(Conference Room, Blackstone Station, Star’s Reach)
“So, someone explain to me what in the hell is going on?”
An uneasy silence fell over the crowd as they looked at each other questioningly. I had brought together some of the brightest minds and most connected individuals Black Star had to offer to try and figure out just what in the hell was going down. Oh, sure, some of them were busy working on the stuff we got from the alien space hulk, but that wasn’t the point of this meeting. There was craziness going down all over Known Space, and I wanted to know what it meant, or if anything like this had been seen before.
A discontented sigh came from one part of the crowd I was facing. My eyes were drawn to the spot. It was a Vrok scientist, sporting a slave collar. One of the Nomads I had captured before the system was open to the public, or something like that. What was his name again? Ah, yes, Tesla_coil.
I’d had reports about him. Apparently, he was brilliant as all hell, but his brilliance began and ended with Science (capital ‘s’). I wasn’t sure if he was roleplaying, or if he was really like that in real life, but he’d gotten a reputation amongst the science department for being the very best person to study new and ‘interesting’ scientific breakthroughs… as long as he was somewhere very far away. He was the reason the research base was being built in Beta Darconyx.
“Something you would care to add, Tesla_coil?”
The Vrok scientist did not get a contrite look on his face, like I had hoped would happen when I called him out. Instead, he just looked annoyed. “Well, it is obvious what is happening. We’re experiencing a galactic energetic phase shift event instigated by massive transdimensional siphonage and disturbances.”
When no one seemed to understand what he meant, he sighed, and said, “Fine, kiddie science time. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It merely changes form. There’s some entropic loss during the translation, but that’s advanced material. In a closed system, this means that the total energy in a system is set, and cannot either increase or decrease.”
“Under normal circumstances, the universe is a closed system. However, the people in this universe have been twisting and turning the fabric of reality into new shapes for hundreds of years, if they aren’t just punching a hole in it. Sure, these rips and tears tend to disappear as quickly as they’re formed, since it is hard to force the universe to bend in a certain way, and have it stay bent. The universe is an incredibly resilient thing. However, that resilience appears to have limits, which have come and gone.”
I frowned as I considered what the scientist was saying. “What do you mean, ‘punching holes in the universe’? That doesn’t sound like anything I’ve seen in this world.”
Tesla_coil waved his hand dismissively. “Of course, you have. What the hell do you think those Transition Drives do? Or the Gateways, or these X’thari Anchor Drives? Hell, even the normal warp drives take physics out back and beat it like a bunch of schoolyard bullies. And that is not even considering the effects of psychic powers on the universe. Frankly, it is surprising something hasn’t happened already.”
“So, what you’re saying is that the various forms of faster than light travel are responsible for, what, wearing a hole in the universe?”
“Yes, yes. And the Transition Drives are the worst offender. Yes, the warp drives are playing with the fabric of the universe to cheat relativity, but they play mostly within the rules, and don’t cause nearly as much damage. We still don’t know how the Gateways or Anchor Drives work, but creating stable wormholes, or getting instantaneous travel to any point in the galaxy so long as one end of the trip is near a Gateway is clearly breaking the rules. How much damage is it doing? Who knows? For all we know, there are safeguards in place on those systems, so that they don’t have a lasting effect.”
“But the Transition Drives? They’re definitely breaking the laws of physics. Did you know that, when you use a Transition Drive, for an instant you are literally in two places at once? Do you know what that does to reality? At least the Anchor drives look like they take you out of reality before forcing you back in at a new location. And the Gateways ensure that each molecule is only in one place at a time. Sure, those places can be on opposite sides of the galaxy, but none of them have someone at two places at the same time!”
“Honestly! It is like someone was just TRYING to get the universe torn into itty bitty shreds. Which is why you have to let me get back to my research project! If I can find a way to replicate some of the Lost Technology discovered here in Star’s Reach, we could make the Transition Drive obsolete, or at least refine it so that it is not a threat.”
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As the scientist finished his rant, General Khan spoke up. “Transition drives aside, what was that about Psychic powers being an issue? They aren’t exactly that powerful, for the most part. Certainly not as powerful as some of the man-portable weapons we have access to.”
Raven cleared her throat to interject herself into the conversation. “Ah, I believe I can explain that. As you are no doubt aware, any living creature is capable of producing psychic energy, which we measure in ‘Psychic Points’ or ‘PP’. Even some machines, like this robot avatar I’m using, are capable of utilizing psychic energy to some extent, due to conversion systems like the one I use to take in ambient energy and transform it into an approximation of psychic energy.”
“However, despite all living creatures having the potential for using psychic powers, the proportion of those creatures that actually are able to even just manifest the weakest Psy Power is something on the order of 1 in 100,000. Exact numbers are impossible to pin down, of course, but that is a close approximation.”
