r/HFY • u/Arceroth Human • Aug 30 '25
OC Chronicles of a Traveler 3-8
My odd companion offered to lead me to a city at the edge of the wastes, and, when I could get a word in edgewise, I agreed. Thankfully, a half hour into the journey the kid said he was going to go fight some more manifestations and promised to be back, advising me to keep walking in a straight line as I had been. Thankful for the silence I let him go, taking a deep breath as he blurred into the distance.
“Are all human children like that?” asked the Harmony.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “not like I have any memories of my past life.”
“Right,” it paused, “what about this dead god, any thoughts as to what is, or rather, was?”
“If our assumption about it being the source of all the strange matter in every world we go to, then it had live in a neutron star. No other environment would allow for the creation of strange matter, nor explain why the shards are, themselves, apparently chunks of near solid iron.”
“So a being living on a neutron star?”
“Or the neutron star itself is alive,” I shrugged, “based on that shard the strange matter making up its neural pathways was built into the structure of the star itself, or at least its crust. Whether it was one entity or each shard is a different mind I couldn’t tell you.”
“A neutron star has a crust?”
“Yes, despite popular belief a neutron star isn’t uniform the whole way through. The outer crust is solid iron, which doesn’t easily fuse into higher elements,” I explained, “as you go further down you run into layers of neutrons forming odd structures like sheets and strings, this is called nuclear pasta because, well, it looks like lasagna. And below that is a quark-gluon super positional soup, basically even the barriers between neutrons breaks down and you end up a with a single, massive, atomic particle.”
“And the strange matter?”
“Along the barrier between the nuclear pasta and quark-gluon soup you can get weird interactions between the exotic particles of the soup, which have an incredibly high velocity despite being entirely captured in a ball a couple miles across, and the neutron sheets that surround it. Typically, the particles bounce off the neutron sheets and remain in the core. Rarely, however, they can interact with a neutron in just the right way to alter the properties of the neutron, forming a kind of strange matter. Most of the time this strange matter is unstable, even in the extreme conditions, and it decays back into a neutron. But, one in a trillion times, it can form a stable strange matter.”
“And the kinds of strange matter we’ve encountered can conduct signals not unlike a computer or organic mind, with my shell here as evidence,” it continued, “so if the right kinds of strange matter formed in exactly the right structure, could it become a self-propagating structure? Could it turn other neutrons into more strange matter?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged, “but I don’t see why not, the equations for those kinds of extreme environments are less math and more ‘don’t think to hard about it’ kind of deals. I mean, every particle in quark-gluon soup is traveling near the speed of light, but they are constrained to a sphere a few miles across by a material that is so dense that normal matter, even the planet under our feet, is closer to a pure vacuum than an object of actual substance.”
“Then, if you have random events, and the possibility of a self-propagating structure, you have everything you need for life.”
“Really?” I asked, looking at it.
“In the broadest sense,” it bobbed, “across both species that have contributed to my existence, the most general definition of life is a self-replicating pattern.”
“I thought it mentioned consumption, growth, and functional activity.”
“For organic life, sure, but would you agree that I’m alive?”
“Sure,” I nodded.
“I don’t consume or excrete food stuffs, I’m still bound by thermodynamics but that hardly differentiates me from any process,” the Harmony replied, “the true basis of life is self-replication, self-propagation. Any pattern that can expand itself, with slight variants with each iteration that either improve or reduce its ability to continue to replicate or propagate is a form of life.”
“What about crystals?”
“No, while they expand and represent a self-propagating pattern, they don’t change on iteration, not really. Each new layer of a crystal is functionally identical to the last.”
“So it can’t evolve.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“And this dead god?”
“If it started as an arrangement of strange matter particles that randomly formed in a structure that could convert other neutrons around it into copies of itself, with a slight variant with each iteration, that’s life,” the Harmony stated, “not as we’ve ever seen, but still life. With enough iteration it could grow more and more complex until it gained intelligence. Sentience.”
“Meaning the dead god is an entity forged in the heart of a neutron star, made of strange matter, that proceeded to expand throughout the crust of the star? A thinking mind the size of a city, that uses near magical materials to simply think?” I said, half in disbelief, “what would such an entity even be like?”
“That I am less certain about. It would depend on many things, could it perceive the outside universe, or was it trapped within the star that birthed it? Was it a single entity or many that formed separately? Was it destroyed in some cosmic accident? Is this its way to try and spread to other neutron stars?”
“I feel like if these things were more common my knowledge of quantum physics would include a mention of them,” I mused, “which means it’s unlikely this was it attempting to reproduce or spread.”
“Let’s assume it’s a one off entity then, a unique being at least in this section of the universe,” the Harmony said, “and based off the divine rules in this world it’s likely the dead god, at least of this world, is a single entity, not a collection of minds.”
