Rebellion in rebellion

So when a loyalist planet goes to 0%, it goes rebel and if a rebel world goes to 0%, it goes loyalist. Obvious yet beautiful.

Would would be cool if you joined the loyalist side and one of these rebelions did happen, it would spread from world to world. If you joined the rebel side, some of your planets would call you a traitor and try to subdue the 'rebelion.'

I had an idea similar to this awhile back. I had thought diplomacy would add this type of thing, and suggested that you could essentially be offensive without using fleets/military tree by getting culture going early and using it to acquire neutral worlds. Also, the envoys would either enhance the allegiance affect of your culture or deter the allegiance affect of an enemy. Culture wouldn't be the only thing you used to acquire neutrals, you'd need envoys to get you some diplomatic influence.

Lastly, I wanted the option to ally with neutral worlds. With some diplomatic research, you wouldn't have to wipe out a planet to get past it. Then later, your diplomatic efforts might get them to join you.

In general, I felt a the culture system should be strongly connected to the diplomatic system; both together should be a viable way to expand

I kinda felt that military starts would aquire the first few systems before the diplomatic method would, but when the diplomatic method had got going you would be acquiring multiple systems simultaneously, which would make it stronger at that point. On the other hand, your planets would be fairly unprotected, so a military incursion could be quite disruptive.

We'll see what they do.

I was also thinking about a possible Advent tech that could convert neutral worlds with culture (not sure what it would do with the militia though).  Perhaps the TEC's "incite rebellion" research could turn a planet and its militia into an actual rebel faction to attack other players (or maybe you, supporting rebels is tricky business).  Both would also work after enemy worlds are overthrown and become neutral.  Not sure what Vasari's tech would do?

Also, population might not be a planet's actual population, it might be sectors under your control or possibly garrisons (that's how I like to think about it anyway) so when the people are no longer loyal, they loot your offices and barracks and soldiers defect or are killed.  If you re-colonize, you have to build that security apparatus back up.

The manual states that the advent colony frigates deploy missionaries to convert "indigenous peoples" so colony frigates do get neutrals to your side in some way, even though you have to destroy their militia so if you could research diplomatic immunity for them, that could do something (or research colonization for envoys)?  But yeah, I had a similar hope that diplomatic cruisers could spread culture a little.

If you follow Galactic Civilization's explanation, population is actually representative of citizens and not actual planetary populations.  That explains why a single colony frigate can get a colony up and running.  As you invest in civilian infrastructure you're basically building the sorts of things you'd see on worlds in Gal Civs.  If you read the message in Sins before you lose a planet is says something like 'Cultural rebels threaten to overthrow our government.'  That's basically a confirmation that your 'population' isn't the planet's actual population.  In Gal Civs you were only interested in the workings of the government.  The private sector was left to do its own thing, though you'd see income from setting up trade routes and tourism(calculated by total galactic citizenry and divided based on each faction's influence percentage).  This government focus is carried through into Sins.  It is just that Sins greatly simplifies the planet management, and focuses on the space warfare part heavily.  Several planetary structures from Gal Civs were adapted to be orbital structures instead.  E.g. factories and starports became frigate factories and capital ship factories, entertainment centers became culture buildings, markets were rolled together with trade freighters into trade ports, etc.

I can dig that it's really just the taxable population that goes to zero, it's just that I'd rather have something that looks and feels more like a rebellion and less like the effects of a horrible plague.

I've sometimes wondered why Sins doesn't have cultural conquest the same way other games with culture do. It seems to counter someone's ideas about what sort of game they want. I also agree that it would make sense to have envoys be agents of cultural spread, and it would certainly be neat if there was a way to use them to conquer neutral planets. I do get the feeling all of that would be too radical a change from the basic gameplay (though I for one would enjoy it).