[The E]

The situation at the time was something like this: The 14th BG is sent into Sol as a spearhead. Steele stands by at the node to reinforce once the 14th has captured their initial objectives. Then AoA happens, the 14th is compromised and defects or has to pull back through the node. GTVA HiCom has a choice: Do they send in Steele, who will probably succeed in capturing Sol, but will also very probably do it in a way that will make holding Sol more difficult than it has to be, or do they send in someone who can be relied on to wage a steady campaign in accordance with SecCon's wishes?

Steele was not in charge of the plans to invade Sol, and he also wasn't responsible for MORPHEUS; MORPHEUS is a set of plans/research effort that was started as far back as FreeSpace 1 to deal with the fact that humanity has to coexist with a weakly godlike omnicidal threat.

[FSW]

Thank you for your replies. I understand from Battuta's and The E's posts that my interpretation is not the 'correct' version of events that the writers intend. However, from the point of view of a player trying to piece the story together from in-game clues, it is what the new dialogue implies.

In the most recent version of Journey's End, the Orestes comms officer asks GTVA Command whether to enact the standing orders. 'Command' replies with Steele's voice. There is a clear implication here that Steele speaks for Command; and that he can give orders to the 14th Battlegroup. Steele also stresses the importance of Morpheus, implying that he is not just passing down orders; he himself judges Morpheus to be necessary.

I appreciate that the Blue Planet team respects the audience enough to refrain from directly spelling out every detail of the story in-game. However, in this case, the way the new dialogue is written can easily lead the player to a different conclusion than intended.

[FrikgFeek]

Huh. UT1 mercilessly kicked my ass on insane due to the extremely high number of bombers, especially the super-tough Seraphims. Even if you kill 15 of them every minute they just keep on coming until you're out of shields(damn turrets), gun energy, tempests, afterburners, health, wingmen, and ally warship hull integrity is critical.
Just goes to show how even small changes(like a small energy recharge buff) can greatly change mission balance.

[yomi]

UT1 seems much easier than before for some reason. I took ares loaded with trebs and keept spaming them while rearming every one minute
I think i lost one capship (cruiser or Cv), but it didn't affect outcome of mission. I think it's first time i finished this mission on insane