A working group of Potentials that has existed in one form or another since only a few years after the Second Awakening, Project Insight arose from humanity's need to examine the universe beyond their single star without drawing the ire of the Shiplords. With travel beyond Sol denied by the Directives, the only way to spy upon humanity's enemies lay in Practice. Although the exact mechanics of the process is unclear to anyone but the working group itself, the results that Project Insight finally succeeded in producing are responsible for nothing less than humanity's survival. Without them, there would have been no warning of the Tribute Fleet's return. Without that, the human race would would have been greatly reduced or even exterminated by the Second Battle of Sol.
Development
Project Insight was not the first project to attempt to reach beyond the limitations of the Directives through Practice, but it was the last. With its continued success, the risks involved in attempting to form a second working group were judged to be too high by those with the power to prevent such attempts. Given the toll in lives and broken minds that led to the Project's success, this is understandable. Project Insight's predecessors began in the attempts of young Insight Focused to reach beyond the limits of the world around them, eventually forming what would become known as the first Thoughtcasts. These processes were documented by EarthGov, and eventually rolled into a broader program that sought a way to produce them reliably. Unfortunately, the topics picked at first proved destructive.
For all their ability, Insight Focused have a poor track record where research into the Secrets themselves. This manifested most painfully in the first attempts to deliberately produce Thoughtcasts directed at the Secrets, leaving those Potentials attempting it dead or catatonic. The latter consequence proved temporary only through the skills of Restorer Focused Potentials, and it set a grim precedent in the minds of all on the project. It took more than a a decade, and even more failures, until a Potential with the Focus of curiosity finally succeeded in reliably forming a Thoughtcast. From Phoebe's success came knowledge of the world beyond humanity's star, and with it, the long process of preparation began.
Uses
Project Insight is, perhaps, the keenest blade in humanity's armaments, granting the species access to invaluable tactical and strategic knowledge so long as the information does not directly concern a Secret. It allowed humanity to examine its enemy in the time after the Week of Sorrows, to learn of their strengths as what they truly were, and to begin the process of formulating counters. It was not until ten years before the Second Battle of Sol, however, that the group proved itself to be utterly key to survival. In that year, Project Insight discovered the pattern of visits executed by the Shiplords upon those they called Tributaries, and that humanity's next would come in a decade's time. Much has been given to the later productions of Phoebe and her working group, but without this knowledge, the victories that have followed would have been utterly impossible.
Project Insight supplied the information required to undertake complex analysis of the Contact Fleet's races and was itself the vector through which that Fleet was confirmed to be en route to Sol. It allowed humanity to greet its new allies far more effectively than they ever could have without it, although this knowledge was not without its downsides. Explaining how humanity had come to know so much proved quite the challenge, but that process was necessary for the far greater knowledge that Insight had snatched from the depths of reality: that, despite all their age and advantages, the Shiplords were not invincible. And that the war that humanity had committed itself to, which the Group of Six had refused to acknowledge out of fear, was winnable.