...the one faction that makes the most sense of working together with the raiders to defeat an enemy in common is Hades Division since they're human, they should know how much of a threat Shamash is to Earth if he isn't dealt with immediately.

And who's in the HADES DIVISION??? EFFING ANESKAAAA

The first and most poignant thing wrong with this prediction is that the invading factions; Umbra, Hades, Fifth and the Elite Corps. are all human. Yep. Which means based off this logic any of the factions would have as much to gain or lose from helping the Raiders which simply isn't the case.

The Fifth Council, for instance, has long been dogged by rumors of the alleged Sixth Council. If anything the Sixth Council will occupy the Fifth Council's territory. There would really be no better time to strike than after the Fifth Council's Hive computer has been so debilitated and would fit in with how Council insurrections have happened in the past. This pretty much guarantees that Aneska will not be in the Fifth Council and that the Council would gain very little from helping the Raiders during a time of internal turmoil.

The Hades Division invested greatly in the construction of Hecatoncheir and without it they are no match for the prolonged life spans of the Council or the tumultuous hordes of the Wardogs. Aneska was die hard loyal to Krausher and if the Hades Division was in any shape to act then she would definitely be running it and thus would not have time to be a Raider, if they were even in some type of peace.

Which means the Hades Division is not going to be much help to anyone after their calamitous failure. Because Aneska is probably the next Raider the Hades Division will not be in any sort of shape resembling the one under Krausher's brilliant commanding.

The Umbra Wardogs are a strong and hearty group of space pirates and Aleph addicts. The Aleph addiction gives them great personal fortitude to the point that they never consider even wearing body armor. The space pirate in them means they will loot and destroy whatever they can't. Krausher's mech, an amazing Aleph powered suit of armor, would not only be brimming with Aleph but also would have a multitude of heavy weapons caches installed on it, as we know. They would be on that mech the second it hit the ground and they would have stripped it bare and taken anything valuable while burning the rest. One of these valuable things would no doubt be Aneska.

What happens to Aneska after the Wardogs find her probably has to do with recovering her and trying to employ her as a weapon, as they did with HIVE, because they could never simply hire her as they did with Rak and the other mercenaries. She would eventually escape and find refuge with the Raiders as many of the Raiders have done before.

...colleague (Mikah, Lycus Dion & Hans).

Harec tells her of his plans to send the humans back, she agrees...

Harec and the Raiders know that the Legacy is Shamash. There is no returning to Earth for anyone because there is no one left alive who understands how the Aleph engines work. Harec believed that when the Legacy activated it would teleport the humans back to Earth but it didn't. Thus, he cannot rouse anyone to action with such a plan.

Finally, Lycus didn't even know Harec existed until they met after Hanging By A Thread at which point I doubt Lycus would send correspondence to Aneska on the matter. It seems the only Hades people who knew about each other beforehand are Ayana, Lycus and Schneider because even Mikah refers to Lycus in her journal as though they barely knew each other. And Hans was a cook. I really doubt Aneska spent a lot of time befriending the scullery table.

Scope it out.

In every game with PVP you will get matches you will lose and matches you will win. If your MMR is high then the game thinks you are very good at the game. If it is low then it thinks that you are not.

Here is the twist.

MMR, high or low, doesn't affect how well you can play the game. It doesn't affect your character's stats. Your MMR can be sky high but it doesn't mean you are skillful or leveled up enough to handle that content.

If your MMR is 20-30% and you are running into level 150+ antagonists then, yeah, that is unfair. But, that doesn't ever happen to me when I am at 20-30% MMR.

If you are at 40-50% MMR and you are running into level 150+ antagonists then, yeah, that is fair. You are telling the game you can handle the bottom 40-50% of players with a reliable chance of victory.

It takes very little effort to get up to 40% MMR and only slightly more effort to get to 50%. Because the MMR increases even when you complete non-PVP content. Even if you are dying left and right and get carried, it will increase if the team wins. This is the biggest problem. Because it takes people who have not acquired enough skill or experience into the higher difficulties.

Since people are egocentric they will tend to believe they got to that MMR fair and square and then are baffled when they are stomped into the ground by a high level antagonist. This happens a lot. The problem is that people fail to grasp the meaning of the MMR system. How it can be manipulated and what it means to have high and low percentages.

Also, I see this a lot and I have to say; level 400 is as meaningless as level 200. All it means is that they played the game a lot which, sure, could mean they are better players but they are still constrained by MMR which will not take into account their player level, at least not in any significant way. Your passive stats max out at level 150 and you get your last Forge level at 199. Someone being level 700000000000 doesn't make them any stronger than a level 199.

My point is no one in this thread has said what MMR and what player level they are so it is impossible to determine if it was unfair or not. But at MMRs above 40% you should be expecting a difficult time ahead, mentor match or not.

A little birdie told me today that the most recent patch placed brand new files into the game regarding Alexa in the player section, with a faction code, when she was previously outside of the playable character data

You're always one step ahead. I will continue to play devil's advocate though, for the sheer erotic thrill.

Also, sweet.

First, I believe we have almost nothing to go off of so speculation based off the lore is the only preliminary guessing that can be done. Unless I have missed an announcement or a key hint from the developers, we may proceed.

