General User wrote...
The occasional ******-ant warlord who cobbles together a vest-pocket empire and wanting to legitimize his rule by being admitted to the Citadel system shouldn't be TOO much of a problem. Afterall, the idea of preexisting powers deciding whether or not to give recognition to smaller, newer nations might be an occasionally thorny issue, but not exactly a new one.
Bad example, then. I was thinking less in terms of 'unpleasant persons' and more in terms of 'recognition of equality with everyone who puts a ****ty prefab on a rock and calls it a settlement.'
Sort of like how if we recognized every island as an individual nation. Suddenly every rock in the sea becomes an island.
And, sure a Council divided by nation not race will end up needing a pretty big facility. It's just that (not to be too, too snarky), but self-determination is an order of magnitude more important to me than office-space availability.
Oh, believe me. I'm not trying to infringe on that. But an assembly of ten thousand people wouldn't be an assembly: it would be a city in its own right.
Some (multiple) levels of heirarchy is needed, just to exist.
I'd arrange it by ascending level of space. Planets-systems-sectors, as possible. Ineficent, but actually workable.
umm... Don't we want to get away from a race-based system?
Sorry, went off into worldbuilding mode for a second. (I think that having the entire galaxy be under a genophage at Asari limits would have added a new level of design to the Mass Effect universe's setting.)
More seriously, 'groups' would race to colonize and control as much as they could, for more representation. 'Groups' which grow faster can do better. 'Groups' with more fast-breeding species can do that.
Overly long generalization on my part.
And the unneccessary use of bioweapons against civilians?
But it is necessary! For Galactic Stability!
And hey, if even the Turians have it on themselves, it's not really a punishment anymore, is it? Just... an equalizer.
Isn't equality good?

To misquote Samara: "If we adopt the enemy's [the Council in this case] methods, have we really beaten them?"
I'd tweak the social-contract as well (the Council is much more defensive of the interests of its associates), but it would be very much a 'gentle' genophage. It's not like the Asari don't grow and reproduce, after all. It's just that people who would otherwise grow faster... won't. But they get plenty of perks and help in getting them comfortably established as Associates in the galactic setting.
There's quite a bit to argue that disproportionate growth rates are a major instability factor in stability. That applies even on earth, but with many races it only gets bigger. If no one can pull off a Krogan/Rachni strategy, and if no one wants to suffer the losses inherent in a war for fear of weakening themselves, you'd get a much more peaceful setting. With stable populations, you'd even help even out the economic development: avoiding population-dependent busts, thanks to family planning.
Of course, most species would be adopted to this policy from the start. In a re-write of the ME universe, part of Humanity's surprising growth strength is that it grew big BEFORE it made contact with the Council, being a much faster breeder than the Asari-standard the rest of the galaxy has...
(Cue big implication of ME1: the Council trying to get Humanity to assent to the genophage-standard in exchange for more galactic power, the Alliance holding out (and threatening war if it's applied) until it gets more galactic power.)