I didn't remember Master of Orion had anti-piracy feature, but I still remember Microprose's F-19 Stealh Fighter had a similar one: there was a screen where it asked you to identify the silhouette of one of the planes in the game. Which is probably the most ineffective form of copy-protection ever... I had a pirated copy with no manual, and it was a joy to me to simply enter the right plane because I loved planes and knew the name of every one of them! To me this was like asking me to name the animals in the zoo.