Our only shred up hope is that I've seen comments (linked somewhere here, I think) during an interview with a Marriott exec where he acknowledged that Starwood fans are rabid about SPG. Not saying awareness will lead to action (or prevent undesirable action), but at least there's awareness. Since Honors is pretty much the exact opposite kind of program than SPG, Marriott has to know that would drive out a ton of high-yield guests. It would become very easy for Hyatt to step in and woo a lot of those guests over.

Of course it's possible that Marriott will simply say that hotels are so full either way that they don't need any of the Starwood-style features anymore. In which case yeah, the sky is falling...