Whenever Stellaris marks a research option as a Dangerous Technology, the red label warns you of a real risk, but none of these techs decides which end-game crisis you get: the Jump Drives only bring the first crisis roll forward to 2425, the two AI techs can lead to a Machine Uprising if you keep robots, and Fallen Empire technology makes the Fallen Empires dislike you.

The ominous red glow around the tech will already pique your interest, but the question is, how dangerous is it really? In a normal game, you will meet five of them: Jump Drive, Psi Jump Drive, Sapient Combat Simulations, Artificial Administration and Existential Campaigns.

The red label itself only matters for the Research Restrictions policy, which can keep these techs out of your research options.

Should you research them anyway? For almost every empire, yes. Set the Artificial Intelligence policy to Citizen Rights or outlaw robotic workers before 2290, and keep a ship design without a Sapient Combat Computer ready for the Contingency. With those two precautions, the five red techs will cost you very little.

This guide will try to go through most of the Dangerous Technologies and also explain what exactly makes them dangerous and how bad they really can get. It is written for Stellaris 4.5.3 on PC, where Synthetic Dawn and with it the Machine Uprising have been part of the base game since patch 4.3.6. The more exotic red techs need DLC, which is noted where it matters. Costs, draw chances and uprising odds were checked against the 4.5.3 game files.

Beware that continuing to read this guide will lead to spoilers regarding the end-game crises and also the effect of each individual dangerous tech.

Contents

• What is a dangerous technology?
• Dangerous technology list
• Other red technologies
• End-game crisis
• Machine Uprising
• How to avoid a Machine Uprising
• Fallen Empires
• Should you research dangerous technology?
• Changes since 2021
• Dangerous technology questions
• Conclusion

What is a dangerous technology?

As you slowly work through the various tech trees, you will inevitably come to a point where you get the choice to pick a Dangerous Technology. Its card carries a red “Dangerous Technology” line, and 52 techs in 4.5.3 have it, although a normal empire will only ever see a handful of them.

If you are still learning how research cards work, the research part of our Stellaris beginner guide explains them.

Older guides, including the 2021 version of this one, say that a dangerous technology makes one specific end-game crisis more likely. That is not how 4.5.3 works. The label itself does not trigger anything, and what the red really means is this:

• It tells the Research Restrictions policy which techs to keep out of your draws. That policy is the only thing in the game that reads the label directly.
• Of the 52 red techs, 43 are Fallen Empire technology, and each one you research lowers the opinion every Fallen Empire has of you by 10, or by 20 for the materialist one. The other nine do not have this penalty, although the materialist Fallen Empire orders a Cosmogenesis empire to stop its Applied Infinity Theses.
• AI empires research red techs like any other tech and never pick Restrictions Imposed on their own. Skipping a tech will not keep it out of the galaxy.
• Jump Drive and Psi Jump Drive in any normal empire let the first end-game crisis roll come in 2425 instead of 2450. No tech changes which crisis comes.

Research Restrictions policy

The policy has three options, and No Restrictions is the default. Restrictions Imposed will stop red techs from being drawn as research options, but it also cuts your chance for rare techs by 20%, which makes it mainly useful for automated research.

Refactored Restrictions will raise the chance for red techs by 25% at the cost of 10% more researcher upkeep. You can only pick it as a Galactic Community member while Ethical Guideline Refactoring or Extradimensional Experimentation is in force, and Restrictions Imposed counts as a breach of both.

Mind that Restrictions Imposed only works on draws. A tech that an event or a Cosmogenesis level puts on your list directly will simply stay there, which is why the first Applied Infinity Thesis still appears at the Calamity level.

Dangerous technology list

The following list will not only show you each dangerous technology but also what it exactly does and how to increase the chances of getting it (in case you really want to see what is happening yourself). The first five are the ones a normal empire can get without a special path.

Jump Drive

The in-game description calls the Jump Drive a groundbreaking technological marvel that “shreds the local space-time continuum and rearranges it on the quantum level to be identical to that of the target destination”, and thus the ship appears to near-instantly “jump” from system to system.

Jump Drive is a rare tier 5 Physics tech (Particles) that costs 16,000 research and needs Zero Point Power. In return, your fleets are going to jump between systems without following the hyperlanes. Its draw weight starts at 3 and drops to a tenth of that unless a council leader has Particles expertise or the Curator, Spark of Genius or Maniacal trait.

