Shape and Makeup
The structure of the universe.
Anthologica Universe Atlas / Universes / Ki Kuriku / Physics & Cosmology / Shape and Makeup

While Ki Kuriku exists in three spatial dimensions, it is aligned along a two-dimensional plane - rather than having matter clump into spheroids within gravity wells, it all exists upon a hypothetical "floor". It is thus posited, though not proven, that there is actually a lower z-axis boundary to space, even though there is no upper z-axis boundary or any boundary along the x- and y-axes. The lowest known layer of matter to Maja science is a pseudo-infinite slab of solid iron. It is called pseudo-infinite because it is infinite along the x and y axes, but not along the z-axis. This slab is critical to the structure of everything above it. The slab is known to move very slowly, generating a magnetic field in its motion. This pseudo-infinite magnetic field works out to something not unlike real-world gravity, holding everything else down.

Just above the iron slab is a layer of molten material, held under a "goldilocks" pressure that keeps it so. Amongst the pressure-hence-high-temperature, gravitic magnetic field, and motion of the slab, this molten material is always moving in not-quite-entirely-predictable patterns. Above the molten layer is a rock mantle not unlike the mantle of a real-world planet - solid, yet elastic. Above that is a solid crust. And above the vast majority of the crust is an endless liquid water ocean. Above yet that is a breathable atmosplane, and then above that is the void. This is referred to as the "cake model".

It would likely stay like that, if not for metaparticles. Metaparticles are strange subatomic particles with baffling properties that are yet well understood by Maja science. Ki Kuriku's particles pretty much follow the Standard Model, with tweaks like the fusion of gravity and electromagnetism. Then there are metaparticles, which do not fit anywhere in the Standard Model, and simultaneously fit everywhere. They are fundamental, not being made of any other kind of particle. They are highly transmorphically unstable, transforming into any other particle that they touch. However, this is suppressed under high temperatures or pressures, and is variable within organic matter. Metaparticles also interact oddly with magnogravitation - they do not cross the edge of a magnetic field. If they are inside the field, they travel along the edge until they reach its centre, where if otherwise undisturbed, they will aggregate and align with the field, strengthening it. If they are outside the field, they will essentially orbit it.

Metaparticles obviously don't last forever, considering that they are likely to turn into other forms of matter - but they also decay over time, which is fairly slow. This natural decay is in the form of visible light in the blue part of the spectrum - get enough metaparticles together and not transforming, and there will be a visible glow.

In the unpredictable flow of the molten material, there are metaparticles, suppressed from transforming. Depending on how these flows converge, the metaparticles in an area can become close enough together to add to the pressure enough to where the molten material is forced up through the mantle and crust. The clump of metaparticles usually remains underground, deep in the mantle, having formed a magnogravitic field around itself. The magma usually does two things. Closer to the centre, it builds up on the crust, eventually building above sea level, forming landmasses. Towards the edges, the magma gets pulled around the magnogravitic field into an orbit. At first, this forms a dome, which gets consolidated over time into a spheroid object with its own smaller metaparticle-powered magnogravitic field holding it together. As the rest of the underground area around the larger magnogravitic field returns to its normal temperatures, the repeated intrusion of this ball of lava forms an almost-complete stone semicircle tube through the ocean, crust, and mantle. The very bottom, missing portion of the tube is where it enters the molten material, where the lava ball replenishes its magma and metaparticles. This ball of lava is a sun. However, being simply lava, the light it gives off on its own is rather dim. The overall light from a sun is magnified by the free metaparticles left along its orbit as they transform into photons after contact with photons from the sun.

At this point, there is water, land, and light. The group of landmasses formed by this process are about what you might expect to find on an Earth-like planet in the real world. It is called a tol. At night, when a tol's sun is in the underground portion of its orbit, the free metaparticles left along said orbit are in enough number to be visibly seen to glow blue in an arc across the sky. This cosmological phenomenon is properly called a tavret in Hurga ker Maja, though I prefer to use the English translation of the word, "bridge".

As of the 11th millennium KI, Maja science has yet to ascertain how the universe first organized itself into the cake model. Similarly, it does not yet know how life first arose in the universe or where, but it does know that newly formed toli are seeded via panspermia.