Article 31: Nexus Convergence 1

Watcher calendars have been the standard in the galaxy for over a thousand years, and though it's difficult to say exactly why they chose to use a measurement system matching those of a number of altearths but in a slight misalignment with all known altearthean calendars, it's been widely presumed that there was some inherent meaning behind it. On what was galactically calibrated as December 31, AD999, the galactic factions all momentarily tensed as they expected something to happen, but the year passed into quadruple digits without any events of galactic import occurring. The combination of relief and disappointment was remembered a thousand years later, and as the final hours of 1999 passed, the citizens of the galaxy celebrated in mocking fashion, hyperbolically predicting the end of the universe, the day when the Watchers would finally open a mystical fourth eye, the reveal of The Light's true middle name, or whatever other ironic end or celebration they could think of. Thus it was that on midnight, January 1st, 2000, enormous swirling magical nexuses opened up on hundreds of planets, and billions of confused Spirits were ejected into a galaxy celebrating one of a number of things they were certain wouldn't happen.

Spirits existed before this, mind you. Every planet was chock full of ghost sightings, rituals to contact the dead, tales of possession and hauntings, but those that weren't outright fabricated were always connected to strong ethereal ties. Only the most immensely powerful beings could remain behind, and even then only so long as they had mortal ties--people who knew them personally and cared enough to keep them surviving. Anything that went past that were either particularly good at keeping themselves memorable or simply magical phenomena similar to the shadows created here at MSF High. Of the new crop of spirits that had arrived, the vast majority hailed from time periods long ago, often with no direct descendants on the planet. Many couldn't remember anything from their previous life, while others bore grudges hundreds of years old that they tried to immediately take out on whoever happened to be nearby.

While all of the galactic factions had to deal with this issue, by nature of total population count the Golden Alliance had the worst of it. After a few months of an eclectic combination of rampaging ghosts and confused ghosts that simply wanted to resume something resembling their old lives, the GA High Council shocked the galaxy by announcing that they would be offering immediate amnesty to the new arrivals. Having learned their lesson while dealing with the shapeshifters, the Alliance this time decided to welcome the recently un-departed, creating living spaces for them and offering them lessons in how to rematerialize for longer and longer time periods until, at least in theory, they could interact with others properly. Most of them jumped at this chance, eager for a spot in society and an end to the maddening boredom that comes with being unable to touch anything. For a few years, everyone seemed okay with it. A few activists complained that the housing conditions were barely adequate and the jobs they were offered in exchange for lessons were more akin to forced labor, but even the spirits themselves seemed happy with the arrangement. For over ten years, the Spirits served as a labor pool that required neither food nor water and could be housed in a single room apiece, capable of phasing materials through walls and flying to further increase their productivity. On the surface, it was working out well, and aside from one specific issue that some Spirits would face, the spontaneous loss of memory and personality called "blanking", it looked as though this issue would work out. Then the subspace alignment shift happened.

Subspace, for those still not fully acquainted with the specifics, consists of a single spatial dimension parallel to our own spatially three-dimensional universe. Messages can, in theory, be sent through it by means of taking advantage of the wide band of frequencies present within that single-dimensional space, but one of its odd peculiarities is that a subspace receiver also produces a tiny magnetic field that is always aligned with every other subspace receiver. It was well known that the shared magnetic field caused slight fluctuations in the signals it broadcast, and not only were the machines built with this in mind, but they had predicted that on December 21, 2012, the magnetic field would invert completely. It was predicted that this might cause temporary loss of function on older receivers, but there was an additional effect that was completely unexpected. As the subspace alignment shift occurred, every spiritual nexus around the galaxy suddenly pulsed with a wave of magical power at the speed of light. Within minutes, every planetbound Spirit was affected by the wave, and as starship-bound ones approached planets, the same happened to them. In an instant, those who were ethereal became material, and those trying to keep their concentration on being tangible suddenly found themselves struggling to stay intangible. Spirits the galaxy over had become practically an entirely new species, and this change brought with it new problems and revelations.

While the phase-inverted Spirits still required no food or water, they found that they could still suffer from effects like suffocation without air or normal physical damages. Though actually killing one of them required some magical rituals, they could be permanently sealed away and left in a state of torment if subjected to an accident that left them unable to concentrate on going ethereal. Suddenly, the crowded and packed cubicles that they had been given to live in were woefully inadequate, and the Spirits demanded that they be allowed out into society at large. After a few weeks of this new reality, reports began to trickle in about Spirits going on violent rampages, and occasionally mysterious teams of well-equipped agents appearing to take them down permanently. It wasn't long before independent agencies began looking for clues as to what, exactly, was going on, and the answer shocked the entire galaxy.