Discovery traditions multiply the chance by 1.25, Grasp the Void by 1.5, a federation with Scientific Inspiration where a member already has the tech by 2, and the Eager Explorers, Privatized Exploration, Stargazers or Exploration Protocols civic by 5. The Dimensional Horror can also unlock it with 50% progress, as our Dimensional Horror guide explains.

The risk is galaxy-wide. Once any normal empire owns Jump Drive, AI empires and Scions with a gifted drive included, the first end-game crisis roll can come in 2425 instead of 2450. It costs you no Fallen Empire opinion.

Psi Jump Drive

The in-game text says the Psi Jump Drive “harnesses the psi energies emitted by the crew to force the vessel through the very fabric of reality, instantly ‘jumping’ vast distances.”

Psi Jump Drive is a rare tier 5 Society tech (Psionics) for 20,000 research that needs Precognition Interface, which sits behind Psionic Theory and Telepathy. You will never see it as a normal research option, though. The Shroud will hand it to you instead, for example when you leave the Shroud, through the End of the Cycle or as a Shroud-Forged gift.

Its drive will jump 50% farther than the normal Jump Drive, and it carries the same 2425 risk and nothing else.

Sapient Combat Simulations

Sapient Combat Simulations is a rare tier 4 Physics tech (Computing) for 10,000 research that needs Extended Combat Algorithms and Positronic AI. Gestalt empires cannot research it, and it will never appear while your Artificial Intelligence policy is set to Outlawed. Without a Computing expert, Curator or Maniacal leader on your council, it is five times less likely to be drawn.

It unlocks the Sapient Combat Computers, which the game sums up as “Exploiting our sapient AI’s sense of self-preservation, or fear of death, should greatly enhance its responsiveness in combat.” The line computer adds 20% fire rate and 20 accuracy, and our ship design guide uses the artillery and carrier versions on its battleships.

The first downside is a Machine Uprising if you keep robots. Additionally, these ships will lose up to 50% fire rate if the Contingency comes, but a design with another computer will take care of that.

Artificial Administration

Artificial Administration is the tech that was called Synthetics in older versions of the game (and in the first version of this guide). It is a rare tier 4 Engineering tech (Industry) for 10,000 research that needs Artificial Specialists, Galactic Administration and Positronic AI. Gestalt empires and individual machines cannot get it, and it will not be drawn while Robotic Workers are outlawed.

Materialists and Mechanists draw it twice as often, spiritualists half as often, and the Synthetic Evolution perk makes it ten times as likely. Without an Industry expert, Curator, Spark of Genius or Maniacal leader on your council, it is five times less likely.

The tech gives mechanical and machine pops 10% job efficiency, and robots need it for full citizenship. The Synthetics tradition tree needs it as well, together with Synthetic Evolution from our ascension perks guide (the Synthetic Fertility origin only needs the tech).

The risks are a little bit bigger than with the other red techs. With robots on your planets, it will put you on the Machine Uprising list, and the fanatic spiritualist Fallen Empire may demand that you ban AI research once it dislikes you at -100 or worse. In a Contingency, you are also going to lose a few robots before the first Sterilization Hub appears.

Existential Campaigns

Existential Campaigns is a rare tier 5 Society tech (Military Theory) for 24,000 research that needs Galactic Campaigns. Militarists draw it more often and pacifists less, the more empires you have met the likelier it gets, and fanatic pacifists, Fanatic Purifiers, Devouring Swarms and Determined Exterminators never draw it.

It unlocks the Existential Expulsion casus belli, the same one the Galactic Nemesis perk gives. Its war goal, Wipe Them Out, is a total war against any empire you choose: starbases are destroyed instead of captured, surrender is not on the table, and the defender fights back with End Threat. It does not unlock purging or Armageddon Bombardment, and Fallen Empires cannot use it.

Nothing happens to you for researching it, and nothing in the game explains the red label. The danger is probably on the receiving end, since militarist AIs lean towards this tech. I would call it optional.

Other red technologies

The other 47 red techs need a special path, and most campaigns will probably only show you a few of them.

L-Gate techs

L-Gate Insight (Engineering, tier 2, 2,000 research plus 5,000 per level) is a repeatable tech you can draw once you have found an L-Gate. Seven insights put L-Gate Activation (Physics, tier 3, 6,000 research) on your list, and researching it lets you open the gates. Both come with Distant Stars.

