Hey everyone, Selene Starblade here.

As I revise Passenger, I decided I would also revise and greatly expand the 'dissertation' segments I had placed into it. Therefore, here I give you part one of "Dissertation: An explanation of the quasi-natural powers found in the multiverse." I'm afraid it may be a fair bit dryer this time around, but hopefully, it will be more informational, have less holes, and be more complete the way it is now.

Dissertation: An explanation of the quasi-natural powers found in the multiverse.

A summation of suppositions, compiled with conjecture and thought, by Selene Starblade.

I make no claims as to the correctness of the information contained herein inasmuch as it may be taken to regard the real world. In fact some of it is blatantly false, as anyone will immediately note that 'ki' and 'chi' are just different words (one Japanese, the other Chinese) for the same thing. In other words: This isn't necessarily true of the real world. Furthermore, it isn't necessarily true for any given world described in any work of fiction or history. All this really is is taking everything about the subject matter that I have read, putting it together with a good deal of thought, and using that to try and organise it into a rational art/science. Sort of like music. You may disagree with this, and that's just fine. I just thought it would be really nice to compile all the little tidbits of information floating around in various fanfiction so that, if someone wants to start using a standard set of rules/guidelines for these things, they don't have to spend days and days working one out for themselves. They still can if they like, though.

I also do not own any of the characters, scenarios, spells, special techniques, etcetera referred to in this work that can be found in copyrighted material. Those belong to their respective creators. Unfortunately, I will not be listing all of my sources, as that would take almost as long as explaining this stuff does. Please do not be offended if I have used your material without listing you as a reference.

Finally, I would like to say that I am not attempting to destroy the art that is part of using/conceptualizing the function of these things, but rater to establish guidelines. Sort of like describing the limits of the material one is working with- someone sculpting clay, or painting on a canvas, has limits to what they can do. Clay cannot do the physically impossible, and paintings will always be more or less flat, and that is basically the kind of thing I am trying to say with this material.

There will be five parts to this dissertation. Part one will be on Chi and Ki. Part two will regard magic. Part three will regard spiritual powers. Part four will inspect psionics. Finally, part five relates to the interactions of the different powers and potential combinations.

Part one: Chi and Ki

Section One: What is this stuff, anyways?

Very often, in an anime or other martial-arts related fiction, one martial artist or another will perform an act that is quite simply outside of the realm of normal physical possibility. This ranges from jumping more than five feet off of the ground to throwing balls of raw energy to moving faster than sound unaided. These are all expressions of a personal power generated by each and every person, called 'chi' or 'ki'.

It is generally accepted that one has to be very much attuned to oneself in the physical or psychic sense to express this ability in any noticeable fashion. Please note that by 'psychic', I mean to indicate related to the mind, not to psionic powers.

Anyways, only the most trained of martial artists, the most skilled and/or powerful, are able to perform superhuman feats using their chi or ki on a conscious basis. Anyone can use their chi or ki unconsciously, however, it will generally be unfocused and relatively ineffective. Furthermore, without training in chi or ki use, the body will not generate significant amounts of the energy on its own. There are, of course, exceptions. In the "Dragon Ball" universes, for instance, the race known as the Saiyajin have the innate ability to not only generate, but effectively use, large amounts of chi. They also turn into generally uncontrollable giant monkeys at the sight of the moon, though, so this is, perhaps, excusable.

Regardless, the best way to explain chi and ki is as the physical or semi-physical manifestation of a person's willpower. The stronger the will of an individual, the more energy is generated. Furthermore, as demonstrated by the Mouko Takabisha and Shishi Houkoudan, chi can be affected to an incredible level by emotion. Rather like diluting wine with water, emotion can be expended along with the chi, allowing the chi user to effectively use more chi. However, like diluting wine with water, the energy becomes less rich, less stable, as it were, and its overall effectiveness is cut to a certain degree.

Thence comes the distinction between ki and chi. It is generally accepted that, while chi is always 'flavored' by emotion, ki is pure willpower, undiluted. Thus, a certain amount of ki is roughly ten times as effective in performing a given task as the same amount of chi. At first, this seems to make no sense, as chi's dilution can vary, depending on how strongly the chi user is feeling the emotion. However, there is a certain 'saturation limit' beyond which the power of chi does not decrease with the continuing influx of emotion. Fortunately for chi users, this limit is practically the only power at which chi functions. Furthermore, while expending chi can be very tiring, expending one's ki can be very dangerous.

