[MAdnRisKy]

if you want to build back galaxy spirit, as I see it you need to do several things.

1. you need to remove the cloak and dagger.
part of the problem is this fake nicking business. when you don't know or don't trust who you're talking to it creates unrest and people do not readily co-operate. My own gal this round didn't fake nick past about tick 5 (except for some of the guys from one particular new alliance) as a result, our gal actually gets on. i've found new respect for some players, and would happily, send ships to die at their place if it helped them out. And that's not common for me.
How to stop fake nicking? well the answer lies in chika's thread just across the way there. Visable planet alliance tags. if you're going to have a private gal plus randoms, and trying to make a cohesive unit a lot of those random allianceless folks are going to land in gals which will want them to improve and will assist them to become active. and so you'll get less bashing of people with no tag, more in gal defending because people have to get on (see second point).

2. Remove the easy option to trade up (or out)
sort out exile. it needs to be periodic. kal's suggestion about only so often is a good one. For gal mates to want to help in new players they need to be forced to try and help them, eventually they'll find some that stick. So gal exile every 4 days or so? self exile 2 options to do so, again every 4 days. 2 max limit.
This gives gals an incentive to try and make a situation work, rather than just ruthlessley exiling, because frankly with the current option that makes the most sense for achieveing high end results.

3. extra gal defence
People join alliances mostly for the -1 eta on def. take that away, and alliances would basically become battle groups. So it's defence, not attack that creates unity the most. (yeah sue me for discussing cause and effect on a correlation, you know i'm right anyway). Give players a 4th slot to be used for in gal defence only. you now have an incentive to make your galaxy work, coupled with point 2 this is a carrot and stick approach.

now none of this is new, these are ideas that have been around for a while now, but implimenting them, will remove the source of the problem which is "why should galaxies co-operate when they stand to lose more than they gain". its all very well saying gals provide defence, but more times than not, you've got 2 fleets out attacking and 1 deffing your alliance, or 1 and 2, and nothing left for your gal, and you do this or your alliance doesn't send you def.

I'm totally behind the 4 or 5 bp and only 1 bp per gal btw (rnd 6 gals but with reduced numbers since the player base dropped) and yes you could still have fixed gal numbers, i think that's practical with the number of planets we have.