What Existed Before the Spacetime Fabric? The Origin of Space, Time, and the Physical Substrate of Reality in an Infinite Universe

Modern cosmology and fundamental physics describe spacetime with extraordinary mathematical success, yet the physical origin of the spacetime fabric itself remains largely unaddressed. General relativity treats spacetime as a real structure that curves, stretches, and supports propagating gravitational waves, while quantum gravity programs repeatedly search for a deeper microstructure beneath the classical geometric description. However, the standard cosmological narrative typically begins with the Big Bang and simply states that space and time came into being, without a physically coherent account of how an extended geometric substrate capable of curvature, temporal modulation, and wave propagation could arise from literal nothingness. This paper argues that the failure lies not in the mathematical formalisms of general relativity, but in the inherited finite-origin assumptions of standard cosmology and in the historical privileging of a beginning-model that aligned more readily with longstanding creation-compatible worldview priors. The paper reopens foundational questions left unresolved by the standard model, including what exactly expanded, what stretches when spacetime expands, how time became embedded into the fabric of space, and why spacetime is treated as physically real enough to wave and curve yet denied a fully specified substrate ontology. Within the broader Big Flare-Up Theory (BFUT), the paper develops a continuity-based ontological ladder: space must exist; truly infinite space cannot emerge from literal non-space; therefore absolute nothingness was never the state of reality; prior reality must always have existed in some real condition; any real condition is necessarily an energy state; and from that prior condition the Spaticle field manifests as the physically real spacetime substrate from which later matter, cosmic structure, biological life, and conscious complexity emerge in lawful continuity. The paper further argues that the thermodynamic arrow of time, the low-entropy condition, conservation laws, causality, and the existence of structured physical laws all strongly favor continuity over creation-from-nothing. The result is a continuity-based ontology that closes a foundational gap in modern cosmology and extends the ontological base of the BFUT research programme.