Your relationship with other factions consists of one formal value and an informal one. Your formal status with other factions is one of the following: Vendetta, Truce, Treaty and Pact. Additionally, you may have an "informal truce" with another faction.

"Vendetta" is rather self-explanatory: this faction leader has made a promise to destroy your faction, or at least bust it up pretty good. Unless you are the aggressor, of course. "Truce" (or "Blood Truce") means that your two factions have agreed not to attack each other, at least for the time being. "Treaty" ("Treaty of Friendship") is just that, a treaty which represents your two factions' friendship. More importantly, a Treaty means the citizens and organizations of two faction will now trade with each other, meaning you get extra energy credits, straight into the state coffers. The final kind of formal relationship is the Pact ("Pact of Brotherhood"). This means your two factions are committed to helping each other out, which has several manifestations. First, commerce rates double between your two factions, and secondly, your units may stack theirs. This means closer military cooperation is possible, you may defend each other's bases, and your pact mate might even give you units "to defend your territory against aggression".

Note that while you may not attack a pact mate (your unit will only stack with his or hers), you may still incur a reputation hit if your probe teams are caught trying to operate on one of your pact mate's bases or units. If one of your probe teams are indeed compromised, the target faction has sufficient reason, with regards to reputation, to move against you. This means that if you attempt to steal technology from a pact mate and are caught, your pact mate may declare vendetta against you without going through the normal channels. The same, of course, is the case for a human player.

The Planetary Council

The Planetary Council is a rare feature among Civ games; just like the United Nations of Civilization IV. The Planetary Council consists of every human faction in the game (not counting those who have been eliminated or committed major atrocities). When a player has the commlink factions of all the other human factions, that player may convene the Planetary Council. (When this happens, all the human factions will have each others' comm links.)

The first proposal the Council must consider is electing the Planetary Governor. Only the two factions with the most votes can run for governor. It is advantageous to be the Governor [The Planetary Governor can introduce new proposals more often and enjoys automatic infiltration of all factions. That means if the Governor isn't you, it should be somebody you trust.], therefore in some cases it may be best to wait before convening the Council if you haven't enough votes now but have a shot at eligibility within the next few turns.