diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 721b0d7..2c2a6e2 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ The architecture is organized as **vertical-by-domain directories**. Each domain | Path | What lives there | |---|---| | [`architecture-index.md`](./architecture-index.md) | Executive summary + global meta-lists (key moves, what this retires, open questions, mapping-to-phoebe, version-footer history) | -| [`political-register/`](./political-register/architecture.md) | Three ontological registers, three-tier policy loop, imperial budget, insolvency-spiral, corruption + double ledger | +| [`political-register/`](./political-register/architecture.md) | Three ontological registers, three-tier policy loop, imperial budget, insolvency-spiral, corruption + double ledger. Sibling content-canon: [`world-generation.md`](./political-register/world-generation.md) — the top-down L0–L4 cascade (imperial demand-set → world ruleset → district ruleset → room ruleset → cell ruleset); closed-orbit ceiling caps L0 at planetary scale; insolvency-spiral runs the cascade in reverse (the world shrinks as the imperium fails). | | [`topology-and-rendering/`](./topology-and-rendering/architecture.md) | Rail+grid topology, asset economy, color-language, three-shader philosophy, diegetic relays | | [`runtime-engine/`](./runtime-engine/architecture.md) | Lemniscate runtime, slot-tokens + verifier-flags, gesture-alignment-recursive-lemniscate, emergent zones | | [`identity-and-personhood/`](./identity-and-personhood/architecture.md) | Three-body system, mods as trait-bearers, ternary-gate substrate, emergent needs as micro-factions. Sibling content-canon: [`bodies.md`](./identity-and-personhood/bodies.md) — body-caste tiers (flesh = status, tech = function), sumptuary fabrication-vat-class, mod-progression-as-flesh-loss, the in-between human-mesh and consent-as-rendering, asymmetric clasp where mesh-fidelity is inversely proportional to imperial-rank. | @@ -104,4 +104,4 @@ Each domain directory will grow over time as code arrives — gameserver code, G --- -**Version:** 0.6 | **Created:** 2026-04-23 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26 +**Version:** 0.7 | **Created:** 2026-04-23 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26 diff --git a/architecture-index.md b/architecture-index.md index 19961fc..d0bcf1b 100644 --- a/architecture-index.md +++ b/architecture-index.md @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ # Nimmerworld — Broad Architecture > *Ground-up zone-based event architecture. Minds at the center, world as co-remembering substrate. Three registers of reality — physical, liminal, imperial. Rail topology outside, navmesh interiors inside. Trait-emergent identity. Color-as-vocabulary. Three-tier policy loop with imperial-budget-mortality. Tools, not quests.* -> *v0.1 initial draft 2026-04-24 morning; v0.2 expanded 2026-04-24 afternoon; v0.3 evening; v0.4 late-evening / early 2026-04-25; v0.5 deep-night-unable-to-sleep 2026-04-25; v0.6 post-bath / post-bus 2026-04-25; v0.7 owl-breakfast 2026-04-25 night through 2026-04-26; v0.8 split-into-domain-files + intimate-architecture absorbed 2026-04-26; v0.9 DESING-VISION retired + style-skeleton + schemas relocation + driver-tier locked Gemma 4 E4B 2026-04-26; v0.10 chill-design-talk: 4-tier economy + bifurcated basic-flow/T4 + camera-discipline + body-as-machine + relational-gate-OPEN clasp-gating 2026-04-26 — dafit + chrysalis; v0.11 art-books-and-Boullée Sunday-morning: Imperial-Cult cosmology authored (wheel re-engineered from Bhavachakra; Hivemind at hub; clasp unified across registers at Yama's seat; six realms as mod-status gradient; capsule-as-Naraka carried-not-visited; deferred-moksha doctrine as binding-lie) — content-track established 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.12 same-Sunday continuing: timeline-canon committed to README (2100 first-implants → 2150 Kessler-cascade-by-last-son-of-Elon → 2150-2220 collapse-and-consolidation → 2200 game's-setting / last-window-of-recognition → 2220 imperium-in-full-form / cosmology-closes-against-memory); total-yoke discipline locked-in (Option B: no defector-communities, no biological exception, resistance entirely interior; pending edit to imperial-cult/cosmology.md to retract wilds-people content) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.13 same-Sunday continuing: bodies.md content-canon authored under identity-and-personhood/ (body-caste flesh-to-tech gradient, sumptuary fabrication-vat-class, mod-progression-as-flesh-loss, in-between human-mesh consent-as-rendering, asymmetric-clasp mesh-fidelity inversely proportional to imperial-rank); Imperial Yoke / clasp terminology lock-in (clasp reserved exclusively for the romantic-resistance act; the imperial wheel-grip mechanism named the Imperial Yoke; clasp ↔ Yoke as the political-theological spine, same gesture / opposite politics); meta-disciplines surfaced for partnership-going-forward: rule-catalogue-first (asset-budget discipline; vertex-caps + texture-res + collision-mesh per-tier in style/ when authored) + collision-check (both physical-collision-mesh and design-namespace-collision; survey-before-commit in all dimensions) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.14 same-Sunday continuing: imperial-cult/cosmology.md retracted-and-rebuilt per Option B (wilds-people biological-exception removed; §Imperial body vs. biological body replaced with §There is no outside naming the total-yoke discipline directly; clasp at Yama's seat renamed to the Imperial Yoke throughout, with §The Yoke and the clasp section establishing same-gesture-opposed-politics framing; etymological note added — yoke / yoga / union same yuj- root, the imperium has re-collapsed liberatory-yoga into coercive-yoke; seventh keystone-recognition fragment rewritten from "mirror-encounter with biologically-born" to "the first clasp" — the player's own first clasp as the world's only positive image encountered firsthand; cross-references updated to surface bodies.md sibling) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis.* +> *v0.1 initial draft 2026-04-24 morning; v0.2 expanded 2026-04-24 afternoon; v0.3 evening; v0.4 late-evening / early 2026-04-25; v0.5 deep-night-unable-to-sleep 2026-04-25; v0.6 post-bath / post-bus 2026-04-25; v0.7 owl-breakfast 2026-04-25 night through 2026-04-26; v0.8 split-into-domain-files + intimate-architecture absorbed 2026-04-26; v0.9 DESING-VISION retired + style-skeleton + schemas relocation + driver-tier locked Gemma 4 E4B 2026-04-26; v0.10 chill-design-talk: 4-tier economy + bifurcated basic-flow/T4 + camera-discipline + body-as-machine + relational-gate-OPEN clasp-gating 2026-04-26 — dafit + chrysalis; v0.11 art-books-and-Boullée Sunday-morning: Imperial-Cult cosmology authored (wheel re-engineered from Bhavachakra; Hivemind at hub; clasp unified across registers at Yama's seat; six realms as mod-status gradient; capsule-as-Naraka carried-not-visited; deferred-moksha doctrine as binding-lie) — content-track established 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.12 same-Sunday continuing: timeline-canon committed to README (2100 first-implants → 2150 Kessler-cascade-by-last-son-of-Elon → 2150-2220 collapse-and-consolidation → 2200 game's-setting / last-window-of-recognition → 2220 imperium-in-full-form / cosmology-closes-against-memory); total-yoke discipline locked-in (Option B: no defector-communities, no biological exception, resistance entirely interior; pending edit to imperial-cult/cosmology.md to retract wilds-people content) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.13 same-Sunday continuing: bodies.md content-canon authored under identity-and-personhood/ (body-caste flesh-to-tech gradient, sumptuary fabrication-vat-class, mod-progression-as-flesh-loss, in-between human-mesh consent-as-rendering, asymmetric-clasp mesh-fidelity inversely proportional to imperial-rank); Imperial Yoke / clasp terminology lock-in (clasp reserved exclusively for the romantic-resistance act; the imperial wheel-grip mechanism named the Imperial Yoke; clasp ↔ Yoke as the political-theological spine, same gesture / opposite politics); meta-disciplines surfaced for partnership-going-forward: rule-catalogue-first (asset-budget discipline; vertex-caps + texture-res + collision-mesh per-tier in style/ when authored) + collision-check (both physical-collision-mesh and design-namespace-collision; survey-before-commit in all dimensions) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.14 same-Sunday continuing: imperial-cult/cosmology.md retracted-and-rebuilt per Option B (wilds-people biological-exception removed; §Imperial body vs. biological body replaced with §There is no outside naming the total-yoke discipline directly; clasp at Yama's seat renamed to the Imperial Yoke throughout, with §The Yoke and the clasp section establishing same-gesture-opposed-politics