I bet you could make a two (or more) player hot-seat game out of the EV engine...
I'm not sure why you'd want to do this, though... (except, just to do it)
And it certianly wouldn't bear much resemblance to EV...
A player only gets so much time (or days) to do stuff. His actions would be something like going to different systems and getting missions that represent the moving/building of forces across the galaxy.
(Your options would be limited as you'd probably need a system for every way it could be changed. Player ships would probaly be limited to pre-designed ships based on your forces, or possibly a couple outfit options)
Then when your turn is up, the bits are set to record locations and stuff, and then the player is put in a 'player change' system.
So player 2 sits down at the controls and activates a mission and he jumps to his previous location and get his turn to do stuff.
In the case of a conflict, a player doesn't battle the other player directly, rather he battles the forces that the other player set up.
Or perhaps, if there are conflicts that could occur without either players direct interaction, these could be resolved administratively based on some kind of rules.
So each player's ship represents your location where you can affect things. And then also you can jump into one of the warships to do battle. (win or lose, you then jump back into your command and control ship)
Upgrades could represent changes that allow you to run your empire better. Maybe if you take the time to run a mission that will build an improvement of sorts, you could get to travel to further systems during your turn.
Or am I just on crack?