MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. DON'T SCROLL IF YOU DON'T WANT ANY.
Empyrean Age
1. This seems to be a misinterpretation. The way I read it, he was trying to fly INTO the Gate, not flying out of it.
Templar One
1. Or a potential power source. Remember, in EA, the drones went towards the sun to harvest the isogen-5. Could be that caches and machines were normally hidden near suns with Sleeper tech. Their armor tech is super impressive.
2. The virtual world is created by the compounded minds of the Sleeper race. They all come together to create their cities. Taking out the still living bodies of the sleepers to harvest their implants is destroying their way of life, their cities, and their loved ones.
3. First, the Other never was in the real world. It was born within the Virtual World. Therefore it didn't really have "supporters." Second, the black eyed creatures could potentially be preserved Enheduanni caretakers. If you remember, the Enheduanni were basically a race of care takers for the Architects while they slept before the Enheduanni ran a monopoly on the Architects.
They controlled them while they slept physically and dreamed and lived. They dreamed and lived in a state where time went on for hundreds of years in the Virtual World, but only maybe...a year passed in the real world. So, they put a tight noose on the Architects to make oodles of monies (or whatever they wanted). Left over caretakers could likely have been in the stations, still looking over their investments.
4. Trying to wake them, force them awake from their fake world and make them face reality to be a glorious real race. Kind of like us as players. NO PLAY THIS WAY IT'S THE RIGHT WAY IMMA FORCE YOU.
5. The norms could be the laws for living within a VR. One MUST have a real body to retreat to and nothing can be born within the VR world. That's why the Other is hated so much. So Grious mentioning not being born is the same kind of thing with the Sleepers. Nothing can be born there in the VR...well it shouldn't anyway. I mean, we make laws all the time, but some ******* goes and breaks them right?
6. Who knows what happened tot he 1st Jove Empire? As for the Architects running, well...they realized they were being used and bounced to w-space. Wouldn't you?
7. They seemed to be a caretaker race. Could have been genetically modified, or perhaps they were put in a form of cryo sleep that was not so deep or all encompassing?
8. You may have misread. The Architects were a Jove off shot apparently. They were super VR enthusiast I believe and just lived differently.
hth