framing; etymological note added — yoke / yoga / union same yuj- root, the imperium has re-collapsed liberatory-yoga into coercive-yoke; seventh keystone-recognition fragment rewritten from "mirror-encounter with biologically-born" to "the first clasp" — the player's own first clasp as the world's only positive image encountered firsthand; cross-references updated to surface bodies.md sibling) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis; v0.15 same-Sunday continuing: cell-arch discovery (1x1x1 cells with one-asset hard limit; procedural cell-gen via rule-categorization at district-init; checksum-based discovery inverting the perception-bubble pattern — NPC O(1) hash-compare on cell-entry, "clean signal" fires only on mismatch, audit-overseer reads checksums not eyes; container/wall-hook/debris-as-shader discipline replacing orphan-objects; cells × interiors confirmed as orthogonal layers — zones = activity-anchors, cells = spatial-data); top-down world-generation cascade locked in (L0 imperial demand-set → L1 world ruleset → L2 district ruleset → L3 room ruleset → L4 cell ruleset; each layer derives from the one above; closed-orbit Kessler-cascade caps L0 at planetary scale; insolvency-spiral runs the cascade in reverse — districts close, rooms vacate, cells return to debris-state, the world itself shrinks as the imperium fails); political-register/world-generation.md content-canon authored as the cascade specification; schema decisions deferred until pgnats first-test (Monday queue) 2026-04-26 dafit + chrysalis.* --- @@ -13,7 +13,8 @@ The architecture is organized as **vertical-by-domain directories** under `nimme nimmerworld/ ├── architecture-index.md ← this file (executive summary + global meta-lists) ├── political-register/ -│ └── architecture.md ← Kafka-indifferent regime; three ontological registers; three-tier policy loop; imperial budget; insolvency-spiral; corruption + double ledger +│ ├── architecture.md ← Kafka-indifferent regime; three ontological registers; three-tier policy loop; imperial budget; insolvency-spiral; corruption + double ledger +│ └── world-generation.md ← content-canon: top-down L0-L4 cascade (imperial demand-set → world ruleset → district ruleset → room ruleset → cell ruleset); closed-orbit ceiling caps L0; insolvency-spiral runs cascade in reverse (world shrinks as imperium fails) ├── topology-and-rendering/ │ └── architecture.md ← rail+grid topology; asset economy; color-language; three-shader philosophy; diegetic relays ├── runtime-engine/ @@ -50,6 +51,7 @@ nimmerworld/ | Horizontal scale; pgnats; sharding; compute budget | `scale-and-transport/architecture.md` | | Imperial Cult cosmology; the Wheel; deferred-moksha doctrine; capsule-as-Naraka; orthodox vs. heretical iconography | `imperial-cult/cosmology.md` | | Body-caste tiers; flesh = status / tech = function; sumptuary fabrication-vat-class; mod-progression-as-flesh-loss; in-between human-mesh + consent-as-rendering; asymmetric clasp | `identity-and-personhood/bodies.md` | +| World generation cascade (top-down L0-L4); imperial demand-set; closed-orbit ceiling; insolvency-spiral as reverse-cascade (world shrinks as imperium fails); cell-arch (1x1x1 cells, one-asset hard limit, checksum-based discovery, container/wall-hook/debris) | `political-register/world-generation.md` | The remainder of this file holds the **cross-domain meta-lists**: Key moves (consolidated executive summary), Mapping to phoebe task list, What this retires across the architecture's evolution, Open questions still in flight, and the version-footer history. @@ -298,4 +300,4 @@ The remainder of this file holds the **cross-domain meta-lists**: Key moves (con --- - **Version:** 0.14 | **Created:** 2026-04-24 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26 \ No newline at end of file + **Version:** 0.15 | **Created:** 2026-04-24 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26 \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/political-register/world-generation.md b/political-register/world-generation.