Psionics & Technology

Psionics

The galaxy is filled with psychic powers, from the naturally telepathic cyn, the naufragi's ability to manipulate their own biology or the penjaga pyromancers to the bizarre ability of bilocation that Fragments possess. The list of psychic powers continues to grow each century as new abilities are researched or discovered. But these psionic powers are not naturally to all races, and even those who do possess innate psionic talents, such as the cyn, their abilities are usually very weak if not enhanced through some means.

There are generally four common methods one may possess and develop psionic powers and potency beyond any natural racial ability.

• Innate: These individuals are rare and only ever result from unions of parents who have never received psychic augmentation (though use of artifacts do not seem to inhibit their birth). Innates are said to possess Nirish blood, as it is generally accepted that the old Nirish Empire had mingled their blood with other races in the distant past.
• Preborn: The individual received psychic augmentation treatment procedures while in the womb. They develop psychic powers easily in a similar manner to innate psychics, but are required to receive follow up treatments once every few months. Missing these treatments will not cause their power to diminish, but it will block them from being able to further develop their potential or learn new abilities. These treatments are extremely expensive and only the wealthy and powerful are able to provide this opportunity to their children.
• Augmentor: These individuals must inject themselves with a neurological stim supplement on a daily basis in order to maintain their psychic potency. Loss of these daily treatments will first result in diminished potency and eventually loss of all psychic ability entirely until they receive treatment again, which will result in a slow build up back to their normal potential. The daily treatments are not cheap, but generally affordable to lower middle class incomes and higher, though most corporation employees, government agencies and military receive their treatments for free. The lower class typically cannot afford treatments, which inherently cuts them off from many job opportunities that require psychic ability. It is ironic that due to the lack of treatment available to the lower class, the majority of Innate's are born from this income bracket.
• Artifacts: These individuals augment through the use of ancient artifacts from the long fallen Nir Empire. Most of the artifacts either provide specific psionic abilities (and can be used by those who otherwise have no psionic capabilities), augment existing abilities, boost existing abilities or the much sought after artifacts that emulate augmentation, allowing the bearer to develop and grow psychic talents so long as it is in their possession. Artifact trade is a lucrative business and those willing to risk delving into Nirish ruins, psychic ghosts and the other dangers of space can make a tidy profit if they survive. Artifacts come in all shapes and sizes with a variety of potency and ability. While none come cheap, the price varies greatly depending on what they do.

The Ado When discussing psionics, one must note the strange ado race. The ado are incapable of wielding psionics, even through the use of artifacts. The ado are not only immune to psionic energies (though not the resulting effects of such), but they possess the ability to somehow sense psychic energies and are able to unravel psychic abilities when they are manifested. This counter-psionic ability has made them both feared and desired amongst both the Coalition and the Covenant. The ado, having lost their home world to the Nox, often make a living by lending use of these powers to others for payment.

Technology

Transportation: There is a variety of spacecraft technologies, from the obsolete binary slingshot ships to the massive SCG ships capable of traveling between solar systems. Travel times vary depending on distance, but generally traveling between planets takes days to weeks depending on the distance. Travel between solar systems by use of SCG's takes one to six months within the gate, though only 17.3 minutes passes by in real-time outside the gateway channel. Traveling from system to system without use of a gateway can take decades or centuries and most modern ships are not designed with that sort of sustainability, save perhaps the nox hive ships or the fabled Zero Mobius.

