MID/QC Foundation Series 3 — A Substrate Placement of the Higgs Mechanism and Mass Generation

This paper situates the Higgs mechanism within the substrate’s torsillation geometry, revealing the geometric origin of mass, inertia, and field interactions. The Higgs field emerges as the effective‑field‑theory expression of the substrate’s baseline tension offset, and mass arises from torsillation lock‑in — the trapping of localized modes within stable tension wells. This placement preserves the empirical success of the Standard Model while unifying mass generation with the substrate dynamics that underlie quantum behavior, curvature, and confinement.