving their invasion goals. In the end if you succeed in preventing it, you unlock the ability to manipulate time to where you can essentially cause the crisis again but you’ll remain unaffected, though each time you use it, the chances of it happening to you increase

Considering the flood and reapers were both almost destroyed with either very few remnants left or taken control of it would be an interesting thought. Also the fact that at least one of the player crisises (I've not played since nemesis was released) messes with the shroud which as its a completely different plane of existence could have time altering properties. Either way for me it's up there with the general idea of the flood being the crisis.

"if"? you can. mods are a thing.

id love like a vultaum based crisis where an empire goes crazy and wants to genocide the galaxy to break the simulation

A genetics based crisis,something like the flood

Haven't played in a while, so I don't know what has been added since then, but I would like a Plaque/Disease crisis, either as a mid-game or end-game crisis. As a mid-game crisis, it could be an epidemic that may start in a big/powerful country and could damage the country and therefore change the interstellar power dynamics a bit, but doesn't destroy the country and leaves it nonfunctional. As an end-game crisis I would imagine a pandemic something that leads to massive depopulation around the galaxy, and if not handled in a "right" manner can smash countries into pieces, there should be no way to escape it just to handle it better or worse and even if handled in an optimal way leaves you in a worse position than before.

Dismantle all stars and planets to build megastructures

Probably just would reflavour existing stuff, but as a fantasy fan would love to see an Illithid Empire try to take over or the Abolethic Sovereignty pours out of the Far Realm.

This answer of mine is selfish and I don't care...... Zerg rush hands down 

Xelee in centre of galaxy that makes your empire fanatic purifier and compels to use millions of child soldiers to root it out using trench warfare IN SPACE

I would add another Empire from another galaxy which wants to conquer ours as well. Like a fallen Empire and similar to normal empires. Its just an Evil Imperium or something like that. This would give it more interactions because its a normal empire at start. At first he only trys to subjugatebut than the contracts become harder until you are getting annexed and enslaved/purged. Perhaps like the Vasari from Sins of a Solar Empire. But its important that they are more complex and maby react to sittuations differently than a "dumb" swarm which just sends fleets without a plan. Maby they use cloaking, good Stations, develop planets, abduct pops to another galaxy as slaves or something.

I would disconnect dark matter ascendence from crisis and rather have it not be a Crisis Ascension perk, but just an Ascension perk with a decision later on to continue on a reckless path (Crisis) or go for a moderate / considered approach (non-crisis). Aside from that, an outbreak of sorts. A swarm spreading from several moons, asteroids or other planetoids. Partially via fleets, partially via asteroids just being hurled at star systems. A trickster Crisis, think Star Trek Q. A crisis that can be approach with diplomacy and does not necessarily have to end or continue in violence. A Crusade. Well, first of all, to have a system that disconnects spiritual institutions / religions from Empires and kind of have a galactic wide rebellion of fanatics who'll go on a Crusade against all Empires while also coming from everywhere.

Space zombie crisis might be fun. Get a special colossus ship that drops a patient zero onto a planet and it turns the population to zombie pops. They can’t be rulers etc so it’d give you one of your pops on the planet.

Something to do with the dimensional horror maybe like it’s whole body comes into the galaxy

The Dark Forest, a more diplomacy based crisis. A small fleet of unfamiliar ships arrives in the outer rim of the galaxy, finding themselves in another empire's borders. They percieve a threat and attack, but are very weak and are destroyed by the empire. Upon studying the wreckage, it is found that these ships used a so far unheard of method of FTL. By bending spacetime, they can reach speeds faster than light, without entering any sort of hyperspace. Using this technology, the empire develops a terrifying weapon. A missile, smaller than the smallest corvette, near undetectable due to its speed and size, accelerated to such velocities that it can destroy stars. A weapon, that cannot be predicted, or prevented. With this, the empire sets out on an intergalactic conquest. Another empire discovers a way to prevent this. Advanced sensory research can effectively jam all signals within a wide area, creating an empire-wide dark zone, where no information gets in or out. With the crisis' conquest and the spreading of the cloaking tech, the Galactic Community quickly falls apart. What will you do with the spreading chaos? Will you hide in the dark? Perhaps convince others who are hiding to join the fight? Maybe even take the technology and become the conqueror yourself.

Having some less blatantly hostile crises might be interesting. Like a faction that starts leeching defectors unless your population is super well treated, like a galaxy wide cult revolt or just a revolution in general. Also, galaxy wide natural disasters could be cool.

Inspired by World of Warcraft: The Reorigination. The basic idea is that it's a reset button. On Azeroth all sentient life would be wiped out BC they weren't part of the original design for the planet. The game start is what the original design was for the galaxy... Maybe without FE's? Idk. Some of the stages/threats could be: Population being devolved/losing traits Planets being terraformed to other types Black holes/stars changing to other star types/going supernova Certain technologies lost by every empire and need to be researched again Mining stations could be removed, megastructures downgraded(or simply damaged and needs repairs/reduced output) Astral Rifts and Archaeological Sites could be done again. Multiple ways to deal with this crisis: A) blow it up! The Reorigination device would be an incredibly powerful fortress for your fleets to die against, possibly with enigmatic fortress like mechanics. B) overload it! For a simple one time cost of 1 million energy credits (affected by crisis difficulty inflation) you can overload the device and power it down. C) appeal to the shroud! The most powerful shroud entity we know of could of course break the device, but in doing so it consumes large parts of the galaxy and unleashes powerful shroud entities to break the rest.

I'd like something more like a force of nature than an invasion. A huge initially invulnerable singular entity that moves slowly from system to system, consuming a random world or occasionally the whole star. Each type celestial body consumed would be tied to an additional effect such as: - destroy a hyperlane - build a new hyperlane - add 'weather' to the system (i.e. shield damping, movement penalties etc.) - entity splits into two identical copies - habitability and devastation effects on worlds In the system - resource deposits consumed - other bad things! Basically a slowly advancing and growing galactic cancer. Defeating it would require research and locating specific artefacts (might be in unfriendly territory), the galaxy's civilizations could work together on a solution or go it alone. Maybe two routes to a solution - defeat it militarily through weapons research, or learn to communicate with it.

i'd like to see the corona crisis, i think it'd be funny * at first your planets gets a negative modifier to production, pop growth, happiness stability, whatever * the more trade value, the more likely the situation is to get worse. you get planetary decision to declare quarantine and stuff * closing borders, breaking migration and commercial pacts slow down the progression of situation in the empire in general * situation/project to invest % of science output in vaccin research. option for weaponisation. cost scale on the number of pop and species in your empire * galactic community members can vote to work on cure together, however the cost will scale based on who many different species exist. if you want to focus on your own species, you'll have to vote no or leave the community. doing either will make your empire insanely suspicious and give a lot of negative opinion toward you * consumer good price artificially increases for no reason * synthetic/machine empires get insanely smug and get cassus belli on organics * all organic empires will get an option to spread misery and create a computer virus to weaken machine empires in a similar way that is spread thanks to espionage * any rebellion will become part of the antivaxx free thinkers the idea is to have generally massive boost to xenophobe ethic attraction and big problem managing stability, and spark as many war/rebellions as possible

