One of the ongoing issues with the game AI is how war becomes an inevitable state of affairs, especially once you share borders with another empire. I think that giving heroes the ability to positively affect relations with other empires, by placing these heroes in a system that shares borders with another empire. By being in this system, the hero can lessen or even remove the tension generated by the system and other ones that fall within the influence range of the system. The hero's Wit and any skills that impact Happiness could influence the impact of diplomacy between the empires. An side effect of this placement is that the hero imparts a happiness bonus onto the colonies of other empires, which would grow over time. If the other empire becomes hostile, this happiness bonus instead is transmuted into a malus, because the citizens of systems affected by hero diplomacy would prefer peaceful relations instead of conflict. This element is included because it gives incentive for human players to play nice with each other if they employ their heroes at border worlds, thus making the mechanic relevant to both human and AI empires by punishing hostilities.

This could work well as a complete overhaul of the diplomacy system, though at the moment trying to figure out which system gives you the best bonus would kind of suck right now, it would be the same thing but relations just climb relentlessly. A better way of conducting diplomacy (and improving relations) would certainly be nice. I also think that this would be better served if we had either more heroes to work with, or a secondary class of heroes that work more as diplomats or stand ins. Otherwise, your hero would be better spent in the colonies that need them, rather than simply to make the Sophons like you.

I agree with Javarino. There should be a diplomat class of heroes with their own sub-academy.