scousematt, that was one of the (many) things I loved about the original Civilization.
Consider these two things:
1. Josh has said, when you start a new game, the AI he's designing might let him generate the initial socio-techno-econo-political structure of the galaxy by seeding multiple sapient races on different worlds and letting them produce their own histories.
2. The node-based data viewer looks like it can show dynamic changes at the system level. And an earlier devlog mentioned that (some version of) categorization had been implemented, which in theory could allow political boundaries to be observed as they change.
Now suppose to those features we add two more:
3. The node map can show not just a single system but one or more sectors.
4. The rate at which time passes can be changed (at least by the game itself, if not by the player).
Having those features available allows something very cool to happen. When you're done selecting all the options you want and you click the button to start a new game, you begin in the inky blackness of space.
Slowly a glittering expanse of points of light fades into view [the node editor cycling from 100% to 0% transparency, and filtering on star systems at the multi-sector level]. Then, one by one, flashes of light as self-aware civilizations awaken on scattered worlds [system + political identity categories turned on].
As these civs discover starflight, they expand their political territories to other systems [time running at a higher-than-standard speed to animate this process of expansion], and some of the individual points of light in the galaxy begin to bloom into small patches of color. Where these colors meet, there are sprays of light where ships and their crews fire on each other and are destroyed, or slow mergences of color where diplomatic voices create peaceful unions.
Time then slows to the standard speed of gameplay, and the node display is zoomed into the corner of the universe where your game begins.
One gameplay-related side-effect of this would be that you'd sort of know the approximate size and location (and attitude) of some of the civilizations near your starting point. For those to whom that seems like a Bad Thing, I'd just note that the intro sequence can't show everything -- just the areas that are procedurally generated around what will be your starting point. In a way, this could help make the start of a new game a little easier, which could be very helpful to new players. And of course one starting option could be "skip the intro."
I'd really enjoy seeing a new game of Limit Theory start this way. Is that just me?