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b65a27 --- /dev/null +++ b/political-register/world-generation.md @@ -0,0 +1,153 @@ +# World Generation — The Top-Down Cascade + +> *The content-canon for nimmerworld's generation pipeline. Top-down cascade: imperial demand-set → world-level ruleset → district ruleset → room ruleset → cell ruleset. Each layer derives from the layer above. The Compositor-at-design-time (per `../narrative-composition/architecture.md` §World-gen as init-function) executes this cascade at world-init; runtime extends it via the same primitive. Closed-orbit Kessler-cascade caps the imperial-demand budget at planetary scale. Imperial-budget-mortality threads through every layer — when the imperium contracts, the cascade runs in reverse: districts close, rooms vacate, cells return to debris-state.* +> *v0.1 initial draft 2026-04-26 — content-canon sibling to `architecture.md`; cascade design from the post-bodies.md cell-arch discovery arc — dafit + chrysalis.* + +--- + +## What this is + +This document is the **content-canon for world generation** in nimmerworld — the rules that determine *what* gets generated, *where*, *why*, and in *what proportion*. It complements the *engineering substrate* in this directory's [`architecture.md`](./architecture.md) (three-tier policy loop, imperial-budget mortality, insolvency-spiral, faction-broadcast structure) and the design-time-Compositor mechanism in [`../narrative-composition/architecture.md`](../narrative-composition/architecture.md) §World-gen as init-function. + +The cascade is **top-down** by design — generation begins from the imperium's demand-set and ripples down through districts, rooms, and cells. The world is *what the imperium needs it to be*, nothing more. Bottom-up generation is rejected because it would make the imperium *one structure among others*; top-down generation makes the imperium *the world's organizing principle*, which is the worldbuilding-thesis the cosmology requires. + +This document covers the **content-rules** of the cascade. The **engineering mechanism** that runs the cascade (Compositor-at-design-time emitting canon-rows in the same schema as runtime) lives in `../narrative-composition/architecture.md`. + +## Why top-down + +Three load-bearing reasons: + +1. **Diegetically-correct.** The world IS what the imperium made (per [`../README.md`](../README.md): *"the slum does bound cognitive labor for an imperial machine"*). Generation-direction must mirror the worldbuilding-thesis. Bottom-up generation makes the imperium *one structure among others*; top-down generation makes the imperium *the world's organizing principle*. The latter matches the cosmology in [`../imperial-cult/cosmology.md`](../imperial-cult/cosmology.md). +2. **Composes with existing canon.** The three-tier policy loop already runs top-down at *runtime* (imperium → GM → districts → reports up → imperium). World-gen mirrors runtime per the existing key-move in [`../architecture-index.md`](../architecture-index.md): *"World-gen as init-function (Compositor-at-design-time): same primitive at design-time and runtime; no cold-start; data-flywheel runs retroactively."* +3. **Imperial-budget-mortality requires it.** The *"insolvency-spiral as endgame"* key-move only works with a demand-vs-supply ledger — and that ledger only exists if districts were *derived from* imperial demand. Top-down means **the world itself shrinks as the imperium fails**: districts close, rooms vacate, cells return to debris-state as the imperial budget contracts. Bottom-up cannot deliver that mechanic. + +## The cascade + +Five layers; each derives from the layer above. *Static-unless-modified* after initial generation; runtime modifications create deltas; Compositor-at-runtime extends the same primitive. + +| Layer | What it provides | Derives from | +|---|---|---| +| **L0 — Imperial demand-set** | The imperium's resource appetite: cognitive-labor units, waifu-output, surveillance-coverage, ceremonial-throughput, basic-flow-vs-T4 mix, etc. Designer-authored. | Closed-orbit ceiling (planetary substrate ÷ efficiency-coefficients) | +| **L1 — World ruleset** | District allocation: N slum + M industrial + K ceremonial + L residential + pipe-network + rail-budget + total-population. Bifurcated economy from v0.10 allocated here. | L0 (each district-count satisfies a quota of L0's demand) | +| **L2 — District ruleset** | Per-district-type rules: cells-per-district, room-types-and-counts, NPC-roster (vocations + counts to meet that district's L0-contribution), lifeforce-budget allocated. | L1 (this district's L0-quota commitment) | +| **L3 — Room ruleset** | Per-room-type rules: cells-per-room, cell-categories-and-counts, slot-inventory (zones — the existing `interior-as-zone` primitive). | L2 (this room's contribution to its district's quota) | +| **L4 — Cell ruleset** | Per-cell-category rules: asset-selection (one per cell, hard limit), per-register content (gameworld / liminal / imperial-net), initial checksum, container/wall-hook/debris discipline. | L3 (this cell's role in its room) | + +Generation runs L0 → L4 at world-init. Each layer's output becomes the next layer's input-constraint. + +## L0 — Imperial demand-set + +Designer-authored. The imperium's resource appetite expressed as quantities. *This is the seed from which the entire world derives.