I think it would be awesome if there were relics in the game. A abandoned ship with amazing tech that would be super rare. Or a space station of a advanced race. So many possibilities. But in the end you get an amazing tech that no one or almost no one else has.

How would you discover them though? Would they be part of scan results? Or perhaps artifact draws? Or even NPC combat?

We already have bosses that drop loot, and artifact draws are always random. Finding something as part of scan results would be awesome though.

How about all of the above? Each would present a "clue" as to the location of it. The finding of them would drop off of Elite Rares, "critical" scans of planets, etc. then once you have all of the clues (differing amounts for the power of them) you then have a chance to scan it on the battle tab.

Yea and if u defeat it in the battle tab. You then conquer it and every relic is different in a way. So that would mean that u would get something special.

I have something similar to this in my Quinosa Saga part 4 that will come out soon.