I am suggesting merging everything so all of the players are in the same galaxy.

The big galaxies were tons of fun. As far as the learning curve is concerned, I don't think it is as big a deal as it is made out to be... There was no learning curve when I started. I was welcomed into the "I hope you like to being attacked every single day" learning curve. I not only learned to deal with it, I liked the honor system. If it were not for the leader of my middle ranked family explaining the game to me, I would not be playing today.

If a family has a good leader, the new players will be messaged at the first chance, given advice, and aided. The biggest reason new players quit is because they are born into inactive families with little or no communication.

I didn't quit, I loved it. It was fun.

I think the response would be overwhelmingly positive. The existing players would have more fun, and the new ones will benefit from increased activity.

Okay, I should clarify: That "learning curve" issue was specifically to the question of hardcore galaxies.  Yes, there's a steep learning curve in IC.  However, the learning curve of Milky Way is still much better than Orion (If you screw up in Orion, you're done after a week, and you have to wait a month before you can play again).  The question begged there is pretty simple: If you want a big galaxy, you have to sacrifice a good amount of rules variants in order to have a single galaxy.  IC currently has 3 rules variants (hardcore, standard, and light), each represented by one galaxy.  If there are people who only play in one galaxy, it's not out of coincidence: it's because those people like that rules variant better than alternative rules variants.

So which two galaxies get screwed?  Do people playing hardcore galaxies suddenly have to play an incredibly slower round?  Or do new PW players have to play for a week, then get knocked out and wait a month for the galaxy to end, before rejoining?  Or do people in the standard galaxy now no longer get drafting, the primary motivator for buying VIPs?

This is an incredibly more difficult question than simply "I like bigger galaxies."  If you collapse the 3 galaxies together, 2 galaxies of people who only play in those galaxies will get ostracized because the play style they're used to no longer exists.  What then?  What happens when maybe 100 players suddenly realize that the type of IC they enjoyed... is gone, and they're forced to either pick a less than preferred play style or not play?