RECONCILIATION / IMPACT FRONTIER

A changed assumption produces several different orders.

The Black Skies benchmark crosses only the work that causally depends on the failed simulation assumption. Everything else remains current.

CONCEPT SOURCES
SRC-V-02 · SRC-V-07

DISPOSITION REGISTER / OBJECT-SPECIFICSCENARIO / BS-2026-07-04

The frontier assigns a reasoned outcome to each object.

Continue
Starbase content. The disposition follows its causal dependency on the changed benchmark.
Retain & retest
Doctrine tests. The disposition follows its causal dependency on the changed benchmark.
Conditional repair
Combat API. The disposition follows its causal dependency on the changed benchmark.
Recall & re-plan
Combat tutorial script. The disposition follows its causal dependency on the changed benchmark.
Secondary containment
  • quarantine unsafe output
  • block official commitment
  • create verification task

Epoch N+1: revised sealed orders issued. The official ledger decision advances the epoch, invalidates stale orders, and returns revised current sealed orders.

TEACHING PLOT / BS-2026-07-04

One Black Skies change crosses the impact frontier.

The Black Skies benchmark crosses only the work that causally depends on the failed simulation assumption. Everything else remains current.

EVENTS / intake → policy → ratification → frontier → order → evidence → commitment → epoch

DECISION RECORD / RATIFIED RULE CHANGE

Decision. A ratified source redraws intent within its governed scope through a versioned, linked supersession; the scale target sits outside that scope and stays untouched.

Rejected. Letting any change, however confident, reach intent it does not govern; and letting mere observation redraw intent at all.

  • INVARIANT 17 The latest ratified authority record wins only within its relevant scope.
  • INVARIANT 18 Authoritative source changes become official only as scoped, versioned intent deltas.

Black Skies proving ground

DECISION RECORD / IMPACT FRONTIER

Decision. Dispositions follow causal dependency, not proximity; 'dependency unknown' is a valid result answered with conservative tainting, retesting, quarantine, or review.

Rejected. Blanket restart (false recalls everywhere) and let-everything-finish (false preserves reach the merge gate).

  • INVARIANT 10 Unknown dependencies trigger conservative tainting, broader invalidation, retesting, or review, not invented precision.
  • INVARIANT 14 Uncertainty blocks official commitment, not harmless local exploration.

Public specification

DECISION RECORD / COMBAT TUTORIAL SCRIPT

Decision. Recall and re-plan when the order's core premise is superseded; useful narration is salvaged as evidence, never shipped as a stale script.

Rejected. Patching a tutorial that teaches a rule the product no longer has.

  • INVARIANT 09 Killed, stale, or superseded output is quarantined.

Reconciliation route

DECISION RECORD / COMBAT API

Decision. Conditional repair fires only if the ratified rule actually reaches the interface contract; until then the API is monitored, not rewritten.

Rejected. Speculative rewrites on rumor of change.

  • INVARIANT 14 Uncertainty blocks official commitment, not harmless local exploration.

Reconciliation route

DECISION RECORD / DOCTRINE TESTS

Decision. Retain and retest preserves valid assets and re-earns confidence against the during-combat rule.

Rejected. Discarding a test suite because its expectations moved; the tests were right about the old rule, not wrong about testing.

  • INVARIANT 16 A passing build is evidence, not authority.

Reconciliation route

DECISION RECORD / STARBASE CONTENT

Decision. Work outside the frontier continues untouched. Preserving unaffected work is the point of computing a frontier at all.

Rejected. Pausing the fleet for a change it does not depend on.

  • INVARIANT 14 Uncertainty blocks official commitment, not harmless local exploration.

Reconciliation route

State 1 of 9: A ratified rule change redraws scoped intent

STATE 01 / 09

A ratified rule change redraws scoped intent

The authorized Crew Combat Rules source revises one rule: morale now affects card availability during combat. Ratification redraws that subgraph of Intent and advances the epoch; the scale target sits outside the scope, untouched.

An authorized source redraws intent within its scope; evidence alone never could.

Read the complete textual equivalent
  1. A ratified rule change redraws scoped intent. The authorized Crew Combat Rules source revises one rule: morale now affects card availability during combat. Ratification redraws that subgraph of Intent and advances the epoch; the scale target sits outside the scope, untouched. An authorized source redraws intent within its scope; evidence alone never could.
  2. The impact frontier is highlighted before outcomes. Support and contract edges connect the rule to backend combat validation, the Unity action menu, doctrine tests, and the combat tutorial. Starbase content remains visibly outside the frontier because it has no causal dependency on crew-combat rules.
  3. Continue — Starbase content. Continue: Starbase content remains current and proceeds without interruption. Unaffected work survives reconciliation.
  4. Retain & retest — Doctrine tests. Retain & retest: Doctrine tests stay useful and rerun against the during-combat rule. The work is preserved even when expected results need revision.
  5. Conditional repair — Combat API. Conditional repair: the Combat API changes only if mid-combat morale must be exposed through its interface contract. Dependency, not proximity, controls the disposition.
  6. Recall & re-plan — Combat tutorial script. Recall & re-plan: the tutorial's premise is the superseded after-combat rule, so its current order is stale. Useful narration is salvaged as evidence, not carried forward as a stale script.
  7. Secondary containment prevents unsafe commitment. PlotWarden quarantines unsafe output, blocks official commitment, and creates a verification task where the dependency or repair result remains uncertain. Late work may finish as evidence, but it cannot win after recall.
  8. The ledger records differentiated orders. The official ledger decision records the four object-specific dispositions and their secondary containment actions under BS-2026-07-04. The disposition set is atomic and auditable.
  9. Epoch N+1: revised sealed orders issued. The ledger advances Epoch N+1, invalidates stale orders, and issues revised current sealed orders while Starbase content continues outside the frontier. Reconciliation closes on current work rather than stopping at classification.

Epoch N+1: revised sealed orders issued

Designed and built by Jeff Sylvan ·

Detect drift, then compute impact.

A new source snapshot or ratified decision is compared with the current plot. Support edges and execution dependencies define the smallest defensible impact frontier.

Selective reconciliation is safe only when the dependency evidence justifies that frontier. When coverage is uncertain, 'dependency unknown' is a valid control-plane result: policy answers with conservative tainting, broader invalidation, retesting, quarantine, or human review rather than invented precision.

The asymmetry is explicit. A false preserve keeps work whose premise changed and threatens correctness; a false recall stops work that remained valid and costs only efficiency. Precision is pursued after false preserves are constrained below the acceptable risk threshold.

Every affected order receives a disposition.

Work does not become a generic failure. It receives an explicit outcome that can be explained from the ledger.

The public taxonomy names six dispositions: preserve, recall, quarantine, repair, re-plan, and block or escalate. The operational labels below are compounds of it: Continue is preserve; Retain & retest is preserve with retest evidence; Conditional repair is repair; Recall & re-plan is recall plus re-plan. Quarantine and block or escalate apply directly to output and commitment.

  • Continue — the order still holds.
  • Retain & retest — preserve useful work and test it against the changed condition.
  • Conditional repair — salvage what remains sound under a scoped repair order.
  • Recall & re-plan — stop work based on a superseded assumption and issue a revised order.
  • Quarantine — retain output for audit or diagnostics without treating it as clean knowledge.
  • Block or escalate — official commitment pauses until a genuine authority conflict is resolved.

Epochs prevent late stale output from winning.

Consequential actions are checked against the current epoch and policy. An old worker can finish, but its output cannot quietly commit after the order it received has been superseded.

Finish is not the same as advance.