Abraham Lincoln vs. Prince Thrakhath

There's a new fan project on the way! Rasmus Lindegaard Christensen is developing a Wing Commander mod for Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword's space mod. He's in the process of figuring out how to get ships into the game... and he needs our help with some of the mechanical elements:

However, there is an even greater challenge of imagination. I seek help for developing the tech tree, especially the non-military branches. I figured that maybe you could pass on the question on the website, with my email, and ask the imaginative fan community for ideas.