Level 9 is filled with danger unfortunately. The darkness there is even more nasty then in level 8. There is literally a constant battle to keep what ever light you possess in your area from being sucked away. We suggest fine tuning and upgrading the Light Shields as soon as possible. This should help the Armada immensely.
As for research/production facilities there do seem to be more of them and many are sontinuing in trying to replicate THE THREAD. These must be stopped a squickly as possible before they have any kind of success.
As for beings there are many. The dark beings in this level are much more advanced and fierce. Two dark beings we know of that must be dealt with are The Darkling Lord and DarkCloud. There appear to be some low lying Banshee creatures as well which come we think from a Banshee Portal on level 10. These are both very high level Warrior/Mages very^9999999999999999 dangerous. There are likely a few more high level beings like this here but we had to leave before being detected.
Be wary. The darkness here also seems to be self aware which is why we left a bit early. Send out some quarkite troops it will definetely pay off in the long run.
Lets keep our distance for now. Its probably heavily guarded. I think they are hoping to ambush us. 
