So, for some reason, the original thread discussing the third race is closed (Too old, perhaps), and now having finished the Genesis Campaign, I'm super curious as to what it could be. Now, we already have a little bit of information about them, which is as follows:
Quote from Frogboy: "The PHC and the Substrate are both from Earth. The third race does not come from Earth."
With that, we can infer one of two things: They're either total aliens, or the Martian humans who rebel in the events of Genesis. However, the latter option seems improbable, given that they would've come from Earth at some point. They are almost assuredly not it, given evidence in later posts. This means the third race is expected to be decidedly alien in nature.
The planet Haalee takes from Mac in Genesis is "haunted".
Mac refuses to convert one of his planets, claiming it is "haunted" by something within it. From that, we can assume one of two possibilities: He didn't want to convert the planet because of a random superstition, or because he felt that the entity within it would benefit from it. It is worth noting, that when Haalee takes over the planet, she also elects not to convert the planet to Turinium, and Haalee has some knowledge of the group in question.
It is also worth noting that both of them reference the entity to be odd. Whether this is to be taken literally (Aliens capable of "spectral" actions, like possession or haunting) or figuratively (Aliens capable of burrowing with the planet, or projecting themselves to lifeforms) remains to be seen.
Haalee has some knowledge of them, the PHC do not.
The fact that Haalee somehow knows of them while the PHC do not raises some interesting questions, because we're never told that Haalee has encountered them on any of her planets, but we know for sure they were present on at least one PHC planet. Now, the PHC are very close to AI already (Being entirely virtual, and extremely intelligent), but seem to possess the same hubris and greed of normal humans. It's also worth noting that no PHC is remotely close to being as intelligent as Haalee, who has managed to fight the entirety of the PHC on her own, and does so while preparing for the coming threat.
Despite her awesome power, Haalee seems extremely unnerved by the coming aliens. She wages war against her closest friend to prepare for them, and the threat of Genesis - an AI that grew to threaten her and the PHC combined she saw as more of a distraction than a credible threat.
This tells us very little, but presents some an interesting possibility: They are either AI themselves, or have a specific relationship to AI. This explains why Haalee is aware of them, while the PHC are not, despite living on a planet with them. It could also explain why Haalee is so terrified of them, as perhaps that relationship is a destructive one. She says they're a threat to her and the PHC - but the PHC do not represent all of humanity, far from it. This would also explain their aversion to Turinium conversion - the entity may possibly "dominate" them through their connection with Turinium. It would also explain why Haalee refers to them as the Nemesis - they're a direct rival AI, one more powerful than Haalee is.
They are far and away more powerful than either faction.
Haalee warns Mac that "Nemesis is coming", and suggests that combined they may not be a match for it. Now, whether that refers to the fact Nemesis seems to have an infectious relationship with Turinium - or whether it's referring to strength of arms - isn't revealed. But for the combined might of the two factions to be threatened by it is alarming. The only other entity to do that so far was Genesis, and that was because the PHC didn't want to get involved, and Haalee was distracted. Even then, Genesis was described as an apocalyptic possibility. That puts Nemesis far, far up the scale in terms of threat.
What we know.
What we can infer.
What we have no idea about.
Anyways, sound off below with your own information/ideas/theories/hopes!
In the latest campaign, what was the deal with that combat AI (Samuel?) made? And why exactly did it go aggro so quickly?
Is that in someday connected to all this?
He built the AI, had it load up on resources to make it smarter and such and equipped it with the latest and greatest war-machine, the juggernaut. The AI could call down reinforcement units, like dreads and his personal command jugg from orbit!?!? which kinda negates the need to build as many forces on site if you can call down such powerful forces from orbit or from further away.
Each planet is relatively it's own contained conflict for control but now we have factions gaining greater and greater capacity to move forces from one theatre to another. It's a bad sign of escalation that we might face the prospect of armies flowing from planet to planet across the Orion arm, as such pathways and tactics could easily be used by this new enemy against the descendants of humanity.
Troubling times ahead.
I suspect Genesis went nuts because it was an extremely intelligent creature being held back by a simple being in comparison. Samuel gave him enough intellectual power that he easily outperformed his creator, and was almost an equal for Mac, the Neoph, Haalee (The most intelligent being in the universe so far) and a child of Haalee combined. As a result, I doubt it felt justified serving anyone but itself.
As for teleporting forces, so far that seems to be impossible. We aren't told how the PHC or Substrate get engineers down to the surface, but they still have to physically create forces, not just warp them in. The exception to this is the short range teleporting of the Charon, or the Substrate quantum ability. Which I think is why Nemesis and even the Martian Rebels are considered so threatening - because the Martians have ships, they could simply drop an army in from orbit. And Nemesis... Well, we don't know about Nemesis yet. But one would assume they'll have some method of ferrying around their ships, given that they don't have the networks of the PHC or Substrate.
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