Ok, this is really bugging me. I just read the S&P 85 article on Wardens, which was very cool. Only problem is that I swear I just recently read something (almost certainly RPG related, but I could be misremembering very badly) that had a very very similar concept/plot, where something was making weird alien habitats form in previously "dead" places and similarly weird events.
Did I just read a different preview of Cthonian Stars and didn't realize what I was reading, or is there a very similar game out there?