i'm not sure that we are strong enough to be able to form any alliance of benefit. I'd wait another couple of weeks before we seek any diplomacy moves, unless you guys know of anybody who is willing right now? the Uni is still in its infancy so its a little pointless right now i think. Watch the diplomacy boards on the .org boards, some alliances show their true colors there, and it can be useful in figuring out which alliances are the immature 10 year olds and who are the experienced ones worth allying with.

Making friends is always useful though,  sometimes an enemy can turn out to be a great ally. Always be civil and open, i've already have some sort of informal NAP (with a view to sharing espionage) with a guy in my system which came about simply by msging him to say i was online when he attacked me. If we make get to know people now, we may be able to make more useful alliances in the future.

If we rush into things we could end up forming an NAP with a bunch of idiots who just manage to piss people off, which would just make us more enemies, and could result in a war we are unprepared for. We  first need to weed out the idiots

Shig are you still playing?  I've been kicking the shit out of your neighbors and you have been sitting with the same amount of points and moving at a snails pace.  WTF?