Absolutely brilliantly done. the poetic dialogue between the entities was a joy to read. i dont really understand all the physics stuff but im guessing its all correct as per current science if I know your writing at all... and until the dark matter delves again... if only it would... who would I like to be unwoven... hmmm
Thank you Nick! To be honest the physics stuff is HIGHLY speculative, since no-one knows what dark matter actually is -- all we really know is that the universe appears to have more mass than the visible matter we know about can explain.
Supersymmetry (SUSY) is one of the main "beyond the Standard Model" theories of particle physics, and could potentially include dark matter. WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) are a class of potential dark matter candidates, which could be part of SUSY or could be something completely different, or maybe they don't exist at all and dark matter is something else. Basically, we haven't the foggiest idea, given there's not yet any experimental evidence for any of them. But there are various particle physics experiments around the world trying to detect dark matter or at least narrow down the scope of what it might be. These include DAMPE, the Dark Matter Particle Explorer, which is a Chinese-led satellite experiment. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, as well as other non-dedicated accelerator experiments, also includes dark matter searches in its vast physics programme.
So basically, I was imagining, what if there IS supersymmetric dark matter, and what if because it interacts so little with ordinary matter there are actually complex entities made of dark matter, basically invisible to us until the "Ford technique" gives a way to detect them. And what if they were unconstrained by ordinary time, so they could see our past in an "eternal present", and could try to clean things up? In other words, take the physics with a pinch of salt, but I was trying to keep it logical, if extremely speculative!
Hmm, maybe I should write a follow-up Science IRL post about Dark Matter??
this is awesome! thanks for taking the time... I used to subscribe to new scientist but it was getting thinner and thinner and more and more adverts and speculative science and so my knowledge is not kept up to speed as much as it was. i really admire how your fiction is woven with fact. clever in both senses. so much to read here that im falling behind with writing...
Loved this story. Good fiction is hard to find around here and you did a superb job with this one. The writing was tight, it caught me and kept me there. I appreciated how it grew as it travelled through time and back and how the different instances coalesced to create that necessary emotional "oh" in the reader that is so satifying. Time well spent. Thank you.
I agree with Michael's comments on the graphic layout. I also thought the opening section, with its excellent descriptions of smells and place where extremely professional. I'm one of those sci-fi readers who often has to read twice to grasp what's going on, but that was not the case with your story. Thank you, SDG.
This is fantastic. Others have commented on this, but I LOVE the poetic dialogue between SUSY and DEMI. And I was so relieved by the ending, that Hedwig got to have her original life and didn't end up forced to milk cows and die of consumption, which just shows how invested I got in such a short space of time!
Beautifully written with great evocative details. Interesting premise with rerunning a dataset. Once you jumped around in time I got a bit lost. At the end I was grounded in the story as you bookended it, though sadly I feel I missed the meaning. Something about dark matter and communicating over time? My physics knowledge of dark matter is zippo so perhaps that’s what I’m missing? Thanks for sharing your writing.
To be honest the physics content is highly speculative, so no real knowledge of dark matter needed. The idea was that dark matter (about which we know basically nothing, other than that the universe appears to have far more mass than the visible matter we see can account for) is acting the way that glia do in the nervous system, detecting and eliminating foreign bodies (e.g. bacteria) in the brain. (I highly recommend L.L. Ford's original post about that, linked at the top of the story, for an overview of what glia are and what they do.) I was taking that concept in an extremely speculative direction, imagining "glia" instantiated in dark matter, invisible to us, but roaming the universe and tackling "foreign bodies". In this case, evil of various sorts. So the DEMI entity attempts to remove evil from human society by eliminating various events from history, but keeps failing, until they give up and restore it to how it was before.
This was so so so soooooo cool! It jumped the line in my long list of Substack TBRs - I just had to know what you came up with.
Absolutely loved it, and am honored to have a sort of cameo in it! Conceptually this is so fascinating to think about. I love what you did with the concept and you made it your own in such a unique way.
Genuinely, the way DEMI and SUSY communicate(?) is so hypnotic. I loved the flow of it and the way humans were sort of these malleable figures in history that they were sort of observing.
Thank you! 😊 I really enjoyed writing this, though it took a long time from the initial idea to figuring out a way to capture it as a story! And absolutely had to give you a cameo 😉
First. I remember the wonderful article by L.L. Ford on glia, it was great.
Second. The graphic layout of your story is fantastic, I loved it and it makes the reading more intense.
Third. The historical jump from one period to another, the way you made DEMI, SUSY and history interact.
Fourth. The ending, absolutely perfect.
What can I say? I had a blast!
Thank you Michael, glad you enjoyed it! ☺️
I'd like to read more!
Absolutely brilliantly done. the poetic dialogue between the entities was a joy to read. i dont really understand all the physics stuff but im guessing its all correct as per current science if I know your writing at all... and until the dark matter delves again... if only it would... who would I like to be unwoven... hmmm
Thank you Nick! To be honest the physics stuff is HIGHLY speculative, since no-one knows what dark matter actually is -- all we really know is that the universe appears to have more mass than the visible matter we know about can explain.
