For me the reason I've always thought this was weird is that mechanically psionics isn't really in opposition to robotics. I know, I know, there's lore reasons that say robots can't enter the shroud, but like, to me that's always felt lacking when Bio ascension is a much more natural opposition to robots. Not only are they mechanically exclusive - you can't genemod robots or robomod organics, but philosophically they're in opposition as well. The 'perfection' of the organic physical form vs its abandonment in favor of a 'superior' form.



Psionics and the shroud have always honestly been the oddball of the three paths, imo, what with their reliance on RNG and making deals, where bio vs robots is a much more clear cut dichotomy which actually has mechanical and philosophical underpinnings. You don't even have to change the materialist vs spiritualist arguments to tie bio ascension to spiritualists! "You have abandoned the deity(ies) given bodies and thus lost your soul!" makes arguably more sense if bio ascension is in opposition to synth ascension because it becomes "The God(s) have given us all we need to become great, to claim there is something better is arrogant and sinful."



The argument remains Spiritualists saying the soul is in the organic body and transferring consciousness to a robot destroys the soul vs the Materialists saying there is no soul and so there's nothing wrong with transferring consciousness. It does this without bringing in the whole argument that's been going since 1.5 about why you can't research an observable phenomenon as a materialist - and psionics are an observable phenomenon, they have an impact on the physical/material reality.



So, yes. Materialists should have access to psionics and the psionic ascension path because 1) Bio ascension is a better mechanical and philosophical opposite to synth ascension, and 2) Psionics are an observable phenomenon and thus would be approached by materialists.