The Universe According to the Company
By now your head has been filled with a lot of information you never banked on - so we'll keep this short. The Universe is a strange, beautiful and terrible place. Some of our Science Boys, the Lab Rats we call 'em, thought that things would get clearer after they cracked the Unified Field Theory problem - it didn't. Sure, it was a major breakthrough and led to some neat gizmos, but it really just emphasized how little we really know. Questions leading to more questions, and all that. They're working on some new theories right now to explain things again, but in the meantime, let me give you the quick scoop on the Universe according to the Company.
Its weird, damn weird. First of all, forget the 7, or 17, or 26 dimensions of space-time you may have learned about back in college. Those do exist (actually, 31 at last count) within our own space-time continuum, from time itself to pocket universes within our own. Ask the Lab Rats to explain it, but theoretically we believe that our current understanding of the Universe and its laws will allow travel to the stars, zero-point energy, time-travel, anti-gravity (like that a-grav parachute you used in training), quantum computing, transporters, and a host of other things. It even explains some of the psionic and meta-physics we've encountered and been able to control. But not all of it.
You see, there are also "multiverses" that exist co-tangent to our own, and while I don't know all of the physics, suffice it to say that they sometimes bleed over into our own, and visa-versa. Think of a million-trillion-billion soap bubbles whirling about, sticking to each other, and then sliding away. When they are next to each other you may have some space-time co-tangentiation, or bleed over. Stuff comes through - sometimes stuff we don't want coming through, like Type 2 vampires, dragons, elves, fairies - all that kind of thing, the basis for many ancient folk tales and myths. Some came here a long time ago and blended into the background, others came and went, but watch your step. We haven't worked the bugs out of it yet, but the Lab Rats think they could do controlled cross-overs, but you won't be involved in that. That's the physics of the universe in a nutshell. Now lets talk about our own little corner of it.
1. We are not alone -- aliens exist. We know this because they've been here on our little plot of dirt causing chaos for years, millions of years. We don't know where they came from, or why, but we don't care - we want them gone. The SETI project within the Company has revealed signals from Barnard's Star that we believe to be created by an alien intelligence. So far we haven't cracked the encryption, but we're working on it. So yeah, you got the Greys, Reptons, Elder Ones, CMEs, UFOs, abductions, cattle mutilations, the works.
2. Boogie-men exist. You've already gotten the scoop on those. Some of those came from multiverse bleed-overs, others are caused by disease (like at least one form each of lycanthropes and vampires), rogues, aliens, and the like.
3. Psionics exist. It turns out that all humans have latent psionic talents. Most people never know they have a Talent, and never learn about and control their skills. Our PsiOps branch deals with this stuff, though some of you may have been trained in your own innate Talents. We believe that many of the so-called "magicians" of history, like Merlin or Rasputin, had powerful psionic skills that appeared to be magic. We also have evidence of ancient psionic civilizations, like the one we call "Mu," to reinforce this theory.
4. "Magic" exists. More properly, what we think of as "magic spells" are more akin to psionic tools that can be used to power even latent Talents to generate effects through psionic/meta-physical means. We believe that the "spells" recovered by field agents from various CME cults are primarily alien psionic tools that can effect change on a meta-physical level by tapping a combination of energy from the Universe at large and the Mind in a way we don't fully understand. The Lab Rats hope to have some more solid answers for us. What this means on a practical level is that there are people who, using a combination of psionics and psionic tools (aka "Magic), are in effect, witches, warlocks, whatever. We choose to call them Meta-Psionic Talents, or "Metas." We keep an eye on the ones who don't abuse their powers, called "Confreres", and hunt down the ones that do, the "Rogues."
5. Angels and Demons: We don't have a clue about these entities, so watch your step if you meet them. Those among us with more faith than skepticism believe these entities to indeed be the messengers of God and the Devil. The more clinical among us believe these to be cross-over entities, aliens, psionic entities, that sort of thing. But there does seem to be, for lack of a better term, a spirit world. We know that the human mind can tap into the Astral Plane with great training and difficulty, what might be number 29 of 31 dimensions, but there could be more to it than that. Angels and Demons are powerful beings, they possess immense psionic and "magic" talents and are better left alone. The "Angels" seem to be helpful entities, though sometimes their actions defy explanation, and have even been known to help field teams against Demons. "Demons" are among the nastiest entities you will ever encounter, and with luck, you never will. If you meet one, run and call for back up - we don't need dead agents, live ones are more useful.
So that's it in a nutshell - almost anything goes. To paraphrase an old movie, it's a mad, mad, mad universe, and its your job to deal with it.
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