It seems like this would run much more smoothly if there was a dungeon master or sort running the show. This person can hold onto all of the stats for all of the systems, take commands for combat privately, and keep files tracking technologies. This opens up for a much less awkward and more strategic battle experience, diplomatic experience, plus it could add in the ability to use spies, tell the admin where spies are going, they roll some dice or something (we can come up with a system) and give out a certain amount of information about a certain planet, military or technology tree of the player being spied upon.
It wouldn't, however, be fair if the GM was also playing if they were keeping track of all of these secret files, however. Do you guys think it's a good idea to have a not-playing GM? I think it would make the gameplay much more interesting, and if nobody else was willing to give up their playing spot I would gladly GM. I just think it adds beneficial layers to the experience, not to mention it makes everything MUCH easier to keep track of, otherwise I can see tons of stats and stuff not being kept track of and the game falling apart due to too much stuff being dealt with by all of the players.