Revealing the lore

Background

Potential spoilers warning!

In the UNC campaign,

roughly, mission 5, Lock witnesses a negotiation between Vasily and Pugalenthi on an uneasy alliance. The negotiation was initiated by the Slavic Sirerians and was accepted by the UNC Council of Foresight due to one single reason - a new homeworld away from a nuclear-devastated Earth.

In the middle of the mission, the purist faction known as the Sirewraths attacked and literally ended any possible negotiations.

What was the Patriarch's plan?

It's known by now that the Patriarch has 8 banner fleets under his command and he himself had a very thin line of command to the Sirewraths. In short, he created the fleets to compete against each other for power and has a link to an external rogue (but powerful) faction that unites the Slavic Sirerians as a whole.

From this perspective, it'd seem that the attack was at least, tacitly sanctioned by the Patriarch; Vasily Andropov, being one of the banner fleet Admirals, didn't even get a hint of a warning of the attack.

On top of that, the Sirewraths intentionally left the Potemkin (Vasily's flagship) unscathed to essentially make Vasily the scapegoat.

So what was the Patriarch playing at? Was he really interested in an alliance?

The answer is yes. And it was really his true intentions to hand over Haven as the new homeworld for UNC to settle onto as their new home.

But why?

The Patriarch, alike the rest of the True Sirerians alike those on Earth, plays the long game of manipulation. His intention is to soft-imprison the UNC humans on Haven while awaiting for his true master to arrive.

Both, the Patriarch and the Council knew that if humans were given a comfortable environment to live in, they'll eventually succumb to weakness.

The Council of Foresight knew the game and used the new homeworld "Haven" as their justification to negotiate.

Vasily was just a pawn.

Did Thomas Lock suspect anything?

Thomas Lock actually sensed that something was amiss from the way the pieces were played out on the table. Haven seemed too good to be true but yet, it was politically impossible to deny UNC humans from taking it as their new home.

Nevermind the new homeworld... Lock's primary consideration was - what's in for the Slavic Sirerians? He didn't have time to ponder over the question; the attack on the delegates forced Pugalenthi to act and Lock, as a first-class honours academy graduate, inadvertently becomes a pawn in this plot.

Conclusion

We'll be revealing more of the lore in details in the coming weeks and months to fill you in on perspectives that are not possible to be present in the game itself. We hope it'll help improve your Foresight experience.