While people have reason to be upset with the Plaguelands being brought back through Reclaim, only for SIVA to be confirmed dead and not coming back in the process, I think SIVA being brought back to life in the Plaguelands would go against the theme of reclaiming areas of Earth. The dialogue within Solo Ops activities has Ana, Saint-14, and Devrim talk about how the City's regular military forces could one day move into the areas we go into and hold them, reclaiming them for future Human settlement. The dialogue within the Reclaim activity is the same: the Plaguelands were quarantined because of the potential threat of SIVA. Now that we know SIVA is gone, we can enter the Plaguelands, find Golden Age tech in there, and eventually reclaim it for Humanity and the House of Light Eliksni. We have to contend with Maya's forces in the Plaguelands for the time being, but the general theme is that with the Witness' death and the end of the war between Light and Dark, we can reclaim territory on Earth for Human settlement. If SIVA was suddenly reactivated by Maya, while it would have been a very interesting story beat, it would have gone against the idea of one day reclaiming an area like the Plaguelands for settlement, and the fact that Maya overstretched her limits using the Echo on III. ...But the death of III on Kepler has led to imminent and slowly building problems on Earth. These are detailed in the final three lore entries from the As Without lore book (unlocked by collecting the Data Pads from activities), and the Submersion Crossbow. Here are links to their entries on Ishtar Collective for your leisure: https://www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/book-as-without https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/submersion To start us off, [url=https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/warped-mirror]Warped Mirror[/url] contains Praxic reports about holes opening up in Earth's surface filled with water, and rains of red phosphorus. The Praxic entry compares the latter to the planet being in mourning. [url=https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/reconciliations]Reconciliations[/url] says there's a shrill ring that accompanies the death of III imperceptible to most Human hearing, a new illness with a heavy, dry cough as a symptom swept through the Tower, and dense materials just moving on their own without any intervention. [url=https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/other-side]Other Side[/url] reveals those sailing stones also cause mini-earthquakes in a ten-foot radius, and ties regular earthquakes to III shifting the plates of Earth, and they also reveal rotten soil which has modified edible flora, and pollen now emits dimethyl disulfide. But the most concerning is probably Submersion's lore tab. For those who haven't read it yet, here's a list of apparent effects caused by III's death: open wounds in the Earth infecting the soil and poisoning the plant life; the core of Earth is losing heat; streams and lakes with heavy water that are impossible to swim in; the nights are an hour shorter, and the days are two hours longer. The entry ends with the speaker (potentially III, foreseeing the effects of their own death) talking about how we still find reason to persist and keep living...On an "earthly cadaver". In short, the death of III also means the [i][b]death of Earth itself[/b][/i]. Either it is in the midst of dying, or it is already dead and is starting to "rot". You can even throw in a plague of Taken that had already been poisoning III with sterile neutrinos, per the Rite of the Nine, as something that could be exacerbated with III's death. There is much discussion about reclaiming areas of Earth for Human settlement in Solo Ops and Reclaim, but the lore accompanying this expansion and Submersion shows us that Earth is starting to "decay", so to speak, with the death of III. It will undoubtedly get worse the longer it goes on, and we could see Earth gradually become uninhabitable if there's no way to reverse it. That would make repopulating areas of Earth that we reclaim from our enemies impossible. We could be reclaiming a world just to see it become uninhabitable due to circumstances outside our control. We might even have to abandon the Last City if it gets bad enough. Imagine if another step in Earth's decay is the weakening or loss of its magnetic field, or if sinkholes start swallowing portions of the Last City, or if the soil surrounding it is poisoned to the extent that it cannot sustain crops. This is all just the start of it. As Alison Luhrs said, volcanoes aren't erupting across the Earth (yet), but there is a lot of other stuff happening. TL;DR: A return of SIVA in the Plaguelands would not fit with the narrative of reclaiming various areas of Earth for Human habitation. However, the effort to reclaim areas for Human habitation is happening alongside a series of unsettling environmental changes happening on Earth as a result of III's death, changes which could make Earth uninhabitable if they escalate in severity. ---------------------------- P.S. This isn't even taking into account possible, wider-ranging consequences of III's death. As III is a fourth-dimensional entity, I've started to wonder if III is a singular entity across all timelines, and III dying on Kepler means III has died [i]in all timelines,[/i] and Earths in other timelines are suffering the same effects we are. But that's just a guess, and a topic for another time.