Red Matter

## Overview

Red-matter is an arcane material used extensively by the Dominion. It's extraordinary durability and near-perfect alchemic conductance make it one of the most widely used.

## Origin

Impure red-matter was first synthesized in minute quantities by Kthulhutu, during the latter years of the Golden Age of Alchemy. Upon his introduction to the Pre-Dominion, Kthulhutu was quick to share his notes on red-matter. After formalizing a process for dark-matter, the proto-Dominion set to work building upon the budding field of arcanotech. Unfortunately, the pursuit of the so called "perfect" alchemic material was fraught with troubles and took many years to complete. This is in part to the incredibly convoluted nature of its construction, nothing more than notes and scraps to work on and the extremely high physical requirements to actually synthesize the stuff.

## Physical Properties

It was discovered that alchemic energy had the curious trait of being composable, essentially when manipulated at the quantum level, discrete units of alchemic energy can be tunneled into each other, seemingly breaking euclidean geometry and forming what has been called a 'hyper-state'.

Once alchemic energy enters a sufficiently high hyper-state it 'condenses' into an unmeasurably dense form of pseudo-matter that acts like a solid. Despite the discrete units eluding scanners, more 'traditional' density tests show an impossibly low density of 5603328000 kilograms per meter cubed.

Red-matter is also as close as it gets to a perfect conductor, being able to conduct alchemic energy at 99.91% efficiency.

Despite the complexity of its formation and its metaphysical nature, red-matter is ludicrously durable. When a meter cubed block of red-matter was first subject to standard durability tests, it passed almost flawlessly, having survived torture tests that would tear through or vaporize Dark matter with nothing more than a little ablation.

## Warding

Not to be confused with "wards" which is a technique of producing energy shielding via projection of alchemic energy.

Owing to its high alchemic conductivity, it is possible to 'ward' red-matter. In this process raw alchemic energy is channeled into the red-matter's hyper-structure, much like how one would charge a klein star. Instead of acting as a battery, the stored energy is trapped inside the structure and further strengthens it in addition to giving it the uncanny ability to self-repair via 'elastic' transmutation without the aid of nanomachines. Approximately an additional 1x10^50 joule equivelant of energy can be added per meter cubed of red-matter. Any more and it can violently rupture and explode like a klein star. Red-matter at this expensive final stage of warding is the most durable material known to the Dominion and a relevant armour system against heavy spaceship armarments. It slowly bleeds off the stored energy as NIR, IR and radio-waves making it glow a dull red, hence the name.

## Usage

Due to the immense durability at play, red-matter is an obvious component of Dominion Armour Systems. As a consequence of its excessive mass and cost of transmutation, red-matter is commonly used as a thin layer or plating atop a lighter material like Dark matter. Red-matter is also a key component of any industry-grade transmutation apparatus due to its superconductive properties.