The Hidden Dossier: Difference between revisions

:By poking random spots, I've got the idea that the crystal is composed of different isomer territories which compete along their boundaries to recruit each other. The isomer domains also generate mutants ''within'' themselves, which spread and take over if they have superior recruiting properties; I've even seen encysted "laboratories" where mutants compete before the winners breach the barrier and spill into the surrounding lattice. Our three queens in action again? I promise not to dive into Bieberbach's theorem and abelian subgroups, but there's some fascinating math going on here.

:Now if you're up on your theory (which I am), you know that crystal structures are closely tied to symmetry groups, which by Noether's theorem, are mathematically equivalent to conservation laws: they're descriptions of the ways you can transform a physical system without breaking the rules of that system. All those old kooks were right: crystals are the basis of reality! Sort of. It was spontaneous (read: quantum) breaking of symmetries that created our universe—random perturbations that caused uniform fields to depart their symmetrical but unstable initial state and settle into one of many possible configurations permitted by the laws of physics. Like a ball rolling down the symmetrical peak of a fashionable sombrero and settling somewhere on the brim.

:So that's high-level cosmology. But at the lowest levels of condensed matter physics, the crystals we're looking at here are a product of the same spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism. Matter cooling down abruptly, generating structure.

:What I'm getting at is that the "Stasis ice" is produced by the same mechanisms that created the entire universe from nothing. Cold order from hot chaos. Wild, huh? Makes you wonder if we could use the Light to heat everything back up to the primordial fire. Let it all cool down into a different shape. Maybe even a better one.

:P.S. Something unnerving just occurred to me. The Stasis crystals probably contain domains of superconductive electron flow. And space-time crystals are one way to implement a quantum computer. Those are both very rich media for computation. If there's evolution occurring within the crystals, as domains compete for advantage... that might favor domains with useful internal simulation of the world around them. Almost Vexy.