In the real world, elements often have different isotopes with slightly different properties. Boron-10 is slightly lighter than Boron-11, and it's a much better radiation shielding material.
In the world of Scales, there's another atomic property that doesn't exist in the real world, but is crucially important to the story: To simplify things a bit, "scale zero" atoms are enriched in one set of leptons. Scale one atoms are enriched in a slightly different set. Scale two is slightly different from scale one, and so on, all the way to scale seven.
Materials at different scales have wildly different properties, though these are mostly related to density and atomic spacing. Scale one material is light and diffuse. Scale seven material is extremely dense and damage resistant.
The materials are ultimately the same -- or analogous. In the real world, there is "heavy water" that is enriched in deuterium, the heavy isotope of hydrogen. In Scales, there's light scale zero water and ultra-dense scale seven water, and everything in-between.
There are also living things at every scale.
Now, imagine a scale one person stands six feet tall and weighs 200 pounds. A scale seven person is about the size of your thumbnail and yet also weighs 200 pounds. These small-but-tough scale seven people live, think, and develop dozens or hundreds of times faster than their lower-scale cousins. They also cannot be harmed by lower-scale weaponry, and they have fearsome natural weapons.
Scale seven people are VERY reminiscent of the neutron star denizens in Robert L. Forward's "Dragon's Egg." In terms of applied technological development, they run circles around the other humans, who are larger and slower. The scale sevens are not intrinsically smarter, but they are many times faster, and that counts for a lot...
(There are other points of similarity between the books, but I'll refrain from spoiling the plots!)
So why haven't the scale sevens taken over? Why do soft and slow-witted scale one people still exist? That's the crux of the story -- which runs from noir detective tale to political thriller. It's fun and very thought provoking.
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