I would imagine the background is animated in some way, perhaps even changing every time you launch the game

It’s a matter of taste. I set the contrast so that the brightest pixel in the scene is 100% white, and the darkest 100% black, so there is the highest possible dynamic range (and nothing is over or underexposed). The vanilla kind of looks like there is mist everywhere since it’s so washed out.

That’s how you know constellation headquarters are in Mexico.