When using 'emotion-powered' chi, once the user has spent the emotion, burned it all out, they cannot draw on more chi without switching which emotion they are focusing on. Thus, while someone using all of their chi becomes temporarily emotionless and unable to use chi-based effects, they are still alive, and are not the least bit physically tired from the chi itself. They will have lost much of their will to do things, but that is all.

Ki, on the other hand, is considerably more dangerous to use extensively. First off, as a purer form of energy, it is harder to control. As one handling nitroglycerin has to be more careful than one handling a bag of gunpowder, so is it with ki and chi. Second off, while chi can be absorbed, due to its emotional nature, ki is considerably more difficult to absorb. This means that, while someone on their guard can keep from being damaged by their own chi attacks, someone using ki needs to be very careful not to hurt themselves. Finally, ki, being the wielder's actual willpower, is extremely mentally draining. If someone were to use up their entire store of ki, they would have no will to live, and their body would immediately cease functioning properly. This, most likely, would result in death.

Section Two: On using chi.

Between chi and ki, chi is the more accessible of the two energies, as it can be called up by emotion, particularly focused emotion. On occasion, it can be expressed by those with absolutely no physical or mental training, if the emotion is strong enough. The most direct demonstration of this is the ability of those in particularly desperate straits to call upon superhuman reserves of strength or speed for longer than adrenaline has an effect on the body.

There are many uses for chi, as it is a highly flexible energy. In the end, of course, it is not quite proper to call it an energy, as it can be used as a semi-solid, but energy is the best and most comprehensible way to refer to it.

The most common expression of chi is involuntary. Whenever someone is focusing on generating chi, they will generally put out a battle aura, a faint glow or emanation around themselves, indicating that their body is generating more chi energy than is present in the resting state. Akane Tendou, for example, often generates a blue rage aura when irritated. Unfortunately, she seems to have no effective way to use this chi, resulting in its generally being wasted to further increase her battle aura.

While the chi in a battle aura is generally actually just floating around the system of its generator, chi can also be used for the express purpose of putting out a battle aura. This allows the user to do such things as make their aura visible intentionally, expand their battle aura beyond themselves, or achieve other similar effects. However, as a battle aura is largely an involuntary expression of chi, it takes a lot of chi do do anything in particular beyond making the aura larger or more intense.

Battle auras are very defining of their possessor. It can generally be assumed that the larger and more intense the battle aura, the more chi the creator has. Normally, battle auras are invisible to anyone not already experienced in using and sensing chi, but an especially intense battle aura, either due to raw power, or to energy being spent on making it detectable, can even be seen by everyday people. Also, the shape or form of a battle aura can be affected by the nature or emotions of the possessor. Someone with an especially strong self-identity may have a battle aura that vaguely resembles themselves, for instance. Usually, however, a battle aura takes the shape of flames rising off of the generator. This is largely due to the way the user thinks of their chi, however, and while flame-auras are most common, battle auras can easily be found in different forms, from swirling like water to simple spheres or geometric shapes. Also, if the battle aura's possessor has a particular emotion on which they base their chi more often than any other, that emotion will start to have an effect on the aura as well.

With that in mind, this seems to be a good place to note the specific effects of emotion on chi. While chi is ultimately a shapable energy, subject more than anything else to the directions of its generator, the emotion used in creating the chi still has effects on the form of the chi. Each emotion lends to its chi a particular color, and emotions that can be considered a variation on another emotion usually have special shades of that color.

There are four other qualities that emotion alters in chi. First is temperature. When let be, each emotion's chi has a natural temperature range that it takes on. This is the most difficult effect of emotion upon chi to alter, so most chi users generally leave it alone, preferring instead to use a different emotion of chi to attain particular temperatures. It is usually considered not worth the effort to alter the temperature of a particular emotion of chi. Regardless, chi is either cold, warm, or hot to the touch, though technically there is relatively little distinction between warm and hot chi. The primary differences are that hot chi is capable of igniting flammable materials, and hot chi tends to be uncomfortable for most beings to be in contact with (aside from its generator).

