Unfortunately I cannot provide a more detailed AAR with screenshots as events unfolded due to Ironman, only screenshots I have are endgame. So I'll just try to give as accurate a telling as possible.
Played with Normal combat difficulty (Cause my brain doesn't track moving objects well) and Hard strategic difficulty.
Started out with the Peltian flagship, 2nd race to become spacefaring was the Burlusts.
My first action was to uplift the Andors as they were the next in line to become spacefaring and I figured it couldn't hurt to have at least one friendly race.
The Environmentalists were in power so I decided to have them send out boosters to all the other races until the lowest environment score in the system was 80, also I had them establish trade routes with all available races; Peltians, Evucks, Thoraxians, Skylaxians in order to get relations between them and another race high enough to form a Federation. I dont remember when exactly but I then put the Pharmacists in charge and upped everybody's Health and then the Traders to improve trade routes.
Meanwhile I kept the Public Order on the Burlust and Peltian homeworlds high in order to prevent the negative opinion modifier brought on by unrest. For some reason the entire Peltian fleet had also gone Pirate on day one, this worked out well for me. Between raids on pirates for Peltian pilots and bribe items for the Burlusts and holding off Burlust fleets and negotiating peace I managed to get the Andors and Peltians basically on my side if not quite ready for a Federation. A small windfall came in the form of a mission to give the Evucks spacefaring technology, after shooting up a handful of Andor capital ships the Evucks were ready to blast into space! Best of all they had over 90 opinion with the Andors thanks to trade.
Then for good measure I stole a Manufacturing and Science outpost from the Andors before immediately forming the Federation with the Andors and Evucks. By handing over Peltian pilots from the roving pirates and negotiating peace with the Burlusts I managed to get enough Peltian voting proxies and influence to bring them on board as well.
Not understanding the new function where murdering a Warlord causes the Burlusts to go insane and attack whatever is in reach I then duelled the prime Warlord in order to make the extra 3000 leverage I needed to pressure the Burlusts to join the Federation. At this time the Acutians became spacefaring. As the Acutians were the 'weakest' race outside the federation the Burlusts then decided to kamikaze the massive military complex the Acutians were building.
What followed was an Acutian ground invasion of the Burlust homeworld while the Andors parked a huge armada over the Acutian homeworld. A never ending meat grinder then ensued. I figured out that I needed to have the Acutian entertainment industry to become more powerful if I wanted them to join the Federation before the Peltians wiped either themselves or the Acutians out with their stupid suicide pods. Thankfully the Andors are just content to contain a hostile race rather than invade. For some reason when I tried to elevate the entertainment industry through public works it did not raise the score of the industry, so at this point I resorted to simply sabotaging the Insurance industry to make Entertainment bigger, by comparison. After murdering up a lot of blameless robotic insurance brokers and influencing the Acutians through the power of outsourcing, a couple peace treaties and a ton of bribes Robot Tom Cruise then managed to convince all the Acutians that Solar Unity was a swell idea.
Awesome, I had 5 planets and 5 races in the Federation and it was just at the cost of a really stupid ground invasion and a couple years of a blockade. At this time the Boarines became spacefaring and I managed to get a mission to get the Skylaxians up there as well. (once again by blowing up some Andors) The Skylaxians I was able to pretty safely ignore I just set up a trade route between them and the Acutians and let them sit. The Boarines were another problem entirely.
The Burlusts were still crazy, the Acutians were still incredibly well armed. The Skylaxians were a hard target, the Boarines... were about 500 million pigs with piss-poor technology. This is where preventing a genocide got a little tricky.
Fresh from their awful war with the now allied Acutians the Burlusts decided to have a go at the Boarines. Unfortunately they were now a Federation race and incapable of being attacked by me. With their massive warfleet and no other good targets the Acutians, I guess, decided that they might as well fight SOMEBODY. So they also invaded the Boarines. I had just run out of my last credit elevating Robot Tom Cruise to a position of power. All the pirates were dead. I was pretty sure the Boarines were doomed. Then a beautiful thing happened, the Skylaxians declared war on the Burlusts and nobody came to help them!
By murdering my wonderful Skylaxian brothers/comrades as they attempted to assault the Burlust homeworld I was able to gather enough credits to boost the Acutians' relation with the Skylaxians (Through the Boarines who were, at the time, being attacked by the Acutians). Robot Tom Cruise could just ask politely and the Burlusts would be ok. So I was content to let the Skylaxians throw untold millions into that awful meat grinder while I concentrated on saving my Pig Friends.
Small Acutians landing parties would assault the Pig planet and die. I thought I had time.
Then they landed an invasion force with something like 2 billion ground strength. Even though the Boarines loved me they would not join the Federation for any less than 50k Credits. Robot Tom Cruise was of no help because he didn't much like the Boarines. Once again it was looking like my track record as the Solar Peace Keeper was about to get a rather nasty black mark.
Then, riding on a white horse out of the sunset, I was attacked by Anti Federation Insurgents. Hundreds of them. Killing them was worth so much money! Why was I not murdering these guys from the start? Convincing the Skylaxians to share every bit of ground power boosting tech they owned with the Boarines I then blasted through the Solar System, mopping up the AFA everywhere they showed their heads. As I did this a brave battle was fought on the Boarine homeworld 500m against an overwhelming invasion, a tense countdown ensued. Millions died every month but thanks to cold blooded murder and maybe the odd bit of slave trading I soon had the $50k the Boarines insisted on having me pay to purchase the privilege of not seeing them exterminated horribly. (I payed gladly)
Robot Tom Cruise then flashed his beautiful smile at the Skylaxians and they pulled out of their invasion of the Burlust homeworld and joined the Federation.
Thanks to some Terraforming Aid missions I had done in the interim the Thoraxians joined up the day they became spacefaring (For like 3k What the heck Boarines?!). I did give their Queen a few Giant Marmots to eat just to seal the deal.
So yeah, I formed the Federation (More or less) bloodlessly! Or my hands, tentacles or whatever Hydrals have are pretty clean of civilian blood at least...
Everybody on board and alive! Note only 246 million Boarines left
All those brave insurgents, whose deaths saved the Boarines.
