State of the story, questions. Spoilers inside.

So I took a small hiatus to let the game come out with new content and such and just recently ran a lot of Dark Astoria content. I learned who the letter writer is, all about MOT, why Ouroboros is to be feared, etc. I still have a few questions though that maybe can be answered:

1) During this timeframe, Statesman is dead? If so, how come Sister Psyche is in the Diabolique Trial? Was she revived somehow?

2) So the entire reason Ouroboros is to be feared is because Nemesis went back in time to change a dagger that instead of killing Rularru, sent him to the Shadow Shard? I don't see this as too bad of a thing. Essentially, Nemesis calculated that humans wouldn't be enough to save the world and they needed the help of an external being? Or was he planning on wiping the Earth anyways?

3) After completing the Diabolique Trial, what is the fate of Dominatrix? It was left unclear as she was just standing there next to the Dream Doctor. Is she "good" now? Also, where does Dominatrix stand in terms of power? I know we encounter her in the First Ward arcs as an enemy, is she meant to be only around 35 meaning she is fairly weak?

4) I believe the Dream Doctor makes mention of defeating Tyrant, but what about Hamidon? Is there anything to do about him since he is a super version in Praetoria?

5) In some of the arcs in Dark Astoria, your character is made out to be super powerful. IE, when fighting the 5th Column you pretty much wipe the floor with both Requiem and Reichsman. Is this enemy group no longer considered a threat because we have grown so powerful?

6) If you have anything to add or to discuss I will read it. I really like the game's lore so please feel free to share.

As for the 5th column, yeah it's intended that as a villain group they can't really compete with Incarnate level heroes. There's seedlings that Requiem has acquired some new power from his stay in Cimerora that he'll used to empower the column. That was a reoccurring theme through all of Astoria I think, the fact that the villains are having to pull out new stops to compensate for our new power.

Malta will be using Battle Maiden's nanomachines to upgrade their tech. The Tsoo were using new tattoos that derived their power from souls. The Knives of Artemis were attacked and corrupted by the Talons of Vengeance to become the Knives of Vengeance. The Banished Pantheon were given power through Mot. The PPD are leaning on their new Awakened Kheldian members. Lord Recluse is searching for ways to empower his troops. So a lot of groups are trying to step up so they can compete with Incarnate level opposition.

An interesting thing about the Dream Doctor's claim that Ouroboros is evil and must be destroyed, and that he'll send it crashing into the sea, is that we've actually seen what seems to be the aftermath of that in the first misison of Mender Ramiel's arc - and it's not presented as being anything close to a good event.
But as a posisble balance to that, Darrin Wade's wacky antics in SSA1 have shown that trying to control or use Rularuu is kinda dangerous. which makes Silos' plan seem to be pretty risky too.
And then there's Prometheus with his trollface mask going "problem, Incarnates?" after each new bit of info that he revasl to us - so basically, all the major players that we've seen so far in the Coming Storm storyline have hugh potential for massive jerkishness at some point further down the line.

So far I still trust the Dream Doctor more than I trust the others.

That doesn't mean that I don't exactly trust Mender Silos. He -was- Nemesis, but I think Ouroboros is generally benevolent. But I think Dream Doctor's discoveries about the menders and Silos' meddling with the dagger show that Ouro is based on an 'Any means to an end' kind of philosophy.

Though, I've always wondered a bit how true the Doctor's revelations are and if perhaps the Menders we know aren't from alternate timelines? It's kind of a problem with time travel on this magnitude. We've seen an alternate dimension, which may as well be an alternate timeline, where -we- became corrupt with power and wiped out the world.

Sister Psyche well be removed form the game and everything related to her will be replace with Penelope Yin.

Dominatrix is still Alive and well.

A lot more Story will be unfold in Issue 23.

The reason the Rikti may have been able to defeat the Batallion is because they effectively killed off their own well.

It is made mention that the Rikti 'killed their Gods' meaning that they were not impowered by the well, yet we've seen that at their peak (the Lord of War and the Master at arms) they can stand toe to toe with Incarnates, not to the degree of the well empowered Praetorians but they can put up a hell of a fight.

This means the Rikti empowered themselves purely through technology, heck they didn't know about magic until fairly recently (their magic users are employed to counteract their weakness to magic after suffering a thrashing at the hands of the Midnight Squad and the Circle of Thorns during the first Rikti War).

The Battalion had no well to feed off of when they arrived meaning that they were at a sever disadvantage since it seems the Battalion work by feeding off the well of a race, thus weakening any super powered beings they have, without a Well, the Rikti were fighting at full strength all the time.

But Rikti are just altered humans, and each species shares a well across dimensions, don't they? Praetorians, Primals, and the Rikti should all be drawing power from the same place.

They are altered humans but, as I mentioned, they killed all magic on their world, which would include their own Well of Furies (along with all their gods), meaning the Battalion would have nothing to feed off since the Battalion seems to have the whole strategy for feeding off the well of a race, thus weakening it. The Rikti transcended the need for the Well and thus nolonger required it, advancing to the level of technology at which it is sufficiently advanced to have the capabilities to match against magic using foes.

The Rikti killing their gods and thus all magic thing is a very old piece of Lore and is only mentioned very briefly during ye olde Rikti info that use to be on the Website.

Actually I honestly suspect that the devs have forgotten this little piece of Lore themselves.

So I went to Prometheus too after and read his new dialogue. Is it just that little bit about ascended people?

Are ascended people just essentially gods? I didn't really see how this is a possible alternative to incarnates and why he was so angry?