Research Psionic Theory (which is now a dangerous tech, just like Sentient AI)





Chance to gain the event "Promising Scientist" for every empire in the game (not just yours), fires only once, gives you a level 5 PSI expert that looks like a regular member of your race (random name, random age) but doesn't age at all





A small number of pops start to dissapear unannounced (not too big to be cripping, preferably somewhere where you as a player get a "hey, where'd these guys go" feeling)





Chance to gain "Dissapearances Reported" event, option to dismiss or look into it to reduce the chance pops vanish, more pops dissapear





"Enigmatic Scientist" event happens, you notice your (unfireable?) scientist hasn't aged a day, scientist flees





"Dawn of the Prophet" event occurs, a pop returns with fanatic spiritualist / fanatic collectivist ethics (and glowing eyes if we can manage that), you start a search for the scientist across the galaxy





"Rise of the Prophet" the crisis starts, prophet homeworld spawns somewhere (the same way the machine conciousness spawns, I suppose) scaled fleets of the latest designs of everyone in the galaxy spawn along with it, prophet workers / colonists spawn too, Prophet declares war on the galaxy (prophet worlds are populated by the same fanatic spitualist / collectivist glowing eyes pops as mentioned before but off all the available races, including FE's (and synths?)



Chance to gain the event "Promising Scientist" for every empire in the game (not just yours), if you don't get it, the other events still apply





A small number of pops start to dissapear unannounced (not too big to be cripping, preferably somewhere where you as a player get a "hey, where'd these guys go" feeling)





Chance to gain "Dissapearances Reported" event, option to dismiss or look into it to reduce the chance pops vanish, more pops dissapear





"Prophet Discovered" reports where the prophet was seen last if you didn't get it





"Dawn of the Prophet" event occurs, a pop returns with fanatic spiritualist / fanatic collectivist ethics (and glowing eyes if we can manage that), you start a search for the scientist across the galaxy





Crisis starts



If you don't get the prophet randomly, the dissapearances still occur etc.

A powerful psionic being disguises itself as a scientist for one particular empire after they research PSI-theory, pops start dissapearing all throughout the galaxy until the being reveals its true intentions to be the single conciousness of the galaxy and declares war on everyone.Bonus content, how to get Psionics as a Materialist: Survey Ocean worlds (you're looking for the anomaly Drops in the Ocean). Yournote 1 empire's Native Interference policy must be Active or Unrestricted, it will never spawn if your policy is Passive. The anomaly involves directly interfering with a native psionic lifeform. Survey Black Holes (you're looking for the anomaly Rainbow in the Dark). Do the anomaly Rainbow in the Dark with any Scientist (though ideally, one that doesn't have Paranoid or Maniacal). You can get the Paranoid trait from this anomaly. Do the Drops in the Ocean anomaly from earlier, with the Paranoid scientist you just got. Choose the Paranoid dialog options, once your Scientist gains the Maniacal trait you'll know you succeeded. Wait about a week in game. You will get an alert that your Scientist is now a Psionics Expert.An event sequence from this thread now gives you the Prophet instead