I've had this odd idea for a far future science fiction setting.

It's based on some odd beliefs I have which I don't currently see represented.

A human civilisation with advanced technology, whose advancement in science is done along spiritualist rather than materialist lines.
Basically, all the old materialist advances in science had been discoveries made by accident. They produced results, but we were completely wrong about why they were effective and over time, this civilisation has discovered the true underlying spiritual realities.
e.g: They figured out that what we now call "Silicon Chips" were simply finely etched sigils which opened up gateways into the world of platonic mathematical forms.

So they built much more advanced computers by doing that purposefully instead of by accident.
And programming languages are now formally a part of linguistics because they're based around how to meaningfully communicate with the underlying platonic mathematical forms, without going insane.
Aliens would, of course, be demons.

And space travel would exist, except it would be rather different to what most people are used to.

Humans can't travel safely in space, there's just no way to do it.
Habitable planets are effectively other realms of being. Space is the void between realms and it's absolutely inhospitable for humans, for all practical purposes. There's just none of the spiritual anchors necessary for a creature with a soul to sustain their existence.
It is possible to open portals between realms. The thing is that it requires sigils at either side.

So, a sigils for a portal needs to be made, one of the sigils needs to be put onto an automated probe which is brought up to orbit by a space elevator.
And then the probe has to physically go over to its destination, place the sigil for the other end of the portal in a safe place and then the portal can be opened and travelled through.
The first time is really expensive but then afterwards it's relatively easy. In any case, this makes travel between realms fairly easy to control as there's fixed points of travel between. It also means that interplanetary and interstellar warfare isn't really practical.
The bottlenecks in terms of those portals are just too great to be able to send an offensive force through. The advantage always goes to the defender. So infiltration and psyops is the most effective form of warfare.
If you want to fight, you're going to have to sneak in and convince the locals to build up their own insurrection. It's really the only effective way to overcome the limitation of portal based travel.
Those are the general ideas of the setting. Seems that people like the general idea, which is cool. I'll just need to think up characters and story which will be able to use those elements in an effective and entertaining way.
With regards to "AI" it isn't exactly a thing. As previously mentioned, you can effectively communicate directly with platonic forms, or angels if you want. Whether you want to do so is another matter. They're inhuman, rather aloof and rather terrifying.
Our home in the material realms is considered to be something of a shithole in the great cosmic order of things, so our attempts to communicate with these beings is considered to be the equivalent of spamming someone's DMs with "Open bob and vagene"
As mentioned previously, with psyops being the main effective form of warfare, psyops are a great deal more effective than they are in a materialist universe, because they work with an understanding of our actions affecting other spiritual realms of existence.
So if you can psyop people into mass adopting a state of mind which undermines the underlying spiritual harmony which the present power structure requires in order to function effectively, you can bring it down with a relatively small amount of physical violence.
This said, this is mostly the replacement of physical violence with spiritual violence, which could be considered much worse. People's immortal souls getting destroyed and damned as part of political games.
Mass deaths due to despair and suicide are a common feature of warfare in this universe. In other times, the unravelling of the social fabric causes chaotic violence, disorder and unravelling of environmental and logistical supply chains which also result in mass death.
War is no longer just a business of men. Women and children routinely get caught up in this spiritual warfare as well. The unsettling consequence of the relatively even playing field is the pursuit of diplomacy in a broadly merciless fashion.
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