Was he right?

"What actually transpires beneath the veil of an event horizon? Decent people shouldn't think too much about that." -Zakharov
Ironic for someone obsessed with science to try to hide information, his character changes a lot over the course of the game.
"Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind's fragile neural network with the full power of every reactor on the planet. Thousands of years of civilization compressed into a single searing burst of revelation. That is our last-ditch attempt to win humanity a reprieve from extinction at the hands of an awakening alien god. " - Zakharov
Self explanatory

Sure but Santiago is mommy-tier

Miriam becomes obsessed with the concept of the soul and twists everything to being an affront on that. I still think that's Miriam's problem. The Self-Aware Colony just proves she'll take the fact her insurgents can't work as proof of soulnessness. You can connect that to the Orwellean if you'd like. But they're not being selected out of line at the factory for wrong-think: they're being caught in the act of subversion. How would it be better in any account if dudes with antimatter rifles were the one to respond?

I THINK THE PLANET SUCKS
>t. Investigator Fred
>For I Have Tasted the Fruit
>Datalinks

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I think her main problem is that humans in the absence of god turn to other things that can provide the same things a god provides. Not necessarily anything tied to souls, it's more like fundamental human nature.
So in the absence of god man turns towards science and creates an omniscient being that can police everyone anywhere. This is of course an extreme example only found in the game but humanities tendency to replace god with ideologies or constructs that provide the same services as a god are well known throughout history.

Not really. Miriam is ultimately right in that the relentless pursuit of science ends humanity as a concept, but her fixation is always on dogmatism rather than practical dissent.

>to try to hide information
I always thought he was evading a direct followup question to something akin to "We harness the energy produced inside an event horizon" in an interview. One that in order to answer properly required teaching an entire class on quantum mechanics: the concepts of several sciences that had to be invented for the purpose of understanding exactly what's going on and how the quantum refineries work.

>self-explanitory
Explain it to me because Zakharov is not just right about the encroaching doom: but his plan to advert it worked.

He doesn't think the planet is "beyond all mortal comprehension god": not even Cult of the Planet does that. He's just making the most effective and expedient comparison to explain the impending doom. The fact verified by other factions is that the projected sudden exponential increase in the amount of planet's indigenous life, commanded with increased coordination: will destroy everything human: settlements, terraforming, and military asset. Not because an angry god destroys things without contest. But because nothing they've ever been able to discover has negated the psi attacks or prevented the reactionary fungus growth.

God fucking damnit I am still mad about beyond earth. I played the shit out of it and it had potential but they blanded the fuck out of it. Don't even get me started on that fucking stupid space combat sequel.

>the same things a god provides
Well that's all potentially well and good. But at least after Eden God never actually provided security to anyone. He never made anybody swords either. So I don't get what Miriam's on about with nanobots with that theory. Never-minding her use of the word "homunculi" that seems to more readily draw that comparison to the soul. God doesn't move people from place to place: so decrying transporters for that reason doesn't.

You're right this can all boil down to "people have to have a trust in concepts" which science, a secular philosophy, a government principal, or other binding cultural forms can do as well as religion. But you're leaning into this like Miriam is too obsessed in talking like the King James to articulate her points. Which is wrong because her jeers when the player has Knowledge social engineering she's up front about fearing the horrors that research could be working on. But will in the same communique demand the surrender of research she's interested in to avoid a holy war.

Ultimately every faction is "right" in a way. Yang's disrespect of component drones towards the ultimate advancement of the society works when the biological merging of planet and earth life form unity. Lal similarly is right because the peaceful unification of all factions beings about an era of untold prosperity. Morgan is right in production of systems that produce energy because the generation of energy is what makes sustaining life on the scale of the entire planet possible. Deadra is right for the entire co-existance with the planet theme. Santiago is right because she comprehends the planet as an antagonistic force, and is the faction that articulates that being mentally and militarily strong to withstand it - not conquer but survive it- was necessary for humanity from minute one. Zakarov is right because he's the one that develops the technology to ally with it. And Miriam is right because she saw it coming.

Your first point seems right but for your second I have some doubts.

First of all there was a simple solution to not angering planet. Cease harming the planet with pollution caused by technology.
So Zakharov's solution is to use more technology to commit collective suicide and somehow merge with the planet (the followup tech does this)? Seems to me like he became exactly what Miriam was at the beginning, a religious extremist.

There was no escaping it - either the fungus grew to the point it became a pyschic nexus and it's awakening killed everyone, or their presence disrupted the fungus so much that the planets white bloodcells killed them. They just had the extremely bad fortune to land on Planet near the end of a cycle.

While eco damage increases it: Planet bites back even when you're a green society and doing 0 eco damage. They consider humans an infection, even after apparently productive dialogs. Quotes from many factions show that the creation of fungus critical mass process was inevitable and the only real hope to avoid it would've been to mass evacuate Planet. Which even compared to every other accomplishment like the orbital sully satellites: would likely have been impossible to do completely.