Misc questions SW3 *Spoilers*

[JereC]

Topic has a spoiler warning so hopefully I won't ruin the day for anyone with them.

First of all, haven't seen the open-ended stuff, no matter how I play it, it ends the same way and have the same closing cinematics, not sure how far back you have to go and what choices to make to make it differently, it always ends with Berserks taking over etc.
Which leads to the first question, do they have some kind of base you can destroy?
I combed through the border systems and found a massive fleet of them (2x Super chimeras and 20 fighters) which I killed but that was it.

Second question is about alien technology, can you somehow recover the alien artifacts, they seem to either snag it from you or kill you if you try something else

Managed to grab some guns and launchers but can't use them "can't fit them in the slot, this is alien technology" or something like that, I have the skill for alien tech trained up but still can't fit it, maybe a bug?