Dust is a drug, smuggled from system to system in ways common to high-value/low-weight-and-bulk contraband. It trades at high prices and margins on the black markets, and is as hotly pursued by law enforcers in the way opiates are today. Implications are that if one is caught in possession or dealing, the penalties are quite harsh. Many black market operators refuse to deal dust because of the risks posed by law enforcement.
The effects of Dust seem to be a combination of LSD and cocaine, with the user experiencing some types of Psi powers for the duration of the effect of the drug. It is targeted at humans, but one episode follows G'Kar, a non-human Narn, who has tried it to get a taste of the Psi powers his race has lost. Babylon 5 physicians will suspect dust use if two persons have a unique, shared experience. For example, a dust user might complain of a mountain falling upon him while his victim is an avalanche survivor.
Dust is revealed to be a covert program of the Psi Corps. Officially it began as a way to locate latent telepaths, create telepaths out of mundanes, and perhaps to amplify the powers of known telepaths. No mention is made of the cash flow inherent in such a popular form of high value contraband that would flow to Psi Corps. Nonetheless the Dust project was generally seen as a failure, and even prominent Psi Corps members like Alfred Bester were vehemently opposed to its further development.
Read more about this topic: Psi Corps
Famous quotes containing the word dust:
“Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)