Metaphysics

*"When thinking about these New Physics, it may help to think of the universe as a box - as a starting point. The classical physics studied the **inside** of the box, all the forces going on inside of it. Modern physics studied the **edge** of the box as well, all the little parts and reactions that made the box come together. And the New Physics - or metaphysics - studies the **outside** of the box'**."***

-Public program by the Technocratic States, *The New Physics and You*

 **Brief** | Fields of science that severely disrupt space and to a limited amount time

## Locking Aleph, Unlocking Zahir

(Or: early shenanigans with fields of distorted space-time in the remote corners of late-50s Central America.)

## Cast Into The Well of Deep Time

(Or: the collecting and concentration of dark energy by means of exotic fields to induce intense entropic reactions that not only distort, but accelerate the very fabric of local space-time.)

## Stars Along the Belly of Ouroboros

(Or: the creation of white holes, and discovery of the multiverse.)

***"But it was so artistically done..."***
This page (Metaphysics) requires, at the very least, serious rewrites.
There is something off about this page; it fundamentally contradicts established lore, is poorly thought out, has thematic issues, or maybe it just plain sucks. Whatever the reason may be, it needs to be remade from the ground up in order to preserve the quality standards of the wiki.

### Astrogates (or: the first breakthrough, 1965)

*"When God closes a door... maybe he wants you to make a new one'**."***

-Heriberto Mesa, Director of the Astrogate Program
One of the most fantastical, and most potentially dangerous, pieces of technology in the Combine arsenal is that of the Astrogate. In basic terms, the Astrogate uses an unusual property of dark matter to punch a hole through reality, in the same way a hunting knife can punch through a piece of paper (that is, violently, with lasting damage, and a complete lack of subtlety). The Astrogate itself is as hostile looking as would be expected from such a device. Many different metal beams connect together in an otherworldly 'spiderweb' pattern, criss-crossing in a chaotic, nauseating way, that almost seems to change when you are not looking. Near the center, but slightly, disconcertingly off-center, is a strange geometric sculpture. Horrified rumours that said sculpture is a platonic solid with only 18 faces have been discouraged by scientists, but not contradicted. While standing inside this Lovecraftian nest, sounds, sights and transmissions from outside are distorted, even before the device is turned on. When an Astrogate activates, it cannot be missed. Small tremors are recorded in the surrounding area, although the device itself seems not to shake, and the payload for transport is swallowed by the opening portal (dubbed the 'Hellmouth' by more superstitious personnel). Despite the bizarre and terrifying nature of the Astrogate, there is no shortage of volunteers to go through the Astrogate, with people even emigrating to Combine territory for a chance to go through the portal. There seems no pattern for who volunteers, save that all those going through feel that something is 'lost' in the metauniverse, and that it should be found.

There is only one 'true' Astrogate: housed underground in Mexico, the original Astrogate (Astrogate Alpha) is twice the size of a football field, and is capable of transporting a 1 kilometre radius though the multiverse. As well as this, Astrogate Alpha can theoretically transport slightly further than current computing technology can calculate for co-ordinates. Due to the size, complexity, and expense of Astrogate Alpha, however, it is mainly used for scientific investigation, rather than practical application. As a general rule, when something is transported between realities, an Astrogate Beta is used. A scaled-down version, a Beta has less effective range and transportation capacity, but is more easily constructed, with less material and energy requirements. There are roughly ten Astrogate Betas scattered throughout Combine territory. Finally, there are Astrogate Gammas. Instead of entering the universe, an Astrogate Gamma 'bounces' a payload off the target reality, without actually letting it enter the reality itself. These are the Astrogates typically seen on the battlefield, and burn out quickly when used.

Of course, as critics are quick to point out, no-one fully understands what exactly is occurring when an Astrogate is used, or what will happen if it is continuously used. It could be said that humans understand the science between the Astrogate in the same way that a goldfish understands the Calabi-Yau Manifold model. Even the initial builder of the device cannot explain how it is supposed to work, only stating that the design came to him in a 'metal nightmare'. Although classified, there have also been many disturbing cases of bizarre side effects from the use of these devices. People sent through have come back 'different', with slight changes to appearance, personality or memory, or a general sense of being slightly 'off' in some indefinable way. 'Things' have come through, and the only reason that 'nothing living has ever come back through' is simply because nothing that comes back through counts as 'living' in the way we understand it. And some of the sights seen in other worlds have been so horrifying, disturbing, or indecipherable, as to invite madness. Previously acceptible destinations have suddenly disappeared overnight, for no readily apparent reason, and some Astrogate Gamma payloads have unexpectedly 'bounced' off something else en-route, with disastrous consequences. While speaking out publicly is heavily taboo in Combine society (as it would be 'disturbing the peace and civil unity'), whispers have reached certain members of the populace, creating a disquiet that cannot be expressed.

