From the point of view that the ships had successfully transited the gate and those within the Waypoint System and Cascadium colony system, the skies and space around them are wrapped in blue light, which rapidly red shifts and then fades away. However the stars no longer line up and astral navigation systems conclude they are completely out of position versus what it's supposed to be on the charts. For the Waypoint System they observe that if the calculations and stellar position are accurate, the system's galactic position is 800 years trailward versus where the system was before the event. For those in the Cascadium system stellar charting now indicates that they are somewhere within the shared periphery. The gate system linking them to the rest of the Sundala Starzone is no longer active. However, the gate system linking them with the Waypoint System is still active. Communications traffic begins as leadership in both systems compare notes and begin drawing conclusions. The largest of which is that there is now a United American systems colony world in the shared periphery and that they can no longer contact the Sundala Starzone on their long range faster than light communication systems.

The entirety of the task force manages to survive the transition and begin sending scouts out to known locations in the periphery where humanity has made contact with other races. However, these vessels are advised to merely observe, keep themselves hidden and report back what they find. In the Waypoint System, various alien delegates and representatives who were hoping to line up some form of economic or military assistance or trade with humanity wait to see what's become of their own nations. Probably the most antagonistic are the Vitari, a reptilian alien race roughly of larger humanoid proportions, though they lack ears and noses. Their nation has been in a steady low intensity conflict with the Imperium in which it's seen two of their colony worlds either fall to Imperial soft power or direct military action. A third was saved from occupation by a direct intervention by the United American Navy and Colonial Marine Corps.

What the scouts find is that the third Vitari colony world is still intact and unmolested. However, they find the second one, the one originally conquered before humanity intervened, under attack from an Imperial invasion fleet of 400 to 500 vessels.