After releasing the mechs, Helldivers 2 calls on players to free 4 "high-priority" planets to "activate the Terminid Control System," and it sounds like a big deal

gamesradar.com:

Helldivers 2 has a brand new Major Order focusing on quarantining the Terminid threat, but players will need to rapidly liberate four players to clear the objective.

The brand new Major Order to 'Activate the Terminid Control System' has just gone live in Helldivers 2, immediately following the culmination of the huge offensive in Tien Kwan to initiate the massive mechs. The new operation kicked off just earlier today, March 12, and it already looks to be a grand operation for Helldivers 2 players to partake in.

MAJOR ORDER: Activate the Terminid Control System, Helldivers! pic.twitter.com/0UmUD4GESLMarch 12, 2024

Four new planets are now available for liberation in Helldivers 2: Erata Prime, Fenrir III, Meridia, and Turing; all on the eastern side of the Galactic War board. These four planets have a brand new mission type, which tasks players to 'Activate [the] Terminid Control System' to contain the buggy threat.

Instead of the usual 'Liberation' bar, all four of these planets have a 'TCS Installation Progress' bar, which governs how much the new initiative has been progressed over the four worlds. In fact, these four aren't the subject of the usual 'Liberation Campaign' - they're actually classed as a "High-Priority Campaign." 

This isn't the first time the TCS has been mentioned in Helldivers 2. While the operation to free the mechs on Tien Kwan was underway last week, the TCS was rumbling in the background, although the four planets weren't yet available to fight on. Since Tien Kwan is now free from the Automaton threat, the presumption is that the engineers in that world are headed over to install the TCS on Erata Prime, Fenrir III, Meridia, and Turing.

Here's hoping that, once the TCS installation meter is completely finished on all four platforms, the "Termicide" will rain down and vanquish the Terminids for good across the frontier. Given that we've already seen twists in the effort to launch the mechs in Helldivers 2 though, I feel pretty comfortable