Thomas Theisman told us that as much as we all love to be peaceloving, spacefaring explorers, sometimes things just need to be blown up. And if you can conquer (Ahem. We don’t mean “conquer.” We mean “acquire through aggressive negotiation”) a planet or two with a rich asteroid belt near a wormhole junction in the process . . . well, so much the better.

You can design and build space stations and fleets of ships using the technology your star nation develops, buys or captures. You can form task forces, and design specific missions: “Defend System Zeta at all costs,” “Don’t let the Romulus asteroid belt fall into enemy hands” “Launch a massive attack with the whole fleet right away and hope for a short, victorious war.”

You can also follow the careers of specific captains. Some will be better or luckier than others, some will follow your orders blindly, while others may . . . deviate a little.

You can set your fleet’s battle tactics: roll wedges when incoming missiles are within a certain range, or stay outside energy range when your fleet has a missile advantage and you don’t need to be sure of destroying the enemy fleet, when to pursue, and when to run.

Following each battle, you will get a battle report via a holocording that can be viewed and replayed from any vantage point. Yu (Sorry. We obviously mean “You”) will observe the maneuvering, weapons fire, counter-weapons fire, damage, and pursuit in a 3D representation of the battle with fast forward, rewind, and viewpoint controls to see exactly how the battle unfolded. (The holocordings can also be used as screen savers.) If the battle goes poorly, Yu (Sorry again. “You”) can adjust future tactics accordingly and reassign surviving captains.

And if the risk of loss is too great for you to bear, you will also be able to test your tactics and the abilities of your commanders in “war games” against the computer or other players without risking your fleet in real battle. If you really must.