The term Chaos Energy refers to an type of radiate force that has been observed to occur around physical objects such as Chaos Emeralds as well as natural phenomena. It is believed to be a primordial force of the universe that has existed alongside forces of gravity, strong, and weak forces. It is not generally detectable by many forms of equipment due to its fundamentally different nature. In its rawest form, it barely affects the universe, but it can be harnessed with specialized equipment. The energy can be 'refined' in the sense that it can be transformed into a more excited state to be usable.
Chaos Energy is a form of radiation, though it is not harmful to life in its raw form. Its source is unclear, as it seems to originate from every point in the universe at once, which suggests that it is a part of the Cosmic Background Radiation of the universe, or perhaps originates from a dimension that overlays over the universe.
Various scientific and philosophical communities have attempted to analyze Chaos Energy and see how it relates to the concept of Chaos in general. Chaos Energy appears in many Extrauniversal Spaces, but not in others. There has been no conclusive reason as to why this is the case.
The current model of Chaos Energy believes that it exists at the Planck Length (1.6x10^-35m), and consists of constantly folding and crumpling strings of spacetime and raw probability that alter space around it simply by existing, though these alterations are so small that they correct themselves as these knots and folds 'smooth' themselves. Larger disturbances cause longer alterations which may cause 'bubbles' or 'eddies' that become visible for microseconds. Massive disturbances are not known to exist without intentional creation and these cause whole rifts to occur, which the UNSC and Mobians exploit to travel Extrauniversally in an event known as 'Crossover'
EXAMPLES OF CHAOS ENERGY
Chaos Energy can be found in its 'raw' form which is a weak form of radiation that exists in a free-floating state in the universe and is at constant mass and density no matter if it is found in interstellar space or around stars. It appears that like neutrinos, the 'particles' that make up Chaos Energy appear to travel through matter. This does not appear to harm carbon-based, hydrocarbon-based, and silicon-based life based on observations that have taken place over the short period of time in which it has been observed.
In its 'liquid' form, Chaos Energy is made visible due to its close proximity to additional particles. When enough is gathered in one location, energy spikes occur, and with proper materials, these spikes can be harnessed for power that increase exponentially with volume. However, current harnessing methods are inefficient, though the energy amounts are quite large.
'Solid' forms of Chaos Energy take the form of lattice-structure constructs. These very rarely are believed to occur in nature. Nearly all occurrences of 'solid' Chaos Energy takes the form of objects similar to the Chaos Emeralds. The formation of such 'solid' structures entails forcing Chaos Energy together to such a degree that lattices are forced to form. There is still very little knowledge of this process. Chaos Emeralds are commonly thought to be more amplifiers, or beacons that attract, store, and increase Chaos Energy flow rate, but are generally thought to be artificial, created by an unknown race as the jewels are older than the Forerunner race. Precursors have not been ruled out, but there is no evidence support that notion. Chaos Emeralds are still only considered imitations of the very rare natural occurrence.
RESEARCH
The Forerunners were one of the first races documented to study the effects of Chaos Energy. Documents recovered from ancient Forerunner ruins over five million years old suggest that the caste known as Theoreticals studied Slipspace Crystals which seemed to have some affinity for attracting and dissipating energy. These were naturally occurring formations that assisted in Slipspace transition as well as 'particle reconciliation', which reduced the effect of time dilation upon arriving at a location. At the time, Chaos Emeralds were unknown. Those that were found were not recognized as such for millions of years, as they were kept simply for decoration. Those that did try to study them had no established information to base their observations off of. Close to the activation of the Array in 100,000 BCE, Forerunner worlds like Dole Brennig were destroyed by Chaos Emeralds that were used by careless engineers. The high concentration of energy was fed back into mining equipment a thousand-fold, destroying whole worlds.
Around this time, the First Empire became aware of Chaos Energy, though by the time it was starting to become understood, the Forerunner-Human war had erupted, which resulted in the destruction of the Human interstellar civilization. There is indication that Humanity of the era only became aware of Chaos Energy because of Forerunner research that had been abandoned for millions of years.
In the modern era, Mobians became the first to see that Chaos Energy was channeled and amplified through Chaos Emeralds. They were also the first of the known species to discover that travelling at superluminal velocities in close proximity to a Chaos Emerald would force the object to break dimensional barriers and traverse between Extrauniversal Spaces. Early tests of high speed spacecraft resulted in test rigs being removed from the universe where it had been tested. Even though Mobian FTL was very primitive, even if it was limited to intersystem travel, simply transitioning to another phase of space-time was charged and accelerated by Chaos Energy. Mobian scientists concluded that the reasons for this was because since Chaos was a force of the universe, and ripping through the universe to travel at Faster Than Light speeds, Chaos was disturbed and thus made such a breach even worse.
