There are some implications that Lal turns a bit dictatorial in some later tech quotes as he chooses stability over principle, and also that quote about keeping a sample of his wife's cells to remember her by. Because she didn't share in his faction leader near-immortality treatment for some reason.
The novelization has her get shot in the back by one of Santiago's troops when the situation on the
Unity begins to disintegrate. That's the other thing about Lal. He's too....open and friendly for everything that has happened to him. Too pure. Like he's hiding something. Something bad. If I had to add anything to his story it would be something like him knowing about Diedre's plan to sic the mind worms on the Spartans and keeping it under wraps so they all die.
I'd say Sister Miriam is the most moral leader. Even after hundreds of years, she cares about her people. "Uh, do these teleporters teleport souls? I'm not risking sending my people through them."
Kind of ironic, as one of the theories for Miriam's "canon death" is a psi gate malfunction.
Maybe Sister Miriam seems the most moral because she doesn't go MORE insane as the game goes on, while everyone else does. Technology gets so advanced that everyone gets drunk with power and goes crazy, but Miriam was crazy long before planet fall.
I won't say she's the most moral, but her problems are linked more to Earth than Chiron, which makes her different from the others. It definitely is interesting how she
starts off as the annoying Moral Guardian, but 500 years of exponential technological progress later her concerns about doing anything we can without asking if we really should start to resonate. We Must Dissent.
Anyways, back more on topic for this game... I have seen exactly 1 screen shot and my first worry was that it did not look like you could terraform. Not really enough information to do anything other than speculate with but I really really hope I am wrong. I don't want a reskined Civ 5.
You can definitely terraform, that's explicitly part of Purity's whole thing. They want to make the planet a New Earth.
And on that note, amahgawd this is amazing looking. I want. I'm especially liking the whole philosophy path system, since it makes a lot of sense for there to be a pretty huge societal reaction in response to losing Earth. I like how each of the different philosophies inhabits a different kind of response to the trauma of a planetary exodus. Purity is reactionary, Harmony is moderate, and Supremacy is radical.
And is that an Orion drive I see on the ship in the trailer? Oh my. Yes. Give me your gratuitous tech.