How do you explain it?

[Glyn]

Yes, most 4X games start with the common theme of a number of races starting galactic conquest from an equal footing. I was asking about back-story theories that would account for the basic 4X theme that the game is designed around. What a member of one of the races in the game might theories to rationalize their reality?

Examples:
“Aliens did it!” - An advance race is secretly keeping all prewarp point aware races within their warp point networks at a status quo level of development.
or
“The gods did it!” - Beings with the power to alter reality, arranged a series of improbable events to take place for their personal amusement or for some type power struggle that is beyond comprehension.

Or
Atrocities’s (summarized by me.)
“The Cleansing” - 99% of all inhabited systems are cleansed in a great war leaving only a few backwater colony systems inhabited. Existing space capable technology is rendered unusable by a weapon used to end the Great War. The warp point network is an artifact created before the conclusion of the Great War.