Okay I figured it out > I get to wear the "idiot" hat for this one.
Essentially there was no problem once I eliminated the original errors from the logs.
I still don't understand why I'm getting that error in the UCS and am still interested in a fix on that; however I was able to boot up the client and get in game despite my login server or the "sleeping window" displaying "UP UP N".
I don't know why I hyper-focused on that as a problem, but I guess it's not for my purposes as it seems I can still play locally.
However, I am still interested in how to go about "dropping the PEQ database and reinstalling it" as one previous poster mentioned he did. If anyone can walk me through that process for my own education, I'd appreciate it!
Thanks all!