I gave up, due to a crappy design, and a lack of time to make it better.
If you would like to continue development, you are more than welcome to do so. I consider
the code to be freeware. Just keep my notice in the code someplace.

My original ideas were to eventually get the code to a client-server state, to allow multiplayer gaming.
But, I never got that far, I'm afraid.
Other features I wanted to support:
  Player written spells
  Vendettas
  Randomly generated species
  A rudimentary economy
  ..and a lot of other fancy ideas that never went anywhere :(

Code removed due to embarassment. Five years is a long time.

So, what went wrong? A few words of warning to any would-be designers:
  Develop a design. Then throw it out. Write a new one.
  Don't try to code Universe 1.0, start with Island 0.1 and work from there
  Write a project plan with reasonable milestones. Describe what must be done for each milestone.
  Be prepared to spend a lot of time writing experimental code to test out ideas and theories, before putting them into the main code base.
  Use a software versioning control system. Do not use a 'rule of thumb'.
  Be ready to commit whatever free time you thought you had to your project.