‘Psi’ is the catch-all common name for a very broad category of often inexplicable effects resulting from the minds of sentient creatures infected by the Sagittarius Signal. Although understanding of these effects is limited, and in many cases simply trying to understand the mechanisms of psi is enough to trigger the infection, a tentative body of knowledge has been collected, predominantly in the vaults of Neptune and in the far Oort Cloud. The general consensus holds that psi abuses the manner in which some esoteric forms of computation cause ‘ripples’ in neighboring continua in order to manipulate our own continuum by proxy. This has led to the development of psi-enhancing computerized devices such as psi-amps and a series of astonishingly illegal cerebroenergetic enhancers that can turn a moderate to advanced operant psychokinetic into the human equivalent of a capital ship railgun.

Psi is a relatively new development in human space, only two decades old, and while it isn’t uncommon for people to have minor operant faculties, significantly powerful individuals are both rare and usually afflicted with a variety of physical and mental ailments. These afflictions stem from the harsh changes wrought on them by their exposure to the Signal, and the limited available research suggests that the children of those exposed to the signal and corresponding disfigurements may be powerful latent psi-users without the ‘baggage’, so to speak.

The Cuchulain Foundation of Neptune is the single largest and most organized research body devoted exclusively to psi, and is quite significantly curtailed in its research by frantic censorship legislation put into place post-Freakout. Storing a copy of the Signal, or even a recognisable segment, is grounds for serious legal repercussions, even if the copy is derived by accident. Nevertheless the Foundation is responsible for current medical terminology and techniques for operants, and maintains a charity wing for finding, treating and training inexperienced or unsupported operants before they can harm themselves or others with unrestrained powers. However, rumours of far shadier practices exist in the fringes of human space, and it is a definite truth on Earth and in the bioconservative habitats, lobotomies are administered to latent and operant individuals to ‘psi-geld’ them rather than permitting their ‘infection’ to develop further.

Very few effective shielding materials against psi have been discovered outside of extremely expensive directed energy enclosures, but nullglass is one of the most reliable. It is a smooth, brittle, translucent red-purple material that is opaque to the majority of analytical techniques known to human science, and its means of manufacture is a closely guarded industrial secret. Currently only a handful of individuals are able to produce the substance, and generally only in low quantities. Its effect on psi-users is immediate and drastic: an operant in physical contact with nullglass will find their active effects slipping away and be rendered unable to manifest more.

• Bright Continua: the neighboring slices of the multiverse theorized to be the medium by which psi effects are achieved. Popularized as an ‘astral plane’ in operant media.
• Dark Continua: realms beyond the Bright Continua; a sort of slur used to cover illegal/shady/immoral uses of psi.
• The Real: our continuum; realspace.
• Faculty: a discrete ‘school’ of psi power.
• Operant: a functional psi-user with one or more developed psi faculties.
• Blank: not latent or operant; baseline human, unaltered by the Signal.
• Latent: not yet operant, but potentially capable of developing operant faculties.
• Backblast: an effect by which over-extending psi power results in an energetic bleed from the Bright Continua and corresponding flash burns/trauma inside the operant’s brain.
• Burnout: someone who has suffered permanent brain damage from overuse of psi.
• Paramount: an informal designation for someone whose operant faculties exceed ‘normal’ maximums, usually from illegal study and modification of the Signal or invasive implants like CE rigs.