Interesting. It's been awhile since I've seen a spectacular space game. There were some decent space combat simulators, but they were basically just flight combat in space.
I remember a very old pc game (came on 3.5" diskettes) called "Nomad." that I really enjoyed back in the day. It was primarily resource management, with some combat and inter-planetary politics. The best part was that it was based on actual science. It's old, but it might be an inspiration, as well.
Good luck with your endeavor. I hope it's a success!
Thank you! I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, but I know that I want players to figure things out themselves. Alliances will form between players and they will be left to sort the politics out themselves. For me the player interaction is what is going to make this a great space game.