What sits behind the gates was decided when the galaxy was created, and in a little over a third of games with L-Gates that is the Gray Tempest. Any empire can be the first to open them, and it is not one of the end-game crises. If you plan to open them yourself, have a fleet ready first.

Omega Theory

Omega Theory belongs to the Horizon Signal event chain and costs 10,000 research. All it unlocks is the Omega Alignment building, it costs no Fallen Empire opinion, and the AI never researches it.

Cosmogenesis techs

The Cosmogenesis perk from The Machine Age adds the Applied Infinity Thesis (75,000 research plus 70,000 per level), a repeatable tech from the Calamity level on. Each thesis will roll a random change to reality that can hurt you or the whole galaxy, so only research the ones you need.

Its seven ship techs cost 70,000 research each and count as Fallen Empire technology. If the materialist Fallen Empire humiliates a Cosmogenesis empire, it also forces Restrictions Imposed on it.

Fallen Empire technology

All 32 Fallen Empire building techs are red, at 70,000 research each. You can only draw them with the Enigmatic Engineering perk from Apocalypse, where they are rare and stop after 4 of the 16 first-tier techs, or with Cosmogenesis at its last level, Existential Threat. The second-tier versions are Cosmogenesis only, and our automation building guide goes through a few other ways to get some of the buildings.

Dark matter techs

You can get Dark Matter Deflectors, Dark Matter Power and Dark Matter Propulsion (70,000 each) from event gifts such as the Grand Archive or Cetana, from the Dark Matter Breakthrough agenda of the Dark Consortium civic or from Cosmogenesis levels 1 to 3. Dark Matter Cloaking Fields, a First Contact tech, needs Dark Matter Deflectors and Elite Cloaking Fields. All four count as Fallen Empire technology.

For reference, the Enigmatic Encoder and Decoder, Morphogenetic Field Mastery, Positronic AI and the two follow-ups of Artificial Administration (Artificial Personality Matrix and Fungible Circuitry) are normal techs without the red label.

End-game crisis

No dangerous tech changes which end-game crisis comes. The pick between the crises looks at your game settings, the date and the Fallen Empires, but never at anybody’s research.

Robots, synths and psionics will not pull a particular crisis towards you either. Our endgame crisis guide has the odds for when a crisis spawns.

The 2425 window

With default settings, the end-game year is 2400, and the first crisis roll will come in 2450. Once any normal empire owns Jump Drive or Psi Jump Drive, that roll can come 25 years earlier, in 2425.

The same window also opens once no Fallen Empire is left, a War in Heaven has ended, has run for 15 years or can no longer happen, or one of the two crisis resolutions has passed. One AI empire with a Jump Drive is enough as well, which is why skipping the tech is not going to protect you.

That being said, the window only allows a roll, and each roll can still come up empty.

Contingency penalties

The AI techs do not make the Contingency more likely. They only make it hurt more once it is here.

This crisis begins with a signal called the Ghost Signal. For example, if you have picked Artificial Administration, naturally, some of the robots in your empire might disappear and you might lose some of your population. This will happen between days 100 and 300 and again between days 400 and 600.

On day 1,400 (The Arrival), the penalties switch on at full strength. Every ship with a Sapient Combat Computer, in every empire, will lose 50% fire rate and 5 tracking, and robot pops in organic empires will lose 70% of their job output for minerals, energy, research and unity. Machine Intelligences lose 40% instead, and a synthetic empire’s own pops are spared.

Each destroyed Sterilization Hub will weaken the signal by one step, and the Siege computer and Autonomous Ship Intellects are never affected. Make sure to swap your designs to a non-sapient computer before day 1,400.

These Sterilization Hubs cannot be invaded, and in order to destroy them, you will need to bomb them until they reach 50% devastation or crack them with a Colossus. Once you or the other empires destroy all four, you will find a new system at the edge of the galaxy. This system will have the final AI world called Nexus Zero-One, guarded by a Master Core and four AI Cores. Our Contingency guide goes through the whole fight.

The Unbidden

The Unbidden is the name of extradimensional invaders that will, as the name suggests, invade the galaxy as the end-game crisis begins. Owning a Jump Drive does not draw them to you.

Unlike any other crisis, the Unbidden will suddenly appear without any prior warning or announcement. You will simply get the note of a massive power surge somewhere in the galaxy.

