Around nine-tenths of the universe is undetectable to human perception.
Within this dark matter and energy lie the adjacent projections of reality that comprise the Total Universe.
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The Ethereal Universe, first discovered by the Ancients of Ackrecon, is a realm where light is no longer the primary information carrier. It constitutes another third of the unaccounted-for existential volume of the universe. The remainder resides in a further projection called the Plane Infinite, where any number of universal iterations might exist.
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In the Ethereal Universe, time and space collapse into an informational arena used by the Axion and certain races to channel energy from one point and form to another in the Common Universe. These two projections are one and the same, merely viewed through a parallax of different realities—the same master or alpha reality, refracted into alternate forms.
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Cabal-arcan technology is one means of channelling this power. The Ethereal Universe cannot be seen or interacted with physically, but it can unhinge one's existence from the fabric of spacetime, enabling interstellar and time travel. Starscalers, such as Vectron, zero out their mass and energy to raw information, transitioning themselves into a substrate of Ethereal Energy. In essence, they "sidestep" the relativistic barrier imposed by light speed.
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Time and hyperlight travel trigger discharge events in the Common Universe—a natural equilibrium that accounts for past events suddenly appearing or disappearing as Vectron "teleports" mass, energy, and information from one place to another. This instantaneous shift of existential attributes results in an annihilation of information, as the universe balances itself by rewriting reality.
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A traveller can still remember a potentially annihilated past because the soul is an extradimensional structure projected beyond the Common Universe and unbound by linear time. Psychic power, sentient thought, and emotion are all traits of this extra physical aspect in all life.
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Various life forms can perceive beyond light and thus wield Ethereal Energy in different ways, depending on their evolution of body, mind, spirit, and Axion. Some races cannot perceive beyond their physicality and must convert energy sources with technological assistance.
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The potency of a race's raw ethereal potential—and their ability to perceive beyond it to the Plane Infinite—is determined by the Orders of Perception.