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:
“Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth’s marvels, beneath the dust of habit.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
“Dust rises from the main road and old Délira is stooping in front of her hut. She doesn’t look up, she softly shakes her head, her headkerchief all askew, letting out a strand of grey hair powdered, it appears, with the same dust pouring through her fingers like a rosary of misery. She repeats, “we will all die”, and she calls on the good Lord.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)