Which Faction would you have joined during the Nexus Uprising?

* The initial Nexus personnel awoken are the elite, the inner circle of Jien Garson. Addison is among them, and has an extremely suspicious story about returning to pee in her cryopod during the time Jien dies. (She basically says, "Everyone is doing it," and then refuses to speak more.) When they unexpectedly hit the Scourge, the portion of the ship where these people were located us badly damaged, and all die an immediate, fiery death. Many people, like Sloane, are awoken by emergency protocols, but get stuck in their pods. She had been the last one to sleep, and knew the Nexus' layout well. She rallies her people, including her trusted friend Tiran Kandros, and manages to minimize loss of life and keep things under control. (This will become the story of her life.)

* There actually aren't very many people awake, at this point. Sloane, Kesh and Addison (barely, but she was there) put their heads together and set immediate priorities. Life Support is failing, the Drive Core is about to go boom, and most of the Nexus is ripped open (which is why it looks like ass 14 months later). They need to execute emergency repairs and other key decisions. The problem is that they must have an executive override. Taking into account the deaths of all of the upper leadership, the Nexus computer spits out Jurann Tann as next in line. Addison is visibly pissed, likely expecting it would be her job. They can't believe an accountant will take charge, but figure that they just need his override. He begins trying to assert his authority and being a general ass immediately, despite Sloane and Kesh clear handle on things.

They awaken critical engineering teams, including Corvinnus' Life Support team, who make critical repairs. Tann refuses to awaken any krogan until he can no longer refuse. His racist behavior was a problem from the first step until the present. The most critical repairs are made, but the Nexus is barely holding together, the air is marginally breathable, and the engineers are barely able to take breaks for sleep. Eventually, more engineers and laborers are awoken, including krogan. (The krogan actually did most of the work building the Nexus in the Milky Way, under Kesh' direction.) They are worth 10 non-krogan and need fewer resources to survive, in the short term.

* As the months go by, the Nexus itself slowly improves, but long term prospects remain grim. Hydroponics is struggling, and there's no way that they'll have enough food in time. Zoe Kennedy seems to be an exceptionally stupid, selfish outlier, invented for the purpose of trying to gives us "feels" in the game. No one else was mentioned as wanting to make babies. Most people were concerned about starving or running out of water. This entire time, the Nexus remains penned in by the Scourge. One of Corvinnus' team is killed on the exterior by the Scourge, which proves a turning point.

* Many crew are living in the shuttles, since they have intrinsic life support, in the event of Nexus failures. The argument begins concerning whether shuttles should be sent in search of viable nearby worlds. There are good arguments for (Addison) and against (Sloane), and it's a long time before the decision is made to do so. Seven shuttles are sent out while Sloane is away, intentionally bypassing her input. (They do not got to Habitats 1-7, of course.) Kandros volunteers to lead one shuttle, being led to believe that Sloane now supports this course of action. His absence during the "rebellion" was significant, since Sloane had no trustworthy, capable aid in pulling things together. Slowly, the shuttles trickle in with reports of dead worlds ravaged by the Scourge. Six of seven return, with Kandros' shuttle seemingly lost. We never learn about his fate or the Kett during the rest of the novel.

* I mentioned Corvinnus, the turian engineer who leads Life Support. He and his team do great work, but are the match that ignites all of the horror. They had served on a failed expedition in the Milky Way that had some similarities to the current predicament. When her friend Na'to dies doing external repairs, the asari member of the team cracks. She spirals into a dark, paranoid place. She's the one who goes terrorist, assaulting a security node, killing a guard and stealing vital data. Sloane easily catches her, but her ignorant friends don't understand her arrest, nor Sloane knocking her ass out in the hallway. (Dangerous, insane, selfishly stupid biotic... duh.) As she remains in lock-up, her team becomes more angry. When Tann encourages people to volunteer to return to stasis, and gets zero volunteers, things get worse.

By now times are getting very desperate, and everyone awake is tense. The shuttles failed expeditions are kept secret by the triumvirate, against Sloane's argument for transparency. When Corvinnus' team learns, they go full terrorist, stealing weapons and triggering a Nexus-wide riot. (As a senior lead, Corvinnus has access, and seizes comms, spewing anger through the speakers. His true goal is to cover his team's actions.) The riot erupts, and Sloane has a motley crew of inadequate to calm it. She goes off alone in search of Corvinnus, knowing he likely won't attack her on sight. For most, including Corvinnus, she's the only leader who "has her shit together", and thus is respected.

Tann, meanwhile, loses his shit. He decides to awaken and use Clan Nakmor to intimidate the few dozen or so armed militants into surrender. Spender is inexplicably chosen to go as Tann's representative, in lieu of Kesh. He gets intimidated, unilaterally invents and offers "the Deal", and Morda agrees. (Spender had also aided Corvinnus' little revolt in other ways. He's a skeevy bastard.) When the krogan come face-to-face with the rebels, they simply attack. People are being literally dismembered. Many have joined a Corvinnus' team, at this point, so there are maybe 100 armed protestors. Engineers with guns can't fight krogan. (Morda attacks because Spender had said, "Whatever it takes," in direct contravention of Tann's orders.

Sloane is in the "rebel camp" when the krogan arrive and start butchering. She reflexively defends a person who is about to be butchered right in front of her, and thus "joined" the uprising. Corvinnus is killed, and Sloane attempts to funnel the retreat away from the krogan. The "rebels" retreat down a hallway, get overrun, and that's it. That's the big "Uprising". It's blown way out of proportion by the remaining Nexus personnel, in terms of scope. Corvinnus had hoped to force Tann out of power, and things escalated out of control.

Tann decides he'll neutralize the situation by giving the arrested a choice: cryosleep or exile. To his shock, they choose exile. Sloane decides to go with them, as they'll never survive without a leader to keep them alive. The krogan leave as well, since the deal was a sham. The krogan and exiles take many shuttles and supplies, but also leave fewer mouths to feed. The rest is told in-game, though from a decidedly political, anti-exile. Before leaving, most of the exiles were simply desperate, hungry, dehydrated people who got caught up in a bad moment. The later barbarity and criminality was seemingly the result of madness and a survival of the fittest mentality.

The part I can't really convey here is how hard Sloane tried to serve the Initiative's people. If she and Kesh had been in charge, the situation would not have spiraled to desperation as it did. Tann's ego, and Addison's depression and general unwillingness to even try to counterbalance him, led to the disaster. The Tann we meet in-game is one shaped by his earlier failures. His remorse is significant, as the exiles prepare to depart. His ego, though, won't allow him to find another way. He never thought they'd choose exile, and tells himself "it's on them".

Advent - for which there's no explanation of who they are, who the leader is nor how they got to Eos.