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Every biological species in Stellaris has the potential for rare individuals to develop psychic powers. By pursuing the Psionic Ascension path, you can make every single person in your empire a psychic, able to communicate telepathically and perform dazzling feats with only the power of their minds. Psionic empires have unmatched unity among their people, but risk allowing malevolent entities into the universe.

Related: Stellaris: Biological Ascension Guide

The Psionic Ascension path unlocks several exclusive events that are not available anywhere else in the game. It's a high-risk, high-reward undertaking that promises unlimited power or cataclysmic ruin.

Best Builds For Psionic Ascension

stellaris psionic advisor

Spiritualist empires are by far the best choice for aspiring psychics. This is because once the Psionic Ascension path is undertaken, your population will begin to favor Spiritualism more heavily, so it's best to go with the flow. The additional Unity produced by the Spiritualist Ethos will also be useful in administering your empire throughout the game.

Psionic pops get a bonus to Research and Energy production, so starting the game with traits like Industrious or Intelligent can set you up to maximize those yields down the road. Traditional is also a useful trait if you plan to start or become Spiritualist, since it further boosts your Unity production.

Avoid researching robotics technologies if you're pursuing Psionic Ascension. Spiritualist Factions hate artificial life, so your empire will be much more stable if you just outlaw AI altogether from the Policies Tab.

Since one of the benefits of Transcendence is improved Espionage, choosing Civics that improve Codebreaking such as Cutthroat Politics or pursuing the Subterfuge Tradition tree can make your psychic spies some of the best in the galaxy.

Lastly, once you've finished the Psionic Ascension path and the Chosen One appears, you'll have an opportunity to build an Imperial Cult around them. If you play an Authoritarian and Spiritualist empire, you can start the game as an Imperial Cult instead, preventing any forced changes to your play style if you decide to elevate the Chosen One as God-Emperor.

How To Complete The Psionic Ascension Path

psionic psychic event
Stellaris, Shroud event

The first step on the Psionic Ascension path is the Mind Over Matter Ascension Perk, which becomes available once you research the Psionic Theory technology in the Society tree and have one or more previously-unlocked Perks. Mind Over Matter makes all of your biological pops Latent Psychics, slightly increasing their Energy and Research production. Additionally, there is a much greater chance that Leaders in your empire will have the Psychic trait, giving them powerful bonuses based on their class.

Psionic Theory is a Rare Technology, meaning there is a much smaller chance that it will appear whenever you can research a new Society tech. However, it has no prerequisites, so there's always at least some chance that it will be an option. The exception to this rule is Materialist empires, who will never receive Psionic Theory as a tech choice unless there is a Psionic species in their empire or their Society Researcher has the Psionic Expertise trait.

If Crime is an issue on your planets, Mind Over Matter makes it easy to fix the problem by unlocking the Psi Corps building. Psi Corps allow pops to serve as Telepaths, who significantly reduce crime while also boosting Unity and the planet's overall production.

Mind Over Matter also unlocks Psionic Warriors as an army type. These frightening telekinetic soldiers deal significantly more Morale damage than normal troops, reducing the damage your armies will take overall during a planetary invasion.

Transcendence

Once you've unlocked Mind Over Matter, you can select Transcendence with any subsequent Ascension Perk to gain full access to your Psionic powers - it has no other prerequisites. All of your Leaders who aren't already Psychic will gain the trait, and every member of your founding species will go from Latent Psionic to full-fledged Psionic. Pops of other species will slowly gain Psionic abilities over time until your entire empire has the power.

Related: The Best Traits In Stellaris, Ranked

The Shroud

psionic event
Stellaris, psionic battle event

Three months after your empire achieves Transcendence, you'll be able to undertake a special project from the Situation Log to Breach The Shroud. Completing the project requires an investment of Society research, and completing it unlocks a ritual that can be performed every five years to enter the psychic realm in search of power.

When the Breach project is over, The Shroud will appear in the Contacts tab. Communicate with it as you would an empire to begin the ritual. Entering the Shroud costs one thousand Energy Credits, regardless of the outcome.

Each journey into the Shroud begins a random event chain that can potentially empower Leaders or grant your empire specific bonuses. You may even be able to enter into a pact with powerful Shroud entities, gaining great power at a price.

The End Of The Cycle

This section contains spoilers.

One of the five Shroud entities you can commune with is The End Of The Cycle. It rarely appears, but is much more likely to contact you if another empire is attempting to destroy the galaxy with the Aetherophasic Engine. The End Of The Cycle promises to double your Research output and Naval Capacity forever, along with five extra Influence each month and space for ten additional Starbases. All it asks in return is acknowledgement that a Reckoning will come in your future.

Accepting the End Of The Cycle will give you fifty years of extraordinary power, but will doom your empire (and likely the galaxy). After this time expires, all of your planets, populations, ships, and Leaders will be consumed by the Shroud. You'll be given a single, weak planet and a psychic entity called the Reckoning will begin attacking every empire it comes across.

The Reckoning's power is based on the number of pops it absorbed from you, and it can easily measure in the hundreds of thousands. The remaining empires will gain a permanent hatred of you for bringing the Recknoing into existence, and will try to eliminate you while resisting the creature.

The Reckoning's singular goal is to destroy every empire in the galaxy, and it will always save the empire that spawned it for last. If you can survive until that point, you'll technically win the campaign as the only remaining empire on the map.

Next: Stellaris: How Does Space Combat Work?