> observing a natural physical force There's your misunderstanding. Gravity is not a force. The force is merely the effect you observe on your specific instrum

> observing a natural physical force There's your misunderstanding. Gravity is not a force. The force is merely the effect you observe on your specific instrument. The cause and substance of gravity is not explained solely by its effect (force), and the force is not what generates gravity, et al. And, in fact, mass is not the only thing that generates gravity. It's flux of energy density. So it boggles my mind that no one considers EM energy as a subset of the energy that can produce "stress on space". Conclusively, you've made some assumptions you don't realize resulting in an uncontrolled thought experiment. When terms are defined incorrectly, questions using those terms become wrong. If the questions are wrong the answers also always come out wrong.