Someone on Reddit mentioned that a possible solution to allowing this would be a "custom race" option, where you get to mix and match attributes, ships, species, etc. That would leave the official lore of the game intact while allowing players like me to soak up Endless Space 2 as much (and how) we like. :)

Also, just like to point out that this was an option in Endless Space 1, I'd just like to see it come back in ES2, possibly with some improvements. :)

The main reason I dislike this is that it waters down the racial aesthetics. The second reason is that I don't want ship classes to be identical, despite different models, I very much want x race's ship to have extra slots for y equipment/weapon, while being deficient in another field. Something along the lines of the weapons restrictions in EL, where despite being infantry, the drakken troop has different available weaponry to the ardent mages warlock.