Article 32: Nexus Convergence 2
Spirits, as it turns out, don't subsist on the same resources that mortals do. Instead, for a Spirit to stay happy and healthy, they must be fulfilled. This was practically known in years past--stories of ghosts being able to move on to their next life after completing some unfinished task were commonplace, but few had theorized that personal understanding and enjoyment of existence actually gave them a grounding to the real world that all nonliving beings need. A spirit who is unsatisfied, unable to grow as a person, or unable to interact meaningfully with the world around them became subject to what was called the Taint, a tendency for the frustrated Spirit to manifest the darker parts of their psyche as outward changes. This had happened, by estimates, millions of times in the twelve years between the arrival of the un-deceased and the inversion, and due to the corrupting nature of the taint, a spirit who began to do this saw an increase in their magical abilities and a sudden drive to turn to their more savage instincts. Most Spirits who started on the path to being tainted quickly were driven mad, a condition those in the know referred to as a "phantom freak out". Totally corrupted spirits would seek out ways to hurt others, and the organizations who had suddenly been brought to light were found to have been hunting and killing the offending spirits under veil of secrecy.
To make matters worse, they had found that the group of ghost hunters, collectively known as "The Mortalists", were able to use the nexus to drag even more Spirits out of the afterlife, and a "blanked" ghost was merely one that had been summoned from the portal after the original had freaked out and was hunted down and killed by the various Mortalist divisions. The memory loss was likely due to the rituals used to pull them out being mixed with spells that changed their ghostly appearances to match the missing spirits when they couldn't simply draw forth someone who looked close enough to the original. The Mortalists, who claimed to swear allegiance to no galactic government but instead the benefit and sanctity of all life in the galaxy, claimed that they did what they did to keep the living and dead alike from panicking, though many of them have been subjected to new laws regarding the summoning of Spirits. Most known spiritual nexus sites are also closely guarded now in order to prevent them doing the same again.
Even with that mystery solved, the galaxy was still left with the question of exactly what to do with the Spirits. All eyes in the galaxy turned towards the Golden Alliance High Council, half-expecting them to order the detention of all Spirits, half expecting that they'd reveal that The Mortalists were in fact working under their supervision. With what they were certain was the wisdom to take every galactic citizen through the biggest potential crisis in centuries, the Golden Alliance announced a reverse bounty on all spirits in Golden Alliance space. Ten thousand credits was offered for each Spirit taken in by a planet outside of the GA from the core GA territory, and five thousand credits for Spirits taken in from outlying GA planets and stations. Financial experts estimated that this solution, when paired with the initial solution of training and housing the Spirits, ended up making their run a net loss for the Golden Alliance's coffers, but the decision was made that the safety of their citizens (and, they claimed, the sanity and satisfaction of the Spirits) was the first priority. Days later, EL Consortium ships began to appear at every GA world, ready to haul Spirits off to wherever they could dump them. Most Spirits were taken to EL worlds, where they were welcomed as equal citizens and offered help finding themselves by the same Elementals that helped Shape-shifters so long ago, and today many EL governments are choosing Spirits to lead them, hoping that they can help everyone learn from the lessons of the past they bring with them.
Unlike most other history lessons, this one is still ongoing out in the galaxy. As it currently stands, the reverse bounty on spirits still stands, and studies are being done on the various nexuses to discover exactly what caused them to appear and then react in the way they did. The leading theory at the moment is that the Nexuses don't draw old spirits from the current era, instead acting as a sort of time wormhole through which the magical essences of the dead can be transported from their moment of death. The theory further states that removing a dimension, namely time, from the equation causes the nexus to resonate with subspace somehow, and that is what triggered the reaction. In many places, Spirits are shunned or considered to be some sort of pure magical construct, while it's also rumored that the Consortium has a few ships still crammed with Ghosts meandering through the cosmos, and that the abandoned occupants have all fallen to the taint. On many planets, particularly non-GA ones that cannot afford any sort of mass deportation, the Spirits are simply more population than can be properly supported, and the Mortalist agents must be called upon to stop Spirits from randomly rampaging, while some attempt to fully exterminate any Spirits they find.
Despite all of this and any other potential conflicts that might arise in the future, most of the galaxy sees the Spirits as much like them, looking for a purpose in the galaxy and a way to fulfill that purpose. Though they're not the incredibly productive workers they once were, they can still be of incredible value with their past-life experience, high recall ability, and increased magical potential. It's also possible that, for once, the major factions in the galaxy actually meant well when handling their new populations, though time may tell in that regard.
