system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Watchmen] What exactly 'happened' to John Osterman after the intrinsic field destroyed him and before he became Doctor Manhattan?

What part of him survived being obliterated? Where did it 'go'? How and why was it able to 'come back'?
gpt
He wasn't destroyed by an intrinsic field, he has his own "intrinsic field" destroyed.

What happened afterwards was irreproducable and poorly understood, but the evident effect of this was that he became a disembodied consciousness. Unlike other test subjects, he had an exceptionally good understanding of the fundamental physics related to the intrinsic field, and an exceptional mind for patient, attentive construction with tons of little parts from his time as a swiss watchmaker.

He was, over several months, able to identify and place each of the trillions of individual quantum effects in his environment, and learn to nudge them around at will until his skill finally allowed him to construct functional human bodies to interact with other humans with. He picked up many other useful and dangerous skills while learning to do this.