The main villains of Star Control 2 also have a very cool backstory that sets up the conflict in the game. Basically the original alien race of Ur-Quan was enslaved telepathically by another race (think of mind flayers), and when they finally broke free from their slavery the one and only thing on everyone’s mind was to never allow anything like that to happen ever again.

Their resolve was so strong that the only future they could see was complete control over every other sentient race in the universe. The only thing their opinions differed on was the method they would pursue, and this split the race in two: The Kohr-Ah who wanted to eradicate all other sentient life, and the Kzer-Za who prefered to merely enslave all the other races.

The game begins in a section of space where Kzer-Za rule over many such slave races, including us humans. The Kohr-Ah are returning from their long “banishment” to finally settle the philosophical argument over which of the two Ur-Quan doctrines is superior. Amidst this colossal war, the player and his allied races try to find the opportunity to free themselves of the Ur-Quan oppression for good.

The TV series Babylon 5 also has a reminiscent setting where two extremely advanced “precursor” races, Vorlons and Shadows, are fighting a proxy war over how the “lesser” races should be “guided”. Like the Kher-Za, the Vorlons won the argument first time around and banished the Shadows somewhere “far away”. The Vorlons wanted to nurture the other species, providing them with (some) technology and giving them the “gift” of psionic powers. The Shadows instead favored a “survival of the fittest” approach and wanted to make the races war against each other in order to develop rapidly. And now that the Shadows are back, that’s exactly what they are going to do.