Aun

The Aun were a cultural and ethnic group that developed aboard the Armstrong, one of the ships of the Ten. Already organized under the Aun Ecumene by the time the Union Space Program made contact with them on Aun'Ist, the Aun established a firm border between itself and Union after the First Distal War, closing established channels of communication. As such, they represented one of the only politically-organized human groups known to Union where the majority of their population were at no point integrated into the proximal hegemony (though after the Aunic Schism, the remaining Ecumenical Aun did reestablish themselves in Union space).
  Although Aunic society had been organized theocratically since the Armstrong's departure from Earth, the peoples' sociopolitical religiosity was greatly magnified by the sudden appearance of Metat Aun (MONIST-2 )in the 3rd century u. Despite the Ecumenical minority retaining their pre-Metat religion, the Ascendant Aun were able to harness their direct connection to a living deity to develop a strong base of paracausal technology. This paradigm diverged wildly from the scientific framework of Union and its member-states, while still readily keeping technological pace even as Union experienced its own great leap in paracausal technology, courtesy of contact with its own impossibly powerful entity.
  This proximity/exposure to Metat Aun also cultivated a unique sensitivity among the Aun to parallel dimensions beyond realspace - namely the Firmament, which was supposedly the 'domain' of Metat Aun in the same way that blinkspace was the 'domain' of RA. A small number of Aun, known as "Minds", had a direct link to the Firmament, which allowed them to interact with it while in realspace and harness it for tangible effects.