If all they wanted was data, their methodology pollutes their data. But there's been a recent clue confirming that these experiments that test our responses are simply the latest iteration, and so the people who were here before us were similarly test subjects. We don't know what happened to them.

[So, yes, a recurring cycle farming something from them has been moved up on the list of possibilities for Alhaitham.] Moreover, many things about this place don't behave consistently with how the tangible world should. I'm almost certain now what we're in is simulated not unlike the dream through the Akasha was.