If the Federation of the Hub is the common setting of the stories in these four volumes, psi is the thread weaving together Schmitz's entire literary works. The idea of psi (psychic abilities) and the Psychology Service appears throughout his writing, even in non-Hub stories.
In his Agent of Vega series (all of which predate the Hub writings) Schmitz based his Vegan Agents on E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen, except that psi was the advantage held by the agents of the Vegan Confederation instead of Arisian Lenses. Many of Schmitz's non-series stories, such as The Witches of Karres, "Gone Fishing," and "Beacon to Elsewhere," have similar psi agencies. However, Schmitz really hit his stride with the invention of the Psychology Service.
From a surface reading of Schmitz's work, he seems to have little to say about the origin of the Psychology Service. At least, there is little expository material about it in the stories. But if we dig deeper, we can find that background material.
"At one time I made an extensive investigation of this subject in the Federation. My purpose was to test a theory that the emergence of a species from its native world into space and the consequent impact of a wide variety of physical and psychic pressures leads eventually to a pronounced upsurge in its use of Uld powers [psi]." (Lord Gulhad, The Demon Breed)
This is exactly what we find in "Blood of Nalakia," the very first story that mentions the Hub. At first, it appears that Frome is using hypnosis and conditioning to an ultrasonic signal to control his captives. But Frome was only using "mechanical means" to enhance his psi talent. When he attacks Frazer, we learn that there is real psi involved. The Elaigar were bred for psi abilities, and at the end of the story, Lane is headed back to the Hub Systems carrying Frome's child.
Not much more than two centuries ago the Hub still had been one of the bloodiest human battlegrounds of all time. It was the tail end of the War Centuries. A thousand governments were forming and breaking interstellar alliances, aiming for control of the central clusters or struggling to keep from being overwhelmed. (The Demon Breed)
One thing that happened during the War Centuries is that entire planets died, including Earth—though Schmitz never explicitly states this. Prior to that period, stories such as "Blood of Nalakia" and "Grandpa" contain people from Earth. In all the later stories, Earth is only mentioned as the source of species that were "preserved in the Life Banks on Maccadon." Every human in the Hub is aware of Man's planet of origin, but nobody mentions its fate.
The War Centuries intervene between "Blood of Nalakia" and "A Sour Note on Palayata." The Federation of the Hub has been founded, and it is significant that the first Federation story written is about the Psychology Service. If it weren't for the details hidden in this story, we probably would never know what caused the War Centuries.
There is a trick involved in understanding the background in "A Sour Note on Palayata"—you have to realize that it's essentially the same story as "The Illusionists" from the Agent of Vega series. Laying these two stories side-by-side clarifies all sorts of cryptic references.
The War Centuries were caused by the rise of psi power in human beings. Pre-war human societies had no defense against psis—they had not yet developed an organization or institution to control them.
A Class Two psi (telep-2) such as Telzey is a serious danger to an unprepared society. In fact, "catastrophic" would be a better word. Consider the first thing Telzey does with her newfound power in "Novice." As soon as the Baluit crest cat crisis is over, she starts experimenting with her Aunt Halet's mind. Halet has no defense and doesn't even know she is being controlled.
The next step for a psi as powerful as Telzey would be to take control of the people around her. She would soon find that she can only control a handful of the billions of people on a planet, so she would try to find a way to extend her control. Schmitz calls these "telepathic amplifiers" or "psychimpulse-multipliers." Using such devices, a sufficiently skilled telepath could start a chain-letter of control called the "Pyramid Effect" in the Agent of Vega series. A single telep-2 could end up controlling the entire planetary population.
The controlled population would have no more defense than Aunt Halet. Those with strong minds that might be able to resist would be destroyed. The average IQ then falls. Eventually, any psychoses in the ruling mind would be transferred to and amplified in the population, leading to ritualized serial murder and mass suicide. When the controlling mind died, the entire planet would die as well. That's what the Psychology Service was worried might be happening on Palayata. It's hard to believe that Schmitz wrote all this before Jim Jones founded Jonestown in Guyana.
In the War Centuries, this happened not once, but hundreds of times. It kept several thousand planets in turmoil not for years, but for centuries. Finally, a defense was found against the psis. It consisted of an organization of both psis and non-psis protected by mind shields. With a defense in hand, physical force was sufficient to defeat the psis.
Wars had been fought to prevent the psychological control of Hub citizens on any pretext; and then, when the last curious, cultish cliques of psychologists had been dissolved, it had turned out to be a matter of absolute necessity to let them resume their activities. So they were still around . . . Of course, they were limited now to the operations of the Psychological Service. ("A Sour Note on Palayata")
With the end of the War Centuries, the group that won the war founded the Federation. To prevent another psi war, they created the Psychology Service. Their number one job was to prevent rogue psis from causing trouble in the Hub.
