Ok, I see the problem you are having now. The cause is the colony modules in the components file. If you remove those form teh file then you can start at level 5 or level 20. Of course then you can't colonize any planets.
What is it you are trying to accomplish there? Perhaps if I know how it's supposed to work for the mod I can come up with a way to duplocate that in the mod. I've never played SE2.
Geoschmo