The second most difficult quality of chi to alter is its brightness. While most chi generates a certain degree of light when at an intensity to be visible, the majority of chi light is very bright, making it visible in broad daylight, and also useful for lighting dark rooms. A few emotions of chi are 'dark', not ever generating much light at all, and generally only visible with well-lit surroundings against which to contrast them. Used correctly, these emotions of chi can even reduce the lighting in an area.

The third emotion-based quality of chi is weight. This quality has less effect than the previous two, because if the person controlling the chi wants the chi to go up or down in particular, it will, regardless of its weight. However, many chi blasts or thrown-chi effects do not involve the chi's generator beyond the projection of the chi, so the blasts will have a particular tendency based on their weight. Heavy emotions of chi are denser than gas, though somewhat less dense than water, and will thus have a tendency to fall like a thrown ball. Light emotions of chi will tend to float upwards in the air, and are very useful for lifting things underwater.

The fourth significant quality of chi is texture. Again, this is largely controllable by the chi's generator, and chi is never sticky, rough, etcetera, without the generator's enforcement. The only two textures caused by particular emotions of chi are 'hard' and 'soft'. Chi that is 'soft' tends to flow like fluid around things, suffusing the environment. 'Hard' chi resists intrusion, often acting like a solid surface. Chi that is neutral in this respect acts more like a thick gel, solid to a point, but rather elastic.

Thus, we arrive at a sort of 'chi table'. Each line has three entries- the emotion generating the chi, the qualities of that chi, and the color that the chi will take.

Anger / Hot, Hard, Bright / Red

Lust / Hot, Bright / Fuschia

Love / Warm, Soft, Heavy / Pink

Joy / Soft, Light, Bright / Yellow

Depression / Cold, Heavy, Dark / Puce (yellow-green)

Confidence / Light, Bright / Gold

Jealousy / Cold, Hard, Bright / Green

Hunger / Hard, Dark / Brown

Rage / Hard, Hot, Bright / Electric Blue

Sorrow / Cold, Soft / Blue-green

Contentment / Warm, Soft, Dark / Gray

Tranquility / Warm, Soft, Light / White

Outrage / Hot, Hard, Light / Orange

Dispassion / Cold, Hard, Heavy / Sky Blue

Certain emotions of chi have particular emphasis on particular aspects- dispassion chi is particularly cold, rage chi is especially bright, and love chi is very soft.

Thus, we have the limits of chi, clearly defined. Just as important, if not moreso, however, are the potentialities of chi. Beyond the reflexive battle aura, there is a near infinite range of things that can be accomplished with chi, despite its limitations. The most simple and easy intentional use of chi is to enhance the body.

The most basic form of enhancement is, of course, to improve the body's resistance to damage. This seems, at first, to be completely in error, as the basic use of chi allows a person to strike harder. This, however, involves a fallacy of perception. If anyone ever did strike with all the strength they could bring to bear, without chi enhancement, they would likely injure their own hand, foot, etcetera. The human body is capable of exerting more force over a short period of time than its own structure can withstand. Using chi to enhance the body's resistance to damage, however, can push the limits of what the body can withstand up to meet what it can exert.

The next form of enhancement, of course, is to increase the amount of force exerted by the body upon its environment. This is achieved by increasing the speed at which muscles contract, thus increasing the speed of limb movement. This needs to be balanced with the first form, or the chi user risks injuring themselves much as explained in the previous paragraph. This allows the user to strike harder, inflicting more damage, but also permits higher and longer jumps, greater lifting power, and faster motions, up to the point where they match the speed at which the chi user can mentally process their environment.

Following naturally from the second form is the third- increasing the speed at which the mind functions. With an increased processing speed, the mind can control the body at higher speeds. This is considerably more difficult than the previous three forms of chi use, much as each is more than the previous ones. However, where the previous three- battle aura, damage resistance, and improved force- are each a step apart, this form of self-enhancement is several steps up, despite being an instinctive next step.

The final basic form of self-enhancement does not fit in the same 'ladder' as the others. This is enhancement of the senses. There are numerous ways to achieve such effects, some working only on certain senses, others working on all of the senses.

There are other methods for enhancing the body's capabilities with chi, but these are more specific, and some are highly esoteric. The remainder of the uses of chi are outside of the body. These are where the emotional properties of chi take center stage, and are also the much more noticable methods.

