Now that Exogenous are gone... What's the difference between factions, ideologically?
4 years ago it was clear. Enl are for communication with Shapers and making path to progress together with them. Res are against Shapers presence cause they're the invaders. Very distinct and easy to pick for many.
Now that the Exogenous were kicked out of the universe, there are no Shapers nor N'Zeer.
What now? What is the ideological difference between us? What is that faction ideology which would ensure that agents are devoted to their faction?
Is this another move by Niantic to reduce the competition between factions and make us friends, with total peace and rainbow ponies?
I do not want that. I want Res and Enl ideologies to differ. Significantly. Like it was before the start of the Tessellation (which by itself, out of context, was very interesting event) and annoying cross-faction shards.
It is difference between our factions that is fueling this game. Not friendship.
@NianticBrian you need Ingress Agent Tutorial fixed. ADA says Jarvis is rooting for Shapers, who are the creatures in the portal network. Both parts of this aren't true anymore.
Comments
The main goal of each factions, which stand since Redacted days, are the following (per Wikipedia):
The Enlightened faction embrace the powers of XM to transcend mankind and believe their mission is to assist in the enlightenment of mankind by harnessing this energy.
The Resistance faction see XM as a potential threat to humanity and believe their mission is to defend the human race by resisting the effects of those seeking to control others with XM.
Those goals still exist today. Just because the Exogenous are gone, doesn't mean that we can't use the XM anymore. Now more then ever, with the Shapers and N'zeer not sending signals with the XM, we might see completely new uses of that "Pure" XM (speaking from an ENL standpoint, at least).
I like this post because, in my opinion, to let the game continue no faction can win the game. By kicking the exos, the ENL lost their motive to play.
Will they change the messages in the portals?
The tutorial mentions the Shapers too. I don't see it changing in the near future due to voice recordings being hard ti schedule due to COVID-19, but I'd love to see new lines
Maybe now without shapers guidance, recursed agent will have access to the advanced connection to xm (as said in recursing text) and try things by their own.
I would argue that a huge percentage of the ENL's motivation was lost when we discovered that the Shapers were literal when they said they wanted to consume humanity. Before you could argue they wanted to be voyeurs and treat us like something to watch on the internet/TV/theatre or even hitch a ride in our mind like a character from Being John Malkovich but that illusion ended the day we learned that Nemesis wasn't lying about what happened in thier node. The risk of letting any exos ingress into any reality is too high (except maybe the Undine.. they seem chill).
On the bright side, at least Oliver is still ENL, I think it's time he became the leader of the Enlightened assuming Courier Hank returned to 1218 or Joined Nemesis in their fight against the Exogenous. If Hank is with us*, he is still the best Enlightened Leader.
*The plus side of Hank remaining of course is that we would also have two Johnsons... Having two Johnsons is always better than having only one.
Plot twist: Nemesis was lieing all along and the exogenous will be back as collectables being on the map and we gotta catch 'em all.
Not a bad idea - worth billions on that-other-game :D
Where did they say Exogenous beings have been permanently blocked from entering our universe?
They’re not necessarily “gone” permanently, just repelled. And just like any repellant, it fades with time and doesn’t affect some beings. I doubt we’re totally immune from the Exogenous influence just yet.
And the glyph commands the Techthulu were given only specifically identified the Shapers and N’Zeer. While the intent was to repel all exogenous, we might only have repelled the two we know most of.
Signals are coming, we are still receiving glyphs.
They may be unable to enter our world physically but still can communicate via XM and the portal network.
Like what?
This has no sense since the XM is "pure" now and devoid of exogenous influence. Wait for the next update
If we receive new glyphs or glyph sequences, then we could be sure signals are still coming, but the current glyph sequences look to me like automated repeats.