CTtä

CTtä is a fictional metric used in speculative science and worldbuilding to quantify the resilience of digital signals across temporal distortion in hypothetical networks. The term combines “chrono” and “transmission” with an umlauted ä to give a distinct, fictional terminology.

In the CTtä framework, a value is defined as the dimensionless ratio of a signal’s remaining integrity after a temporal disruption to its original integrity. Values typically range from 0 to 1. A CTtä near 1 implies near-perfect preservation under the modeled time distortion; a CTtä near 0 indicates substantial loss or degradation. The model accounts for factors such as jitter, time dilation, buffering latency, and error-correcting performance.

Applications of CTtä appear in the fictional setting as a guide for designing temporal networks and protocols, including the Interstice Protocol and chrono-sync channels. It is used to compare hardware implementations and software stacks in terms of temporal robustness, enabling worldbuilders to illustrate trade-offs between speed, reliability, and synchronization.

History and adoption within the story universe describe CTtä as being introduced by fictional researcher Dr. Lira Morn in 2147 in a treatise on temporal-information theory. It later features in educational curricula, industry white papers within the narrative, and media tied to the worldbuilding project. Variants such as CTtä-A and CTtä-B model different distortion profiles, including linear drift and stochastic delays.

See also: Temporal networks, signal integrity, time-domain analysis.