Fabric of space-time

Fabric of space-time
Other names	The Barrier
Type	Continuum of existence
Location	All of existence
Effects	Structures reality
Status	Damaged

“

Imagine, if you will, the barrier between our worlds is a concrete dam. Henry is putting cracks in this dam. Cracks in dams create pressure. Left unchecked, the pressure will build. And build. And eventually, it will reach a breaking point, and the dam will burst. And when that happens, Hawkins will fall. — Dr. Martin Brenner, March 27, 1986

”

The underlying structure of reality was a fabric of time and space, a barrier that separated the numerous dimensions that comprised all of existence.

Gates between the human world and the Upside Down could be described as wounds, or holes, in the fabric of time and space. These doorways acted as bridges between dimensions, allowing for instantaneous travel from one plane of existence to another.

History

1979

On September 8, a telekinetic battle between test subject Eleven and lab orderly Henry Creel took place at Hawkins National Laboratory in Hawkins, Indiana. Eleven managed to banish Henry to another dimension, the Upside Down, through a tear within spacetime. Soon, this gate to the dimension closed.

1983

After viewing CCTV footage of what happened on September 8, Dr. Martin Brenner, the Head of Hawkins Lab, began using Eleven to track down Soviet spies, although Eleven eventually believed that he was using her to find Henry. During one of these sessions, Eleven found a creature from the Upside Down. Dr. Brenner urged her to touch the creature. This contact with the creature resulted in a disruption in continuum, which in turn resulted in yet another non-temporary gate to the Upside Down.

1984

After the leading force of the Upside Down, the Mind Flayer controlled by Henry, sent adolescent versions of the creature from 1983 called Demodogs through the Gate, Eleven closed it with her powers. Meanwhile, in the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, Major General Stepanov oversaw an experiment to create a new gate with a bespoke machine, but the project failed.

1985

However, the Soviet operation shifted to Hawkins, where, because of the Gate from 1983, the fabric of spacetime had already been weakened. There, under Commander Ozerov, the Soviets made another of the machine in a facility under Starcourt Mall. There, they did manage to create a gate, through which the Mind Flayer "Flayed" a group of humans and rodents. With the combined efforts of Jim Hopper, Joyce Byers, Murray Bauman and Dustin Henderson, the Starcourt gate was closed.

1986

Henry, now known as Vecna, began targeting depressed or otherwise guilty teenagers; he planned to kill them, and through the psychic contact developed by their death, new gates would open. First among them was Chrissy Cunningham, who died in the Munson trailer at Forest Hills Trailer Park. Second was Fred Benson, who died on an unidentified road. Patrick McKinney died over Lover's Lake. Max Mayfield, who had previously escaped Vecna's curse, eventually was killed by him in Vecna's own former residence the Creel House. Although she was revived by Eleven, it was too late, and the fourth and final gate opened. The four gates started growing, and finally merged in the center of Hawkins.