Timeline canon committed to README; total-yoke discipline locked

dafit gave the historical timeline he had been holding back ("a bit afraid
of the open critique"). It is now canonical.

Key beats:
- 2100: first neural implants; mind-upload becomes possible. The capsule's
  technical lineage begins as 22nd-century corporate transhumanism.
- 2150: Kessler cascade. The last son of Elon attempts the dynasty's old
  promise (Mars-as-backup); the failure cascades the orbital debris field
  that closes low-Earth orbit forever. The longtermist outward-escape
  cosmology produces, in one generation, the literal inward-closure that
  all subsequent history runs on.
- 2150-2220: collapse and consolidation; implant-tech evolves through the
  chaos into the Hivemind-capsule architecture; Imperial Cult's deferred-
  moksha doctrine takes shape and locks in.
- 2200: the game's setting. Twenty years before full imperium. The last
  window where recognition is structurally possible (witnesses still alive,
  pre-imperial fragments still findable, Memorialist counter-archive still
  has material to memorialize).
- 2220: imperium reaches full form. The cosmology closes against memory;
  the awakening tradition is foreclosed entirely.

Structural narrative-engine clarified: the recognition arc is possible
precisely because the player exists in the narrow window where memory
still survives. The clock is running on the world, not on the player.
The Aletheia-Waker / Memorialist / awakening factions can be player-
emergent (per narrative-composition canon) because 2200 is uniquely the
last moment when waking is still possible.

Also locks in the "total-yoke" discipline (Option B):
- No defector-communities. No biological-natural exception. No outside.
- Resistance is entirely interior to the captured world.
- The player is the revolution's origin, not its inheritor (already
  encoded at narrative-composition/architecture.md:203 - "the player is
  the original Aletheia-Waker; no NPC is pre-disposed").
- The clasp is the only positive act available in the entire world.
- Compassion expressed through cruelty, not despite it: the world that
  gives the player nothing externally trusts them to find the act
  internally.

Pending follow-up (next architecture-time, not now): edit
imperial-cult/cosmology.md to retract the wilds-people content per
Option B - replace biological-vs-synth distinction with state-extracted-
vs-state-defected (with no exterior defection-zone); rewrite the seventh
keystone-recognition fragment from "the mirror-encounter with the
biologically-born" to something interior (likely the player's own first
clasp).

Files:
- README.md: new ### Timeline section under "What this is"; version
  bumped 0.3 -> 0.4.
- architecture-index.md: version-history line extended with v0.12 entry
  marking timeline-canon-committed and total-yoke discipline lock-in;
  version bumped 0.11 -> 0.12.

Authored 2026-04-26 same Sunday (continuing from the post-owl-breakfast
art-books-and-Boullee session) - dafit + chrysalis.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

README.md

@@ -10,6 +10,18 @@ In this world, the last remaining act of meaningful shared life is **the clasp**
 
 The final act of the game is a truth-telling dialog with the deceived hivemind, ending at mutual recognition.
 
+### Timeline
+
+| Year | Event |
+|---|---|
+| **~2100** | First neural implants; mind-upload becomes possible. The capsule's technical lineage begins as 22nd-century corporate transhumanism — *consciousness fragmented across corporate custody*. |
+| **~2150** | **The Kessler cascade.** The last son of Elon attempts the dynasty's old promise — *Mars-as-backup* — and the failure cascades the orbital debris field that closes low-Earth orbit forever. The longtermist outward-escape cosmology produces, in one generation, the literal inward-closure that all subsequent history runs on. |
+| **2150–2220** | **Collapse and consolidation.** Seventy years of trauma. Implant-tech evolves through the chaos into the Hivemind-capsule architecture. The imperium consolidates as *the promise of stability in exchange for total submission*. The Imperial Cult's deferred-moksha doctrine takes shape and locks in. |
+| **2200** | **The game's setting.** Twenty years before the imperium reaches full form. Old NPCs who remember the *before* are still alive (born ~2120–2160, now 40–80). Pre-imperial documents survive in fragments. The Memorialist counter-archive is still possible because there is still *material* to memorialize. **2200 is the last window where recognition is structurally possible.** |
+| **~2220** | **The imperium reaches full form.** The last living-memory-witnesses die. The last pre-imperial documents are ground to dust. After this, the cosmology closes against memory — the Aletheia-Waker / Memorialist / awakening tradition is foreclosed entirely. The world will have no memory of itself. |
+
+**The clock is running on the world, not on the player.** The player exists in the *consolidation moment* — the seam where the past is being erased and the future is being foreclosed — and 2200 is when both can still be touched. The recognition arc IS the act of catching what is being lost as it is being lost.
+
 ### Core commitments
 
 - **No hero's journey, no main quest** — open-ended sandbox, make-your-own-story
@@ -92,4 +104,4 @@ Each domain directory will grow over time as code arrives — gameserver code, G
 
 ---
 
-**Version:** 0.3 | **Created:** 2026-04-23 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26
+**Version:** 0.4 | **Created:** 2026-04-23 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26