GALACTIC ARMAGGEDON!

I thought this would make a cool plot for a sequel to Dark Avatar, but it could make a Mega Event too. Note that this is flagrantly (and unapologetically) ripped off of Bablyon Five:

- A mysterious new minor race shows up, the Folgor. They refuse regular diplomatic or trade contact, and they don't seem to have any planets, but they start making cryptic statements about how the universe is falling apart.

- Then the Dread Lords show up, but more powerful than usual, and they form alliances with some races (more likely to ally with Evil than Good). There could be a variant of the event where the DLs actually offer to ally with the player (in which case the Folgor stop talking to you.

- The Folgor and the Dread Lords start supplying advanced weaponry to their allies, and encourage them to build an alliance to combat the other one. At this point, Folgor colonies start mysteriously appearing on previuosly uninhabited worlds.

- The Dread Lords reveal that the Folgor are really Arnor who have returned (by decrying their allies as "Arnorian puppets," and begin attacking them. The Folgor enter the fray with their own small armada of Dread Lord-like warships.

- The Arnor and the Dread Lords suddenly begin breaking alliances with evil and good races (respectively), and each begins a campaign of extermination intent on wiping out the other ethical alignment. The player must choose whether to support his allies against the Folgor/ Dread Lords, or stay with the big guys.

- Finally, each side unleashes its own version of the spore module, and declares that the younger races have become too decadent, and all must be destroyed. You have a four way fight between two power blocks and two races of living gods!

Events that cause additional civilisations to enter the game, be they minors, splitting up a major race, or granting a sufficiently powerful minor civilisation major race status. They have to be given some teeth, though... if they're split off a major civ, they need to take some of the military with them. If they're a minor, they need to be given a boost to compete and not simply be a cheap target.

An event that drops a non-standard minor race into the mix, in a similar fashion to pirates, except that these guys are merchants who play by different rules. They get starbases that act as planets in their own right (population, trade, and ship building), they arrive in huge and widespread numbers, and their starbases provide economic benefits to nearby planets and freighters (regardless of owner). There should be some kind of bonus for attacking them, probably in terms of wealth, which would be balanced by the fact that everyone has a vested interest in keeping their services going.

A few of these ideas dont really sound like 'mega events' as I understand the current mega events to be.
A lot of the cosmic ones are more 'megary' (if thats even a word *feels silly*), but seem either OTT (a wave that destroys EVERY ship in the galaxy) or very small mega events like supernovai, which will only destroy one star system.
I like the idea of meteorite impacts, but these arent really galaxy-wide like normal mega events, they seem more like morality choices similar to the breakup of the moon colony or the like.
The galactic shake-up (where planets just are simply rearanged in new places) sound a bit silly, but its definately unbalancing and could cause alot of turmoil where each civilisation is trying to reistablish control, and wars will almost certainly break out.
To be honest I dont agree with terrorist attacks within the game as its a bit morally subjective. Sure its a game, and its not real, but terrorism within the game should be left out, purely out of respect.

Here are my ideas, and by all means, comments and criticisms are welcome.

The civil war event (by assasination, military coup, etc etc) sound like a super idea (there is a thread dedicated to it in the ideas section). This would really shake up the balance of a galaxy especially if it happened to you. But, you could also make the civil war one of your goals. You can (by different means such as agents, bribery or war which errupts into another war because of unrest or whatever) try and pursue this to get another civilisation to fall into civil war, and as the empire tears itself apart from the inside, you move in and capture whats left. This may happen to you, so dont expect it to be an easy ride through diplomacy. This adds a whole new depth to diplomacy, espionage and destabilisation, war and economics. This civil war creates a new Civ maybe with different ethics to the one they split with.

Black hole event.
A black hole appears somewhere in the galaxy, and it has a radius of 5x5 parsecs. Anything within this parsec is destroyed. Yeah even planets are erased from this cosmos, but stars are not. Each turn it moves off in a random direction until it either dissipates or moves off the map edge. This could really shake up the game, as ethics come into play. Do you spend alot of money trying to rescue your people in ivacuation ships, or just leave them to their fate. If its happening to another civ, do you aid them, or take advantage of the chaos and invade while they are weak? Does another civ? Also diplomacy, as you try and convince other civs to do their best to help you if they can. You can also try and get a ship outfitted with a black hole gun (if researched) to try and 'cancel out' the black hole, but it will not always be successful.

