This was the galactic map from 2500:
I've grabbed the two border worlds from the Sakkra since I last posted the state of things. The lizards remain at war with me, and are falling further behind the rest of the galaxy. In the east, the Psilons have made some minor gains, but are still pretty comparable with the Humans and Klackons. That three-way split between the brains (9 worlds), Humans (9 worlds), and Klackons (8 worlds) was exactly what I wanted to see. It gave me plenty of time to carve up the Sakkra at my leisure.
The Humans continued to war with everyone, as befitting their Erratic bent. I honestly have no idea how they managed to do as well as they did, given that they were at war with my own Meklars most of the game, plus the Psilons AND Klackons. One thing that did help them out was their alliance with the Sakkra; for whatever reason, the Humans managed to grab most of the north uncontested. Anyway, they continued attacking me again and again, striking hard at Sssla:
Here you see a rather nice rate of factory construction, fed again by that marvelous planetary reserve. I was having Xendalla and Imra sending a quarter of their population every turn to Sssla, allowing me to skip ecology spending and pour everything into factory construction. For whatever reason, the Humans really wanted this planet, forcing me to keep my fleet overhead to drive them off. Heck, even the Sakkra were trying to get it back! At least they had a better reason to want the planet.
Once Sssla was secured and approaching double digit bases, I moved northwest to Maretta. That planet lacked any factories at all (having been fought over quite a bit by various powers), but it had another major advatage: sitting in the extreme northwest corner of the map. Out of the way planets tend not to be attacked by the AI in this game, so I was reasonably confident that I could stand it up and secure it. With more reserve spending as usual, I would do exactly that, and the planet never came under serious threat.
From there, it was on to Nordia:
By now, I was slicing through the Sakkra fleets with ease. Their bases couldn't even catch up to my speedy bombers, much less hit them. I had already looted everything of value they possessed technologically, now it was just a matter of grabbing more worlds for myself. The more factories they started out with, the better.
In terms of events, I landed nothing good and several things bad, as usual. Poor Quayal got hit with the Plague event early on, and then soon after I had cleaned that up, it was hit with the Quake event! The Humans drew the Derelict event (maybe that's why they performed well?) and the Psilons pulled the Merchant donation one. We also had to deal with the Pirate event hurting everyone's trade, until eventually one of the AI races eliminated that issue. As if I didn't have enough to worry about, now the Space Crystal appeared in my back lines:
I also took this shot to demonstrate the sickening rate of factory construction at Ryoun, as I upgraded from Robotics IV to Robotics V. For once, I am NOT using reserve spending here; the world really does build that many factories naturally in one turn! 
Anyway, the Crystal did its best to take out Ryoun, but since I could build over 50 bases in a single turn (!), that wasn't much of a threat. Easily handled.
In the north, I tried to manage it so that one of the other AI races would finish off the last Sakkra colony. After waiting for a couple of turns on that, I gave up and just invaded their last world myself:
Relations of course plummeted with all races. I've never understood how the AIs can kill each other with no discernible penalty, yet if the player wipes someone out, they become an instant pariah. Same with the use of Death Spores. Ah well, I guess that's to compensate for the strategic shortcomings of the AI.
This genocide, along with my growing size and population, had relations tanking with all races. While I was slightly concerned about the upcoming 2525 vote, there were several factors working in my favor. First, the Sakkra couldn't vote against me anymore because they were dead. 
Secondly, although relations were slipping with the Klackons, they remained at war with the Psilons, essentially guaranteeing their vote. Third, the Humans actually signed peace with me, and since they were also at war with the Psilons, I had a good chance to pull their vote as well. Finally, I was getting pretty close to a 1/3 veto block, which would render any such fears immaterial.
When the council met, I was pleasantly surprised by the result:
Not only did I have a 1/3 veto block, I drew votes from ALL of the other races, enough to win the game outright! Looks like the Psilons have stepped on a lot of toes in this galaxy. Although I had the chance to win a diplo victory here in 2525, I decided to pass up on the opportunity in the hopes of winning a greater victory later on. My empire was on the rise, and I wasn't terribly afraid of anyone else, not even the Psilons. They had some dangerous weapons (including Scatter Pack X missiles!) but nothing that I couldn't deal with defensively.
And the bar graphs from the same date. I'm mostly posting them here for comparative purposes later.
On the very next turn (2526), I popped this extremely important tech:
Advanced Soil Enrichment would add a LOT of little borgs onto all of my planets - and SEVEN factories for every new colonist. Since I already had Atmospheric Terraforming, I could apply this to every single world, creating tons of Gaia environments. This game had, by far, the best Planetology tree I've ever seen for the Meklar. +10, Improved Eco, Controlled Tundra, +30, Controlled Radiated, Atmospheric, Advanced Soil. Along with the +50 terraforming I looted from the Sakkra, I was completely set! Too bad my Propulsion and Weapons trees were pretty sad to compensate.
