I was in a lousy situation as well, although I managed to scrape enough cash together to bide my time (found unusually abundant amounts of purple and blue spice). I succeeded at a mission with the Vanguard, who were really quite the jerks to my other allies, and the Sploozle, who have as yet done nothing to offend me. The Vanguard were attacking the Sploozle, yet again, when I got fed up with the Vanguard permanently. I called upon my other allies to harass them, they did briefly, so I used the opportunity to liberally apply a coat of anti-matter bombs on their colonies. It was as complete a triumph as you can read in my sig.