Ape Apps

Relations: In my eyes, this could be a very fun mechanic. If you have a good relation with the "mother" colony (kinda like what we have rn with the online base commonwealths) of a seperate race/faction, you could glean some of their tech through diplomatic missions to the mother colony of the selceted race/faction. There would need to be a catch though, which is where the relations part takes hold. In order to increase relations, you'll need to trade diplomats.

Diplomats: Diplomats are automatically assigned to the colony you have control of. The larger you colony grows, the more diplomats you get to have. But each diplomat is automatically sent to your mother colony/faction. In order to increase relations with a different mother colony/faction, you need to decrease the amount of diplomats you are sending to your parent colony/faction, thus losing a lot of stand in things like Elections, trades, and most importantly, Research offers.

Elections: Elections are going to decide who the head-honcho of the selected faction/race is. Each race will have a different leaders, and there will be no overall leader, exept for the Emperor, who is in the shadows for now. But back to the elections, they will be held by all factions in intervals. The colont with the most votes will win the Seat. The seat will be on the Counsil. There will be however many seats according to the races, but only one seat gets alloted to each race/faction.

//This idea has been discontinued//

It'll be a good challenge to maintain a good relation with home faction - I am having similar thoughts.
Further thoughts here.
The mission of a colony is generally bring precious resources back to their home world. So, basically exporting resources will maintain relations between the colony and home world up to certain extent.
To further advance relations with the home world, you can perform diplomatic missions by colony diplomats, like, paying tribute, receiving tasks, or even, presenting a big development plan that your colony will be promised to finish it.
Better relations with the home world will unlock clearances one by one, giving the governor more administrative powers on the colony and access to more resources of the faction.
In the opposite, worsened relations with the home world. This can happen when there are no exports for too long, or failed to finish given or promised tasks. With worsened relations, your colony will receive penalties, from support being cut, penal taxation, to weakened autonomy, or even military actions that can reduce your colony to ruins.