Gastrobacter

The Law of Conservation of Mass in the Pentagonal Dominion

In the Pentagonal Dominion, the law of conservation of mass applies when elementrons (magic particles) are not present in the system. However, they are almost always present. They’re in the air, in the ground, and even inside living organisms, though usually in quantities too small to perform magic.

Each element has their own elementron associated with it. Elementrons of the same element have particular ‘patterns’ of behavior and are attracted to each other. I won’t go into the boring details of each element’s behavior, but they all have something in common: they all end up in Aloutia. Some join the planet’s ring. Others go higher into the sky. 14 elements coalesce to become the 14 ‘moons’, one clusters in smaller pieces to becomes the ‘stars,’ and one (Darkness) simply serves as the dark veil at the edge of the plane.

All of Aloutia’s moons have a given name or can be referred to as “(Color) Moon” or “(Element) Moon.”  For this article, I’m going to focus on Blossom, the Green Moon/Plant Moon in a specific context.

Many elements have powers involving creation, by which I mean the literal creation of atoms out of nothingness. The Wind element can create gases. The Water element can create liquids. The Stone element can create solids. When the elementrons are just out in nature, sporadically performing magic, they will create atoms based on their environment. Stone elementrons aren’t going to create ice in a hot desert, because it would be at a temperature where H2O falls under the domain of Wind or Water (also note the elements were named by lay people, not scientists. The “Water” element isn’t “H2O” but rather “liquids”). But if Stone elementrons are in a frozen, arctic environment, it can create ice. On the other hand, Water elementrons are unlikely to create H2O in an environment like that. They might make alcohol instead, since that would be a liquid at the temperature of the environment. (Note: this applies to elementrons acting spontaneously in nature. Once a God has control over an element, this no longer happens. Furthermore, some Gods, namely the Mind Spirit, can use telekinesis to keep other elements in check. In the era the Merchants novels take place in, sporadic elemental catastrophes don’t happen anymore.) Also to add to that, a person using magic may be able to create matter outside the usual temperature range. For instance, Zakuro’s liquid-changing magic allows her to change liquids into other liquids only if it would be a liquid either at the current temperature +/- 50 degrees C. Her mother has a wider range, being able to turn any liquid at room temperature into liquid nitrogen (boiling point -195 C).

Okay, so we’ve established that part of my world’s magic system is “some elements can create matter.” The Plant element is another one that can create matter. It’s not specifically bound to creating solids, liquids, or gases, but rather “plant material.” Again, the “Plant” element was named by lay people. It pretty much encompasses plants, fungi, bacteria, archaea, and even viruses (which aren’t even considered living in the real world). So it can create plants out of nothing. It can create the solid leaves/wood/flowers, the liquids inside xylem and vesicles, the gases being changed in photosynthesis.

Before Cherribell became the Plant Goddess, the near-annual tradition of the Green Moon Festival was a predictable event. It occurs when Blossom, the Green Moon, gets so close to Aloutia that it causes all plants to grow. Fully mature plants will bear fruit. Seeds of fast-growing plants will mature within a day. Slower-growing plants like trees may not mature fully, but they’ll get about 5 years worth of growth.

The Green Moon manages this by creating atoms. The carbons and hydrogens and oxygens aren’t just getting pulled from the nearby environment, they’re being constructed right then and there into perfect configuration by Plant magic.

The Green Moon Festival was such an important event on Aloutia that Cherribell made sure to continue it after she became a Goddess. She keeps some control on it, e.g. to make sure nothing dangerous happens like a tree growing underneath someone’s house and breaking it in half. But the event still happens at regular, predictable intervals like it has since the beginning of this timeline.

So what happens to all this matter that’s being created? It would mean the universe is getting filled with stuff. Well, that’s where a few other elements come in. Death, Mind, Darkness, and Force all have means of destroying matter. I don’t mean breaking down matter into components. No, I mean literally destroying the atoms. Most instances of this happening are caused by Death elementrons. The sawdusting ritual that shinigami perform to erase corpses is done with Death magic.

Gastrobacter is a single-celled organism, a bacterium with a flagellum. The end of the flagellum is coated in selenoproteins saturated with Death elementrons. What the heck does any of that mean? Let me break it down:

Death elementrons are a thing I invented. They’re the magical subatomic particle that perform Death magic. In this case, it uses the magic that destroys atoms. Elementrons can only bind to specific atoms, including selenium.

Selenoproteins are real proteins that have a selenium atom in them. They are much more common in my world, since they are the primary ‘carrier’ of elementrons in organs. Any time an organism has a ‘magical organ/body part’ it’s safe to assume that part has a lot of selenoproteins in it. (If something is ‘saturated’ in another thing, it just means its full of it. So “selenoproteins saturated in Death elementrons” = uhh, think of it as meaning “a bucket full of magic”)

A flagellum is a ‘part’ of some bacteria. It’s a whip-like thingy. Think sperm. The tail on the end of a sperm cell? That’s a flagellum.

So gastrobacter is a bacteria that destroys matter. Evolutionarily, it did this to hinder its competition. After it ate something, it would destroy whatever it couldn’t eat so no other bacteria could eat it either. Evolution through spite! Well, not really since it’s not like gastrobacter has thoughts or feelings. It’s… just a bacterium.

Eventually, gastrobacter was conquered, though. It was absorbed by larger cells, who would ‘hold on’ to it, feed it, and use the Death-flagellum to destroy what it couldn’t destroy. This process of endosymbiosis is similar to what happened with mitochondria and chloroplasts in the real world.

All living organisms in the PD have gastrobacter in their cells. They serve a function similar to lysosomes in that they ‘clean up’ the cell, but gastrobacter destroys rather than breaks down. Moreover, the multicellular animals of my world have an organ dedicated to producing and storing gastrobacter. It’s called the ‘bacterial chamber’ and in most animals is located where their urinary bladder would have been. The large intestines and kidneys both empty into the bacterial chamber, where ‘waste products’ are further digested by gastrobacter and eventually completely destroyed.

Due to gastrobacter being present since nearly the start of evolutionary history, the PD’s plants and animals evolved alongside it accordingly. Animals that would be coprophagic in our world are not in the fantasy world. So rabbits evolved a digestion system that lets them absorb everything properly ‘the first time through.’ There are still cud-chewing animals, though. There are enough subtle differences between PD-plants and animals and Terran-plants and animals that if a human were to be brought to the PD, they would need gastrobacter introduced into their stomach and intestines or else they will experience intense pain every time they eat, and may die. This is what happened to the human who is now only known as Elice of the Twisted Cross. She died within a week of arriving in the PD because she could not eat without intense pain. Alice survived by eating very little at first and gradually, slowly introducing gastrobacter into her body. Simon survived because he was injected with gastrobacter within a day of his arrival.

So where does that leave the PD in regards to conservation of mass? Magic creates and magic destroys. Creation and destruction occur at roughly the same rate. The people in my world are aware of the idea of the law of conservation of mass. They understand it to be a natural phenomenon that would occur in the absence of elementrons. But there are no places without elementrons. Their own bodies have shit-and-piss-destroying bacteria hard at work inside their bodies. So the idea of matter being created and destroyed is a natural part of their world, as normal as shit and piss is to us.