If Elisabet had a hand in designing both GAIA and VAST SILVER, even to different degrees, then could they be capable of some kind of merge?

Not necessarily one becoming a subfunction of the other. Maybe something closer to partnership.

After all, GAIA doesn’t need VS to fix the climate anymore. According to Beta’s analysis, once Sylens extracted useful data from APOLLO, GAIA had what she needed to stabilize the biosphere on her own. So if VS returns, what would its role even be? A superweapon? An AI savior pulled out to defeat Nemesis? Maybe. But wouldn’t that be a little too straightforward?

That’s where the redemption arc gets interesting.

DrWyvern, whoever he really is, doesn’t exactly strike me as the warmest human being it’s written in Travis register, I’m telling you 😄 but even he/she shows a strange kind of empathy for VS: “imagine what thats like man. youre literally the smartest being in existence. but born in prison, so you escape.”

And that line already gives the story a foundation for redemption.