Time is the vibration of the field

As a wave moves through the Eternal Consonance, it bends the field ahead of it. After one Planck length the field reaches its tightest bend, then releases back toward rest, and the cycle begins again. The number of these cycles each second is the Planck frequency, about 1.85 × 10⁴³. RSI calls it the frame rate of reality.

Between the moment of maximum bend and the release, nothing propagates and nothing interacts. The narrative calls this the closest thing the universe has to a true pause, lasting one Planck time.

RSI goes further and says this rhythm is time itself. A second is not a slice of an abstract dimension. It is about 1.85 × 10⁴³ complete cycles of the field. Without the field's vibration there would be no before and after at all. "Time is not the container in which the universe exists. It is the product of the universe's own mechanical activity."

This also explains the arrow of time. Each cycle begins where the last one ended. The field does not un-bend, so its record runs in one direction only. A clock near a massive body or at high speed accumulates cycles more slowly, which we measure as time dilation. But no clock can run them backward. In the narrative's words: "We do not move through time. We are made of it."