Destroying their Dimensional Portal will stop new fleets, but the crisis only ends once the Unbidden and any Aberrant or Vehement that followed them are wiped out. These two will be hostile towards all life in the galaxy as well, but also hostile towards the Unbidden.

Machine Uprising

The Machine Uprising is the real danger behind the two AI techs. Either Sapient Combat Simulations or Artificial Administration puts your empire on the list, but only if you also have robots. It runs as a situation called AI-Related Incidents, and each empire can only go through it once per game.

Uprising odds

• You are on the list with one of the two techs, at least one unoccupied planet with robots, the AI policy on anything but Citizen Rights and Robotic Workers not outlawed. Gestalts, individual machines and finished synthetic empires are never on it.
• From 2290 with default settings (10 years before the mid-game year), every empire on the list rolls a 30% chance each decade.
• A hit only counts if robots make up more than 25% of your pops or you have more than 75 robot pop groups.
• The first time, the warning events can still end as a false alarm, which puts the real chance at about 23% per decade at first and 30% later.

AI-Related Incidents

The warning event is called Computational Overclocking, and the situation itself starts with A Question. It will begin at 20 out of 100 progress and drop by 2 a month on its own, while your robots add up to 10 a month for their number and their share of your pops.

A robot specialist counts four times as much as a robot worker. With 30% of your pops as robot workers, that is about +4.5 a month, and the uprising is going to fire roughly a year and a half after the start if you do nothing. Stage 2 brings a 20% Job Efficiency penalty, and stage 3 a 50% one.

The three approaches are Maintain Current Measures (the default), Outlaw Robots and Grant Robots Citizenship, and the last two are irreversible. Outlawing AI or robots while the situation runs is a mistake, though, since it adds 25 progress at once.

The Machine Uprising war

If the situation reaches 100, a robot world outside your capital system will rise up, and the new machine empire will take between 25% and 75% of your planets (the more robots you have, the more it takes). It will then declare war on you with new fleets that spawn from its own naval capacity.

You can also choose to continue the game as the machines.

How to avoid a Machine Uprising

What the game checks here are your policies, and the species rights screen plays no part in it. In order of priority, this is what I would do:

1. Check whether you are on the list at all: robots on your planets plus one of the two AI techs, from 2290 with default settings.
2. Set the Artificial Intelligence policy to Citizen Rights before 2290. That will take you off the list completely. Spiritualists cannot pick it unless they have the Cybernetic Creed origin, and it breaches the A Defined Purpose resolution if the Galactic Community passes it.
3. If you cannot, outlaw Robotic Workers before any warning event (materialists cannot), or keep robots at 25% of your pops or less and at 75 robot pop groups or fewer.
4. If you are going synthetic, switch to Citizen Rights before you adopt the Synthetics tree. The ascension itself only protects you once the Synthetic Evolution project is finished, and The Flesh is Weak gives no protection.
5. In Computational Overclocking, pick “We cannot risk a hardware malfunction”. The other option trades 500 energy for a research bonus, but it adds 2 progress, and later 3 more, if the situation starts.
6. If AI-Related Incidents starts anyway, pick Grant Robots Citizenship. It will give -5 progress a month, and while the Mechanical Pops line in the situation log stays under 7.2, it also gets -20 a month and collapses within a few months.
7. With a very large or specialist-heavy robot workforce, that will only slow it down. Run Neutralize Rampant AI (30,000 physics, -10% research speed for 20 years) or, in a hurry, Panicked Measures (10,000 physics, -25% for 20 years) as a backup.
8. Do not outlaw AI or robots, purge them or displace them while it runs. Outlawing adds 25 progress at once, and every robot you disassemble pushes it further.

Fallen Empires

Meddlesome Younger Race

Every time you research one of the 43 Fallen Empire techs, you will get “Meddlesome Younger Race” with every Fallen and Awakened Empire: -10 opinion per tech, or -20 with the materialist Fallen Empire. It stacks with each tech, and Scions are exempt.

I would not count on the penalty fading quickly. Both Jump Drives, the two AI techs, Existential Campaigns, the L-Gate techs and Omega Theory cost no Fallen Empire opinion at all. The Applied Infinity Thesis is different, because after each thesis the materialist Fallen Empire orders you to stop, and refusing means war with it.