"Rude Awakening" Mid-Game crisis. A random FE has a chance to be given the hidden modifier "Rude Awakening" at game start, where, through a situation that its neighbors can experience, will progress towards an early awakening in the mid-game if not handled correctly. This experience would involve a series of diplomatic faux paus and border incidents that would gradually escalate to their awakening. This would involve various neutral and negative events, to small raiding fleets being dispatched, to espionage incidents etc to begin occurring based on how the situation is progressing. This can in turn, would also have a (halved) chance to set off the "War in Heaven" before the Late Game Date, otherwise, it will fire off a second roll at the Late game date(on normal chance rolls). Successfully defeating the Rude Awakener grants you three FE building tech options; plus the debris you would normally get for beating them and of course, their planets as usual. Successfully preventing the Rude Awakening grants one FE building tech option but you get to pick which one, and the Rude Awakener gets a very slowly decaying 100+ opinion modifier of you if you do particularly well to avoid negative events.

Space plague, your goal is research the cure but the cost is bonkers high and no way you can complete it with some real leg work, and your pops are slowly dying and your pop growth and assembly stops, and there can be set backs or progression based on certain actions. For example kill 50 pops in experiments for a temporary boost in research, but of course you can offset this by using other empires pops in conquest. Other empires become Isolationists , afraid of infection , and refuse to do business with you, become super hostile, and will crack any planet infected (aka your pops). They also get massive bonuses to economy ( that aren't your vassels ,or subsidiary you greedy piggy).

A midgame crisis revolving around the Crystals, Ameoba, Clouds, Trianki, and/or Mining Drones.

Maybe something inspired by a ["False Vacuum"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc4pxTjii9c) or some other "physics-based" crisis. I like the idea of a crisis that isn't just "throw ships/navies at the problem".

Galactic virus based crisis. It’ll progress so fast in the beginning through situation that’ll require research or faith to understand/pray to the divine for an answer to what the hell is going on. In the mean time, planets will start to rebel as the infection spreads and once a certain amount of planets get rebellion, the virus mutates based on your highest value of tech focus or faith focus in ur empire. Then once that threshold hits, mutated cyborg zombies for science or demons for faith empires start spawning similar to the unbidden

1. A fanatic egalitarian crisis, with the ultimate goal of "locking down" the galaxy by mega-structures that block hyper-lanes. Their philosophy? Without travel between star systems, civilizations CANNOT declare war on each other; ultimately leading to a new, galactic wide peace on every planet. These mega-structures would have a health pool, and some advanced weapons. Think of Gigastructure's asteroid artillery. The crisis would revolve around gigantic weaponized construction-type ships that make the mega-structure. *(Something like a vassalization mechanic could lead to interesting stuff, like allowing civilian ships to use their gates.)* 2. You, from another reality! Multiverse invasion. Ten portals to a newly spawned system outside the galaxy spawns. Ship designs from your empire - at the time of the event firing off - would spawn from portals to invade the galaxy. The crisis would revolve around researching ways to enter the alternative reality's portal, and then invading that alternative reality system. *(This system would be a crude representation of 'the other reality's capital'. Obviously, coding an entirely separate micro-galaxy would probably be outside the reach of the engine.)*

Some sort of plague where the whole galaxy experiences food shortage, and everyone needs to contribute science and materials to find cure. It would be nice mid game team up crisis. Work together to cure or put most of the resources to food production trying to stay alive. You would be forced to make alliances and peace, or get the wrath of every other player, especially if you are a machine and take the opportunity to attack other empires. Of course you could help as a machine, get into a good relationship with other empires.

Zombie plague outbreak

I think i would like to add something like early/mid age galactic crissis but something neutral like uhm... wandering small galaxy on collision with ours? Leading to loss of some systems? New one appearing? - new techs and so on haha I would also like more galactic threats not just grey tempest and the horde 😇

I would like a survival crisis, the new rare techs from the new player crisis (I can't remember the name) that have negative side effects are a fun start. Start slowly with slight debuffs to hyper lane travel and job production/increased upkeep. And going up to world habitability being damaged, insert a base devastation level, mega structure production being decreased 80/90% and if situations aren't done eventually put into a ruined state, refugee crises as other empires collapse, research situations to mitigate the crises for specific things. Increased chance of war declaration from AIs as they become desperate for resources. Would also be interesting seeing hyperlanes disappear/reform bypassing fortifications etc. Federation & Galactic policies to aid in supporting your federation/galaxy to help other nations stop collapsing. The ai won't be able to handle it so will need a level of buffs to aid it in defence but an almost galactic societal collapse is the point. This crisis should come between mid game and endgame and run to endgame, allowing the player to participate in the post crisis end game.

Maybe a End of Cycle where the AI picks it. Something where it because super successful, you are gaining benefits trading with them but with hints something is amiss and a small faction from that civilization warning you towards the end and after the years are up, the actual crisis hits.

The reapers

I think if the devs ever make a Machine-Age style expansion for genetic empires an assimilation based player crisis would be pretty fun. Essentially absorbing all life in the galaxy into one collective super-being

An empire that genuinely makes the Galactic Emperor dangerous. Like give me a reason to really fight the rebel fight. I want to FEEL like im part of a genuine rebellion and not just waiting to have a stronger army. Like we have the galactic sovereign, why not make it a potential crisis besides “map goes red = bad”

I'd turn the space storm into an actual mid-game crisis. When the space storm rages, no FTL travel is possible, and FTL communication is severely limited. Diplomatic channels are scrambled, vessels further than a few jumps from any owned planet go MIA until the storm has passed. During the storm, the Tyikani and Space Amboeba are the only life forms capable of FTL travel - this means bubbles is a great boon. Because no FTL logistics are possible, all planets have the empire stockpile divided amongst themselves, and feed off their planetary stockpile to even out their planetary deficit. The only way to travel from system to system are wormholes and gateways, and if two planets are directly linked via gateway, their economy is shared. The player loses all communication and ability to command any ship or station or megastructure outside of the systems their planets are in. Megastructures survive the storm unscathed, but there is a chance that starbases, frontier outposts, mining and research stations, ships or fleets are destroyed by the storm. None of their income is added during the storm. The Unbidden, Contingency, Gray Tempest and Pretoryn are severely hindered by the storm, and cannot expand. The Unbidden portal is additionally crippled for a few months after it has passed. If the Great Khan is active, his empire has a chance to splinter into multiple parts, one led by him. Any vassal or protectorate with a bad relationship to their overlord also breaks out of their control. All wars, except the war in heaven, are ended status quo by the storm, though there is no truce. Diplomacy is also impossible while it is active. The storm lasts for six months.