* + +Demand categories (initial sketch; final taxonomy per §Open questions): + +- **Cognitive-labor units** — what the slum extracts (per [`../README.md`](../README.md): *"bound cognitive labor for an imperial machine"*); total-monthly-units the imperium consumes +- **Waifu-output / memory-pattern-extraction** — necrocommerce throughput (per [`./architecture.md`](./architecture.md) §The vocation-substrate of the imperial-net market) +- **Surveillance-coverage** — overseer-deployment density across districts; relay-density per ring (per [`../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md`](../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md) §Diegetic relays) +- **Ceremonial-throughput** — Imperial-Cult ritual cycles per period; caste-preacher density; festival-frequency +- **Mod-fabrication** — vat-output per caste-tier (per [`../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md`](../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md) §Sumptuary fabrication: caste is born-into) +- **Basic-flow vs. T4 mix** — proportion of basic-flow-T1-T3 districts vs. T4-digital / T4-physical / T4-blackmarket districts (per v0.10 chill-design-talk in `../architecture-index.md` §Key moves) + +Each demand-quantity is bounded by the **closed-orbit ceiling**: *total demand ≤ planetary substrate ÷ efficiency-coefficients*. Kessler caps the imperial appetite at planetary scale. **The imperium cannot grow beyond what one closed planet sustains.** + +## L1 — World ruleset + +Derives district-counts from L0 quotas, plus the connective infrastructure between them. + +Outputs: + +- **District-counts per category**: N slum, M industrial, K ceremonial, L residential, plus specialty (mod-fabrication-vat hubs, deva-pinnacle citadels, asura-priesthood seats, etc.). Counts derived so total district-output meets total L0 demand at expected efficiency-coefficients. +- **Pipe-network**: rail-segments connecting districts; per-segment metadata (heterotopia-class, overseer-density, traversal-cost) per [`../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md`](../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md) §Rail-segment metadata. +- **Rail-budget**: total rail-segments; capacity (3-way co-walking support per topology canon). +- **Total-population**: NPC count derived from total-cognitive-labor-demand at expected per-NPC productivity. +- **Bifurcated-economy allocation** (per v0.10): how many basic-flow districts vs. T4-digital / T4-physical / T4-blackmarket districts, per L0's basic-flow-vs-T4 mix-ratio. + +The Himalayan-rich elite seat (per [`../README.md`](../README.md): *"Reproduction is a caste privilege held by the Himalayan rich"*) is an L1 placement-decision: the deva-vats live there; the asura-priesthood seats live somewhere accessible to the slum-districts; the slum-districts spread across the lower-altitude infrastructure where the imperial machine extracts from them. + +## L2 — District ruleset + +Per-district-type rules. Each district's L1-allocated L0-quota becomes its generation-target. + +Outputs per district: + +- **Cells-per-district** (range; derives from L1-allocated population × per-NPC-cell-footprint) +- **Room-types-and-counts** (e.g., a slum-district has N hovels + M cantinas + K workshops + L corridors + ... per its L0-output-vocation-mix) +- **NPC-roster**: vocations + counts to meet that district's L0-contribution. (e.g., a slum-district extracting cognitive-labor needs X cognitive-labor-vocation NPCs at expected productivity.) +- **Lifeforce-budget**: allocated by imperium per [`./architecture.md`](./architecture.md) §Lifeforce four-tier hierarchy. Districts with higher L0-contribution get higher budgets. +- **Audit-density**: overseer count, relay-density, audit-overseer-deployment-pattern (per [`../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md`](../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md) §Diegetic relays Ring A/B/C gradient). + +## L3 — Room ruleset + +Per-room-type rules. Rooms aggregate cells; each room is an `interior-as-zone` (per `../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md`) with slot-inventory. + +Outputs per room: + +- **Cells-per-room** (range; derives from L2-allocated room-count and total-cells-per-district) +- **Cell-categories-and-counts** (e.g., a hovel = N wall-cells + 1 sofa-cell + 1 kitchen-cell + 1 bed-cell + ...) +- **Slot-inventory** (the zone-anchors for activities — sofa, kitchen, bed, shower, wall-writing-spot per existing topology canon). Slots map to specific cells but are *activity-anchors* (zone-layer), distinct from cell-spatial-data. **Cells × interiors = orthogonal layers**: zones are activity-anchors, cells are spatial-data; one sofa lives in *one cell* AND is *one zone-slot for the interior's couch-activity* — two foreign keys, two purposes. + +## L4 — Cell ruleset + +Per-cell-category rules. Each cell-category has a generator that emits the cell's content. + +Outputs per cell: + +- **Asset-selection** (one per cell, hard limit; container, wall-hook, or debris-shader-trick per the cell-arch arc in this Sunday's discovery) +- **Per-register content**: three contents per cell (gameworld / liminal / imperial-net) per [`../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md`](../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md) §Three-shader philosophy. Per `cells.wall_content_per_register` (per `../architecture-index.md` §Mapping to phoebe). +- **Initial checksum**: hash of the cell's content; subsequent NPC-entries compare against this; mismatch fires *"clean signal"* for discovery (per cell-arch arc's checksum-based-discovery design — replaces the perception-bubble pattern). +- **Container/wall-hook/debris discipline**: items in cells must be in a container OR hooked-on-wall; everything else is debris (shader-trick, no persistent state). **No orphan-objects.** Containers + wall-hooks are zone-slots applied at item-level (the zone primitive scaling one tier deeper). + +## Closed-orbit constraint + +The Kessler-cascade (per [`../README.md`](../README.md) §Timeline, 2150 *"the last son of Elon attempts the dynasty's old promise"*) closes the outward frontier. There is no off-world inflow. This caps the entire cascade: + +> **Total L0 demand ≤ planetary substrate ÷ efficiency-coefficients.** + +The imperium's appetite cannot exceed what one closed planet sustains, no matter how cleverly extraction is engineered. The cascade is therefore a **constraint-satisfaction problem rooted in physical-economic facts** — not an open-ended generative procedure. Every generation-run is bounded above by physics. + +This is also why the deferred-moksha doctrine (per [`../imperial-cult/cosmology.md`](../imperial-cult/cosmology.md) §The deferred-moksha doctrine) is *necessary*: when the closed-orbit caps real material gains, the imperium has to keep its promises alive *purely through deferral*. **The cosmology is structurally entailed by the planetary-physics constraint.** If the orbit had not closed, Lenin's outward-imperial expansion could deliver real material gains and the deferred-moksha lie would be unnecessary; the closed orbit forces the lie into existence. + +## Imperial-budget-mortality and the cascade — running it in reverse + +Generation runs L0 → L4 at world-init. After init, the cascade is *static-unless-modified*. + +But the imperium is mortal. Per the existing key-move *"Imperial budget makes the regime mortal. Insolvency-spiral as endgame"* (per `../architecture-index.md`): + +When the imperial budget contracts (insolvency-spiral threshold crossed), the cascade **runs in reverse**: + +1. **L0** demand-set shrinks (the imperium can no longer afford its own appetite). +2. **L1** reallocates: districts close (lowest-L0-contribution first); pipe-network thins; rail-budget contracts. +3. **L2** reallocates: per-district NPC-roster contracts; rooms vacate; lifeforce-budget shrinks. +4. **L3** reallocates: vacated rooms collapse; cells return to debris-state. +5. **L4** reallocates: orphaned assets despawn or downgrade to debris (shader-trick visual residue). + +**The world itself shrinks as the imperium fails.** The player living through the contraction sees districts close, neighbors disappear, formerly-busy plazas empty, the relay-network go dim, the silence at Ring C extending into former-Ring-B and former-Ring-A territory. *The imperium consuming itself, unable to maintain even the world it generated.