Admiral Sutter?

It doesn't fit with those either

Yes, really. You misunderstood what I meant on several levels. It has absolutely nothing to do with combat levels. I'm talking solely about mission levels. The meta-story of the CoX universe is told in pieces, contact by contact, and expanded with each TF/SF. It works in a nice, linear progression, with each contact a "chapter" in the overall book of game lore broken apart by mission level. Some contacts start a new story line, some continue and existing one, some provide a close. Some stories are never finished, some are spread out over time, and others are short and take only a single contact to tell.

Heroes have one "book", Villains another, and Praetorian have a different set of begining chapters before picking up one of the other two. Sometimes the two books contain identical chapters like in the RWZ or Cimeroria. Sometimes they present the same events from different viewpoints like in Sister Aralia's arc versus Daedalus's. Most of the time they are different. Switching alignment doesn't break the narative, it just provides you with a new book to read. A single character can't read every chapter on their own by design, at least not without using Ouroboros or shutting off XP. This was done to encourage the creation of new characters, so that as a player you could read the entire book.

This is how the game was written until I20 and the need for a counterpart to Mortimer Kal, a period of almost seven years. At no point is one earlier chapter dependent on the outcome of a later chapter. When new content created contradictions older content was ret-conned, such as what happened to Tina MacIntyre and Maria Jenkins in I19.

Without the Sutter TF it all flows together. Begining Praetorians know that an invasion is planned but no start date is given. In Adair's arc you defeat Protean's plan to use a clone army, and who or what is backing him is left unexplained. Just because it's someone from the Praetorian dimension doesn't make it the actions of the Praetorian government. In Tina's arc you learn about Praetoria (which Portal Corp is already aware of, even though you as a character may or may not be) and fight a few of the characters from that dimension. Tina's desire to monitor Praetoria rather than slam her hand on the panic button immediately makes sense. In Maria's you defeat the rest of the Praetors without your Incarnate powers because they don't have them yet either. Then Tyrant gains additional powers from the Well and uses it to kick off his invasion, fortunately just after you've become an Alpha incarnate to stop him in Apex and Tin Mage II. Apex and the Freedom Phalanx being unprepared for the Praetorians makes sense. Comments that Battle Maiden may have started the invasion ahead of schedule make sense. In later incarnate content you take the fight directly to Tyrant in Praetoria. It all fits together. Even if you don't like the story it's still a coherent progression.

Sutter causes problems. Either it's the only content in the game dependent on a later chapter (Apex TF) or it's the end of the first invasion with Apex the start of a second war. If the former it goes against seven years of writing, if the latter than Tina's actions, Apex's suprise, and the souvenir text make little sense.

Things like sidekicking or exemping don't change the story, just the order in which you (the player) have chosen to read it. If you want to be the sidekick to someone else's main character that doesn't change the story. If you want it to be an ensemble piece and run with a static team that doesn't change the story. If you want to jump all around in levels that doesn't change the story, only the parts you (the character) see.

If you went to ParagonWiki and read all the 1-5 content, then the 6-10 content, and so on you can see the story in full. How you choose to read them when playing the game doesn't change how they are presented.

The best fix for Sutter would be to create a new counterpart TF to Mortimer Kal and alter Sutter into an Incarnate TF. I know this won't happen since it's basically creating one and a half new TFs and they don't have the resources to really do that.

Next, and my own personal approach, would be to ignore Sutter completely. It is the lone anomaly in seven years of writing. Shoehorning it in is possible, but rather messy as it seriously impacts Tina's arc and the Apex TF.

The last solution (and the one I fear Paragon Studios is going to take) is to simply make it so we've always been at war with Praetoria much like we're locked into an eternal war with the Rikti. This is a sloppy writing fix and presents Tina and Apex in a poor light.

Well, that's probably because I can only go by what you WRITE and have no other way to know what you MEANT.

And this line . . .
is apparently referring to COMBAT levels and NOT mission levels. So you were actually discussing BOTH in your post. If that's not what you meant, then this line is phrased very badly.

Thanks guys!

I was entertained, if nothing else.

Ironblade, let's run this one! And re-enact the Great Admiral Sutter Praetorian debate in-game, in-team!