You really exaggerate the earnings and ignore the costs. A great "victory" of gaining three poor regions, a handful of political converts, at the cost of great internal and external dissent.
This. In spades. We gained very, very little in this crusade. Terran, as a theocracy, is worth nothing more than symbolic victory, and not a very good one.
That's not just the few nobles who really criticized the church persistently, like Jonsu or Gustav
Going back through the messages, and making a list of people who disagreed with the crusade produces a very extensive listing of people, from all over.
You've "practically bloodless victory"? What's the worth of another theocracy if nothing's to compel them to actually obey the church. What's the worth of the new converts if their sole purpose was to be able to lobby in their own interests, against current policies?
The victory we achieved was done by nothing more than the church's reputation. Phantaria knuckled under because of the past victories achieved by crusades, and Phantaria's knee-jerk "OH noes, we can't stand against a crusade! We better sue for peace!"
The reality of the situation was far, far different. Because you know what? Phantaria could *easily* have beaten off the crusade. Why? Because the only people that participated were 5 or 6 nobles from Astrum, and Mordaunt. The Astrum nobles were slow to respond, and probably wouldn't have done much. Phantaria could have waited them out, the moved in and beaten up Terran. When a few nobles wander back, then Phantaria pulls back and waits them out. Drag out the crusade as resistance to it rises, and it simply falls apart from the inside.
Phantaria's nobles needed to pay better attention to what people were saying inside the church. If they had correctly gauged the attitude of the church, they could have easily deduced how to defeat it.
From what I've seen, the Church overextended itself, and have damaged its internal cohesion to do so, and will never be able to properly heal this gash, merely patch it as best it can.
The damage this crusade did to the church is incalculable. It was poorly envisioned, poorly planned, poorly executed, and just... bad for the church.
