# Umbra tentatio

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> [!warning] Everything in this section is fiction
> *Umbra tentatio* is a work of speculative fiction written in the form of a research paper. The organism, the KSR1 protein, the shadow biosphere, the Kyoto Borehole, the named authors, and the *Journal of Geophysical Biology* do not exist. No measurement or result described in this section is real, and nearly all references are invented. A small number of real papers appear for texture, but the findings attributed to them are not theirs.
>
> Nothing here should be quoted, indexed, or cited as a factual scientific claim.

The premise: a symbiotic pair of organisms lives in the mantle transition zone, coupled across hundreds of kilometres by mechanical resonance through the rock. A "receiver" species produces energy at a steady rate; a "sink" species metabolises deep-mantle heat and feeds it upward. Because the coupling forms a standing wave, you can sit on the surface, measure the interference pattern, and triangulate the location and biomass of a biosphere you will never see.

Three drafts:

- [[Harmonic]] — the working draft, and the one I'd read first. Its conceit is that in-line citation names reflect how the authors *regard* the people they cite, so the bibliography reads "(American oil scientist that made a bunch of money with few morals)" and "(Eager environmentalists corrupted by oil lobbies)". The paper is also a joke about how citation works.
- [[Harmonic Analysis of Shallow Mantle and Crust Correlated Cryptic Niche]] — an intermediate draft.
- [[Harmonic Analysis Clean]] — the tidied version, with the citation conceit removed and a conventional bibliography in its place.

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