The Combine, for their part, are all too happy to keep using the Astrogate, gathering data, and exploring the metauniverse for potential technology, allies, and knowledge. The stars are right, and there is nothing man was not meant to know.

### Splinar Reticulation

First discovered by a mid-ranking Geospatial Council associated with the Astrogate program in 1968, splinar reticulation came about as a result of experimentation done with the coordination computers used to normally track and coordinate spatial coordinates for metaphysical purposes. Instead of aligning the two coordinates input in the computer and stabilizing the space between them like with normal transpatial teleportation, or deliberately meshing the two coordinates together to destabilize their coherency as with the *Tau* Array device, the council instead decided to study the effects of selecting only a single set of coordinates before sending an electrical signal through to modify the area. The results, when first performed on inanimate objects, came back with surprising results: once the force was sent through to the coordinates it actually affected the spatial geometry of the objects within the area, temporarily breaking down the geometric splines that gave the objects edges and shape in a process referred to in future as 'reticulation'. Anything within the coordinated area became blurry and indistinguishable except as a blur of colour and rough form that melded with each other; chairs, desks, and ground merged with each other as nothing had any solid boundary to prevent it from intersecting with another object; when a researcher put her hand into a reticulated coffee mug, the experience was said to be akin to “the feeling of suddenly being encased inside an object, without the feeling or registering of having come into contact with the object at any point in time”. Once the force was stopped, however, the objects returned to solidarity – though since they had intersected each other in the process, they became permanently melded with each other or the floor.

At first, the discovery of splinar reticulation was met with positive results from the council and others associated with the Astrogate program: if they could fine-tune the process, the Astrogate scientists could potentially introduce reticulation as a nonlethal capture or containment procedure, preventing hostiles from being able to run or flee due to lack of solid surface area or melding materials together into more easily movable or exploitable forms. However, such enthusiasm was dampened less than a month later, when the first live test on a biological organism was conducted. Borrowing an acquired Giant Flea from Project Bone Sword's laboratories, the Geospatial Council placed it into the test chamber, started up the computer, captured the coordinates...and then activated the reticulation program, eagerly awaiting the results of what would hopefully be a very confused and very intangible flea. Unfortunately, such a result was not to be. Instead, as the scientists watched on in growing shock and nausea, the struggling flea had it's splinar smoothness shattered...and, now attempting to move in response, had its exoskeleton and innards fuse with each other as its neurons instantly lost all connections with each other and its vital fluids began to dissipitate without any structure to contain them. Even as the researchers rushed to stop the process, the Giant Flea was killed in milliseconds, without even time to recognize pain before it fell to earth in a cloud of dark mist as a fused together husk.

Though the scientific councils had long accepted the pain and possible death of other creatures as being ultimately necessary for the advancement of human knowledge with minimal loss of knowledge, the methods by which the eugenically modified insect had met its demise came as an unpleasant shock to those interested in the possible uses of splinar reticulation. Once further testing on non-modified lab rats and a restrained chimpanzee revealed the same results – brain death at best, dissipation of body fluids and bodily fusing at worst – further talk of using splinar reticulation or experimenting with it further was quietly dropped. The geospatial council that had discovered it disavowed knowledge and moved on to another project, the records were sent in to CBURA's archives and instructed to be put with the rest of the “Eclipse Files”, and that was the end of splinar reticulation.

Except that it wasn't. Though no more experiments into splinar reticulation on the civilian level are foreseen due to lack of nonlethal application, the higher ups in the Martial Discipline are very interested in the possibilities of splinar reticulation as a weapon of warfare. With the ability to almost instantly kill any living being or fuse together material at such a level as to make it absolutely useless, the possibilities for weaponizing the process have been heavily discussed in the upper echelons of the Humanitarian Guard. It would be impossible to miniaturize anytime soon for the time being, even on most vehicles. Perhaps on special platforms already designed to handle high-energy devices..?