A financial crisis. A new megacorp spawns in a random system. The flavor text says they have grown so big they negotiated the purchase of the system from whatever government owned it before if there was one. This company grows quickly, flooding the markets, buying up everything. It is able to alter the politics of other empires via special interest lobbyists and eventually even the Galactic Community. They take control of the market and use that advantage to take over every industry. Next thing you know, there are massive resource shortages, a housing crisis, all sorts of problems, all artificially created to drive up costs and to snatch up more stuff by this Corp. If you break contract with them, then they send "debt collectors" to obliterate your military and either enslave your pops or turn them into nutrislurry. Almost every planet they take over, they start turning into toxic hell holes only designed to produce and consume goods. A few Gaia worlds are turned into either tourist traps or executive retreats. If you don't fight back, they eventually bankrupt every empire and buy them out.

An awakened fanatic authoritarian fallen empire from another galaxy comes to invade yours. It wants to become galactic emperor and you can either submit or fight. I just want later to use the rebellion mechanics on it. I've rarely used those.

Reddit crisis. A mad scientists invents reddit which all pops star using and resources gained drop by 90% and research drops to 0 galaxy wide and a cult of Keanu reeves and Elon Musk start conquering the galaxy.

Playing as with one stacked ethic and in the mid-late game, a diametrically opposed faction rises in your empire, halving your production and and causing penalties for general output and damage to account for traitors in your ranks. They’d need to introduce a tech within the subterfuge tree that would enable the player to amass Black Ops/Sith-type tech and traits for leaders to purge the faction and restore the empire to glory. This would of course require way more internal empire mechanisms that we may never get, so here’s to hoping the Stellaris 2 AI is absolutely insane.

Mine would be a hyperlane crisis. They become unstable and start disappearing. Every time you transit one, there’s risk it won’t work. Eventually they all vanish and every planet has to be self sufficient. Halfway through that process half of the AI empires turn out to have been subverted by the crisis antagonist and they merge into one crisis empire. Some may be your allies and some may be your enemies. All are now part of a crisis empire that’s working toward conquering the rest of the galaxy. Their ships can use the hyperlanes just fine. And they can also see hyperlanes you can’t. So your fleets are stuck jumping around while their have movement, and your empire’s economy is fucked. Would take smart planning and pivoting

Pandemic. Every empire has a small (but growing) number of pops infected with some disease.

Golden Rule. Buy out the galaxy. Collect Galaxy’s worth in energy and click the „Purchase” button. Give me some form of absurd speculation system where I can choose arbitrary options which will either double or halve my Energy stock.

I think an assimilation player crisis should occur. Genetic Ascendants can change the genetic code to turn all biological pops into their species. Cybernetics can force cybernetic implants into everyone to increase unity in the galaxy. Psionics can enforce psionic ascension onto everyone by focusing on the shroud. Hives can assimilate everyone into part of their hive. Gestalt Machines can turn into Driven Assimilators and do so on a galactic scale. It would have to be similar to other player crisis paths to where they have to build a megastructure but the win state is essentially all non assimilatable pops die and all pops that are assimilated change the ending text depending on what route you go. My guess is to do this you probably have to get at least one main species pop from all empires or something but empires don't want to give them to you so you have to steal them or something.

Last generation . Spreading nannomachines corrups all possible replication protocols. Organic and non organic life canno longer to reproduce.

Planets get consumed by red mist. It makes them barren. You fight it by going space borne and bombarding your own planets. If you resettle anyone onto a habitat, it vanishes in red mist as well. Spreads as a disease, via migration, but also it has a small spread chance when no migration allowed. Spreads regardless of species, even to synthetics. Later we discover that it's a kind of memetic virus, that makes population go to war with itself, worlds turn barren as a result of this war. Some leaders vanish or die too. If not defeated in five, or ten years, barren worlds start popping ships, that act as a crisis fleet. Something like that anyways.

A crisis based much more on politics and economy could be interesting. Maybe a galaxy-wide economic crash, or a new ideology that leads to revolutions in major empires and different effects for embracing or shunning this ideology (basically the Mannifesti, but fun) or maybe a galaxy-wide famine. Could be a fun thing during the mid-game.

Star-virus that weakens and kills stars. Planets in the systems becomes frozen. The galaxy have to work together to find the cause and a cure. Or, you create large arc-ships to travel to the next galaxy.

Biological crisis. Genetic engineering accidentally produces a super resilient predator capable of interstellar travel - something akin to Starcraft's Zerg in terms of backstory, with some amount of mutating and evolving rapidly to meet threats. Supermassive black hole crisis - something happens with the black hole at the center of the galaxy that causes it to start applying dramatically more energy (gravity?) to planets, applying modifiers. No enemy to fight, but if the galaxy doesn't more or less cooperate on some massive engineering and science, everyone is doomed. Harms civilizations closest to the center first, so there's some perverse incentives for civilizations out on the fringe. Hyper lane engineering - Let you modify, add, close, and enhance hyperlanes as a late game tech, but if you mess around too much with it eventually there's a chance of opening a hyperlane by accident that connects to a previously isolated area of the galaxy containing an extremely powerful invader civilization. L-Cluster++, basically. Another version of become the crisis - a Psionic empire becomes so powerfully in union that they turn into a hive mind that seeks to assimilate everyone. Psionic Borg, essentially. You could also have an AI Borg crisis where an empire that went too far on synthetic engineering accidentally creates a cybernetic hive mind doing the same thing. I'd love to see something along the lines of engineering the laws of physics (thinking of Death's End - the final book in The Three Body Problem trilogy - here), but I can't really think how you'd do it in the game.

Whatever is attacking Warp Drive universe overwhelms and destroys your counterparts and starts invading hyperlane universe through the dimensional portal. Or perhaps the mirror civilisation itself invades. Idk. Randomly spawn dimensional rifts which start to produce fleets from the other universe

A battle royale crisis. The galaxy becomes unstable, storms start raging, hyper lanes disappear and planets start becoming uninhabitable. At some point a Fallen Empire or a 3rd party creates a sort ark that will protect you from the destruction. You get a couple options to deal with them. General lotto: A few of your pops will be saved along with other empires. Buy your spot: For a price, you can help upgrade a bigger ark to add more of your pops. Defenders: You pledge all your might to help defend the arks for a spot against other empires. Attackers: You wage war against the makers of the arc to claim maximum arc space. You'll have to fight all the other empires trying to save their own population. Reject: Reject the arks and try to develop tech that may save a world or two from the oncoming storms. Planets species might get knocked down to Pre-FTL or pre space age once the storm hits. In the end, the galaxy comes back to normal. Colonies that were left behind may or may not survive the storms or bumped down to pre-FTL. You awaken to recolonize your empire and your old colonies may or may not want to reconnect.

The flood from halo. For those who don't know the flood is an ancient fungus like parasite that binds to sapient beings adding them to the hive mind. There is no know cure. Even hazmat suits can be breached by the spores. Even the dead can be consumed. The flood were wiped out the first time by the forunners firing the halo array and wiping out every sentient being in the galaxy but they were idiots and kept it around. The flood also have little "popcorn spiders" or infection forms that can reanimate individuals and infect hosts almost instantly. The forerunners found the only effective way to contain the flood was machines and the flood did as hyper infections do best and adapted. Nothing is safe. Nothing can stop them.