We should at once consider the very nature of these beings, these Aurora Specters. Then we can gather a greater understanding of their supposed role in the upcoming content. The Specters are in some way related to Uras-Beherit. They exist outside of our space-time and could be some of the oldest beings to exist in our universe besides Uras-Beherit, who could have created them. This also means that they could have been created in the pre-universe where Uras-Beherit did nothing as far as we know. Whatever the case may be we do know that the Aurora Specters were imprisoned by someone or something for a crime or because of the threat they pose. When this occurred is a very interesting question and will probably be a sub-plot within Shamash's story and his origins.

The nature of Uras-Beherit is one of pure concentrated malice. But, it is less than that and is all the more terrible for this. It is nothing. It is naught. Uras-Beherit is older than light and older than the universe. Suffering is the only goal, but it isn't even the goal. Uras-Beherit is suffering. Beyond the emotion of suffering. Beyond our very definition of it; there is Uras-Beherit. The Aurora Specters are linked in this way as well. They are "daemonic entities whose eldritch powers are only rivaled by their thirst for the Raiders’ blood" which is very close to what Uras is all about.

Uras-Beherit is characterized by your interpretation of "him" when you play as an antagonist. In these dialogues we see that he greatly loathes the Raiders, the Protectors and Locals in general. But, why? Because they wish to dominate the Aleph in such a way that it will no longer cause the suffering he embodies. The humans never understood the meaning and purpose of Aleph. They have inadvertently given themselves away wholesale to the miraculous substance, an act which we all know ends in disaster. Because they are not dominating the Aleph, or their actions are not leading to domination of the Aleph. Uras considers them allies and his influence within the Flow of Aleph is so strong that humans, who willfully consume Aleph, cannot perceive the antagonist as the misshapen Raider they truly are. The Aurora Specters do not appear, from the Roadmap picture, to have any sort of traits from the Raiders such as eyes or skin. This shows that their ties with Uras-Beherit might simply begin and end with their occupation of the same non-space-time. Uras-Beherit, after all, cannot be anything we are not ourselves.

Now, you could make the argument that Aurora Specters are the more advanced Apprentices who we see in Enemy Within. But, it seems much more likely that the Apprentices are simply more Uras-Beherit, more suffering embodied, which were made to take the form of very strong warriors so that they may cause more suffering and thus more Uras. Whereas the Aurora Specters are in a class all their own. They are not more Uras-Beherit and do not serve him in the same capacity as the Apprentices. Probably more akin to how the Raiders serve Harec. They do what he says because he is determined, cunning and very intelligent but also because they have something to gain from helping him in his quest.

Finally, their prison. Which is opened, on accident, by Shamash. Uras-Beherit either had no idea the Aurora Specters could be freed in such a way, I don't see how considering Uras is older than knowledge itself, or he did know the Aurora Specters could be freed in such a way but was prevented in freeing them while stuck inside Ku'ur Sag.

Uras-Beherit does nothing to stop Shamash's return, which Uras would know was going to happen, did know it was going to happen and will know it is going to happen. You see, Uras-Beherit is what you find when you go deep into the Aleph flow. It appears to stem straight from his nothingness. The nature of the Aleph flow is one where all time and space are meaningless and blend together like a river. A river wider than infinity and deeper than eternity. Because of this we may postulate that Uras perceives time all at once and thus can be in all times at once. Which means he knew about Shamash and many other things that have happened since then and before. All of it. Except...

Weavers. Iune is a Weaver and their order is older than the breaking of the planet. Weavers learn to attune themselves to the Aleph flow and with it can communicate with others inside the Aleph flow, those dead for centuries and those yet born. Here is the only place a unified assault on Uras-Beherit could have taken place, as they are outside the bounds of space-time and no longer can be perceived with any foresight outside of the non-moment they occupy. In this way the Locals were able to seal Uras away and likely the Aurora Specters with him. This could have happened thousands of years before the breaking of the planet. Or thousands of years after the events of the game. Or thousands of times right now. Such is the nature of non-space-time, of the Aleph flow.

Uras-Beherit does not like females, his silly remarks aside. They give him pause in his actions and it is known that the Nuns Custodia, all females, at least were stewards to the Protectors in some fashion. This purpose has been lost to time but the traditions carried on. They were likely a strong force that dealt with Uras-Beherit or whichever incarnation he was at the time and it is also possible they did battle with the Aurora Specters at some point.

To sum it all up; Aurora Specters are likely powerful individuals with a less than direct connection with Uras-Beherit. They possibly have a lot of history with Shae's and Iune's ancestry. They do not like Locals, especially ones who have dominated the Aleph, and thus have no allegiance to Shamash who has clearly dominated the Aleph expertly. They will aid the antagonist but it is likely they have ulterior motives of which Uras may or may not be aware of considering their dubious entry. Their hatred of the Raiders could be Uras' influence or simply the need to eliminate a great threat to their existence.

I dunno, what do you think?

Aneska fell some many hundred feet into the ground. Inside a heavily damaged Aleph powered suit of armor full of explosives. Under a city sized super weapon, the Hecatoncheir, which had just been hit by a "nuclear bomb" and will now likely fall to the ground. On a planet with a rabid faction of space pirates that loot anything they can get their hands on and destroy everything else at the drop of a hat.

Maybe we save her from the Wardogs? Maybe she beats their alpha and escapes in the immediate vacuum of power that is created as they quarrel among themselves.

Or she is dead, super dead. Way way dead. Like, even beyond Schneider levels of dead, his death being more comical in comparison.

Tough call.