Cosmochrony: An Exploratory Pre-Geometric Framework for Emergent Spacetime, Gravitation, and Quantum Phenomena

We propose \emph{Cosmochrony}, a foundational physical framework in which time, inertia, and spacetime geometry emerge from the irreversible relaxation of a single fundamental entity $\chi$, whose effective projections admit a scalar-field description.Unlike conventional field theories defined on a pre-existing spacetime, Cosmochrony treats relaxation as the primary physical process, from which temporal ordering, effective metrics, and dynamical laws arise.Localized, long-lived excitations of the $\chi$ substrate appear as topologically and spectrally stable solitonic configurations.Their inertial mass is not postulated but emerges as a measure of resistance to global relaxation, quantified by the internal curvature and stability spectrum of the configuration.In regimes where an effective relativistic description applies, this interpretation naturally reproduces $E = mc^2$ as a kinematic identity rather than a fundamental axiom.Spin, statistics, and fermionic $4\pi$ periodicity originate from topological obstructions in the configuration space of $\chi$ excitations.An effective spacetime metric arises through coarse-grained projections of $\chi$ relaxation dynamics, avoiding the assumption of a fundamental geometry.Gravitational and electromagnetic interactions are interpreted as complementary manifestations of relaxation gradients and structured deformations of the same underlying substrate, while gravitational waves correspond to propagating collective modulations of $\chi$.The Higgs mechanism is recovered as an effective low-energy description of how localized excitations acquire inertial properties within an already structured relaxation background, without modifying its empirical phenomenology.Across physical regimes, the framework suggests that the fine-structure constant $\alpha$ emerges as a universal spectral invariant, bridging particle-scale stability and strong-gravity relaxation thresholds.In this view, $\alpha$ encodes a regime-independent ratio between bound and critical relaxation modes, providing a continuous link between quantum excitations and black-hole-scale phenomena.At cosmological scales, Cosmochrony provides a unified interpretation of cosmic expansion, dark matter, and dark energy in terms of the global relaxation budget of the $\chi$ field.The observed Hubble tension is addressed through nonlinear relaxation effects, without invoking new particle species or inflationary dynamics.Cosmochrony does not aim to replace the Standard Model or General Relativity at accessible energies, but to supply a deeper explanatory layer in which their structures emerge from a common physical origin.The framework yields testable qualitative predictions, identifies clear numerical programs for validation via lattice simulations, and delineates the conditions under which effective field theories and spacetime descriptions remain valid.