I had a thought today: what if Eric Weinstein's Geometric Unity, has a formulation as complex E8 gauge theory in 14 dimensions, coupled to a brane whose worldvolume theory is Gunaydin's 4d octonionic magic supergravity? The rationale for this being the 14-dimensional grading of E8(C), something which Michael Rios told me about years ago.
It's unlikely, but a concrete speculation like this, is a way to get a handle on several otherwise nebulous possibilities.
There should be a lower-dimensional version of Geometric Unity, with a (2+1)-dimensional empirical spacetime plus a 6-dimensional metric bundle, leading to a 9-dimensional theory overall. Once again it's unlikely, but it would be cute if it could somehow be realized on top of Swanson and Hellerman's https://arxiv.org/abs/0710.1628
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