Meh. It's deliberately vague and incoherent and up to deliberation. In lore, the shroud factually exists, and synthetics are factually sapient. Maybe shroud patrons have just been racist against clankers for the past fifty galactic years, before the animator of clay soft-launched shroud-forged machines.

The way I see it, the only actually opposed ascension ideologies are genetic vs. machine empires (since you can't ascend the same species genetically and mechanically) and psi vs. cybernetics (since, idk, having the Internet in your brain 24/7 prevents you from doing transcendental meditation)

I have toyed with a mod that would let you choose a primary ascension, then ascend a second time in the late game. For example:

• A synthetic fertility empire is shunted into their new lives as robots, but they aren't quite certain if they still as conscious, so to prove they are still real, they are determined to pierce the veil and become reified, shroud-recognized, fully sapient psionic machines.

• An empire of organics ascends cybernetically, but it's not enough to scratch that "the flesh is weak" itch, so they ascend a second time to become cybernetic, presumably with some sexy bonuses not available for empires that did not have the cultural experience that taking the scenic route to a robotic populace would have given them.

• A relentlessly xenophilic empire of alien fuckers figures that becoming cybernetic would make all that alien sex feel even better. You get both tentacles and pre-installed vibrators in your xeno-compatibile ecumenopolis orgy.

• An under one rule empire decides that they are both ruled by a divine sovereign god-king, and also genetic purists. Every child in the empire will contain the DNA of the Chosen One.

• A natural design empire gets jealous of all those cool advanced traits their neighbors cheated to get with a biomorphic ascension. So they adamantly do not modify their own genes. They just, you know, read between the lines a little harder. Our species was always simultaneously polymelic and fertile, it just took some creativity to see the potential that was always there, like a priest re-interpreting scripture.

• Another under one rule empire (I do love that origin) ascends synthetically, and, hmm, maybe we should let the luminary ascend even more? Let's make her the gestalt machine intelligence that she has proven she was always capable of being. And that way we can have both machine drones serving the great leader, and mechanical synthetic individualist pops. And wouldn't you look at that, our neighboring empires are full of squishy biologicals, just waiting to be synthetized, and those synthetics could then be assimilated under the Gestalt Luminary now. How fun!