Chi projection is only capable with large stores of chi, thus mandating that one be at least practiced in the use of chi in other manners, if not expert. This is why it is so rare for those not practiced in some sort of combat to be able to use chi: the most basic uses are generally only found in martial arts. Without considerable practice in the basic uses, not enough chi will be generated to function in any of the advanced uses.

Chi projection can take on many forms. The most basic form of this is the chi blast, of which there are two grades. The lower grade of chi blast requires less energy, but the higher grade is more effective and more flexible.

Lower-grade chi blasts use the chi to bind together a mass of air, which usually takes on a ball or slightly more aerodynamic shape, and throw it at the target. This is capable of bludgeoning the target, but does not work so well against fluids, or against anything significantly tougher than wood. There is also a minor explosive aspect to this form of chi attack, as the chi releases from the air on impact, blasting away from the impact point.

High-grade chi blasts take considerably more effort, largely for the simple reason that they consist of pure chi, rather than a mass of chi-bound air. These blasts usually take on spheroid shapes out of reflexive habit from those used to using lower-grade chi blasts, but can also be seen in any of a number of other shapes. The kind of damage inflicted varies likewise. Standard is bludgeoning and explosive, much as a low-grade chi blast, only on a larger scale. However, an especially focused chi blast can puncture or slice things, depending on its shape. An excellent example of a highly effective high-grade chi blast is the Kienzan, also known as the 'Destructo Disk', as used by Kuririn. Its flatness allows it to shear through nearly anything, as well as making it highly aerodynamic, thus requiring less energy to push it through the air. The spinning motion keeps the chi, so long as it is bound together, in a disc shape, and further aids the cutting effect.

Due to the ability of chi to act like energy, solid, or fluid depending on the will of its generator, there is a wide variety of attacks that can be performed with it. It is not, however, limited to offensive use. A solid plane or disc of chi can be used as a sort of shield, and it can be infused into a mass and used to levitate it. However, controlling chi once it is no longer attatched to one's aura requires a considerable extra expenditure of the energy, and thus, many chi-users will settle for flinging multiple projectiles, rather than persisting with a single one until it hits.

One method around this problem is the semi-beam form taken on by the Kamehameha. By maintaining a constant wave of chi from the projectile to the controller, it takes considerably less chi to influence the motion of the projectile. On the other hand, this leaves the controller vulnerable, as they must remain in place, throwing forth more and more chi to power the beam as it becomes longer and longer. As yet, no complete solution exists to avoid the problem.

Regardless, the ability of chi to take on any shape desired by its controller permits an incredible degree of flexibility, although the controller will need to be at least a little bit imaginative to come up with a workable shape. For this reason, flexibility of mind is at least as important as practice using chi.

There is one major vulnerability that chi has that is not shared by any other form of 'special energy'. The fact that chi is powered by emotion means that someone other than the generator who is attuned to that emotion, either by feeling it particularly strongly, or by focusing on it, can basically ignore any of the chi projected at them or, with sufficient practice, absorb it to increase their own stores of chi.

Section three: On using Ki.

Aside from previously-discussed matters of effectiveness and danger in usage, there are actually relatively few differences between emotion-based chi and pure ki. The primary one, of course, is that ki, not being diluted by emotion, does not take on particular aspects. Rather, its natural state is fairly neutral, white, and flowing.

Being undiluted by emotion, of course, makes ki much more difficult to produce in significant quantities. By the time a chi-user can produce chi blasts for use as anything other than a desparation or final attack, they may be lucky enough to have almost enough ki to produce a very faint glow of battle aura not extending beyond their own body. On the other hand, similar to the difference between doing curls with a ten-pound weight and doing curls with a forty-pound weight, practicing with ki improves a user's ability to produce both ki and chi considerably faster and with far higher upper limits.

Furthermore, while ki is more difficult and expensive to one's willpower to generate, it is just as easy to keep a 'control link' open to it as it is to keep one to a mass of chi, and since a ki user has larger amounts of energy at their disposal, they effectively have an easier time maintaining control over it. That said, it is still more difficult to gain control over ki in the first place and to actually direct it, so it more or less balances out in the end.

Finally, ki, when left uncontrolled, seeks to disperse to the same level as chi. However, since there is more energy in it, the results are rather more violent and widespread than those achieved when chi goes uncontrolled.