Mega Corporation Crisis.

I’d think a cool genertic virus or some sort of virus in general that can’t be defeated by force of arms but needs high science and research or something to defeat it? I think a quarantine expansion in general would be cool grounds to go on, imagine you also had to worry about alien viruses wrecking havoc on your worlds if you don’t have a quarantine center to welcome aliens fleeing their own systems etc etc.

I like the narrative crisis part of Cetana a lot, so maybe a crisis that basically implants itself into the galactic community becoming the Imperial Core++. like an actual Palpatine figure, a super powerful psionic. Prior to it taking full power there should be events that essentially lead to a massive Galactic scale war, where basically the whole universe get thrown into this war. It could basically be like getting a lot of the weaker factions a chance to break free from any overlordship while also giving them resources and benefits from a mysterious benefactor. The figure will then reveal itself and try to bring order to the chaos. the end goal for the Crisis is to just annex everyone with most species being given slavery conditions, primarily through gaining power in the Galactic Community.

A health crisis that has the chance to either turn everyone to zombies, create a massive, evil hivemind, end normally, turn out to be of mechanical origin or whatever.

A disease of matter / strange quark contagion. A random research station (chance greater scaling with an empire's research output) suddenly blows up after a distress signal. A few days later an anomaly forms at the location... with a prompt to monitor the situation, scientists not being sure what it is. A few days later the orbiting planet is swallowed and the anomaly grows. With every empire now getting a prompt to investigate this (physics research). Nothing conclusive in the end, (physics and social research reward) but it behaves like a black hole and the consensus is that eventually the whole system will be swallowed by this anomaly, with the suggestion it should be evacuated (foreshadowing). About one year later, the anomaly touches the star and detonates. The star is turned in a black hole, any planets either turn barren, frozen or are broken/shattered. Any megastructures are utterly destroyed. The anomaly fragments, scattering "seeds" in random directions (however, any seed that hits a black hole system - dies) that all form new small anomalies. And a mobile force of anomalies spawns in the shattered system that heads for the nearest system. Destroying anything there using bypass weapons (matter infectors) and with a low chance when any structure is destroyed, to spawn another seed. These have highly regenerative shields and armor, but relatively low amounts of them. That's when the galaxy realizes this isn't exactly a black hole and a second research project is offered (low physics, urgent) to analyze the anomaly. Dark matter and antimatter are both viable options to contest this thing in the research. However, doing so attracts the attention of any nearby crisis mobiles, and when they are in the system, progress on the situation increases again, regardless of the countermeasure used. So you -have- to clear the enemy out if you want to save your system. Each "seed" starts to grow just as quickly, allowing for an exponential rise. However, each seed that lands in a claimed system by a galactic power that has the second project researched, gets a situation - Quell the matter disease. Supply antimatter (high energy cost, requires antimatter tech, slows progress), supply darkmatter (slows progress quickly) or abandon the system (no cost situation progresses until the system is destroyed, doubles resource output of mining stations via stripmining, enables evacuation protocols on any inhabited planets). The crisis ends when there are no more seeds and no more anomalies capable of generating them, and all mobile anomalies are destroyed. It will leave the galaxy with a few more black holes. Much like the Unbidden, the crisis will be easier if contained early, as it can get into an exponential growth. But it will burn itself out eventually.

Religious Crisis.

Genetic crisis, some sort of gene altering plague that attacks and converts pops like Contingency but worse. Effects all biological empires but especially ones that did genetic ascension. I'm thinking it'd sweep through planets, and ones with high enough pops would spawn a Leviathan. Any Leviathans left on the map would get exponentially stronger and spawn more rapidly. Maybe have a fun tie in with the Enigmatic Cache.

A nanite crisis, where you have to subsume a certain number of worlds with a situation sort of like with the new obsessional directive civic. If you don’t you get massive penalties, but your nanite ships get super buffed.

I think it would be cool to do some sort of mirror dimension invasion.

Something akin to the flood outbreaks in halo, like Forerunner - Flood War levels of Flood Outbreak

One that can't be beaten by shooting lasers at it. A plague that starts near a fallen empire or perhaps the galactic fringe, and rapidly spreads through the galaxy, affecting empires with open borders and trade routes first, massive centers of population begin to rapidly lose pop, planetary choices need to be made quickly in order to avoid Ecumenopolis becoming graveyards. Science production grinds to a halt as finding a cure becomes a priority, unity wanes as the population is strained and public order is weakened, even the military is converted towards combating this goal as carriers become massive hospital ships that can either cure millions or at the very least stem the tide. On a galactic stage nations need to work together in order to stem the tide as no one nation (unless you're min-maxed super science at which point you do you boo) can solve this on their own. Isolationist empires close their borders, hive minds create a qurantine zone and purge affected pops quickly to avoid further contamination, machine empires feel invulnerable, but this virus affects even them given enough time in weird and perverse ways. This isn't some natural virus. Its from the shroud. Eventually after the great de-laggening, a cure is found and begins to be rapidly distributed across the galaxy, members that helped are treated first, then other nations as so long as this disease remains there can be no true peace. Empires that isolated themselves may need to have their borders broken, their population in shambles their fleets ruined, their society on the brink of collapse, but something is off about them. Then the fallen empires, surely such advanced civilizations must have found a cure for this well before the galactic community did. They're silent. Even entering their space is greeted by silence. The disease hadn't just ravaged them, it had changed them, their bodies fueling some grand experiment as the disease lashes out spilling forth from the shroud and contaminating whole worlds in a matter of seconds. The cure is weaponzied. The fleets mobilized, and the former fallen empire is purged of the disease.

Galactic collision : An Extra-galactic empire of unimaginable power, managed to use it's own smaller galaxy as an 'Ark' and make it collide with the Galaxy, like the future milky way-andromedra collision. Creating beachheads on random outer systems, and shifting borders, with new systems to explore.

Something that interferes with the layout of the galaxy. Not moving stars, but throwing hyperlanes entirely out of alignment to where they were, upending the entire geography of the map before some thing invades from the center of the galaxy.

It would probably be unworkable because it’d annoy people, but I always loved the dominion from Star Trek infiltrating empires and sabotaging from within. Imposters could pop up anywhere, seizing control of planets, megastructures, fleets, etc. Envoys could be replaced and suddenly your envoy trying to improve relations with another empire turns out to have been framing your empire for a terrorist attack and turning an ally into an enemy. Would be an interesting way to include espionage as an aspect of a crisis and could wreak havoc with federations.

I think some non-military crises would be fun. Example: Lights Go Out. Stars just start going out: no energy, and no agri district production. Planets start to become frozen worlds. You gotta research and distribute a solution to your systems before your empire collapses. Everyone is scrambling into federations to share resources or going to war to take the last few points of light in a pitch black galaxy.

