Here is the message that I got in response to the great points that you all brought up. I'm just waking up and my coffee hasn't hit my brain yet ...lol
"The Federation is a Feudal Federation government, each Sub-Faction or nation has their own internal laws and stuff. Pretty much each nation has the ability to govern themselves and the other nations can not interfere. The federal government is just a group of 4 people who command a small Federation Navy or Army. It's not enough military to take planets so during a Domination of Invasion there will be a call to arms and each nation can or won't send their military to fight in the conflict.
Pretty much the Federation will be a call to some Minor Factions to unite together and defend one another in case of conflict.
The other planets involved would be the Royal Order or a queen of Belasco, and Possibly two others so far. Ugh will only be four Sub-Factions that work together."
So basically I see it all just help eachother if there's an invasion or dominion in our area. And with all of the Embassies that we have from many different types of groups, there's bound to be some conflict at some point.
I was told that the Mando activity is slow at the moment, so our hex could be safe for a while
Everyone else is too far away. I haven't looked to see if there was a new map update however...