This issue was not forseen as PDX changed the conditions for certain options to trigger. Prior to this change, no valid options were available for these empires and thus giving the impression of being unable to contact Unbidden/Prethoryn.

• Unbidden and Prethoryn Communication events should now fire properly for Spiritualist, Militarist, Materialist, and Pacifist Ascended Empires.
  

First major update of The Zenith of Fallen Empires 2.0: Subjects, Casus Belli, Wargoals and more!

• Thrall, Dominion, Satellite, Signatory can now be acquired as new subject types for your Ascended Empire. Militarists get Clan Member, Pacifists get Demilitarized State, Authoritarians get Puppet State, Egalitarians get Union State, Barbaric Despoilers get Satrapy.
  
  
• Clan Members will fight by their Overlord's side and Overlord will aid their wars. I imagined them to be Militarists AEs who forced/deemed them worthy to fight by their side, unlike Xenophobe FE who literally saw the rest as garbage.
  
  
• Demilitarized State do not get taxed, but have reduced naval capacity and cannot do diplomacy. Much like Signatories, they are protected by their Overlord. But they will also defend the Overlord and join their Overlord in pacifying the galaxy with their tiny fleets.
  
  
• Puppet State gets taxed 25% minerals and 25% Unity. They will have Authoritarian ethics forced on them and can be integrated.
  
  
• Union State gets taxed 25% energy and 25% influence. They will have Egalitarian ethics forced on them and can be integrated.
  
  
• Satrapies obtained by Ascended Barbaric Despoilers are the same as vanilla Satrapies. I will talk more about these subject types in full features thread.
  
  
• Extra modifiers have been added for some subjects. Such as Inspiring Warlord civic will give their Clan Member subject a boost in ship + army production speed.
  
  
• The 00_fallen_empire_subjects file has been overwritten. You can now create an FE subject diplomatically much like Awakened Empires. Note that I cannot overwrite what the button itself says, so if you are an Authoritarian Ascended Empire and use the 'Offer Dominion Status' button, you will still get Puppet State.
  
  
• Vassals, Tributaries, and Protectorates will be automatically turned into your AE subject following a diplomatic event. Unless you are Inwards Perfection, which keeps tributaries.
  
  
• When your AE subjects are independent, they will no longer be affected by these modifiers.
  
  
• Many Policies have been overwritten to include Ascended Empires. So you can now welcome Refugees into your glorious empire.
  
  
• Inspiring Warlords civic icon changed.
  
  
• Xenophile Ascended Empires can now create designate a size 20+ gaia world as 'The Preserve', if the said planet has an empty tile and 8+ species living on the planet. This will give the same unity bonus much like the Holy World. This feature has not been tested yet so let me know how it goes.
  
  
• Fervid Xeno Collectors can now use the 'Xeno Abduction' Bombardment stance, and the Xeno Abduction wargoal, hoarding Xenos for safe-keeping - and of course their own good.
  
  
• Added numerous Wargoals and Casus Belli for Ascended Empires only. Mostly what you can do in game to other default empires: Claim, Force Ideology, Punishment, Despoilation, Total war and end threat etc.
  
  
• Default Empires now get a Containment cb against Ascended Empires.
  
  
• You will get a Subjugation cb if default empires refused your offer to be your Dominion/Satellite etc.
  
  
• Battleships have been scaled a little smaller to further distinguish them from Apocalypse Titan models.
  
  
• Fixed error log referring to missing Titan parts.
  
  
• Fixed Battlecruiser Bow sections giving different aux/large slots.
  
  
• PDX buffed the speeds of the base ships in 2.0.2. Your Fallen Empire ships should now be faster to reflect these changes.
  
  
• Master Race civic has had its -25 planet unrest replaced with +25% Owner Pop happiness.
  
  
• Added an AI personality for each type of Ascended Empire, so they will behave slightly differently to each other and have different weapon preferences.
  
  
• Added diplo phrases for Spiritualist, Materialist, Xenophile, Xenophobe Ascended Empires. They will use vanilla Awakened Empire quotes. I don't feel particularly inspired enough to write any more.
  
  
• Event Localisation improvements.
  
  
• All Ascended Empire subject events have been brought over from ZoFE 1.0, including the ability to bestow escorts/battlecruisers to your subjects.
  