After pausing three turns to remax my worlds with additional population and factories, it was time to go on the offensive again... against the Humans! 
Packback time! For once I would be the one declaring war on the Humans instead of vice versa. Note that I've finally, FINALLY managed to secure Vox, the Ultra Rich world that I had been skirmishing over for the last century. Also check out my new fleet designs, essentially the same model of ships only with improved weapons (Megabolt Cannon/Omega V bombs) and faster speed. The Humans (for once) lacked any Planetary Shield tech and had only six points of shielding. There was no way that they could stand up to my fleet!
I started at Maalor, the Rich world that I had been unable to grab so long ago. I looted Star Gates technology at that first world, which my Rich and Ultra Rich worlds could build unbelievably fast. I think Ryoun actually built one in a single turn! That allowed me to push forward even faster, routing new ships instantly to the front lines. I grabbed Neptunus and then Goriah in the north, before wheeling south to Xengara and the other Human core worlds. I soon reached the 3/8 GNN message:
Halfway through this process I discovered Ion Drives (warp 6), nearly doubling the speed of my transports. The Humans were floored, totally unable to respond to my offensive campaign. Speed really does kill in this game, and the AI just does not react well to it. I could flood every planet captured with colonists and reserve spending, flipping them around in a mere 4-5 turns into unassailable fortresses. I probably got more use out of the planetary reserve in this game than in any other two combined that I've played. If you've got multiple Rich or Ultra Rich worlds, you'd better use it a lot!
So, over the course of the 20 turns from 2525 to 2545, I crushed the Humans and ran over pretty much all of their worlds. I'll spare the details and just post the map from the latter date:
Now that's domination. 
With the Humans essentially finished, it was time to turn and deal with the Psilons, the only remaining AI power in the game. They had declared war on me sometime during the Human campaign, but I saw almost nothing of their ships. Most of my fighting had been in the north or the west, far out of range of their territory. In fact, I had very little contact with the Psilons at all until the final stages of this game. Although I wasn't exactly excited about charging into their Scatter Pack X bases, I figured what the heck? This game is just about over, so let's do it.
I struck first at the former Human homeworld, now an unsecured recent Psilon aquisition:
Sol had no bases, so it was easily destroyed. Next up, I picked a smaller Psilon world near the front lines. Obaca had "only" 35 bases, a much easier target than most of their planets. I brought my whole fleet to the battle, and through some creative maneuvering, managed to close with the planet without getting hit!
My Omega stack had just enough speed to get around the defending missiles and strike the planet surface. The Psilons had 16 points of shielding - but I was dropping almost 700 Omega-V bombs. Not a contest. I blew up the planet and moved on to the next target.
By the time we reached the 2550 vote a few turns later, my dominance had been assured:
Although I'm still behind the crazy Psilon technology bar, I'm crushing everyone else in Population, Planets, and Production. I've even taken the lead in Total Power, and if the human player ever takes the lead in Total Power, the game is completely finished. I'll be content to retire here rather than go through the tedious grinding of eliminating the other races. Naturally I've signed peace with the Humans and raised relations by bombing the Psilons again and again, ensuring that all the other races will vote for me in the election. This game is definitely not going to last any longer.
For a fun last challenge, I gathered my whole fleet and attacked Mentar (with its 65 bases) on the final interturn of the game. The Psilons had some ships sitting in orbit, posing an especially difficult challenge. Well, I didn't move the bombers correctly due to the defending ships and my Omega stack was touched by one of the Scatter Pack missile batches, causing its instant destruction! I also had another volley hit my stack of 12 Huge ships and kill 10 of them in one go - wow! Nasty stuff, those high-end missiles. Still, I did manage to bomb out the Psilon homeworld, at the cost of most of my fleet:
Pretty exciting battle, to be honest. And yet another sign that this game is over: if the Psilons can't stop me from trashing their homeworld, they certainly can't stop me from taking over any planet I please. 
Thus, with support from all three of the other AI races, I vote myself the winner in 2550. This classifies as a Domination win (greater than 50% of galactic population) by Realms Beyond nomenclature, just short of a Conquest win (2/3 or more population). Ironically I could have had a Conquest win by attacking and consuming the Klackons... but I wouldn't do that to my allies. I'm quite happy with this result.
And the final galactic map from 2550. As far as Impossible goes, I would probably rate this game as an 8 or 9 out of 10 on the difficulty scale. The start was definitely very difficult, but there were some decent opportunities for expansion with the Sakkra and (later) the Humans. The fact that the Humans, Klackons, and Psilons essentially were even in power for so long really helped things out, not having to deal with a runaway AI power. Even though the Psilons had some ridiculous tech, their small number of systems stopped them from ever getting out of control. After gambling initially, things were relatively straightforward.
On the other hand, if Controlled Radiated had been missing from the tree, it would have been a 10/10 in terms of difficulty! 
Thanks for reading. I hope those of you who also tried RefSteel's game had a good time.
