Lets talk about Phase 2 knowledge bombs, SPOILERS

I don't think the UCM will take most of the cradle worlds. I do think that the resistance will retake Earth which will form the basis of an interstellar alliance of resistance freed planets

I don't think the UCM will take most of the cradle worlds. I do think that the resistance will retake Earth which will form the basis of an interstellar alliance of resistance freed planets

I haven't read anything that would lead me to think something like that could happen, but anything is possible.

Considering it seems the Resistance is allowed to exist by the Scourge simply because A) it wouldn't be cost effective to hunt them all down... And B) that the Resistance aren't a genuine threat to the overarching mission of the Scourge, I kind of doubt it.
But it's possible if the Scourge all evacuated their troops from Earth, and if the UCM and PHR somehow lost their desire to retake Earth, all of which seem unlikely.

I don't think the UCM will take most of the cradle worlds. I do think that the resistance will retake Earth which will form the basis of an interstellar alliance of resistance freed planets

I haven't read anything that would lead me to think something like that could happen, but anything is possible.

Considering it seems the Resistance is allowed to exist by the Scourge simply because A) it wouldn't be cost effective to hunt them all down... And B) that the Resistance aren't a genuine threat to the overarching mission of the Scourge, I kind of doubt it.
But it's possible if the Scourge all evacuated their troops from Earth, and if the UCM and PHR somehow lost their desire to retake Earth, all of which seem unlikely.

I'm basing that guess on a lot of what is written in Phase 2. It states that Lt Rodriguez is gathering as many Resistance cells as possible to his HQ in New York. It also states that many Scourge have already left and been leaving for a while. There are examples of theatre's with little UCM forces that are relying on the Resistance to bolster numbers such as Aaru and Shangri-La. Under the section about Lt Rodriguez it says "While the UCM delays its actions on Earth, rightly or wrongly, it seems that this deserter is at the forefront of the resistance there and is poised to become a pivotal figure in the future."

It is fair to say that now that Ferrum has been attacked Combat ops on Earth and all other theatres will be slowed or stopped and that many of the UCM's already tight resources will be diverted back to the colonies. This will leave many theatres poorly supported by the UCM who will have to start relying on resistance cells to bolster numbers as we have seen in Aaru.

From the Resistance groups point of view they have had a taste of freedom or true vengance for the first time and it tastes pretty good. As the UCM's reconquest starts to stall what are these groups going to do? Go back to hiding? Maybe but i doubt it especially if they hear that Earth freed itself.

From a narrative point of view its cool as well because it will allow the resistance faction to grow into a true interstellar faction in the future. As they start mopping up the scourge its likely that they will begin trying to repurpose old or alien ships. If the Resistance do end up evolving along these lines they will be a nice counterpoint to the UCM's fascist culture by being a more feudal empire similar to Dune or Battletech. That would be 3 human factions each with a very unique feel and the Resistance wont simply become irrelevant and eventually swallowed by the UCM.

The big problem with this theory is that everyone else has a fleet so even if you managed to clear 100% of enemy troops on the ground there would be nothing stopping them from just nuking your planet! I do have a slightly out there suggestion which deals with the issue and also links to some of the other discussions on the forum. That mysterious event at Callisto which seems to point to a new race.

At the moment there is no truly benevolent race or any race that is equivalent to the EA before it got invaded. It is possible that a new Alien race has made contact with Lt Rodriguez and offered to provide some support. The reconquest is taking part in a relatively small part of the galaxy and we have to assume other races are aware of whats going on and have had dealings with the Shaltari, Scourge and possibly PHR. Therefore it makes sense that an outside player wants to make contact with those that are suffering similar to how the UN and Nato operate in real life.

Humans were the third attempt, but it's pretty safe to assume the Scourge have conquered more than just the races the Shaltari have thrown at them. I think the Shaltari have only tried throwing fairly strong races at the Scourge as leading them to weak ones would only give the Scourge a bunch of easy hosts. The Scourge have probably found some races on their own, its tough to say which ones.

Interesting thought on the White Sphere. The proximity of the Scourge invasion leads us to think the original warning from the white sphere was about the Scourge. But it's possible the Sphere didn't know about the Scourge invasion and was actually trying to prepare humanity for a larger, more distant, threat that is now coming.

Edit* After rereading the White Sphere's warning, it does seem like it was referring to the Scourge with the specific timing mentioned. It's not impossible it was talking about a different race, but does seem most likely it was talking about the Scourge.

I was wondering why the Shaltari didn’t warn Humanity about the Scourge.

It wouldn’t have to be a real warning – just a: “Get your armies ready – a hostile armada is approaching”

That way humanity would have had a chance to put up more of a fight and the harvest of the Scourge would have been less plentiful.

For a time I thought the White Sphere was actually sent by the Shaltari (only super-technological beings we know – yet - )
But it wouldn’t make much sense, since the White Sphere was more about evacuation and less about fight to the death.

So my question: Why throw a race in the path of the Scourge and then leave them totally unprepared for fighting the foe the Shaltari want to get rid off??

Maybe the Shaltari wanted to punish the Humans because they didn't want to wage their wars? "You don't want to fight and die for us? Well then be Scourge-fodder."

Maybe the Shaltari weren't planning on the White Sphere leading a chunk of humanities population and fleet away. Without that variable in their calculations maybe it was a slaughter rather than the battle the Shaltari expected. Perhaps they were planning on humanity losing, but we're hoping for a fight that would leave the Scourge in worse shape than actually occurred.

Maybe the Shaltari weren't planning on the White Sphere leading a chunk of humanities population and fleet away. Without that variable in their calculations maybe it was a slaughter rather than the battle the Shaltari expected. Perhaps they were planning on humanity losing, but we're hoping for a fight that would leave the Scourge in worse shape than actually occurred.

It was worse than that IMO. I firmly believe that the reason the Shaltari were raiding the human worlds after setting them up were to "train" them in how to fight a fast moving enemy.

The humans never took it seriously (see also, the Hannibal, the Alexander).

I have another theory on that. We know that the Shaltari use alien auxiliaries. While we don't see humanity kowtowing like the Pungari I think the hedgehogs chucked the Scourge our way to specifically whittle down humanity to the point where they could more easily be annexed into their empire.

Well from what we read there is very little surviving resistance on Earth and most of earth is now a ruined toxic dump.
I have a feeling that Rodriguez is going to open some canned sunshine on a continental scale.

A new AI threat could be something like what is seen in a lot of other sci-fi worlds, best known version are the reapers in mass effect. Potenially it could also be some sort of anti Scourge/parasite AI that is wiping out its source of hosts, similair to the Forerunners in Halo.

I'm wondering what the PHR are searching for, they were after something in Atlantia for instance. I wouldn't be suprised if this is related to the new faction. Their building things on Tlalocan moon makes it more mysterious too. The whole things seems very important for PHR considering how little they care about what the Ferals do.

One big thing that speaks against any form of Resistance involvment in its current form on other planets than the cradle worlds is that it doesn't fit well. Landing and moving material is expensive. UCM is not going to move Resistance stuff to a different planet. If they would use Resistance troops they would most likely use UCM material except for some salvaged valuable tech like Scourge plasama weapons. The problem with evolving the Ressitance into any interstellar faction is that most of their units makes zero sense in such a context. It's just too low tech and mix of random stuff, that doesn't make for efficient manufacturing and the supply chains would be a nightmare. Their theme about local knowledge also doesn't work on other planets.