Section four: Where it comes from.

In the end, ki and chi boil down to a physical or semiphysical manifestation of a person's will for something to happen. Thus, the more powerful a person's will, the more forceful their personality, the more ki or chi they will generate at the base of it. With training, of course, anyone generating chi can improve their ability to do so, and anyone is capable of storing chi and ki, as well. There are limits, of course, to how much chi or ki a body can withstand containing or producing. Too much, and a body will likely rip itself apart. This is why physical conditioning is as important to the use of ki and chi as emotional power and willpower.

Ki, which also serves as the basis for chi, is generated by everything that has a mind. Its degree is determined by willpower, which goes a long way towards explaining the lack of chi attacks in, for instance, platypi. (Or, is that 'platypuses'? MS Word seems to think so.) However, there is more to it than that. Chi is constantly generated by all living things. Unfortunately, there are limits to how much chi a body can store. Thus, every animal is constantly 'leaking' both ki and chi. The amounts are miniscule, but they can certainly add up. Furthermore, even plants have a tiny quantity of ki, though their generation levels are so low as to be almost nonexistant. Regardless, this leaked ki suffuses into an environment slowly, but surely. Thus, a home, a tavern, even a whole city, can, over time, develop its own ki flow, thus lending it something of a personality. Furthermore, whole planets have ki flows, though they are slow and not especially intense. (It can be supposed that the 'Lifestream' extant in the Final Fantasy series of games is an expression of this ki flow, or perhaps it is simply a flow of lifeforce. It may even be both.)

Also, for this reason, if a ki sense is developed, a person or, indeed, any animal, can learn to detect the distinct ki and/or chi signatures of individuals at range, as well as the amount of chi being generated. There have even been machines capable of detecting this leaked chi. Humans are known to have a very rudimentary chi sense, often passed off as 'the willies' or 'gut instinct'. There are likely other races with this sense built in, though many races completely lack this extra sense. With practice, this sense can be developed, or even brought out in those who do not naturally have it. If it is used long and regularly enough, this sense can become unbelievably accurate, permitting activity even in conditions where all other senses are useless (fighting wearing baggy corduroy in a deep limestone cave where a skunk recently died, during an earthquake with firecrackers going off while blindfolded and numb from cold).

One major reason that different individuals have distinct ki signatures is that ki is constantly flowing throughout the body, much like blood. While certain key points in the ki flow are always the same, at least relative to the remainder of the person's body, the flows themselves are slightly different in every individual, much like a fingerprint. This constant flow of ki helps to keep the body functioning as well.

The other reason behind the distinction is the differences in peoples' dispositions. People who regularly become angry will have that 'flavoring' their chi signature, and people who act dispassionately towards everything will have that altering their chi signature. This also affects locations, which is a part of why so many people feel ill at ease around places like mental wards- the sheer chaos of the chi residue left by the inpatients triggers the chi sense in a bad way.

Thus, while chi is in practically everything, its primary generators are animals- things with minds. Willpower and physical condition are both essential to the ability to use ki and chi regularly. Effectiveness is partially provided by these, but also by imagination, which grants inspiration to use ki and chi in new or different ways. So, despite the limitations, use of this energy remains as much, if not more, an art than a science.

Section five: Exceptions.

There are, of course, exceptions to every set of rules, and the rules on ki are no different. The known exception is to the limit of chi that a body can continuously produce or contain, which limit is different for every race, with slight individual variations. The exception occurs primarily in the universes where one Son Gokuu is present. This exception is the chi-transforming races.

Normally, when a body produces or tries to contain more ki or chi than it can safely do, the energy goes out of control, ripping the body apart and killing the erstwhile user. However, it is possible, through experience with ki control, to alter the ki flows of one's body to accept more ki than is normally possible. It is also possible to alter the ki flows of one's body to limit the production and storage of ki. Both of these result in... interesting things.