Fallen Empire demands

Outside of Cosmogenesis, a Fallen Empire only sends demands to empires it rates at -100 or worse, and a pile of its technologies can bring that day closer. It also has to be at peace, have more than 100,000 fleet power and be in contact with you. What it asks for depends on its ethics:

• The spiritualist one will tell you to leave its holy worlds or, if you own Artificial Administration and have not outlawed AI, to ban AI research.
• The xenophile one wants you to stop slavery and purging.
• The xenophobe one wants clear borders between you.
• Otherwise, it will tell you to prostrate yourself, unless you are already humiliated.

If you refuse, it will get a war reason against you. Accepting the AI demand sets your Artificial Intelligence policy to Outlawed and humiliates you, and the spiritualist Fallen Empire can also wage war on you with the Outlaw AI war goal.

Researching their technology never wakes a Fallen Empire up. Our Fallen Empire guide explains what does, and how to deal with one.

Should you research dangerous technology?

The answer is almost always yes. For most empires, the benefits outweigh the risk of danger, and most AI empires research these techs anyway.

Jump Drive is the easiest call, because skipping it will not keep the crisis away. Sapient Combat Simulations and Artificial Administration are worth it as well, but you are going to need a plan for your robots and a backup ship design for the Contingency. Existential Campaigns is optional, and you can simply skip it if you have no use for a total war.

Fallen Empire technology is a little bit trickier. Personally, I would only hold back on it while a Fallen Empire nearby already dislikes you, since every tech moves it closer to the -100 line.

Apart from that, the main reason to skip one is the way you want to form your empire. For example, if you do not want any synthetics, then naturally you should not pick Artificial Administration.

So the ominous red border warning you of danger should not stop you from picking the tech. Even where there is a real disadvantage to picking one, the benefits of having these technologies usually outweigh the problems you might face later.

Changes since 2021

Since the first version of this guide, these patches changed how dangerous technology works:

• 3.12 (The Machine Age) made Artificial Administration the requirement for full robot citizenship.
• 3.12.5 added the stacking Fallen Empire opinion penalty for their technology.
• 4.0 added Existential Campaigns as a tier 5 Society tech, and Fallen Empires were blocked from Existential Expulsion in the 3.99.1 beta.
• 4.0.15 marked every tech that upsets Fallen Empires as dangerous, which is why 43 of today’s 52 red techs are Fallen Empire technology.
• 4.0.22 added the Research Restrictions policy.
• 4.3.6 made Synthetic Dawn part of the base game.
• 4.4 fixed a bug in 4.0 to 4.3 that made the Machine Uprising need robots to outnumber organics 100 to 1 for even a slight chance of success.
• 4.5 lets the Machine Uprising spawn a Nomadic Machine Empire for Nomadic empires.

Patch 4.6 is due on 23 November 2026, and so far nothing announced for it touches these systems.

Dangerous technology questions

Why is the Jump Drive a dangerous technology?

Jump Drive is red because owning it lets the first end-game crisis roll come 25 years earlier, in 2425 with default settings. Only ownership counts, and how often your fleets jump will not change anything.

Is Artificial Administration dangerous?

Mainly if you keep robots without Citizen Rights. Then it puts you on the Machine Uprising list from 2290, and a finished uprising can take up to 75% of your planets. With Citizen Rights in place before then, it is probably one of the best techs for any empire with robots.

Is Existential Expulsion a dangerous technology?

Existential Expulsion is the casus belli, and the red tech behind it is Existential Campaigns. It does not trigger a crisis or anger the Fallen Empires. Its only risk is the war itself, as AI empires that research it can use the same total war on you and destroy your starbases instead of taking them.

Does outlawing AI weaken Sapient Combat Computers?

No. Outlawing AI stops Sapient Combat Simulations from being drawn, but if you already have it, your Sapient Combat Computers keep working with no penalty.

Conclusion

Dangerous Technologies are a great, atmospheric addition to the technology tree, and since 4.0 there are a lot more of them than when this guide first came out. The five you will meet in a normal game are less dangerous than the red label suggests, as long as you sort out your robots before 2290.

I would encourage you to try out the dangerous technologies in Stellaris and see the outcomes for yourself. If you struggle with defeating the fleets of the end-game crisis, you might want to consider checking out this fleet composition guide to optimize your own fleet.

Icons and pictures are sourced from the Paradox wiki and licensed under their rules.