A fun one here: Mad scientist.
He is trying to create a weapon which could seriously aid an evil civ, destroy a huge amount of the map, hold a civ to ransom, or somethingelse befitting to a mad scientist. You have to try and find which lab in which planet (by using espionage against yourself in a special slider which appears only in this circumstance) and then send an agent in to try and stop him. You can try and reason with him, pay his ransom, or just blow the planet up etc.

Robot Rebellion ala I, Robot.
Your/another civs industry is crippled until you can quell the robot uprising.
You have to cut off the (random amount) planet/planets that have rebelled then invade them and retake the planet. The planets are still 'yours' and no new civ comes of it, but those planets are doing absolutely nothing for you apart from sapping your economy.

'Space Hurricane'
Very similar to black hole, but does not completely destroy a planet, but instead is similar to a mass driver invasion of a certain amount of planetary improvements and pop. within its radius. Not everyone will die, not every ship/starbase will be destroyed, but the area of effect is much larger. I prefer the black hole event as its much more destructive.

Pirates that do a bit more than just randomly blow stuff up.
They try and steal techs to sell to other civs, can be bought for a few turns to cause a bit of havoc to another civ, try and steal freighters/constructors. They might try and blow up a galactic achievement of yours, try and steal food (you can give them some to gain 'pirate favours') or anything else the devs can code into the game. That sounds like a cool form of 'minor race' that work like the Korx but better because they have nothing to lose like the Korx. Ocassionaly you might find a wierd looking starbase only to find its a pirate stronghold and you can destroy it, arrest the pirates for a morale and economic boost, or you can buy them if your feeling mischievous.

'Tyranids' or 'space locusts'
Anyone here who has played, plays or knows about Warhammer 40,000 should know what I'm talking about. They are galactic locusts. They are a hive mind controlled race of bio-engineered insects and creatures who basically invade a planet, destroy it, eat everything on it and leave to another one. Of course the devs will have to think up another name that tyranids but the premise will be identical. The planet they invade (because they scour it of its atmosphere, its water, biological and non-biological matter and consume it) will be reduced to a class 0 planet. You can fight them, they have good soldiering ability, and ALOT of ships. They will invade randomly, and often invade one planet, float around, move the other side of the map and invade a planet there too. This idea sounds really cool, as you can (if you think you can benefit from it of course) leave them alone and see if they invade other civs, or try and destroy them.
Whats also cool is that they reproduce lost ships over time, so if left untouched after a big war they will end up being just as powerful as before.

So, ive wrote an essay... what do you all think of my ideas so far?

My humble suggestions are,

Nano plague, a research accident has unless a plague of nano disassembliers, unless a a counter wave of nano bots is quickly produced it will degrade all our planets. This events require a "counter nano plague" tech skill (as part of the basic computing skill tree) if it is not researched planet quality is dropping.

Melt Down, a strange energy wave sweeps the universe causing powerplants (fusion on up) to melt down, this destroys said plants and maybe kills off some population.

We are sick of being pushed around, all minor races now work together are allied and share techs, ships, perhaps even surrender to each other.

Galactic Tide, a major star explodes creating a pressure wave that effects all space stations, all base are move a half grid square or more in a random direction, plays heck with all carefully planned spheres of influence.

Galactic Mad Cow, because of the threat of tainted trade goods all planets have stopped trade to inspect, test, and destroy possable tainted good. The effect is all trade routes are removed and must be restarted.

Just some ideas

How about something along the lines of:

A mineral mined at mining outposts that was previously discarded as waste has been found to hold properties that increase (insert property here). Mining outposts now increase (insert property here) by a factor of 2,3,5 or what have you.

Microfist software releases version number 100000000001 beta.Galaxy wide research is reduced to a trickle while the software is revised to a workable version.  

Area 51 on planet earth was finally penetrated in the year xxxx.A galaxy wide media feed has released highly advanced armor technology for all spaceships.Now all space ship armor is increased by x amount for all craft.

Industrial Might and Logic holograph experimemt gets out of control.All sensors on all spacecraft report false data as to ship positions and show ghost images of actual ships
until the efrfects of experiment are countered.

