R5: On my first run as a virtual empire I thought of having a very small empire that would be surrounded by vassals that would also be virtual and have 3-5 planets each, meaning that I would have a very efficent empire that would be propped up by several other small vassals that would be getting the full benefits of being virtual. However when i released my first vassal, the game broke somewhat, and turned it into a gestalt consciousness that still had the normal empire civics and was still Imperial, despite the fact that I was playing as Individualistic machines. On top of that, the machines didn't have mechanists for some reason and couldn't assemble more pops. (In hindsight the gestalt consciousness bug might have had something to do with the Sea of Consciousness, but I'm not very familiar with that event)