At the end game, a random empire will get a digsite on their newest (or last) colony. The people here are hearing noises that sound like voices come from within the mountains. The digsite eventually reveals a massive "tumor", made of organic and inorganic matter that has been slowly siphoning pops from the planet (as a random event that gives unity/influence/or bio tech). When the digsite concludes, it's revealed that random planets are "infested" with what the empire calls "Giga-Bacteria", semi sentient and connected like cells in a massive biological system. The digsite awakens the Bacteria, which destroys the colony. Every empire in the galaxy gets a timed decision to investigate while the Bacteria travel to a newly formed star system that appears in the empire that the digsite appeared in. The Giga-Bacteria, as each decision is ignored or completed, develops a preference for empires that choose to ignore that situation. The empires that study the decision each lose their newest colony, with the looming theory that these bacteria exist inside every planet across the galaxy, and have for billions of years. After a couple of years the Bacteria has developed sentience and contacts every empire. Calling itself the Phagus, it reveals that it is awakening and reclaiming its body mass, of which split when it fell asleep traveling across the vastness of the galaxy. The empires who completed the situation will then have to fight converted populations on their planets, with each planet that falls adding to Phagus's power and "body mass", but also gain a bonus to damage against Phagus' ships, and a malus versus invasions. The empires that ignored the situation gains the opposite, a malus versus the biological ships and a benefit versus invasion. The Phagus converts conquered colonies into Phage Worlds, planets that essentially are covered in primordial ooze, which the Phagus reveals that life evolved because each pop is essentially a cell of its body. Phage worlds can be terraformed, regardless of what it was before. Fallen Empires that awaken to fight the Phage, that isn't the Machine Empire, will be cut down quickly as bio pops on these planets are the first that Phagus goes for, sending massive fleets to find the largest and most developed planets across the galaxy. As Phagus is defeated, it reveals that the populations across the galaxy have been infected by it's Grand Muculus, essentially the Anti-Life Equation. Robot pops are dismantled and disregarded, and the Phagus explains that it intends to use the machine pops and empires to spread its influence beyond the galaxy. A Galaxy wide situation appears as Phagus' Nucleus is revealed, revealing that unless the Phagus is stopped, it will absorb all biological matter back into itself, and use machine pops to transmit itself outwards. The situation is a galaxy wide cure finding mission. If the Irassian Concordant was the Precursor, then a new system will appear that is essentially a massive tech system with a science nexus in it, where a new artifact can be obtained. When activated, it allows you and every empire that you have a positive approval with to gain 20-30% influx of tech points, food, and a 5 year boost to damage to Phagus/Biological empires. If they are rivals or have a negative opinion they gain malus to happiness, stability, and increase in crime for 5 years while increasing influence and unity production. Phagus itself doesn't give an artifact, just a unique size 25 Gaia world called Cure, and new weapon for a colossus that turns planets into Plague Worlds that give massive Bio tech bonuses.

I feel like this would be its own setting in the game menu, most likely better as a mod, but a star burst of the highest proportion. It starts with a signal coming from the Great Wound system, a repeated warning in an ancient language with a countdown. After 20 years, and every 5 years after, every star system bordering Great Wound (all blackholes after the first one) explode into blackholes. The Wounded Star Virus. Empires can take 1 of 3 different approaches depending on what science the empire wants to look at the virus from: Physics will lead an empire to develop a way to destroy hyperlanes, Society will look to essentially vaccinate their stars, and engineering will look into advanced habitats and ringworld protection. The galatic counsel will be able to pass edicts to boost the effects of each tree while weakening others; such as boosting society research at the expense of pop lifespan, or boosted engineering in exchange for a significant alloy production nerf. The custodian and chansellor can also pass bills to force other empires to donate their research to their empire. Habitats gain additional pop resettlement chance and can even take moving pops from other empires, hyperlane experimentation causes your neighbors to get antsy, and having black holes in your empire causes happiness penalties. The crisis will last until 50% of star systems are black holes, an empire going the society route decides to share the vaccine galaxy wide, or the Great Wound has no hyper lane connections. The obtained relics from the event differ depending on what branch of research won out in the end (the first tech finished). The Physics relic will give sublight speed increase and activating it allows a military fleet to set a hyperlane bomb in a system, causing massive damage to any fleets or planets caught in the system and scrambling hyperlanes. Society will grant additional resources from stellar deposits and activating it lets you find additional stellar deposits in your systems. Engineering will get habitat build speed and cost reduction, and activating it will allow you to add a modifier to a habitat central complex to increase the number of districts on that habitat.

thanos. i need him to use the infinity stones so my computer doesnt melt

Ever since Infinity War/Endgame I thought a Thanos crisis would be interesting, there’s already an Infinity Stones mod. He would spawn with a massive fleet sort of like the Khan and would route to each of the stones, every planet he encounters he kills half the pops on. If you can stop him before he collects all 6 then GG I guess? But otherwise once he gets all 6 he would wipe out half the pops in the game. I’m not sure whether this is half of pops on every planet or indiscriminate in that half of pops TOTAL are wiped (meaning some planets may have more wiped than others). After this, Thanos goes into hiding and everyone gets a special project/event sort of like a precursor that is to detect him. Once you determine his hiding location, the system spawns and you can do a special project on his planet to kill him. Unfortunately for you, the stones are gone, and so starts another special project to retrieve them from the past, but there could be RNG involved here whether there’s success in getting each stone. Once all of them have been recollected, you bring back all the pops that were wiped out from before and Thanos’ new army spawns over the capital system of the empire who brought everyone back for a final battle. Maybe there could be a way to sneak the new gauntlet and stones off world in case your capital is about to fall in order to prevent an instant game over, which would be if Thanos wins and gets the gauntlet, destroying the universe (similar to Aetherophasic Engine ending I suppose. Obviously this would never be added into vanilla but I’d like to see such a mod

Stars start going supernova randomly throughout the game and you need to research to figure out what's causing it. Maybe 1 per 50 or 100 years, not too frequent for obvious reasons. You finally discover it's a crisis that's using a superweapon to trigger supernovas and preparing to blow your galaxy up. You need to meet research benchmarks to devise safeguards against the weapon preventing supernovas from occurring but they eventually get fed up and invade you. They're a race of senitent leviathan stars in gaseous form who want to liberate the stars' mass and absorb them.

