You know valve isn’t Microsoft right? Those are two different companies with different agendas?

Steam asking for consent for a survey doesn’t make up for the lack of consent in updates pushed by an entirely different entity

Agreed. My favorite is still Raft

I’d recommend Stephen Baxter’s “Ring” novel as a primer on cosmic strings, domain walls (the shell-like mass described here) and using wormholes for time travel.

Basically covers all of the funky science described in this article