About to take mind over matter as materialist empire

[RoyBaty]

How bad is it going to be friction-wise?
I have 1 planet + few hubs, and 4 planets with all synths.
Should I expect a few pops to go spiritual and become very unhappy? Worse than that?

Playing ironman, so I was hoping for some input before I "push the button".

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

No, you should expect the majority of your population going Spiritualist.
Getting Psionic Theory is 1.25 modifier.
Getting Mind over Matter is 1.50 modifier.
Getting Transcendence is a 1.50 modifier

Landing you at a 4.25 modifier to Spiritualists.
Once you have a faction that is a further 1.5 to Spiritualists.
If your ruler ends up it is a 2 modifier on top.

Meaning you're likely to look at a 6+ modifier to Spiritualists.
Robots and AI Rights will drag this down to around 5+ modifier. Spiritualists are a very strong faction when it comes to attraction and once they're in your empire (especially if you go Psionic - it is their main deal.) they are most likely to become your biggest faction.
You are going to be looking at:
-15 up to -25% happiness to roughly 40-60% of your pops (I've had my populations go as high as 80% spiritualist because I went psionic)

If you are materialist, you're gonna have to.. Give up on your Robro's and get Slaves/Specialized Species to do the robots work.

On the bright side, you won't have many materialists left that will be exceptionally unhappy..
I must admit, I would never... Ever recommend having two opposite factions in an Empire.. It is quite detrimental (and why you should manage your Ethos attractions - you can see them when hovering over the ethos in the faction window.)
The... Least problematic one is Militarist - Pacifist faction combo as Militarists are a relatively easy faction to please and Pacifists will only be pissed if you're the aggressor.

[RoyBaty]

Thanks for all the details!
What I don't understand is that atm I already researched psionic theory, and the spiritualist attractiveness is at 0%
Materialistic is at 50% plus another 45%

[The Bored Chairman]

If your empire has synth rights and coexists with Synths, then naturally, your materialist draw will be stronger.

The Mind over Matter perk will cause a shift towards Spiritualist, and that's likely to be your only modifier, unless you're chummy with another Spiritualist Empire. Honestly, if you've already established yourself as a Materialist Empire, don't encourage Spiritualism, because they're the whiniest of the Factions (even more than Xenophobes). If you don't have spiritualist values in your empire, have Synths/bots and have a minority of your pops following the faction, you're basically guaranteed 0% happiness modifier for pops.

Synthetic Evolution also eliminates any possible shift towards Spiritualism, so if your "Space-Magic" loving pops are being a problem, just reprogram them.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

Originally posted by RoyBaty:

Thanks for all the details!
What I don't understand is that atm I already researched psionic theory, and the spiritualist attractiveness is at 0%
Materialistic is at 50% plus another 45%

Right so.

Psionic Theory: +1.25 to Spiritualist
Synth Rights: -0.75 to Spiritualist (in Policies - F6)
Robots Allowed: -0.50 to Spiritualist (in Policies - F6)

Total attraction: 0 to Spiritualists

This way you can get the tech, without the faction - but go beyond Psionic Theory and you will have faction issues. Most Factions works like this.

[Jagothegamer]

I honestly thought you had to be spiritulist in the first place to be able to research psyonics. Am I confused on that? How far in the game is psionic research?

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

Originally posted by Jagothegamer:

I honestly thought you had to be spiritulist in the first place to be able to research psyonics. Am I confused on that? How far in the game is psionic research?

Psionic Theory works like this:

+2 modifier from being Spiritualist
+3 modifier from being Fanatic Spiritualist.
+1.1 modifier from having a level 1 scientist in Society with Expertise: Psionic.
+1.5 modifier from having a level 2-4 scientist in Society with Expertise: Psionic
+2 modifier from having a level 4+ scientist in Society with Expertise: Psionic
+5 modifier from having a scientist with Expertise: Maniacal in Society*.
Materialist are barred from getting Psionic Theory tech UNLESS they have a Scientist with Expertise: Psionic Theory.

*Maniacals have a high chance to roll them, but that is because they are a rare tech and maniacal get a +5 modifier to rolling rare tech.

Being spiritualist pretty much just guarantees that it will pop fairly early in the game.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

On this lovely topic

I suggest you go here:
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Ethics
https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Factions

And when you're playing have those tabs running so you can look up how to prevent Ethos attractions and Factions, it makes your Empire soo much easier to control and keep happy.

[RoyBaty]

Originally posted by Professor H. Farnsworth:

Right so.

Psionic Theory: +1.25 to Spiritualist
Synth Rights: -0.75 to Spiritualist (in Policies - F6)
Robots Allowed: -0.50 to Spiritualist (in Policies - F6)

Total attraction: 0 to Spiritualists

This way you can get the tech, without the faction - but go beyond Psionic Theory and you will have faction issues. Most Factions works like this.

I see, thanks.
Those are the kind of details I never bothered to check in this game.

Originally posted by Jagothegamer:

I honestly thought you had to be spiritulist in the first place to be able to research psyonics. Am I confused on that? How far in the game is psionic research?

Ha, I got a little lucky I guess.
I tried to have a couple of maniacal scientists on a survey mission.
Maniacal have a chance to get psionics as a trait when studying anomalies.
And this is exactly what happened (and in a quite mundane anomaly).
Once he got psionic, I put him in society research, and in the next research popup I had the chance to research psionics.

As far as I know, this is the only way to get psionics as a fanatic materialist empire in 2.0.
Not sure how lucky I was, and if you can reliably get psionics as materialist.
Taking mind over matter wasn't my original plan for this playthrough.