Hal, are you using the V4 edit? V4 (I think) removes the color banding, as well as adds film grain, and probably is the closest match in terms of color and brightness to the rest of the scene.

Also, maybe I’m going slightly crazy from having obsessed over the coloring of that scene, but it looks like your test clip there doesn’t include the color re-grade present in Ascendant V1? My V4 edit was designed to match the Ascendant tone. Does that have to be changed?

That said, I think the flow works very well!

V4 clip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DzaKiOT4X4DKFrPOTqiZpysUfoUDTsT7/view?usp=sharing

And some screenshots for comparison.

V3: https://i.imgur.com/4xIMw0w.png
V4: https://i.imgur.com/DynQOUH.png