Awesome / Star Control

• Arguably, the Ur-Quan's escape from the Dnyarri, which they achieved by breaking their mind control through constant excruciating pain after one of them figured it out and lethally poisoned himself for a chance to spread the word.
  Greenish: Before the Dnyarri knew what was happening, Ur-Quan everywhere were hacking at their own bodies with chunks of glass, burning themselves horribly, doing anything that would give them the few seconds of freedom necessary to find the nearest Dnyarri and crush the bleating creature.
• The Spathi. A cowardly little meta-mollusc can't be much of a threat, can it? Well... Their cowardice drove them to advancing from bronze age to nuclear power in under 100 years. When they started exploring the stars, they developed the Eluder, a Lightning Bruiser that can hold its own against Kohr-Ah Marauders.
  • Which pinwheels into a Funny Moment: A Human veteran of the first war describing the Spathi as being a cowardly mobile clam... armed with a howitzer.
  • If you recruit them to your cause, don't get too comfortable having them around; within months they will reverse-engineer earth's slave shield in order to construct their own and finally achieve the safety they always wanted, while simultaneously thumbing their non-existant noses at both the Ur-Quan and you. They leave you a nice going away present, though.
• The Yehat's speech upon discovering the Shofixti are alive and deciding to overthrow their queen:

  Yehat: We are scanning the separation of a vessel from yer fleet, Captain, and indeed, its configuration matches that of a Shofixti Scout vessel. This had better not be a trick, Captain! We are knowing the power of a Glory Device, and if you detonate the weapon near us the price for you shall be dear, very dear. The Scout has docked, and we await the pilot's appearance at the airlock. The atmosphere cycle is complete... the door slides open... and... AWK!! BRAAK!! YEEP!! IT IS TRUE!!! THE SHOFIXTI ARE ALIVE!!! Look at that furred muzzle, those shining black eyes, the sweet claws! Our children have returned from oblivion!! But now we are faced with the cruellest truth! We who have sacrificed our honor! We who have lain with our enemy! WE ARE NOT WORTHY! WE ARE NOTHING!...We are less than nothing. But wait! We are not Spathi. We are Yehat... OF THE STARSHIP CLANS! We will NOT live this lie any longer! Listen as I speak these words! If our Queen makes the dishonorable command then it is THE QUEEN WHO HAS NO HONOR! And a dishonorable Queen is NO QUEEN AT ALL! We, the Zeep-Zeep, are the only Clan who remember the TRUE MEANING of honor! We shall TEAR THE QUEEN FROM HER THRONE! The two-thousand year reign of the Veep-Neep Queens IS OVER! THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN!

• If you're clever, you can pull a fantastic scam on the Druuge, slave-trading, con-artist assholes who totally have it coming (among other things they sent the Burvixese to their doom as "thanks" for warning them about the Kohr-Ah). There are a couple of non-essential artifacts in the game that the Druuge are wiling to buy from you, and one of the things on offer is filling your fuel tanks to capacity. In particular, the "Burvix Caster" you can find is a handy item, but functionally identical to the "Umgah Caster" you can receive from the Spathi, so there's no downside to unloading it. Replace every module in your ship with a fuel tank (the double capacity ones if you've got them), buy juuuust enough fuel to make it to the Druuge, and accept the deal. The Druuge didn't think to see just how much "capacity" was on your ship before agreeing to fill it, and end up giving you hundreds upon hundreds of fuel units. And because of Developer's Foresight, yes there is dialog for when they realize what you've just done. You can then return to Sol, and sell the extra fuel for a massive fortune. Not only did you get to wipe the smug off the faces of maybe the least-likable people in the game (and get extremely well paid for the pleasure), but because you sold the very same caster with which the Druuge screwed over the Burvixese, you allowed them some post-humous revenge.