“Which is not to say that people are incapable of using their psychic energy. Anyone can use weapons or other items that require psychic energy to recharge, like your Psyber Pistol. Most do not have a large pool of PP to draw from, however, which makes using these kinds of items almost as limiting as having to use guns with physical ammunition, for instance.”
“It should be noted that there are some instances of unconscious activation of powers, or individuals using abilities that they did not know they possessed. These incidents typically occur in high-stress situations, or during life-or-death struggles. Usually, these powers only last while the individual is ‘in the moment’, but there have been records of people ‘unlocking’ the ability permanently. Current scientific journals identify these people as Latent Psy Users.
“Simply put, most creatures in the galaxy, while capable of using psychic energy, are incapable of using that energy consciously, without a structured guide limited to a single purpose, such as recharging a Psyber Pistol, for instance. Unlocking the skills needed to use Psy Powers appears to be something that people either have an innate ability to do, and this ability is not evenly distributed either in population size or in intensity, though there appears to be a genetic component to the distribution. Furthermore, training these skills and powers to the point where they can be effectively used in combat situations is not easy, even when one does possess the ability. Combat-capable psychics are roughly one in ten million individuals.”
Raven paused, and looked directly at me. “However, this is only the case for Locals. While there has been no hard science done, for obvious reasons, starting with the fact that they’re still so new to this world, it appears that Nomads have a higher than normal incidence rate of being psychically active than locals from the same background. Further, several Nomads have appeared to have far greater power and control over their abilities than many Locals. While scientific journals are still coming to terms with the existence of Nomads, there have been hypotheses that there is something in the genetic makeup of Nomads that makes them better psychic energy manipulators than locals, likely due to the nature of how they manifest in new bodies when they transfer to this world.”
Tesla_coil harrumphed. “You’re talking about Swiftbreeze’s Treatise on Nomad Biology, right? Bunch of unproven crap. He hasn’t been through the peer review process because he hasn’t even bothered to do the most basic testing! It is barely worth calling his work a hypothesis. ‘Wild guess’ would be more accurate.”
Raven shook her head. “At any rate, Psy Power usage is relatively rare, and refined usage is rarer. However, there is some evidence that part of the refinement process involved in learning the skill and gaining power in it is that it makes the process more efficient, and uses less ‘waste’ energy. Think about electricity. What is more dangerous, a live wire with the wiring exposed, lying in a puddle of water, or a wire that is properly insulated, twenty feet in the air? Even if the second wire was carrying ten times the current, it would still be a safer option to the first one.”
I nodded slowly that all made a certain kind of sense. The game developers no doubt wanted players to have a bit of an edge on the locals, even if they didn’t come out and say it. Everyone wants to feel a bit special when playing an RPG, after all. “All right. If that’s the case, what does this have to do with the current situation? Things appear to be focused primarily in Imperial space, after all, instead of spread out across Known Space.”
Raven shook her head. “There are three massive events that have happened relatively recently which could have a destabilizing influence on things, especially if, as Tesla_coil proposes, the fabric of reality was already weakened by many years of experimental FTL travel. The most recent, of course, is the destruction of the X’thari Harvester, along with a large portion of the X’thari Swarm that surrounded it. The psychic scream from the Harvester was enough to temporarily incapacitate every living creature in the entire system. The backlash of so many creatures dying at once had to have an impact on the energy of the universe.”
“Of course, another incident is the introduction of the Nomads to the universe. Their higher incidence rate of being active psy users means that the throughput of psychic energy being used and transformed from one type of energy to another has increased dramatically. Since energy in a closed system is fixed, the increase in energy being used, without causing issues elsewhere, suggests that the system is no longer closed, if it ever was to begin with.”
“The most wide-ranging event, however, would be the Imperial Civil War. It is impossible to overstate the impact the Civil War has had on the galaxy, no matter what metric you use to describe it. However, speaking solely about psychics and psychic powers, the Usurper and his Machine God, Deus, forcibly converted millions to his newfound faith. There is some evidence that this caused many of the new converts to become latent psy users at the least, and any latent users that were converted were most certainly turned into active users.”
“The largest population of these followers was on Earth itself, during the forced ‘upgrades’ the population was subjected to. Not long after, however, the war came to a close, with Greenwave wiping out most of the upgraded population. But a planet full of believers… where did that energy go when they died?”
I groaned out loud. I couldn’t help it. Here I was, so happy that I didn’t have anything to do with the latest round of insanity hitting the universe, but, no, I had to get drawn in to it. After all, I was the one who activated the Greenwave bomb in the capitol.
“Fine. I get why it is happening in Imperial space, then. So, what do we know?”