The first extension of ki control is notable in the Saiyan race. The Saiyajin are naturally higher producers of ki than average, and are also naturally attuned to their own ki flows, which permits them greater control of their own ki. When a Saiyajin advances to the point of generating more ki than their body can safely handle, which amount, by the way, is already ludicrously high, their ki flows will be instinctively altered by their subconscious. This alteration in the flows of ki causes the body to react by changing, so as to more properly fit the flow of ki. The upshot of this is the ability of Saiyans to transform up, into the state known as Super Saiyan. Further modification of chi flows allows the states of Super Saiyan two and three. In some realities, it has been pushed further, to include such levels as Super Saiyan four and five, Ultra Saiyan one through three, Holy Saiyan, and Hyper Saiyan- though these extra degrees tend to vary in nomenclature and nature from one reality to another.

The second extension of ki control is exhibited primarily in the Kuurajin, most noticably in use by the one known as Fureiza. Some races have upper limits of ki generation and storage so far in excess of even that of the Saiyajin that no limit is known. These races have their own ki-based problem, however- so long as their ki flows remain in the proper configuration, they have a lower limit of ki generation that is a set distance below their current maximum. Thus, members of the Kuurajin must constantly be concentrating on their chi to avoid accidentally damaging or outright obliterating their surroundings, which tends to be a very inconvenient thing. Nearly as inconvenient, however, is the inability to focus on anything but one's own ki very well. So, Kuurajin of high power must alter their ki flows to reduce the amount of energy generated and stored. This, again, causes the body to alter itself to fit the flow of ki, resulting in a lower-power state. Once this lower-power state reaches that problem point, however, another alteration in ki flows becomes necessary. And so it continues, resulting in things such as Fureiza's four different forms. This has an important advantage not inherant to the other type of transformation, in that training affects both power levels the same, and since it is easier to challenge one's body and chi when one has less of them, training in this lower-powered state is actually easier, and repeated iterations can result in an incredible improvement of the original form. It is, indeed, fortunate that the Kuurajin are not very inventive, or they would have noticed this and taken advantage of it to out-power anything even conceived of so far.

Thus, the first method results in a person 'transforming up' as they reach for greater heights of power, and the other method actually involves 'de-transforming' as the person pulls themselves up from the depths. While only a few races have actually transformed, it is not actually impossible that any race is capable of a transformation of one kind or the other. Too few races have plumbed the depths of physical and ki power that fully to say for sure whether the ability to transform is indeed racial or not. If it is not, then it is fully certain that the pre-existing ability of Saiyajin to transform into giant apes certainly makes it easier on their bodies to develop transformative ability than it would be for a race that, at base, has only a single physical form.

All of this said, there is still an incredible range of possibilities for anyone with the ability to manipulate chi and/or ki, leaving it still as much an art form as a science, and thus, very much similar to martial arts- potentially infinite in variety, despite the presence of practical limits.

Part Two: Magic Section One: What is this stuff, anyways?

The actual nature and functionality of magic under any given conditions are highly debatable. For one thing, there exist numerous realities wherein magic is wholly impossible. Any inhabitant of these realities would naturally have no idea as to the nature of magic or its potential, often to the point of denying its existence at all. On the other hand, you have those realities where magic is so commonplace that everyone knows a few bits of it just for getting by, and the idea of magic failing to work is met with total confusion.

This is not much aided by the fact that in different realities where it is present, magic works on different bases and sources. Suffice to say, detailing all of the many potential sources and flows of magic and its use would take up far more time and space than is worth devoting to it.

Much more comprehensible, however, is the actual nature of magic. Where Ki and Chi both fall under certain natural laws, being a part of 'nature' (effectively a Fifth Elemental Force), Magic, by nature, exists by warping or even outright breaking the rules by which said forces govern themselves. Suffice to say, this puts magic and magical studies in a completely different category than sciences, and a different one even than Ki and Chi. Magic CAN be organized, however, in most cases, and as such, can be treated as its own form of art/science.

Section Two: Categorically speaking....

Typically of something whose very definition involves 'breaking the rules', magic fails to fall as a whole under a single, rigid (or even moderately flexible) set of rules. Fortunately, while it creates effects by altering or breaking rules, the effects themselves are generally forced to follow the rules. It is this, in fact, that causes magic to work- otherwise all magic would consist of creating a reality break and hoping that the utter chaos or perfect order that spewed forth would create the desired effect.

Thus, while magic breaks rules in causing things to happen, the things it causes to happen follow the rules. A rock created from nothing by magic will still fall like a rock, water created by magic is typically wet, magical flame causes burning and generates heat, etcetera. Mind, all of these qualities can be nullified through use of further magic anyways.