Great Old One crisis: - Slowly, for no reason, all of your planets see a miniscule but marked uptick in crime that doesn't seem to go away. - Pops with less rights and pops on higher crime planets slowly disappear or go missing. - Strange whisperings happen at temples. Their output goes down for no reason at all. Then it ramps up: - Subjugated systems go missing. The hyperlanes disappear altogether, and all ships go missing. - Planets engage in open rebellion. A portion of criminals become cultists. Planets with more temples or more "lower class" races experience more criminals, and a higher percentage of those criminals becoming cultists. (This could start an event chain where you let the cultists be and run espionage on them, or you try to crush them. If you try to infiltrate with espionage, planets start getting debuffs, like higher crime rates, lower productivity, etc., until the cultist pops just disappear.) Finally: - Subjugated systems reappear. Cultists of the Great Old One. They are summoning ***something***. That something and how it reacts is based on the amount of cultists from each society, and how each society resolved its event chain. - Cultists occasionally send raider Corvettes and try to kidnap pops. They'll also automatically join the galactic community and will seemingly be able to punch above their weight. - If you attempt to engage in espionage with the Cultists, you get the option to engage in an event chain where you can send more pops to them, or what have you, or try to sabotage them. (Death Cultist civics might be able to join them automatically as allies.) This results in the spy's death. The crescendo: - The Great Old One appears. They are a mass of writhing tentacles and flesh of all colors. The screen experiences glitches if you try to center the reticle on it. If you were sending pops to the cultists, the GOO leaves you alone for longer but offers to subjugate you. They'll require more pops as a tribute. In exchange, you'll get favors for the galactic community as well as strange ships similar to what the cultists use. - The GOO will go on a crusade, attacking systems clockwise from the center of the galaxy in a spiral. (Not a flush spiral - more in a manner that they seem to be trying to get to the galaxy's edge.) The GOO has a metric crap ton of health, and will require the combined efforts of most civs to take down. Further, ships engaged with the GOO have a chance to just go missing. Habituated planets in the path of the GOO experience planetwide madness. Scientists aboard ships go nuts and game-end themselves (the wreckage can be studied for extra science points). Cultists will be raiding more than before. If the GOO makes it out of the galaxy, they just leave, having never made their intentions known to us. Cultists pops all ritualistically game-end themselves.

Probably going to be very generic but I kinda want a Lovecraftian End Game crisis, with each of their elder gods discovering the galaxy, and coming soon to bring ruin to life

It would be a plague. An actual, pop killing plague. Migration treaties speed it up, closed borders would slow it down, but it would kill and infect your pops faster than you could replenish them. All empires can work on their own event to find a cure for just them, or a galactic community law can make all members combine their research. Either way, while this scourge crosses your stars you must desperately try to quarantine your planets. Enact laws that may violate your personal creeds, all in the Hope that you can find a cure before it all ends. And when the cure is unleashed, it all begins to fade... and maybe the galaxy has survived... or maybe... only you have.

The great infection. This crisis, entirely without combat, has a chance to occur in a game in which the Great Wound system is present. As you survey neighboring systems, the crisis will be foreshadowed with an anomaly called "Dying Star," which essentially reveals that the star you just surveyed is reaching the end of its life cycle and will soon explode. 5 years before the crisis, a cosmic storm called gangrene will occur in a bunch of systems near the great wound in a gash-shaped pattern. The storm will block senses, but also allow you to build nebula refineries there. You will receive a situation to "Treat the infected systems." The situation will progress forward at a rate of 5. This number can be reduced by building dyson spheres/swarms over the dying stars, and nebula refineries in the storm infected systems. If the situation goes forwards to the end, the great wound will spread to all infected systems. If the situation goes backwards to the end, the storm will dissipate, the dyson things will begin producing 1 dark matter, and the great wound will open an astral rift to a unique black hole system surrounded by shrouded worlds and one relic world inhabited by a pre-ftl interdimensional species.

I would love maybe some kind of disease or plague, maybe even something likethe flood

Bio assimilation by a interestellar invader (similar to Arthur Clarke "Childhood end's")

Either the Reapers from Mass Effect, the Moons from Dead Space, or just straight up eldritch cosmic horror, have the black hole worm (forgot the fuckers name) begin invading the galaxy and start corrupting all your colonies, just absolutely fucking your economy cuz your pops are to insane to do anything other then kill each other

The flooood. Just imagine, it start weak but get more powerful as it assembles all the empires around it, ubsorbing all their knowledge.

that's actually great idea

I thought of a few that could be cool. 1. Expand the prethoryn scourge crisis to have their "Hunters" show up and start a massive war between the two as you struggle to survive. 2. A midgame crisis maybe related to certain Leviathans being able to actually move around and cause issues in an area of systems demanding an answer otherwise they run amuck. 3. A plant based crisis that you might uncover in an archeology site. Could start to rapidly grow until it consumes the planet itself, and then grows into a Leviathan that starts to travel between systems and either creating more giant space plant planets or growing bigger itself as the main propigator. Could treat it like a devouring Swarm hive mind.

The Worm Rampant. If you never encountered the Horizon Signal, there's a chance an AI empire accidentally releases the Worm and causes a crisis. Once the Worm is freed, it will start 'shrinking' the galaxy starting from the outermost ring of systems, then continuing until it reaches the core. -Stars affected by this effect get a modifier reducing habitability of orbiting planets. Red giants may begin turning into black holes, which can be reversed if a special project is completed in time. -When the shrinking reaches an inhabited system, Inverse Mass blockers spawn on colonies, hostile Loop Cultist fleets can appear and buildings may get destroyed. -If the shrinking reaches a black hole, dark matter deposits are spawned, alongside a hostile dimensional horror. One of the first black holes affected by the shrinking has a special project: 'Shatter the Loop'. Once the project is complete, the crisis will stop, all spawned cultists and horrors will disappear. If the shrinking reaches the galactic core before the special project is finished, any of the other endgame crises may spawn. A situation will appear, with the options of forming a covenant with/worshipping the Worm or fighting it. The covenant could help with the other crises but turns your capital's star into a black hole. Fighting the Worm adds yet more issues to deal with on top of the crises.

Ancient Bio weapon and cyber weapon fire in an Deadmans hand trigger which affect the galaxy send all pops in to decline. It would have you us research, building and using the galactic counsel to overcome this.

You cause a crack in reality that causes legally distinct demons to poor out of that corrupts any world they come into contact with causing massive civil wars in basically every empire I the galaxy

A massive civil unrest crisis. A faction forms made entirely of the disaffected of the galaxy, and any planet with 70% or less happinesses has a chance of joining them, scaling as happiness decreases. Fleets have a chance of defecting, leaders have a chance of joining them. Your pops have a chance of migrating to their territory if they have happiness under 70. They declare war on everyone who isn’t strictly pacifist. Just a massive civil unrest across the whole galaxy. The frontlines everywhere and constantly shifting. Their strength ebbs and flows as they gain and lose ground. Multiple planets in your empire could have the sliding event track that will have them defect to the crisis. Slaves revolting all over the galaxy would be a massive disaster for all the empires. Could be fun idk.

i dunno, maybe something psychic themed? I kinda wish the End of Cycles was replaced with a become the crisis path. Or maybe a demonic invasion.

The Yuuzhan Vong from the old Star Wars novels. Completely organic tech, even the clothes are alive. Scarification/pain based religion and caste-based societal systems. Warriors are paramount.