• Solar: Solar wind ships are the most common types of ships used when traveling within a solar system and come in all shapes and sizes, including small one or two person ships, narfas warships, cargo ships, standard Coalition Carrier class A-C ships, yachts to the massive self-sustaining arks.
• SCG: SCG ships are massive vehicles with significant protective thermal, sonic and radiation shielding allowing them to travel between solar systems by use of the Solar Conduit Gateways. As these journeys can be somewhat lengthy, the ship interiors resemble small self sufficient cities, with homes, offices, solar ship docks, commercial districts, etc.
• Psionic: there are three sorts of psionic ships; the psi-tech Halo ships of the cyn, powered by psionic crystals, the Mind Forge ships of the varhovnik that are fueled by draining psionic slaves that are cloned in mass and the uncommon organic Silverfish ships that were developed by the rakentajat and penjaga, large living spaceships that through the use of bio/cyber technologies and Nirish artifacts were imbued with advanced intellect and psionic talents.
• Jump: Small vessels capable of folding space and instantly moving great distances. This science is still in its infancy. Larger ships are torn to pieces when moving through folded space, but small shuttle sized ships have been designed capable of withstanding the process, though they are in need of frequent maintenance and repairs. Earlier pilots would often go mad until sensors and view screens were disabled prior to jumps. It's unknown what would they may have seen, as recording devices only pick up a gray haze. There is a great deal of interest in pursuing this technology as it is the fastest means of transportation known beyond the transport powers some gods and powerful fragments are capable of.
• Orb: orb ships are spherical crafts of varying sizes used by the naufragi. There is no science behind the capabilities of these spacecrafts; they shouldn't operate at all. The naufragi claim they are magical in nature. Captured orb ships continue to confound and boggle the minds of scientists everywhere. But science or not, the ships DO operate and with a mobility and precision superior to most other ships in the system. Orb ships require the small stature and multiple limbs of the naufragi to properly operate and any modifications made to the ships render them useless.

Medicine & Narcotics

Medical

• Deisithe: a liquid which mimics the body's fluids and helps in regeneration. It is used to help with cuts and burns as well as severe cellular damage, such as frostbite. The subject is suspended in a full-immersion tank for treatment of large-scale injuries, or via a patch or lotion for minor injuries.
• Somnus: standard medication used to reduce the side effects of hibernation sickness.
• Baeta: standard medication for treating radiation poisoning. This is often taken as part of a routine for SCG travel with the drug Vionam.
• Vionam: medication taken before exposure to radiation, boosting the users resistance for a short period of time. It is common practice for travel through Gateways to take Vionam in the mornings and Baeta at night.
• Gada: a genetically modified bioplasm which combines coagulants, anesthetics, antibiotics and might even act as a spacesuit puncture sealer. Common fare among military and civilians alike. Technically, it contravenes Coalition laws regarding genetic engineering, but it's considered too useful to ban.
• Pranim: an anti-rejection drug used by humans who have undergone mechanical augmentation. It is used to stop the build up of glial tissue around the augmentations and thus prevents the body from rejecting them.
• Ascension: A series of treatments used to hyper-evolve median species to a greater level of intelligence and cognitive thinking. Coalition law against genetic engineering has placed a ban on these treatments, though the Covenant still make use of them.
• Ovis: A powerful emotional suppressant. The liquid is consumed with food or drink. It was designed by the varhovnik and is distributed in the food supply amongst their slave worlds to render the residents docile and nonhostile in order to prevent the possibility of rebellion.
• Substance 44-8: a mysterious substance used by naufragi necromancers to animate and control corpses. Medical science has yet to be able to determine how the black tar-like substance is controlled by the naufragi, dismissing their ridiculous claims that it is "magical" in nature and cannot be defined by scientific methods.

Narcotics

• Flashback: this drug is a cocktail of engineered drugs, neurostimuli and nanites that allows the user to relive previous life experiences with crystal clarity.
• Chum: a drug used by narfas soldiers that causes extreme aggression after injection. The drug also enhances physical strength, reaction time, endurance and immunity to pain. The drug is physically addictive and overdoses result in mutation into what the narfas call brutes; the effects from the drug become permanent, but cognitive ability is greatly reduced, the body mutates and continues to grow over time as bone density and muscle mass continue to increase until eventually they rupture or the increased mass collapses or crushes internal organs.
• Brandy Red: a red capsule containing thousands of nanites that is activated in alcohol, upon ingestion enter the bloodstream and take residence within key points of the brain. The nanites oscillate at a particular frequency which causes the secretion of a hormone which influences the user's sense of time, causes the user to feel as if his consciousness is accelerated, and also improves the brain's speed of calculation. The nanites also act as a neurotransmitter and interface medium, allowing organics to directly communicate with Galactic Network systems. The reverse is also true, allowing someone to use the Network to hack directly into the mind of the user as if it were a computer system.
• Topik: a simple little pill, topik greatly accelerates cognitive ability and reaction speed, though it dramatically reduces metabolism and prolonged use can result in the development to a variety of strange allergic reactions, generally inconveniences, but sometimes as severe as an allergic reaction to say...oxygen. Topik is addictive and withdrawal causes severe depression and suicidal tendencies.
• God-Dream: a highly illegal powder compound harvested from long shattered fragments of fallen Arcadia. Those who inhale the drug create a psychic connection as their mind is suddenly fused with that of the dreaming god that the drug was harvested from. They experience a shared dream, memories, thoughts of the dead god as if it were their own. A psychic imprint of the user is left in the god's mind, so that when others take the drug, they are able to see and interact with these imprints of others who have gone before them - and as fragments blur the lines of time, it's been said that you may be able to interact with imprints of those who have not taken the drug yet, but will one day in the future. Possible side effects include, madness, visions, continued shared mind state when sleeping (often resulting in madness), brain hemorrhages, stigmata of the eye, or never waking from the shared dream state in the first place.

