  The phenomenologically observed flatness - or near flatness - of spacetime
cannot be understood as emerging from continuum Planck (or sub-Planck) scales
using known physics. Using dimensional arguments it is demonstrated that any
immaginable action will lead to Christoffel symbols that are chaotic. We put
forward new physics in the form of fundamental fields that spontaneously break
translational invariance. Using these new fields as coordinates we define the
metric in such a way that the Riemann tensor vanishes identically as a Bianchi
identity. Hence the new fundamental fields define a flat space. General
relativity with curvature is recovered as an effective theory at larger scales
at which crystal defects in the form of disclinations come into play as the
sources of curvature.
