Psio-meds

Psio-meds are therapeutic medications taken by those with the gift of telepathy in Artemisia. Later, they become instrumental in navigating vessels through the void.

Utility

Mechanically speaking, psio-meds are usually in liquid form, and are absorbed instantly through the skin. Most of the time, they are stored and carried around in a container the size and shape of a thick marker. The container can be set to administer a measured dose, which it dispenses at one end through a medically neutral pad, which the person taking it generally applies to the side of their neck. The process takes about half a second if the container is pre-set to a particular dose.

In very rare cases, psio-meds can be released as an aerosol, which the inhabitants of a space then absorb through their skin. This is easily weaponizable and is how the psions were apprehended. Government agents succeeded in setting up a mechanical dispensing system in the building where the study was taking place, and they triggered it remotely, releasing heavy psio-suppressants while circumventing any possibility of psions telepathically sensing them at the site and running away from the building.

Charl was not in on it, and was not the slightest bit happy about the deception. They later said that something had been bothering them about the space that day, like one of their tools had not been replaced properly or something, but they had not been able to identify it in time.

Manufacturing

Psio-meds are not commonly prescribed to anyone outside of those with telepathic senses, and because they are manufactured for a minority of the population, there are a relative few specialized factories dotted around Artemisia. Some of these ceased functioning when the cataclysm disrupted electronic communication from the central-government network that ran them on a day-to-day basis. Some still ran but were shut down on purpose or co-opted by criminal organizations, who either took them over entirely or just coerced people into paying the "nice factory you got here; pity if something were to happen to it" tax.

One particular factory on the mainland has been heavily secured by central government and continues to produce psio-meds of the sort that were used to dampen psionic powers long enough to bring the psions into custody. Though this resource remains largely untapped, the government guards it with deadly force as it's considered a contingency for preserving general security if more psions appear.

Social Impact

For a long time pre-cataclysm, psio-meds were used to control telepathy and ease some of the instabilities associated with it.

It is a general belief in Artemisia that telepaths are a little bit crazy. Some of this can be put down to bigotry towards people who are different--and frankly a little scary, as we tend to consider our minds to be private places and want them to stay that way. Some of the slightly paranoid beliefs that the general public holds about telepaths are not borne out by reality--for instance, telepaths don't automatically hear everything that the people around them are thinking, and it is dubious that they can do much to influence others' minds, apart from occasionally messaging them in a pinch. In fact, being able to silently signal a hidden friend when a deal went south once saved a Fleet member's life.

It does seem to be true, however, that something in the circuitry that enables low-level mind magic also predisposes telepaths to be...eccentric. The following behaviors have been observed in some of Artemisia's telepaths:

• Becoming upset and overwhelmed very easily, by words or situations that people around them find confusing. (In fairness, this can sometimes come from them sensing actual hostility behind someone's words, and not just imagined hostility).
• The flip side, of attempting to maintain stoicism and a facade of reasonableness in situations that people expect one would completely break down in. Hospital staff always have at least one story about a telepath who was carried in with their leg broken in three places, who just talked perfectly calmly while incongruous tears streamed out of the corners of their eyes. And just about every sketchy police station has stories about that one telepath who cracked jokes and spooked the hell out of the interrogator.
• Declaring that the way Artemisia does things in everyday life is wrong, and proceeding to refuse to do things that most people consider to be sensible, like eating breakfast, wearing normal shoes, and taking their children to the doctor instead of trying to deal with everything from colds to severe mental illness at home.
• Self-restricting their in-person social interaction, limiting it to immediate family and people who sell them things in shops.
• Religiosity surrounding the honestly rather informal code of conduct that telepaths follow in Artemisia.
• Putting complete faith in hunches and dreams.
• And countless other fun quirks!

Although most of these--in moderation--are debatably eccentricities and not any kind of illness, telepaths are often prescribed psio-meds in an attempt to make their lives more comfortable and closer to "normal." The rationale is that dampening telepathy a little makes telepaths less prone to do weird stuff in conversation--like mentioning the ex that you never told them about, or laughing in relief before you tell them that you're over something you were previously mad about. Making it easier for those gifted with telepathy to converse in a more typical fashion is considered beneficial for them, and also has the benefit of making them more comfortable to be around.

In spite of what this tells them about how society feels about them, telepaths do not at all mind being given a tool to shut telepathic stimuli down for sleep. That's where the consensus ends, however. A few do decide that it's just easier to shut telepathy down all the time and will follow daytime regimens as well. However, some categorically refuse to take anything much during the day, just keeping a small supply of something about their person to take if they get overwhelmed.

The latter are usually considered difficult cases by social coaches, and care precisely not at all about it.

Access & Availability

Pre-cataclysm, psio-meds were easily available by prescription, and were considered pretty basic medical care for those who presented with telepathy.

Post-cataclysm, between disruption to existing medical systems and the fact that being a telepath was now everything from sketchy to potentially fatal depending on locale, psio-meds turned into more of a black market proposition. Psio-meds are the resource that the Fleet most often barters its services for.

Complexity

Like Neurals, psio-meds are complex and specialized enough to prevent anyone creating their own from scratch in an informal lab run out of a trailer. Only specific machinery can currently fabricate it, and without regular codes sent from a network that is run by central government on the mainland, the local factory machinery will shut down. Criminal organizations have had a certain amount of success hacking shut-down machinery.