Supersymmetry (SUSY) is one of the main "beyond the Standard Model" theories of particle physics, and could potentially include dark matter. WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) are a class of potential dark matter candidates, which could be part of SUSY or could be something completely different, or maybe they don't exist at all and dark matter is something else. Basically, we haven't the foggiest idea, given there's not yet any experimental evidence for any of them. But there are various particle physics experiments around the world trying to detect dark matter or at least narrow down the scope of what it might be. These include DAMPE, the Dark Matter Particle Explorer, which is a Chinese-led satellite experiment. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, as well as other non-dedicated accelerator experiments, also includes dark matter searches in its vast physics programme.
So basically, I was imagining, what if there IS supersymmetric dark matter, and what if because it interacts so little with ordinary matter there are actually complex entities made of dark matter, basically invisible to us until the "Ford technique" gives a way to detect them. And what if they were unconstrained by ordinary time, so they could see our past in an "eternal present", and could try to clean things up? In other words, take the physics with a pinch of salt, but I was trying to keep it logical, if extremely speculative!
Hmm, maybe I should write a follow-up Science IRL post about Dark Matter??
this is awesome! thanks for taking the time... I used to subscribe to new scientist but it was getting thinner and thinner and more and more adverts and speculative science and so my knowledge is not kept up to speed as much as it was. i really admire how your fiction is woven with fact. clever in both senses. so much to read here that im falling behind with writing...
Loved this story. Good fiction is hard to find around here and you did a superb job with this one. The writing was tight, it caught me and kept me there. I appreciated how it grew as it travelled through time and back and how the different instances coalesced to create that necessary emotional "oh" in the reader that is so satifying. Time well spent. Thank you.
Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it!
What an amazing story. The more the one under the throne tried to fix the future, the more the past messed up.
Thank you Joseph! 😊
This is amazing! The back and forth and progressive, destructive rebuilding is all so well done, and the writing is so poetic!
Thank you! 😊
I agree with Michael's comments on the graphic layout. I also thought the opening section, with its excellent descriptions of smells and place where extremely professional. I'm one of those sci-fi readers who often has to read twice to grasp what's going on, but that was not the case with your story. Thank you, SDG.
Thank you Sandy! So glad you enjoyed it!
Wow, a Sci fi fairy tale in the best sense of the word! Excellent! I loved it! Thank you!🩶
Thank you Kathrine! I'm really glad you enjoyed it!!
This is fantastic. Others have commented on this, but I LOVE the poetic dialogue between SUSY and DEMI. And I was so relieved by the ending, that Hedwig got to have her original life and didn't end up forced to milk cows and die of consumption, which just shows how invested I got in such a short space of time!
Thanks PJ! Really glad you enjoyed it!
Wow. Fantastic story. The details and formatting too. Sheesh. Great stuff.
Thank you Jon! High praise coming from such a master of the craft as yourself!!
Ah no no. Still learning. Thanks for writing. I like your style here.
Beautifully written with great evocative details. Interesting premise with rerunning a dataset. Once you jumped around in time I got a bit lost. At the end I was grounded in the story as you bookended it, though sadly I feel I missed the meaning. Something about dark matter and communicating over time? My physics knowledge of dark matter is zippo so perhaps that’s what I’m missing? Thanks for sharing your writing.
Thank you Bruce!
To be honest the physics content is highly speculative, so no real knowledge of dark matter needed. The idea was that dark matter (about which we know basically nothing, other than that the universe appears to have far more mass than the visible matter we see can account for) is acting the way that glia do in the nervous system, detecting and eliminating foreign bodies (e.g. bacteria) in the brain. (I highly recommend L.L. Ford's original post about that, linked at the top of the story, for an overview of what glia are and what they do.) I was taking that concept in an extremely speculative direction, imagining "glia" instantiated in dark matter, invisible to us, but roaming the universe and tackling "foreign bodies". In this case, evil of various sorts. So the DEMI entity attempts to remove evil from human society by eliminating various events from history, but keeps failing, until they give up and restore it to how it was before.
Thanks for your comment, I appreciate it!
Thanks for the explanation!
This was so so so soooooo cool! It jumped the line in my long list of Substack TBRs - I just had to know what you came up with.
Absolutely loved it, and am honored to have a sort of cameo in it! Conceptually this is so fascinating to think about. I love what you did with the concept and you made it your own in such a unique way.
Genuinely, the way DEMI and SUSY communicate(?) is so hypnotic. I loved the flow of it and the way humans were sort of these malleable figures in history that they were sort of observing.
What more can I say? So cool.
Thank you! 😊 I really enjoyed writing this, though it took a long time from the initial idea to figuring out a way to capture it as a story! And absolutely had to give you a cameo 😉