Resources

• Nickel: Nickel is what powers the Solar Conduit Gateways and is thus highly valuable as a trade commodity with the Atea.
• Livestock & Produce: The galaxy has to eat, and most of them prefer real food over orea (a constructed biological compound that contains everything a healthy body of any species requires with zero allergens, it has a texture like quiche and can be colored and flavored to "almost" taste like anything and it never expires).
• Tea, Coffee & Cacao: Tea, coffee & cacao are not native to the galaxy. The humans brought them from their lost home world of Earth and to many in the galaxy, it is their only redeeming quality. Tea, coffee & chocolate consumption has spread throughout Alarch and have both been hailed as miracle plants for their healthy benefits and caffeine content, as caffeine is an alkaloid unheard of in Alarch. Crop farms dedicated to these plants have appeared all over Alarch to provide quality caffeinated goods to the rich and resulted in some very wealthy farmers. Which of course frequently ends with wealthy and caffeinated pirate raiders. Thus freelance security has also seen a boom in business as crop farmers contract them for protection.

Artifacts First one must make note the serious dangers of delving into Nirish ruins. No one is entirely sure what happened to the Nir. They had built colonies all over what is now called Tova-Ky and Alarch. They had fought with the Varhovnik Empire and were instrumental in the creation of the Coalition. The Nir took grievous losses during the ancient Ymwelwyr Invasion, but they had survived it. If not for their part in the war, the Ymwelwyr would surely have won. Then suddenly, centuries later, they vanished. There are reports of people having been interacting with them when suddenly they just ceased to be, as if having been unmade where they stood. But they left something terrible in their absence; psychic ghosts and temporal shift phenomenon.

• Psychic Ghosts: These are mobile psychic resonances left behind by the Nir when they had vanished. They are not actual ghosts, but dreams or memories empowered with potent psychic energy and a base sentience given a longing to remember, which it can only do by possessing a living mind. So these "ghosts" seek out the living and possess them, trapping them forever in a dream or a memory, until they body dies from neglect or they are rescued and their minds freed by destroying the resonance that has attached itself. Even then, this often leaves their faculties permanently damaged.

• Temporal Shift Phenomenon (TSP): Nir artifacts emit a field that causes time to go out of phase slightly. With most smaller artifacts, such as those found on the market, it is so minor as to be unnoticeable. More powerful artifacts can cause time to distort slightly around them; such as the Hildar Ring on the world of Sobourn. Those who walk upon the Ring will see the people and world around them moving as if sped up, which those beyond the Ring watch the walker moving in slow motion. TSP is given a rank to determine the potency of the temporal distortion being generated. Each "shift" that is detected, using specialized equipment capable of detecting the temporal energies, multiplies with itself to determine the real time to shift time ratio. Thus, if you have a TSP Rank 2 and have passed the first shift, an hour spent in the field would be two real time. Passing into the second shift would result in four real hours passing for every one in the shift. Passing into the third shift, would result in sixteen hours passing for every one in the shift, and so on. The most powerful TSP known is that of the Nir home world of Talas Nir, which has a TSP Rank of 10 in the first shift of the planet surface. Researchers and treasure hunters dream and speculate as to what wonders lie within the ruins that would generate such a powerful effect, but none who have entered the lower depths of the cities have ever returned. It's not known if they are still alive, and will emerge victorious having spent only days below, but emerging centuries in the future, or if they feel to the psychic assaults of the many ghosts that haunt Talas Nir.