Humanity though was the first to travel using it. The first usage of Inter-EUS travel was observed in the 23rd Century with the Lost Million colony fleet. Matthew Mobius' warpgate was charged by Chaos Energy channeled through a Chaos Emerald buried on Luna, Earth's moon. It is theorized that only objects of certain mass can attract Chaos Energy possibly through the space-time that such an object displaces with its existence. The 10-kilometer diameter Warp Gate that created tears using different methods than Slipspace drives had been a receiver of Chaos Energy which made the transition Inter-EUS rather than interstellar as it was planned.
As time went on, an accidental crossover of a UNSC supercarrier known as the Indomitable was the second time that Humanity had used Chaos Energy to cross universes, proving that it was not an accident in the strictest sense. Though the Indomitable crossed to Mobius from the Home Universe world of Thyris II, which scientists speculated was because the vessel was headed towards what was more or less the Mobian double and the location simply corresponded. There are still factors that are still very loosely understood if at all such as how stellar differences corresponded with universal crossover. These are unlikely to be solved soon, as such a field of science had not been considered beyond theoretical physics dating back to the mid-21st Century using theoretical equations from the mid-20th Century. That being said, Humanity has the best understanding since the Forerunners of Chaos Energy.
It is unknown how many sentient species have knowledge of Chaos Energy as only a small percentage of alien races have been discovered by the documented species of the galaxy.
WEAPONIZATION
Chaos Energy has peaceful purposes, but can be utilized effectively as a weapon. Chaos Emeralds or clones of such Emeralds can be used to channel energy into weapons. These are considered Chaos Weapons by their users and typically have only been used by Humanity and the forces of Dr. Julian Kintobor. Small Chaos Emerald Shards (CESs) can excite the natural tangles of Chaos Energy and form lances of energy that can be directed with conventional directed magnetic bottles created by plasma rifles. This is accomplished by feeding plasma into an amplification chamber just as any energy rifle would, but then the presence of the CES in the firing chamber would cause the gas to further excite as it is forced to interact with the raw Chaos Energy inside of the chamber. This evacuation of energy can be clocked at being nearly ten times as powerful as the initial induction of energy, but as a result, these weapons are much more fragile, require extra maintenance, and can overheat quickly. Directed Chaos Energy Weapons (DCEWs) come in handheld and shoulder mounted forms.
Larger scale weapons such as ship-mounted cannons have only been observed being used by the forces of Julian Kintobor. These weapons are capital-class and are mounted on starships produced by the Doctor. The majority of these cases have been seen in 3234 on the Flying Factory in which Large Chaos Energy Shards (LCESs) are cloned from smaller Emeralds and forced to increase in size. Once again, these weapons tap into the naturally occurring mess of Chaos Energy in the CMB Radiation, but the larger scale induction causes larger scale output. These weapons are devastating against all targets in the brief time that they have been fielded. Smaller UNSC capital-class ships have been destroyed as quickly as one shot.
The raw annihilation these weapons can produce on the scale of capital-class weapons resulted in the quiet passing by the UEG Congress the Chaos Energy Weapons Act in which development of Chaos Energy-fueled shipboard weaponry would be considered a federal crime.
It is believed that Chaos Energy bombs exist, but this has only been inferred by ancient Forerunner documents. The scale of destruction a 'planet-buster' has cannot be fathomed, but any found sample is to be disarmed upon discovery.
There are unconfirmed reports that individuals can be imbued with Chaos Energy as they can act as natural beacons for the force, but such individuals are believed to be rare, perhaps one in ten billion, and only if these individuals are able to collect a sum of Chaos Energy beacons. There are rumors that Humans have been able to act as lightning rods to collect this energy and are able to create their own disturbances in space time, but this is all speculative with no respected research to back it up.
In reality, only two confirmed users have been known to exist - Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehogs, who were able to access what have been dubbed 'Super Forms' by scientists in jest, though the official designation is the 'Enhanced Chaos Energy State'. More speculation as to why no Human has been observed to have 'gone super' as the term is, it is believed that different EUS spaces operate under different physical laws and thus have different 'requirements' for 'going super', explaining why Humans have never achieved such a power state. As such, it is theorized that 'going super' is impossible in the Home Universe.