As the fuel emergency became dire, gleans revealed their secret to the galaxy. Experts at combining magic with technology and technology with life, their species had been working since the arrival of the Burn to find an alternative way to fuel ships. Glean inventors developed a secret method for powering their ships, a magical intelligence (MI).

The gleans created a magical ritual, based on a recovered Omniscient spell, which binds a living entity to a ship who acts as the power source. An MI does not remember life before being bound to a ship, so some theorize that this ritual creates the MI. Others think the ritual summons the MI from some other place in the universe or an alternate reality and wipes the entity’s mind. Once bound, the MI remains implanted in a ship for the rest of the entity’s existence. If this bond is broken, the ship goes dark and the MI ceases to exist.

An MI supplies power to a ship from their own magical life force and allows the ship to be fully operational without the need for fuel. The entity powers the ship’s engines, weapons, and other systems.

Gleans kept this research a secret for fear of the backlash that would come from other species but revealed MI technology when the galaxy had no other answers for an emergency situation. MIs are fully sapient creatures, like the artificial intelligence gleans had also created with disastrous consequences. Magical intelligences have personalities, memories, and emotions. What is truly the difference between an MI and an AI? Only that MIs have not risen up against other sapients to take power. Many fear and resent the gleans for these creations, straining tensions among the peoples of Olaxis.

For the moment MIs are happy to be alive and serve as members of ships’ crews. A majority of people in the galaxy use MI-powered ships. Most crews and MIs see their relationships as partnerships.