One thing that bothers many people about the Federation is the autocracy of the Psychology Service. They censor the news. They spy on the citizens. They even have a policy to mind-wipe any Federation official who finds out what they are doing and disagrees with it. The rest of Hub society is so libertarian, how does Schmitz justify the actions of the Service? In fact, he never explicitly defends it. It is left to the reader to realize that the Psychology Service is fighting a plague that threatens the entire human race.
"You make that child sound rather dangerous!" ("Undercurrents")
Let's return to the case of Telzey Amberdon. On the trip back to Orado, she discovers "tele-hypnosis" and uses it to take control of her Aunt Halet. As soon as she steps off the ship, she's spotted, hooked, tagged, and tracked by the Psychology Service. This girl is a danger and they know it. So what do they do? Do they kidnap or murder her? No, they implant a suggestion that she limit her psi activity and seek out the proper authorities.
This is the true Schmitz touch. The Psychology Service is not out to protect society by eliminating psis. Quite the contrary. They will protect the Federation by immunization. To eliminate psis would leave the Federation defenseless against external threats (such as the Elaigar), and internal threats such as undetected psis. Instead, Telzey is left free to find her own way of handling her new abilities. She will be tracked, and harsher means will be used only if she becomes a problem. If she can control herself and fit into society, she will be left alone.
Because of this, the Psychology Service is not presented as some dark repressive Gestapo-like organization hiding behind the friendly façade of the Federation. They are instead controlling a serious problem as nondestructively as possible. More than that, they are trying to turn this serious problem into a strength.
"I think the Overgovernment prefers the species to continue to evolve in its own way. On the record, it's done well. They don't want to risk eliminating genetic possibilities which may be required eventually to keep it from encountering some competitive species as an inferior." (Ticos Cay, The Demon Breed)
The Service is also pushing the use of psionic machines in the Federation. People with no psi talent of their own will be empowered to deal with psis. Mind shields are available for defense, and powerful mind-reading machines, such as the ones at the Orado City Space Terminal or Transcluster Finance, will provide the advantages of psi to ordinary people.
As part of their plan to introduce psi to the Hub on a larger scale, one job of the Psychology Service is to control the fear of psis. We see them doing this in several ways. They clean up after psis (like Telzey) by providing believable ordinary explanations for extraordinary events (such as in "Resident Witch"). If a psi won't keep under cover, they arrange to ship them off to someplace like Askanam ("Glory Day"), or the psis disappear into rehab—as happens to Wakote Ti and Alicar Troneff.
The Service also disseminates false stories, minimizing the effectiveness of psi. For example, Assistant Secretary Duffold believes that "the psi boys had produced disturbing effects in various populations from time to time, but in the showdown the big guns always had cleaned them up very handily."
The psis themselves have a different point of view. "The way the Alattas have worked it out, the human psis of the time, and especially the variations in them, had a good deal to do with defeating the Elaigar at Nalakia."
"The function of the Overgovernment is strategy. In part its strategies are directed at the universe beyond the Federation. But that is a small part." (Lord Batras, The Demon Breed)
Only a small part of the Psychology Service's attention is directed outward—toward possible enemies beyond the Hub. We'll see more of those in Volume 4 of this series. But you've already read about the top-secret Service Group called Symbiote Control, whose job is to watch over aliens living among the Hub population. With typical Service attitude, symbiotes are left alone as long as they don't make trouble—after all, some of them are actually useful. The Service is watchful, but only takes action when they find a harmful parasite instead of a symbiote.
"We can say in general now that the Federation is a biological fortress armed by the nature of its species." (Lord Batras, The Demon Breed)
This attitude pervades the top level of the Federation Overgovernment. They treat the human species as an evolving animal and the Federation as an ecology. They aren't out to create perfection. If survival is a good enough goal for nature, it's good enough for the Federation and the Psychology Service.
What kind of animal does the Overgovernment want man to be? Aggressively competitive, but intelligently aggressive. Anything less, and they will be swamped from the outside. Anything more, and they risk a return to the War Centuries. Their solution is to give men an outlet for their aggression within the bounds of society. Private wars are allowed. Crime is only lightly controlled, and local governments are encouraged to handle crime themselves. Nile Etland suggests this is a substitute for open warfare.
"It's really more than a substitute," Ticos said. "A society under serious war stresses tends to grow rigidly controlled and the scope of the average individual is correspondingly reduced. In the kind of balanced anarchy in which we live now, the individual's scope is almost as wide as he wants to make it or his peers will tolerate." (The Demon Breed)
External threats are met with a very Hub-centric view. While the threat itself is handled expeditiously, the Overgovernment is more worried that such attacks will upset this carefully maintained balance. The Hub is deliberately being kept at the very edge of exploding into violence.
The Overgovernment has shown it is afraid of the effects continuing irritations of the kind might have on its species. We too should be wise enough to be afraid of such effects. (Lord Batras, The Demon Breed)