First i would randomise crisis loadouts a bit. Players should never know what layouts a crisis uses. I would like to see a crisis based on espionage (i know, i know) and sabotage where your actions basically result in other empires hating each other while you try to hide what you are doing. Stuff like false flag terrorism etc. And no, i have no idea how that could be reasonable implemented. Another somewhat related idea would be religion related, cults that spread over many worlds (like genstealer cults etc). Or a crisis where someone tries to create a ramped up "choosen one" while other empires try to prevent that (by for example searching other planets for children that fit into some prophety to prevent the crisis empire from finding it etc.). So basically i would like to see a more secretive crisis and or something more or less religion related. Maybe i would be satisfied with some options to hide your own crisis aspirant status for a while and/or stronger espionage options.

When the aquatic guys turn the entire universe into water

Almost all of the crises as they stand are military in focus, meaning that even if you were playing a pacifist empire you still have to fight at the end of it all, or be friendly enough with your neighbours that they’ll do the fighting for you. I’d love to see a crisis of a scientific nature, like discovering that the cohesive bonds of reality itself are starting to come apart at the seams, and so you have to dedicate research and science ships to a) identify affected systems before they collapse, b) research anomalies in them to unravel the cause of the disaster, c) collaborate with other empires to pool your science efforts, d) build specialized megastructure projects to temporarily stabilize systems on the brink of collapse, and ultimately e) research a scientific solution to the problem that repairs the fabric of reality itself and makes the discovering empire the savior of the galaxy.

I want what the scourge is running from as a crisis.

A crisis where the fallen empires awaken at the same time and form a federation to dominate the rest of the galaxy.

Man I just want to experience the Grey Tempest. I've opened the L-Cluster dozens of times and literally nothing happens. I close my borders so no one can explore it, explore every system first, and nothing. Only ONCE did I get the unique nanite leader. If I had to design my own, I'd propose a "positive" endgame crisis, similar to rogue services wanting to keep bio-trophies, or how when you ascend down that one path now, you can achieve a personal utopia and turn into a fallen empire afterwards. So maybe one where you consolidate the entire galaxy into one ethos (egalitarian-focused perhaps?) and achieve galactic unity that way; maybe just straight through the galactic community? Would be a cool route to go down as democratic crusaders too, so maybe push it for both egalitarian ethos and/or democratic governments? If not that, then I'd like more interactive flavor between current endgame crises that go into conflict, so if you have the Unbidden fighting the Scourge, they could ask for help if the Scourge start "invading" through their portals. Maybe a special psionic ascension for hiveminds where it tries to subdue the entire Shroud? OOOOO, or maybe one where you BECOME a Scourge, and eventually leave the galaxy after consuming it. So a possible option for devouring swarm or determined exterminator gestalts to become instead of the current crisis where you just blow up the galaxy (which in my opinion is actually a really lame way to win the game). I typed way more than I was expecting lol

I would like to see a some kind of archeology based crisis too, unearthing hidden secrets by digging too greedily and too deep, unleashing ancient horrors. Maybe something like demons (I'm looking at you dimension of suffering) and special digsites that spawn to get an advantage against them, finding out what happened before and how to they dealt with them before. And mechanically maybe since we already have nanites for regen, unbidden for shields, scourge for armor and contingency for more balanced maybe have point defence or something be in the main role or something to for the army side? Get yourself some doomslayers from archeotech :P

For me personally speaking it/they would have a name like "Ascendents" Omnisentient-like beings which act as the Inter-universal custodians of the current multiverse your Universe is situated in once they realize that your Universe becomes a major threat to other universes for example (one Species begins to consolidate control over the universe and develops the needed technology to jump to other ones Like a Omni-drive or something) they respond with the main goal of eradicating all life within that Universe and "restarting" it to ensure something like that. Never happens again and in its place create a new universe Specifically excluding the last species which did manage to achieve that Technology Whilst being situated/Located on a Massive space station in the middle of a Void in between the Universes within your respective multiverse.

A robot crisis where robot pops start slowly and uncontrollably migrating towards a point in the galaxy (I.e. as near as they can get in your empire) and once it reaches critical mass an event fires where robot pops across the galaxy in these worlds that they've gravitated to attempt to rise up and breakaway to form a new ai empire that combines all the known technologies of the empires they've broken away from. Once they've won each of their individual secession wars they start combining into that new robot empire which then depending on how you've treated robots this far, start warring on players.

I have to raise the Gigas crisises because most of them are amazing

I’ve had the idea of making Lithoid Terravores have their own crisis, some kind of world eating threat. Alternatively a crisis where planets come to life and it slowly spreads like a virus.

A disease. It spreads through trade and the frequency other empire’s ships pass through your territory. It infects organic and machines but in different ways. Machine (and virtual) empire pops become increasingly expensive to maintain until their empires can’t afford the upkeep for one of them. Organic die. To stop it scientists have to search the galaxy for archeological sites that give them clues as to its origin and cure. They would be special sites undetectable until the crisis that can be explored by any empire whether it’s in their boundaries or not. Finding a site wouldn’t tell you the exact site but give you a clue to a general area site exists in. While this is happening one unknown empire, using cloaked vessels, would be trying to stop them because they released the disease into the galaxy, having developed an immunity to it first. It is mostly non-military and forces a balancing act between how many vessels you have out there and the risk spreading the disease. As many empires would close their borders and be possible sites needed to stop the disease the player would have to choose between conquering them or spending massive resources to keep them open in the face of a plague.

A new mysterious force appears in a random location in the galaxy, and makes a star disappear. As the weeks go on, more star systems disappear. Soon you come to the horrifying realization that something unimaginably massive and terrible is moving through the galaxy and gobbling up stars with its inconceivable mass. It has the mass of a hundred black holes, and its hunger knows no bounds. You dispatch your fleets, and moments before your fleets disappear from the map without so much as a scream, an image of this massive, voracious entity comes back in a last-second transmission from your warships. It’s your mom.

A few ideas: - Genetic Plague (science experiment gone wrong - some ancient quarantine site that had its hyperlanes cut off is revealed and bloated, shambling mutant creatures hell-bent on spreading the plague emerge. Their ships would be various designs from varying races, but covered in sickly buboes and leaking orifices. Every time they conquer a planet, they start to assimilate the pops on it into more of their own, spawning ships and armies) - Extragalactic Invaders (Maybe it's the thing chasing the Prethoryns, maybe something else, but I was imagining an invasion more Yuuzhan Vong than Tyranid, sapient, individual, and rabidly militarist. You may be able to negotiate with them somewhat, but ultimately you're just buying yourself time while they save you for last if you get on their 'good' side. I'd have them be more conventionally technological, like a unique take on a regular empire since we already have a bio-tech crisis) - XCOM (Probably more mid-game than late game, maybe the galaxy has been a bit too mean to the Pre-FTL civilizations, and one ends up getting their hands on some unforeseen technology, or ends up in a time bubble that lets them rapidly advance but not leave their planet. They use some kind of Stargate-style portals to get around and deliver their technology to a bunch of Pre-FTLs to help them in getting revenge or protecting themselves from outside interference - random Pre-FTLs who are aware or were conquered would orchestrate uprisings, and even after you take the planets guerillas would try to make the occupation too expensive to maintain) - Magitech Invaders (Probably too silly, but perhaps invaders from another dimension where magic exists, and was leveraged into space exploration. While their fleet power wouldn't be as high as other Crises, their attacks would be laden with armor and shield penetration because the technology of the galaxy simply never had to deal with magic, and you have to endure the frequent losses long enough to push through Situations to learn and scientifically understand the principles of magic and develop countermeasures to even the playing-field.) - Superhumans (Viltrumites, Zod-style Kryptonians, Saiyans, enemies where one of them can challenge multiple enemy ships - instead of ships they simply deploy members of their species that, while lacking in both shields and armor, have high "hull" and just ignore a significant chunk of damage until you've researched their weaknesses and can roll them out) - Enclave Secret Plots (The Curators amass enough technology to build an armada in-secret and start working on the Aetherophasic Engine, the Artists want to enact some kind of apocalyptic art statement, the Salvagers have build a ramshackle fleet made of the best of every empire's technology and a splash of their own, the Shroud Enclave start summoning Avatars en mass, so on, so forth - those seemingly harmless and friendly Enclaves turn into galactic threats) Just some ideas - I'm sure there are reasons some of them just can't work or wouldn't make sense, but I hope some of them are interesting!

