So beyond it being an active action and the doer receiving a minus 30 to his or her dodge, I have no idea how this ability works.

So as an active action, I'd probably need to reserve my action (IE if Bob gets attacked, I'll push him aside). Right? And say, I reserved my action last round and a new round starts and I have initiative less than the current round attacker, does the reserved action from last round still cover this round (since my turn has yet to come up?) Assume I used all my actions last round.

Next, it says that if the pusher fails his defense roll then both take the same damage. I assume by this the writers meant the pusher and pushie suffer from the same attack. So if the attacker overcame the pusher's defense by 100 and assuming the attacker's weapon does 100 damage, that would mean a pusher with 0 AT would suffer 100 damage and a pushie with 7 AT would suffer 30 damage.

But the book says, "If the Push Aside maneuver fails, the character who attempted it takes the same amount of damage as well as the person he tried to push out of harms way."

So does this mean that the pusher would only receive 30 damage, the same as the pushie?

And what about blocking? Is there a blocking based counterpart as well? I read in another thread something about it being similar to psychic shields and what not. The whole -40 penalty.

The wording is a little bit confusing here. Considering how combat works and using common sense, I would rule, that the person who failed pushing another one aside, threw himself aslo into the attack and suffers the same consequences as if he was attacked and failed his dodge roll. So, also compare the defense roll of the pusher with the attack roll and apply armor accordingly to compute final damage.

The -40 penalty mentioned is only for covering others with magical shields. Afaik there is no rule for blocking an attack on another person with mundane weapons or shields. But since it makes sense to be able to do so and since no one forbids you to make things up, I would, that it is possible trying to protect someone else with his own weapon or shield.

Their are two flavors, in my opinion:

(1) You step into the attack and try to parry this. You must have initative and have to make a move action (or perhaps even roll acrobatics) to get into the way of the attack. The target of the attack switches to the person stepping in, who suffers a -10 penalty to his block ability. If the block attempt fails, only the person who stepped in gets damage (as normal), not the original target. I would only allow this, if the combatants a really close. If the person interfering has to move a longer distance, I would raise the penalty up to -25.

(2) You remain where you are but try to get your weapon or your shield between the attack and the target. You have to be really close to the original target and suffer a penalty of -20 for a weapon or -10 if you are using a shield to your block ability. If you fail to block the attack, the original target is still hit.

Each option uses an active action.

Please know that these options are not official but made up by myself and that one could also discuss the value of the penalty (since blocking with magic or psi is at -40). I would appreciate more comments regarding this topic.