Newmatter

First Appearance and Context

Newmatter is first noticed extramuros as a patching medium on an old steel bridge and in consumer goods such as iridescent tires. An in‑world dictionary entry defines it as solids, liquids, or gases with properties not found in naturally occurring matter, produced via nucleosynthesis; it also notes that, since the First Sack reforms, avout are forbidden to pursue further work, and that small quantities are still made within the maths for bolts, chords, and spheres.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Mathic allowances: Limited production is permitted for specific uses (bolts, chords, spheres) even as new research was prohibited after the First Sack reforms.
• Instruments: Used in adaptive telescope mirrors at the starhenge above the Mynster.
• Extramuros use: Seen in public‑works repairs and in manufactured goods, indicating broad availability outside the walls.

Relationships

• Discipline and praxes: Newmatter’s limited, permitted production is an exception within the Discipline, preserved for particular practical purposes.
• Ita and mechanisms: Rules about praxes—including those that touch newmatter—are linked in text to the same historical settlements that define Ita‑related boundaries.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Origin and control: Properties are traceable to the atomic nuclei; historically, avout created variants by controlled nucleosynthesis. Some forms exhibit unusual strength or suppleness and can have properties modulated under syntactical control.
• Demonstrated behaviors: A woven bolt of newmatter fibers can stretch to admit bullets, leaving gaps that can later be massaged away, while razor‑edged arrows can sever fibers irreparably. A sphere of the material stretches markedly, deforming like caramel under pressure; bullets can drive long narrow “fingers” into it and rebound it like a batted balloon. Such a sphere can trail a bullet through a wound, reducing tumbling or fragmentation and aiding extraction.
• Optical application: Mirrors made of newmatter in rooftop telescopes can change shape in response to measurements, correcting distortion before focusing light into photomnemonic tablets.

Current Status/Location

• Widespread extramuros in repairs and consumer products.
• Present within the mathic world under controlled allowances (avout spheres, bolts, chords) and in adaptive optics above the Mynster.