A Systematic Comparative Review of GDUM and Contemporary Pre-geometric Emergence Frameworks

The pre-geometric and spacetime-emergence frameworks compared in this review are cutting-edge parallel explorations that have appeared in a concentrated wave during 2025–2026. They are, as a whole, at an early stage of development and have not yet undergone long-term academic consolidation, community scrutiny, or observational constraint filtering. Among them, Pre-geometric Gravity (PGG; Addazzi, Capozziello, Marcianò, Meluccio, Class. Quantum Grav. 42, 045012 (2025), arXiv:2409.02200) is the only system in this group that has been formally peer-reviewed and published; The Metric Fossil (Jonathon Sendall, 2026, arXiv), the Lucron Network (August 2026, preprints.org, not peer-reviewed), and OFN (Static Ontological Fundamental Network, 2026 series, Zenodo/academia.edu, not peer-reviewed) are preprints or unreviewed postings, while D0, DTEG, QBD, MTN-G, and SQTE are programmatic frameworks for which stable, retrievable preprints and identifiers remain incomplete as of November 2026; the descriptions of the latter below are based on their published program documents. These frameworks constitute paradigm-adjacent parallel explorations sharing the research program of pre-geometric substrate priority, secondary emergence of spacetime, and the abandonment of classical singularities. GDUM is likewise at the stage of axiomatic construction and phenomenological refinement, participating in this parallel exploration together with the other frameworks; its distinctiveness derives from the specific combination of its axioms and constructions, not from a mature paradigm.