  
• Redone technology icon for fallen_technologies_1
  
  
• Fallen Technologies 1 now renamed "Societal Evolution", icon has been changed and its description has been improved.
  
  
• Fallen Technologies 2 "Engineering Perfection" has had its icon changed and its starbase upgrade cost reduction effect removed.
  
  
• Removed the ability to start with Fallen Empire Ships/Cities. This functionality will now be in a separate mod.
  
  

Just a small patch in the morning before I start working on subjects. Please note that I understand PDX is still reworking War Exhaustion. These changes are NOT FINAL NUMBERS. Let me know how this balances against vanilla. The idea is that Ascended Empires can war harder than normal countries and can take much more war exhaustion.

• Replaced the starbase capacity add bonus (which doesn't make that much sense) in the Galactic Ascendancy Perk with a -33% war exhaustion gain.
  
  
• Titan Lance color now somewhat varies a bit depending on ship set.

Hi all, just thought I'd make a patch before I go to bed. Sometimes it's amazing what you get done in one evening just after release, and I don't want to leave people with some imperfections to play with over the weekend and sour some first impressions. So I'll drop this now and then work on the next update. Enjoy!

• Had to make another Galactic Ascendancy Perk for the Apocalypse folks, which requires the tech_ascension_theory_apoc technology. This is so that people with the Apocalypse expansion can actually Ascend. Don't worry, you will only ever see one of these!
  
  
• Galactic Ascendancy Perk now requires Dark Matter Mining instead of Gateway Construction, which makes more thematic sense that Fallen/Ascended Empires are civilizations that run on Dark Matter Power.
  
  
• Galactic Ascendancy Perk now gives both Dark Matter Power Core, and Dark Matter Thruster. These will be required for Fallen Empire ships.
  
  
• Engineering Perfection now requires Societal Ascendance, Mega-engineering, Matter Generator, and Impulse Thruster. This is to retain some difficulty after 'cheapening' the physics tech requirement.
  
  
• Societal Ascendance now grants +10% Unity gain instead of +10% research.
  
  
• Perdition Beam is actually restricted to Apocalypse Titan ship classes only. I have now added a Titan Lance restricted to FE Titans only. The Titan Lance has the same stats as Perdition Beam and is every way the same as the Titan Lance available to Fallen Empires. Well, except the firing arc. It looked better with 10 degree firing arc as opposed to 25.
  
  
• FE titan ship class has been renamed 'Fallen Titan' for more clarity.
  
  
• Titan Lance should now fire from the weapon locator titan_gun_01, and that locator has been adjusted slightly.
  
  
• Fixed missing bracket in crisis_event_1
  
  
• Empty ship and reactor icons for FE ships now actually look empty.
  
  
• Fallen Empire ship combat roles now have the Sapient icons.
  
  
• Removed redundant FE defense platforms combat computers.
  
  
• Added preferred ship behaviour for Fallen Empire ships.
  
  
• Removed most Fallen Empire ship combat computers needing to be researched.
  
  
• Tech research tooltips improved for all Fallen Empire Ships and Stations.
  

• Reworked Ascension Mechanic for Ascended Empires. Details in the forums.
  
  
• Added a number of new color variants for Fallen Empire Ships. Some are renamed, while others stay the same. They have been sorted into 'canon' and 'non-canon' variant to each ethic.
  
  
• Compressed many textures which should result in performance increase.
  
  
• Temporary leaving the ability to start with FE looking ships to get some feedback on the ship sets. Will remove in the next update.
  
  
• Added many civics as an optional third civic for Ascended Empires, giving a certain type of boon or enhance a particular playstyle.
  
  
• Added Apocalypse support for Colossus art and titan class ships. You can now build 3 Apocalypse Titans (unless another mod alters this vanilla value), and 3 Fallen Empire titans.
  
  
• Escorts, Battlecruisers, Titans, Defense Outposts, Defense Towers have had their number of sections increased to make the UI more user-friendly. Now you can clearly see how beautifully I have done those ships.
  
  
• Added weapon locators for Defense Outposts and Towers.
  
  
• Improved Fallen Buildings Technologies icons.
  
  
• For further details please check the forums, Designer's Note, Mod Compatibility, Full List of Features (Spoilers), and Developer's Corner.