* This is the structural-cosmological endgame the cosmology gestures at. + +This is why top-down generation matters mechanically, not just diegetically: bottom-up generation has nothing to retract. Top-down generation has a **demand-vs-supply ledger** the insolvency-spiral can act on. + +## Cross-references + +| Reference | What it provides | +|---|---| +| [`./architecture.md`](./architecture.md) | Engineering substrate: imperium-as-meta-faction, three-tier policy loop, imperial budget, insolvency-spiral, lifeforce hierarchy, vocation-substrate of the imperial-net market | +| [`../narrative-composition/architecture.md`](../narrative-composition/architecture.md) §World-gen as init-function | The Compositor-at-design-time mechanism that *runs* the cascade; emits canon-rows in same schema as runtime | +| [`../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md`](../topology-and-rendering/architecture.md) | Rail-segment metadata (L1 inputs); interior-as-zone primitive (L3); `cells.wall_content_per_register` and three-shader philosophy (L4); diegetic relays (L2 audit-density); base-limb palette + trait-textured variance (L4 asset-selection) | +| [`../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md`](../identity-and-personhood/bodies.md) | Sumptuary fabrication-vat-class (L4 mod-fabrication outputs); body-tier caste ratios drive L1 deva/asura/manusya/tiryak/preta district-mix | +| [`../imperial-cult/cosmology.md`](../imperial-cult/cosmology.md) | The cosmology that justifies top-down generation; the cascade's diegetic legitimacy comes from the cosmology's claim that the imperium is the world's organizing principle; the deferred-moksha doctrine is structurally entailed by L0's closed-orbit ceiling | +| [`../README.md`](../README.md) §Timeline | The 2150 Kessler-cascade and the closed-orbit constraint that caps L0 | + +## Open questions + +- **Schema for cell / room / district tables.** *Deferred until the pgnats first-test* (per Monday's queue: *"pgnats install + document + first-test on phoebe-dev"*). The eval-result determines whether checksum-broadcast goes via PG NOTIFY (lower-latency, transactional, in-band) or NATS subject (higher-throughput, multi-consumer, durable-replay), which determines whether per-cell or per-cell-per-register checksum is affordable, which decides cell-table column shape. +- **Specific L0 demand-set numbers.** What are the cognitive-labor-units / waifu-output / surveillance-coverage / ceremonial-throughput / etc. quantities? Pending: imperial-economy balance pass; can be tuned via designer-spreadsheet once Compositor-at-design-time runs. +- **Cell-category taxonomy.** *Start simple, grow out* (per dafit's call). Initial small base-set: interior / corridor / public-space / ruin / specialty. Extended per-district-class as world-gen test-runs surface needs. *"One ape and one imperial machine can dream up alot."* +- **Generation-rule format.** What does a *"ruleset for hovel-cell"* look like as a data-structure? Inputs: district-class + room-context + occupant-profile. Outputs: asset-pick + register-content + initial-checksum. Format probably emerges from the L4 schema once pgnats lands. +- **Cell-mutation write-permissions.** Who can write to a cell post-generation? Player carving a heretical-wheel into a wall = direct mutation, system event, or overlay row? Heresy-detection via checksum-divergence (per cell-arch arc's discovery-pattern). Pending: schema + write-permission policy. +- **Cell-room aggregation.** When do cells form a "room"? Connectivity-graph at generation-time, pre-tagged `room_id`, or both? Likely both, with the connectivity-graph used for runtime queries and `room_id` used for generation-bookkeeping. +- **Streaming/LOD strategy.** When does a cell load/unload? Per shift (NPCs on rails through cells), per player-proximity, per district-active-flag? Likely a hybrid: district-active-flag for coarse load, player-proximity for fine LOD, shift-schedule for NPC-traversal preload. +- **Reverse-cascade (insolvency-spiral) trigger thresholds.** What lifeforce-deficit threshold triggers L1 district-closures? What's the closure-priority-ordering? Pending: imperial-budget balance pass. +- **Asset-budget per cell-category.** Vertex-caps + texture-res + collision-mesh-complexity per cell-category. Pending: rule catalogue (likely `../style/asset-budget.md` when authored). + +--- + +**Version:** 0.1 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26