>>2288No man. Be whatever species and any gov. Drop taxes to zero at start and build the cheapest small spaceport possible, build it without labs if you want to build a research station for a chance to get a scientist and remember to allocate enough labs to match your possible research maximum. Actually go a little over and make most of them energy labs for quick hyperdrive research and even out the research later.
Build one each of scout and construction ship initially to kickstart your private economy and keep the tax at zero until you dip in the red then increase it to whatever is manageable by your species until you have hoarded enough to run at zero for another good while. You do this because of pirates, you cannot pay them off if you are in the red and they may attack you, and because you want to max out the population of your homeworld quickly for maximum taxation. If your species has high pop growth you can have a low tax just to cover your expenses.