X race has found Disney Park on one of it's asteroids.Until this famous amusement park is destroyed the race who owns it and all of it's allies will riecieve .xxx increase in influence per turn.

The effects of eons of plastic water bottles finally takes its toll.Goo monsters are spawning from the area of xxx and reducing morale whenever they enter planetary space at xxx number of parsecs.This threat must be dealt with.Ally with another race and take on these evil beings.

Hallmart pops into local space and stars building big box space shopping malls.All money from taxes is reduced by xxx for a time as local businesses adjust to the threat.

how about something similar to a hyperspace flux from moo2, where some galaxy wide phenomenon causes all interstellar travel to stop. Nobody's ships will be able to move at all for months. Depending on the timing of this event, it can help some civs or seriously cripple others. By the time the phenomenon stops, the balance of power in the galaxy may have shifted in unexpected ways.

I haven't seen anything like this happen so far. How about the possibility of one of the minor civs upgrading into a full blown "normal" civ.

It would be pretty funny if that minor Civ you've been feeding tech to all game suddenly becomes a HUGE threat right on your own doorstep.

Carriers, fighters and mines.

And star destroying weapons.

Civil wars would be fun too, I rather like they way they worked in medieval total war, where you could pick a side.

I think any mega event where a races ethics come into play is interesting. Someone mentioned earlier a super nova/space death ribbon effect. Giving players the option of leaving people to die but nabbing extra research or evacuating their people (or trying to have their cake and eat it too for neutral players) seems like an interesting event. Rather than just 'check the box' make the player actually BUILD ships and move population. Of course as someone pointed out, it might be necessary to make this even effect several systems to be truly 'mega'.

I also liked the Dyson sphere event but I think it needs to be placed such that one of the weaker powers will likely end up with it.

MOO2 style Space monsters are of course always fun.

Something I'd like to add to this discussion is a variation on the precursor ship. Basically a weak civ discovers a cache of super weapons on a planet of there's but these are not ships, they're missiles. They will take out everything on a parsec they hit, including all ships and if its a planet depopulate it and destroy all infastructure but the weapon is used up to do so. Thus they only have so many shots before its back to being the little guy again.

Mega events are complex because I think its important to disrupt that 'mop up' effect that the end of the game has but it's also important to have the game capable of ending. Thus while the space nukes or the dyson sphere can give a weaker side a dramatic boost its still a lynch pin so it adds strategic complexity to the closing hours of the game without (necessarily) prolonging the game another three days. By contrast the civil war event (if occuring multiple times) could prolong the game unendingly.

Some ideas... some have already been requested

1) Imminent Armageddon - Must win a victory within "X" number of turns before doom
2) Galactic Storm - wipes out/permanently removes resources in planets in a certain quadrant/area/etc.
3) Back to the stone age - all/a specific field of technology is lost and all associated ships/resources/etc. built are lost. The lost technology must be re-discovered
4) Resource shortage - all resources (military,economic,etc) are lost
5) Temporary ownership - a planet that one owns is suddenly given to another race for loan - during these "X" number of turns, the planet cannot be invaded. After the "X" number of turns are up, the planet is returned to the original owner.
6) Galactic Depression - all costs are doubled for "X" number of turns
7) Space Debris Crisis [a.k.a. Kessler Syndrome] - any destroyed ships leave debris that freely moves and can destroy any ships that it runs into. Can be destroyed by other ships.

- Space Monster
No space 4x game is complete without a couple of them! Either a single, powerful one or a swarm, similar to locusts. (MoO style space monster / Tyranid like invasion)

- Black Hole
A black hole opens in a sector of space, drawing each ship traversing it towards its center with a given speed per week. Fast ships can escape its pull.

- Artifact World
A new planet is discovered, guarded by a ridiculously powerful ship. Yes, I like MoO, so what?

- Supernova
A systems star turn into a supernova. You can either research a way to prevent it (like the plague), or you can evacuate. The nova would unleash a shockwave traveling a certain distance, damaging everything in its way. The closer you are to the centre of the event, the more damage you receive.

- Comet
A huge comet passes through the galaxy. It will hit one planet and reduce it to asteroids unless you send enough starships to destroy it. This would basically be the already existing normal event, but aimed at a populated world.