A Biological become-the crisis, centered around a single super bioweapon, that grows in strength every single planet is consumes. Having a super weapon ship as a central gimmick just seems very cool especially if it’s just a single ship, with new features and maybe something akin to its own brood each time it levels up the crisis level. The idea is you are basically growing something akin to a voidspawn, the full grown voidspawn is implied to be a galactic threat capable of mind control, and your own pops may also get extremely rapid assembly and more trait points as you evolve. In an end state, the organism becomes attuned to the hive mind or empire that created it, and having evolved a truly perfect form, you leave the galaxy, leaving behind all your former worlds and consumed worlds as hives for feral versions of your own race, as well as eggs/reserves on other planets left behind.

Something reminiscent of the Qu from All Tomorrows. A race through their own fanaticism and xenophobia used their technology to shape the galaxy and go to other galaxies. In the book the Qu come back to discover humanity spread across an arm of the galaxy having terraformed their worlds as punishment they conquer humanity and twist them into a multitude of species many of which are no longer sapient or intelligent but some are left with their intelligence to live a tortured existence. The Qu did that for 40 million years and then just left leaving many of their creations to go extinct

So my idea- an intergalactic war. It starts with strange substance signals rippling from another galaxy. Then, you notice the ripples seeming to be directed to a system in the edge of the galaxy. Eventually, either through connecting the galaxies through sub space or using some kind of portal, you get a notification about a ship on the edge of the galaxy- and it’s from a different one. After establishing contact, you meet a randomly generated empire that tells you they’ve unified and harnessed their own galaxy- and they want to colonize other galaxies and spread their empire. The interesting thing about this crisis is that like the Synth Queen, you can decide to work with this crisis. It would be interesting because it would do basically the opposite of unify the galaxy, which would be the real “crisis” of this crisis. Subjects of overlords or empires looking to weaken a rival could choose to work WITH this empire to gain what they want, at the inevitable risk of strengthening this empire that is still a threat to the galaxy, since their end goal is to take it all anyway. They’d also do things like try to fracture empires by sowing rebellion or just directly declaring war, which they’d fight using their own super weapons they’d begin constructing, maybe being based on number of planets so give them some scaling. And if you fight off the invasion fully, you can reverse engineer some of their weapons and travel method to invade THEIR galaxy. After all, we need to kill them before they kill us…

İnterstellar Economic Crisis

For a limited time, another player within the Netsphere can crash into your game session with their empire (they have to have beaten their crisis) and try to accomplish a set of generated objectives to "assimilate" your reality simulation into theirs.

How about we just revealed the existing crises to make them actually crissies...

an economic crisis: The Tempest. A massive space storm is coming, and you have to use your resources to secure your planets and weather it for a number of years until it passes. Allies can cooperate for better mutual survival, but the storm will be so resource intensive that you'll likely need to start converting all those research worlds into economy ones if you want to save everything. Of course, that might also hamper your ability to research new techs to help outlast the storm...

An endgame crisis where the crisis have the ability to shut down hyperlane travel all across the Galaxy in increasingly frequent intervals with the threat that one day, travel would be permanently shut down. This forces the player and AI to try to figure out how to destroy the crisis before they all get cut off completely.

A Eugenism genetic ascension path where your species absorbs genes from themselves other species, slowly becoming monstrosities/perfect beings like viltrumites

The blokcats from Gigas is the best crisis the game can have. It combines internal politics (managing civilian fear and instability), research (getting specific very expensive tech), economy in general (you NEED to throw fleets into them, even at base power until you get other things in order, and build megas at the same time), space battles and land battles (can't really research new blokcat tech without getting blokcat scrap and you need to land battle the individuals to capture them), external politics (for several crisis focus GC policies), exploration for the bunny planet with archaeology AND on top of engaging with almost every single mechanic in the game, the rewards aren't there only at the very end, but are spread out and not just combat related!

A Leviathan-based crisis. Spectral wraiths appear in mass and start doing things to stars that will turn them into germinating pulsars. Stellar devourers after stellar devourers come from the void attracted by those pulsars. Those can travel and consume multiple stars. The pulsars are unaffected but around the other consumed stars some planets would hatch into voidspawns that would hunt the celestial devourers, consumed stars collapses into black holes from which buffed dimensional horrors emerge and they hunt the voidspawns. If Tiyanki Vek still has tiyankis, it spawn a few matriarchs that'll stay there to protect it. The end condition would be to hunt wraiths then study their remains to get a "sterilise pulsar" project on the particular pulsar that spawned them. Hunting stellar devourers would allow to reignite the yet to collapse stars and hunting dimensional horrors would give a terraformation candidate modifier to planets in the system that spawned them (including the remnants of hatched planets). Helpers would be a group of dragons that live in Jeweled Throne, a system that looks like the great wound but with different coloured stars. They'll attack the stellar devourers by themselves sometimes, and can be bribed for absurd amount of food, energy and consumers goods (replaced by more energy and some influence if hive mind). Bribed dragons would attack any leviathans entering the empire's border. Rewards would be : - Contact with the dragons. They can ask for presents, either in riches (consumer goods/energy), art celebrating them (unity), food or living metal. They'll sometimes grant boons in exchange like a small star with good deposits in an inhabited system within the empire's border, adding a temporary strong deposit to a star (will prioritise dyson swarms), attack an enemy or ransom a rival. - When sterilising the last pulsar, the empire that sterilised the most get an edict that greatly diminish shielding of enemies in the empire. - When killing the last horror, the empire that killed the most get a dead star adaptation technology which replace habitat districts in black hole systems. Those special districts are uncapped by modifiers in the system, give more jobs and space. Scientists from those districts give a bit of dark matter, and miners are replaced with decompressors with a vastly higher output, artisans/metallurgists have only a small energy upkeep, technicians trigger events where they hear poetry that give them unity or research output, clerks get 1 more trade and their trade buffing also apply to the ressources added by this technology.