Opportunity or disappointment?

I had 2 very interesting messages come up since I last logged on.

Before I detail the messages, let me just start by saying that I captured two dark red stars last night. The first had a resistance of about 10, the other was a free take.

So firstly, dark red is now under AI control. To be perfectly honest, I'm very disappointed. I was hoping that all players would be active until the very end. In my last game, the AI just sat on the stars it had and didn't make any other moves. Unless the developers have made changes, I have to assume that dark red AI will do the same thing; Just sit there waiting to die.

There is a chance that he's just on holiday or something and his week away is temporary. Whatever the case, I have to capitalize and take as many stars from him as possible. The more productive stars I have, the better my economy and industry. Yes I'm going to shoot into the lead even more than I already am but I cant afford to look this gift horse in the mouth.

Anyway, now that I'm closer to his other stars, my scan range is revealing what his defenses look like and I can take a few more before my fleets are whittled down. I cant really afford to bring over many reinforcements because of the next point as you'll see below:

Secondly, light red sent me a message informing me that yellow (who up until this point has not been attacking anyone by the looks of his fleet count) is massing his forces on Matar, the only star that he has jump range to one of my stars (Baham). Saying this, he currently does not have the scanning technology high enough to see what I have at my star. Before we get our knickers in a twist thinking he's going to attack me, let me also mention that Matar is also within his jump range to light red. I think light red told me about this because he wanted to know if I had an alliance with yellow. If I did, he knew those ships would be destined to his star, if not, he know's he's got a 50/50 chance. I replied honestly and said we had pleasantries early on in the game but no formal "alliance" and also asked what sort of numbers I should expect (as he's out of my scan range too). I'm mustering whatever forces I can to Baham (which already has 13 ships present). A lot of my ships are at the other side of my territory fight with dark red and yellow has to know this by watching the stars I'm taking over. The war on two fronts that is the bane of this game looks like it might be coming my way sooner than I expected. I'm definitely just going to play a defensive role here and wait it out - you never know, nothing may come of it.