nope, you can see all the events that are possible via galciv2/data/english. the only way that you can have an random event is to make a random event......so far.

Random events are not entirely random. You will be more likely to have bad ones if you are doing well, and good ones if you are doing poorly. It adds challenge/gives you a chance to recover.

Nope i've seen the same. My allies had completely crushed our enemies and I was on cruise control to get an allied victory. The I received event.. when I was visited by my ally the Narn leader (playing a custom mod) he was assassinated etc.. and I was blamed for it by his successor yada, yada. Now they go to war with me and break up my happy alliance.

So you're not alone.

I got that my first game.

Also, I'd point out that you can reduce the likelihood of such with the Luck trait.

Edit: That said, I don't actually like the luck trait. I mean, good lord, how many renamed "Sniper" core ships do I bloody need? I had one game where I was getting them faster than I could give them away to my allies! Yeargh.

Yep, I usually play is it the universalists?, they have a + luck bonus.
Anyway, I’m not complaining about this event. I do believe it may be hard-coded because the file events.txt is events used for setting up players alignments. I’m guessing that the assassination worker is sitting right next to the pirates attacking shipping lanes event. (Where ever that may be sadly)

At any rate, thanks for the feedback all. Maybe I’ll keep digging and find it at a later date.

Cheers,
FD