At one point Infinitum had a population of nearly 150 players. That number has now fallen beneath 110 players. What has happened @I_like_pie?
As a never-ending galaxy, players were suppose to be able to disappear for stretches of time, only to be able to come back and find their empire still plugging along – although likely in a dilapidated state. And yet they are around 30-40 empires that have gone totally missing. Were they deleted by the players themselves? Were the multis that were deleted? Did the automatic inactivity setting delete them? And if so, why is that even active in the galaxy? Are we at risk of that happening to us in the future still?
Because it isn’t something we can disable yet. 
Avoiding deletion for inactivity depends on Empire Surrender. Until that feature is done, inactives will get dropped in Infinitum as they do everywhere else.
Clarification, does that only entail empires at the beginning of the round or new empires that join during a round?
In other words, if we have an established empire and take some time away – something that Infinitum was established to allow – will our empire be deleted, and if so after how long?
@Terror_of_the_Night, Infinitum currently has no special rules in that regard. To be clear:
Infinitum has many features that are planned to support its vision but that will be rolled out as it continues to run. This includes Empire Surrender, Official Alliances, and the Planet-Size Protection Threshold.
It will allow what you describe, eventually, but until non-delete Surrender is ready it won’t treat inactives any differently than what is currently being done everywhere else.
That is, if they are marked inactive (which would be strange in a solo galaxy) it will be within 48 hours, otherwise it will be 7 days.
Again though, this is not intended to be the long term plan for infinitum, and the Surrender feature will factor in Infinitum’s allowance for players to take an indefinite hiatus accordingly.
didn’t there used to be a holiday mode that you could use for about a week, so that you could beaway for a few days without fear of being attacked
Yes, there was. However, Vacation Mode was removed a long time ago due to extensive abuse of it by players.
too