It's the Mycoid Virus. I am subscribing to the current theory that the scavengers are trying remove the infection or the infected area. Also some of the logs mention M. A point I think we have overlooked, someone knew about these sites, someone was watching them. The INRA is still around and working behind the scenes, I am certain they are perhaps the shadow organization behind all this cover up. We need to find them and strike at the heart!
Even if they are ammonia based life they can still use our resources. we have fuels, water, oxygen, and metals. We even have lots of biological life which could be consumed for sustenance. Humans are tasty!
Observations.... reading this page 310 as I try to catch up....
Watching the scavengers work, they only use their 'beam' on the green goo/fungal-damaged areas. They only deposit the dust/silt etc. on particular areas. I watched several last night for awhile and the beam was used on an exterior arm like feature that looked like a healing scab. The deposit then made a few meters away on a pinkish-red to greenish-blue skin area. Notice the luminescence of the secondary area with your ship lights OFF.
These are living bio-mechanical entities. Why not that they are healing themselves, regrowing their parts while the scavengers do the hardest work of cleaning up the infection??? The various states of regen show this, I think. I propose that once the entity is at a level of X healing, they are upgraded from "Guarded" to "Stable but Serious" condition on to "Stable" etc. The more healthy they are, the more they can regenerate themselves.
ALSO: why are there barnacle spires with MA's on them at these sites but NOT barnacles themselves? Could it be... crazy idea.... these are MATURED/ing barnacles? The spires at these sites are the same in scale as the barnacles... I'd expect them to be huge... but what if they're merely little appendages like skin pores or something that extrude the MA's? WHY are they here, if there are no barnacles?? To me, this links both, without question.
Thoughts??