The moral question is a very interesting one, the game will explore it in the future.
There is also a faction called the Theocracy, a futa-supremacist religion. They have fleets, stations and possibly a planet in uncharted regions - but thats just a rumor. Their story could be strongly tied to this moral reform, at the very least a lot of futas flocked to them when the Union exiled them, including Iris. But they were a political player even before that, possibly secretly organizing to take power in the Union. (thats just my conspiracy theory, it could explain the exile though).The game havent revealed any exact reasons yet for the "moral reform", but its not just Irises story. Ginny could also have something to do with it - nobody knows who she really is but she conveniently appeared and established herself as a smuggler queen when PSX rebelled. Eleanor is also a main character who will appear a lot more - the pirate queen is a political pirate who only hits Union targets and nothing seems to be above her pay grade. So maybe we will get more lore about this in her storyline too.
You could be right about the kardashev scale, i havent heard about any dyson spheres in this universe (yet) but we could be suprised. Its so much energy that I would expect it from civlizations of far grander scale. But whose to say there are not just building "tall" instead of "wide", it could make sense to preserve unity, or simply because some are non-expansionist and the systems around are already inhabited. The Tarnians are said to be like that - slightly more advanced than humans but less war-like.
I dont know how much VP thought about the scale of the galaxy, but leaving a lot of mystery open ended seems to be his preferred way of building out a lore and universe.
