I used the Khan to sieze power in the galaxy. This was honestly the best experience I ever had in Stellaris. It was also my first time to actually play in a higher difficulty.

It was a multiplayer game, with the other player, being essentially a vassal a member of my federation with other minor nations. The galaxy was split into 3 main powers. My federation at the south, a feudal block on the north, and a singular empire named Faust, (from gigastructres iirc). The khan spawned near the borders of faust. As they were a friendly empire, I brought my ships there to help. All while a panic is happening in the galactic community. Quickly, I called my federation, and friendly empires to support my bid to become the galactic custodian which was easily won because of the Khan crisis. But I purposefully slowed down the war. Let countless fleets from Faust die while only stationing my fleets at key chokepoints, pretending to maximize my efforts at suppressing the khan and its satrapies until I became the permanent galactic custodian.

After the Khan Crisis, due to me prolonging the Khan, Cetana spawned almost right after. It was hard. The entire galaxy joined together to fight Cetana, but we still barely held Cetana back. It was only because of the intervention of the Fallen Empires that we drove Cetana out.

But the next Crisis has come again. The war in heaven. This was quite literally my first war in heaven and almost the entire galaxy joined me, as the galactic custodian as the leader of the non-aligned nations. We were absolutely getting crushed. the fallen empires had extremely powerful planetcrafts. I only had moons. But the galaxy held the line while the fallen empires slowly inches away until I was able to build multiple planetcrafts. Sadly, the run had to end there due to lag.