Vliups - We are One with You

Affinity: Diplomatic race that slowly "merges" with other races, accepting their strengths and providing all collected bonuses to allies by substituting their population.

Major Traits: 

Genetic chimeras - Vliups use all faction bonuses of their allies but they lose them during war with them.

Population substitution - Population of other nations is slowly substituted by special population which stops production and dies if at war with Vliups.

Alliance merge - Special population gives FIDS bonus, especially to allies

Minor Traits:

FIDS\happiness bonus after signing alliance or trade treaty for both allies for several turns

higher ship production costs

smaller food production

increased population happiness

increased star system defence

higher number of trade routes

some diplomatic technology discovered

Lore:

Vliups (or "chimeras", as they are called by other races) are sentient creatures able to use once collected genetic code to change themselves during several months. Vliup kids learn how to adjust their genetics when they learn to walk. With every touch they get a probe of genetic code to play with, implant, adapt and share with others. Although there are some rituals of testing the fittest and strongest, Vliups widely accepted that it is diversity which makes them powerful.

  Vliups society is based on reputation participating democracy. Nowadays political decisions are made during discussion of the whole Vliups society, where importance of each individual's voice is measured by reputation in “Plurality”, Vliups social network. The most popular and respected ones become Proxies, whose mission is to analyse and redistribute all votes and ideas from Plurality.

  Whole race of Vliups is full of questions unanswered. How did they learn to merge others genetic code? How did they look before they learned about genetic implants? Did they develop it on their own or were they engineered by someone else? Is it true that they merged with Concretes? And last but not least, will they become One with the whole Galaxy?

Gameplay style:

Vliups are very weak if they are alone. Small food production slows their expansion through the universe, thus allies are essential. And Vliups have a lot to offer. On one side, good relations give other factions very strong bonuses, and substitution of Vliup population provides tremendous acceleration of FIDS especially in mid- and late-game. Problem is, becoming Vliup ally means strong dependance on their diplomacy. Alliances and wars are important diplomatic instruments. Who is worth to be your ally? You should remember that  you accept not only positive traits, but also disadvantages. Whom to provide power with alliance and when to take it back? How to implant as many Vliups as possible all over others planets? War is very painful both for former Vliup allies as for Vliups themselves, question is who suffers more?

Technical details for major traits:

  Genetic chimeras - During 20 turns of alliance or 30 turns of trade treaty with Major or Minor faction Vliups "implant" all faction bonuses (both positive and negative) into their race. Every Vliup star system gets all implanted bonuses depending on implanting time and percentage of Vliup population in star system (max 100% of bonuses for Minor races, 50% of bonuses for Major races). It takes 30 turns of cold war or 15 turns of war to lose implant. Fully assimilated races or races with 50 population substituted are implanted forever.

  Alliance merge - If any faction signs alliance/trade treaty/peace/cease fire with Vliups, 1 home population is substituted by Vliup population with probability of 25%/15%/5%/2% for each planet. Every race gets FIDS bonuses depending on treaties signed, their duration and percentage of Vliup population ( (Vliup population % over whole empire)*N/X %FIDS bonus, X=200 for peace, X=100 for trade treaty, X=40 for alliance, X=20 for alliance and trade treaty, N=number of turns after signing contract, max 20).

  Population substitution - On every star system containing Vliups population, population of other races is slowly substituted by Vliups (twice slower than normal population increase or 1 per 15 turns whichever is bigger). If star system is in cold war with Vliups, Vliup population produces half FIDS and decays every 10 turns; if at war with Vliup, Vliup population stops producing FIDS and decays every 5 turns.