Newmatter

First Appearance and Context

Newmatter is first noticed extramuros (outside the maths) 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 (historic purge of maths), avout (cloistered scholars) are forbidden to pursue further work, and that small quantities are still made within the maths (monastic orders) 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 (observatory platform) 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 (technical order) 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 (light‑recording plates).

Convox analyses and visitor samples

• Reported samples: From the landing at Orithena, avout and Sæcular (civil power) teams recovered fragments (e.g., a T‑handle panel, bolts, parachute cloth and shroud lines), vials of fluids, and the body of an injured visitor; Convox (large convocation of avout) laboratories at Tredegarh report that all such items are newmatter.
• Laser emission clue: Laser specialists at Tredegarh measured the visitors’ narrow red beam during earlier events and found its wavelength did not match any natural spectral lines; speakers infer this is consistent with a lasing medium made of newmatter.
• Chemistry and biosafety (working view): If artifacts and tissues from the visitors (the Geometers) are entirely newmatter, only simple chemical bonds with our matter are expected; complex biochemistry is unlikely to operate across the boundary, reducing cross‑infection risk. Speakers note that limited interactions can still occur and that adapted organisms could evolve over long timescales.
• Elemental notes: Early statements from Tredegarh describe hydrogen as identical, oxygen as sufficiently similar to form water, carbon as slightly different, and metals as showing greater divergence.
• Olfaction observation: An avout investigator noted a distinct, unfamiliar odor associated with the recovered body, suggesting some interaction with our olfactory receptors; proposed tests would expose samples to olfactory tissue under controlled conditions.

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.
• Actively under study at the Convox at Tredegarh with regard to recovered visitor materials and their implications for cross‑chemistry and safety.