A bit of a contribution from me that is related to several questions. Don't read this if you don't want spoilers (but then what are you doing here?).
From AI War journal entries and some reading on SBR I did before it was put on hold for AI War 2, if I remember correctly the Spire long long ago created the Zenith as servants. The spire are actually their ships by the way. Over time they stopped needing the Zenith or something and the Zenith evolved and became independent. If I recall correctly the Exodian Blade and his brother were spire who were exiled for some reason. They sat around for a while, eventually the humans came and found them. Something was wrong with the brother, some unknown influence or something (the exodian blade said something about his brother's song being wrong I believe), and the brother pretended to not be self-aware and the humans thought it was just a machine. The Exodian Blade and his brother had some sort of I think psychic battle and the Exodian Blade lost. The brother helped the humans in ways that suited it's own purposes (he helped, and I believe the human leading the faction that had the brother started to get suspicious. So the brother went to the other faction and tricked them. So the two factions had AIs. The brother eventually left and his "servants" (the AI according to the exodian blade) teamed up against the humans, possibly at his will. Keep in mind this is just from what I THINK I remember from journal entries, discussions, and SBR discussions and information, so it may not be accurate. Also crazyroosterman from what I know the TFL factions are in the same universe. Except extremely far away and I believe TFL takes place in the far future and SBR in the far future after that. Also where did you read anything about a hydral golem, there is the zenith hydra but that is a ship not a golem, though that kind of makes you wonder how they knew anything about hydras when naming that, maybe they came in contact with the Hydral race if it existed then? Also I did get sort of an answer in the discussion I made, but any chance with current plans to continue the story of the exodian blade and his brother, or at least add to it. I mean they were the reason the ENTIRE first game happened, and now the second one. Also if the AI were destroyed and came back, maybe the brother created some more or fixed them?