What was Sigma up to (and what really happened to him on that space station)?
The whole pretence to Siebren’s research was to ‘harness the harness’, to bend and warp gravity to our will. He is certain that nothing will ever be the same again after he has completed his research and proven his theories.
Similar to the Tobelstein’s research (that is responsible for Zarya’s weapon), it would be easy to assume that he was under some form of military contract. But I think that what he was doing was far more mind boggling than that.
Gravity, as we know it, is something that warps space-time. It shapes the curvature of the universe and everything in it.
Naturally, if you want to warp localised space-time the most powerful thing to create would be a small black hole…
The ability to do this could open the way to interstellar space travel and (potentially) time travel. It would give us insight into how the universe itself was formed.
Although catalogued as exposure to a black hole, I don’t think Siebren’s story tells us everything (mostly because it would involve explaining some heavy physics, and doing that in a short is counter-productive.)
It is possible Siebren de Kuiper created a type of Einstein-Rosen Bridge. A theoretical type of wormhole. They are black holes that connect us to an infinite number of parallel universes.
The theoretical physics of this states that it would take an infinite amount of time to cross an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, so every living thing attempting to traverse it would die in the process. You also cannot escape an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, because of the black hole’s event horizon.
What de Kuiper created may have become a black hole, but didn’t start out as one. The physics of worm holes is such that, if we were to ever make one, gravity would be constantly trying to close it. Going so far as to create black holes to ‘pinch’ the wormhole closed in the middle. This is why the line ‘hold it together’ is so significant, because this is exactly what the universe would try to do in the event a wormhole was created.
The only way to keep a wormhole like this open for any length of time would be the use of something known as Exotic Matter. A type of matter with negative mass.
How has he done this by accident? A few theories spring to mind:
1) He didn’t. It wasn’t an accident per-se, but was the result of a miscalculation on Siebren’s part. The entire reason this experiment took place on a space station is because he needed the vacuum of space in order to create Exotic Matter by influencing something known as Quantum Vacuum Fluctuations.
2) Exotic Matter was accidentally created in the course of the experiment, leading to a black hole experiment to briefly open a wormhole to another point in space-time (or perhaps another reality altogether.)
3) No Exotic Matter was involved, the wormhole formed so briefly that the only person who was touched by what was happening was Dr de Kuiper.
4) This was the result of sabotage. A third party wanted to use de Kuiper and his research to conduct a test of their own without a) funding it, or b) putting themselves at risk. It would explain why his containment field magically failed (in a profession where shit gets checked so thoroughly that you can’t fart near them without needing to check them again from scratch.)
It is possible that several of these theories are true but only to a certain extent. But there are potentially serious repercussions of opening wormholes (outside of just plain killing yourself.) One such risk is creating paradoxes in time (basically just putting causality in a blender and pressing the ON button.)
What appears to have happened to Siebren de Kuiper is something akin to a wormhole experiment gone wrong. We can see in the short that his image isn’t so much split into two, as it is stretched across a short span of space-time into two distinct locations that are very close to one another.
This makes sense in terms of theoretical physics, as a man-made wormhole would connect two points directly on top of one another.
Another reason this is likely the case is linked to one of his major abilities in game: the Hyperspheres. It is possible that these two projectiles are not black holes, but two ends of the same small wormhole. He flings each terminus out one after the other, and any nearby mass is pulled towards it and through the wormhole. It’s only a short distance, but they would be small enough compared to a person to inflict serious damage as their matter is spaghettified through it. This also explains why they are ‘infinite’ (they are the same two projectiles over and over again because the causality of space time is utterly fucked around Sigma.)
This also explains his ultimate, the Gravitic Flux. This is, essentially, a recreation of what happened to de Kuiper on the ISS. Only on a scale that several people can see. This is the black hole at the centre of his personal wormhole, the thing trying to ‘hold together’ the fabric of the universe around it.
This also explains much of his experience with space-time. His short is told in a non-linear fashion. Which, on the surface, looks like a dark take on someone dissociating heavily. But it could be a very literal take on how de Kuiper experiences time. He experiences it in a non-linear fashion (remember what I said about worm holes putting causality in a blender?) He is simultaneously experiencing past, present, and future… across multiple realities… all at once.
There isn’t a person alive would could hold on to their marbles through that.
