Standard Model

The Standard Model is an all-encompassing framework of theories describing the nature of the Local Cluster, its laws and fundamental forces, and all known forms of matter that exist within it. It is built upon a collection of earlier standard models each created to describe the universes their makers inhabited, combining their collective knowledge to form a new framework consistent across the Local Cluster. Though it is internally consistent and accurately describes many of the known physical interactions present in the Local Cluster, it remains far from a unified theory that can describe everything making up the Local Cluster.

Flatland
See Flatland.

Interstitial Void
The universes are separated by a poorly understood space scientifically known as the Interstitial Void but colloquially known as “the Ether Sea”.

The Void is believed to operate on more physical dimensions than the four that the various universes and their inhabitants are accustomed to. The precise number of additional dimensions is unknown. The Standard Model postulates that the Void, on top of its additional spatial dimension(s), operates on a set of laws entirely alien to those of the various universes of the Local Cluster. In Flatland terms, this would be the space outside the impermeable sphere that Flatland is contained within.

Determining the legitimacy of these postulations on the nature of the Void is nearly impossible, however, due to the nature of itself and of the “material” occupying it.

Luminiferous Ether
The Luminiferous Ether, a “particle” in the loosest sense of the word, is believed to uniformly occupy the Interstitial Void between realities and evenly fill it, not unlike water occupying the space between islands on a sea. This analogy is partially responsible for the colloquial name of “the Sea,” even though the volume described is far more alien than any ocean of liquid known to any nation in the Local Cluster. The exact nature of the Ether is a contentious matter, for it is as poorly understood as the Void it occupies. What little knowledge on its interaction with the assorted particles of reality is mostly derived from many failed attempts to observe some amount of the Ether in a “real” environment.

When introduced into a controlled setting within a known universe, usually through a controlled puncture of the veil of reality to create a temporary opening into the Void, the body of Ether that is introduced into reality immediately begins to break apart into smaller bodies. The “particles” of the Ether, entirely opaque to all electromagnetic observation in a manner akin to that of a black body, appear to be repelled away from any and all baryonic matter. Yet, at the same time, the Ether appears to exert a pulling force upon nearby baryonic matter. Both the repulsion and the attraction are positively correlated with the amount of the Ether and of baryonic matter but negatively correlated with the distance between the two masses. This reaction most resembles a reverse of the hypothetical reaction between positively and negatively massed matter; the Ether attracts baryonic matter to itself and simultaneously repulses itself from baryonic matter.

Some hypotheses claim a relation between the Ether and baryons similar to that between positive and negative mass matter, but these hypotheses have yet to be conclusively proven. It is believed that, if exposed to each other at larger quantities, the resulting physical interaction between Ether and baryons will cause a positively reinforced runaway motion with both accelerating indefinitely towards lightspeed.

Extended observation of the Ether or the theorized runaway motion has proven to be impossible, however, due to the final property of the Ether in reality: in defiance of multiple known laws of physics, the Ether will rapidly disappear from whatever container they are located within. The current understanding of this phenomenon as acknowledged by the Standard Model is that, as particles fundamentally suited for existing in the higher-dimensional Interstitial Void, the Ether slips through the universe it is contained in through these higher dimensions and back into the Void.

As of the writing of this entry, there is no empirically proven way to contain the Ether in a real setting for extended periods of time. Some theorize that a modified Jump Drive may be able to act in reverse and maintain a bubble of reality containing a body of Ether, however this has yet to be demonstrated through experimentation.