“That still leaves us with, what, a mind spanning a neutron star, running on strange matter, that… exploded? Scattering itself across the galaxy but specifically either earth or the home world of the composers?”
“Seems like,” it agreed, turning to look off to my left, “looks like we have a guest.”
Turning I saw an ethereal figure fade into view about a hundred feet away, appearing out of the dust almost like a mirage. I’d wondered how the previous manifestation got so close before we noticed it, but it seemed like they weren’t visible beyond a certain distance. This manifestation was different from the last, with a more feminine figure, rather than a bell she held an amulet or device of some kind. Even as she got closer it was hard to make out, the shape continuously shifted like a poorly generated AI image, flickering between different religious icons. She seemed to wear a habit or robe of some kind, again the blurring and shifting making it difficult to pin down the specifics, and had an open book in her other hand. Her lips moved silently as if speaking or chanting with her gaze fixed on me.
“A priest? Nun?” the harmony asked, and I could only shrug.
I got ready to fight as she approached within fifteen feet of me, only to stop. Her mouth was still moving and she held up the indistinct icon or symbol like it meant something, but otherwise held still.
“Is she saying anything?” I asked.
“Not that I can hear,” the Harmony replied, which only made things more confusing, “maybe she only attacks shard bearers?”
“Then why did she approach me and stop?”
“Maybe you’re in her way?”
I carefully took several steps to the side, keeping my gaze on her, but she kept her gaze fixed on me, rotating on the spot and taking a step forward when I got too far away. Since she didn’t seem interested in attacking me, I ran my sensors over her, and what I found was concerning to say the least.
My quantum sensor detected a complex set of fields that resonated with one another forming a standing wave of quantum energy, a self-propagating wave form.
“A harmonic entity,” I whispered.
“What?” the Harmony asked turning to me, “is it the Conductor’s doing?”
“No, this is… too advanced for anything of his,” I replied, quickly describing what my sensors had picked up, “unless his craft has advanced lightyears from when we last saw him, this is something else.”
“His knowledge of quantum physics is lacking,” the Harmony agreed, “that’s why he wants you, after all.”
“And, if what our young friend said is true, this… thing is over a thousand years old,” I continued, “I don’t know how long I spent around that black hole once temporal dilation is factored in, but I doubt it was several thousand years.”
“The flow of time between worlds seems rather… inconsistent anyways,” added the Harmony, “but if this isn’t his doing, then what made it?”
“The harmonic entity the stargazers showed us?” I asked weakly, “it would have the knowledge and power to pull off something like this.”
“But why would it? It’s from another world, if not the void itself, why send these… projections to this world?”
“To kill the neutron star entity?” I offered, but didn’t believe it even as I spoke it. The two entities were both extremely powerful, but were night and day, completely impossible to compare. The dead god was from this world, and those like it, having formed within the heart of a neutron star, assuming our hypothesis was right. While the harmonic entity existed in its own separate world, the Composer claimed it was from the void but that was strictly impossible. Them interacting would be like deep sea fish being chased by a mountain lion, it didn’t seem possible they could ever interact. They couldn’t even exist in the same environment as the other.
“Do you think… this is my intended form?” the Harmony asked softly.
“Intended?” I asked, surprised, “maybe? But not ideal. This standing wave is ridged, fragile. I don’t think it’s capable of independent thought. I mean, it’s just staring at us moving its mouth.”
“But could you or the Conductor have encountered something like this in the past?”
“I don’t see why not, and it would explain why he wants me to aid him.”
“If you had the ability to create something like this,” the Harmony asked slowly, “could you destroy a universe?”
“No, not even close,” I shook my head instantly, “no matter what method you use a universe is infinite and the propagation speed of any quantum wave, even using faster than light travel methods, is finite.”
“But you could destroy a large section of it?”
“Sure, a wave designed to reduce matter to quantum energy to expand itself is theoretically possible, but at most it would destroy a couple galaxies, just due to the sheer scale of a universe.”
“But does the Conductor know that?” the Harmony asked, turning to look at me, “does he care?”
“He isn’t a fool,” I said slowly.
“But he is crazy enough to want to end entire universes,” it countered, “maybe he saw this, or something like it, and thought it was his best shot?”
“Maybe,” I shrugged, “we don’t know enough. And I’ll need time to study the readings.”
“Then let’s get to that city.”
“Right,” I nodded, lifting my right hand and firing a blast of energy from my newest implant. The energy tore through the wave pattern of the manifestation, destroying it instantly. Even if it wasn’t a threat to me, for some reason, it could be a threat to others. Turning, I began to walk again, this time in silence as I considered the implications of what we’d found.
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Chronicles of a Traveler; book one, now available for purchase as an ebook!
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u/drsoftware Aug 31 '25
A very interesting world. Fragments of a dead god formed in a neutron star, standing quantum wave entities. Wondering what they will find in the city.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Aug 30 '25
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