### Dark Energy

The Combine are well known for their approach to supporting science, or rather, their tendency to support scientific projects universally. While an outsider may believe that they do not discriminate based on the content, this is not true; the Combine do provide more funding and support to projects into areas deemed 'beneficent' by the Combine. That said, any project, no matter how small, complicated, or bizarre can apply for support from the Combine. This does, obviously, produce many interesting but useless advances, such as slightly increasing budgerigar intelligence, or discovering new dyes that are twice as expensive as the old ones. Yet, the Combine sees quality in all discoveries, not least because every so often, a major breakthrough will appear in the most unexpected of places. And if anyone raises concerns about the Combine's methods of funding, the first example given to them is that of dark energy.

'Dark energy' or 'dark matter' is the substance theorised to make up the majority of the universe's mass, and being responsible for causing the expansion of the universe. It is thus no wonder that discovering dark energy was considered the holy grail for experimental physicists, cosmologists, particle physicists, and a huge variety of other scientific disciplines. Fortunes were spent exploring ways of trapping, observing, or recreating this mystery substance, and little was found. Space probes were sent up, protons were crashed, numbers were crunched. Nothing was found. Dark matter remained a mystery.

When the Combine announced their goals, disgruntled scientists flocked in the dozens to Combine-controlled areas, believing that of they had only a little more money, a little more facilities, a little more support, dark energy could be found. Ever more advanced measurements were made, ever more complex facilities devised, and ever more computational power was spent, and yet no anomaly was seen. For every advance made, dark energy always seemed two steps out of reach.

This is not to say that such money was wasted, however. Dozens of new pieces of technology were created, and put to a variety of purposes. New energy sources designed to run particle colliders began to power city blocks as the Empire of Japan invaded California. An exotic new particle (dubbed 'pseudonocturnal matter') was found to move in wavelengths that would improve communications technology 60% in 1968. And the alloys lining test chambers, to prevent outside interference in results, began to see use as a low cost, high strength building material, all but superseding concrete. Of course, while the citizenry of the Combine were pleased, the Combine scientists were not. They wanted dark matter, and they wanted it now!

Strangely enough, dark energy was not discovered by these groups but by an insane, solitary inventor early in 1969. Having moved to the Technocratic State of Costa Rica in the hopes of inventing a 'perfect fridge', he had gone to ever more extreme lengths to achieve his dreams. Spending every credito he had, he was soon forced to buy old equipment to continue; most of it from failed dark energy experiments. An outside made of testing chamber insulation, an system incorporating abandoned particle accelerator equipment, powered by obsolete power generators from tests. The device soon grew as big as a room! When it was finally turned on, the expected happened; nothing. Until the door was closed; the device began to shake, and the building around it began to break apart, as if subjected to aeons of disrepair. When the machine was turned off, the effect stopped.

Going to other councils with his results, a research team was devised to investigate its unusual properties, and found something amazing. When the door was closed, the cooling mechanism in the fridge was activated. The massive power supply allowed it to reach temperatures near -200 C incredibly rapidly. The mechanical parts used, however, were not completely deactivated from their original role; a field of pseudonocturnal matter permeated the space. The cold temperature caused the exotic matter to exhibit unusual matter states, which, the researchers were shocked to find, seemed to 'draw in' dark energy. But the dark energy could not pass the testing chamber plating; instead, it collapsed into a dense 'pocket' around the device, stretching the passage of both time and space in the area. Anything inside would be trapped for hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years in mere hours, and due to space continually expanding, had no chance of ever escaping the event horizon. Once the cause was shut off, the dark energy would disperse, returning the area to the usual timestream, and cancelling the localised effect on space. This was the dark energy the scientists had been so desperate to find.

Dark energy has become a heavily guarded secret by the Combine, whose public records and documentation on its workings are locked for at least 50 years. Their plans to use it in practice, however, are less secret: old toxins and pollutants recycled into fertile soil by dark matter generators in a matter of days, petroleum mass produced by putting organic material under pressure inside one of these devices and waiting a month, and potentially even accelerating their eugenic programs ten-, a hundred-, a thousand-fold! Of course, they could not possibly use it on the battlefield. Rumors of the Martial Discipline creating a device that could replicate the effect at a distance are fervently disputed and disproved, for how could such a thing be done if the effects are only possible in **enclosed** conditions? If anyone was to find a way to do such a thing, untold devastation would certainly ensue.