Worked Examples

Example 1: Theft. Destabilisation: moderate. Local. Confidence: high. Correction: Level 1 preferred (restitution). Level 2 if restitution fails (fines, probation). The organism barely notices.

Example 2: Large-scale financial fraud. Destabilisation: severe. Thousands of nodes lose coupling capacity. Trust degrades system-wide. Correction: Level 1 insufficient. Level 2 (fines, asset seizure) + Level 3 (separation).

More severe than local violence not morally but structurally — the geometric damage is larger.

Example 3: Serial predator. Destabilisation: catastrophic. Multiple nodes permanently damaged or destroyed. Accumulated records show escalating pattern. Recurrence: very high confidence. Correction: Level 3 immediately. Level 4 if no rehabilitative pathway.

Level 5 enters the calculation only if both conditions are met: (a) the fixed floor is exceeded, and (b) the organism-relative threshold is met.

In a robust civilisation: Level 4 suffices. The window is sealed but remains. The maintenance cost is affordable.

In a fragile civilisation: if maintaining the separated node consumes resources that push the organism toward a no-return surface (AP02), Level 5 fires. The organism cannot afford permanent separation without risking collapse.

This is not a judgement of the person. It is a measurement of the organism’s capacity.

Example 4: Wartime existential threat. War reduces organism robustness R. The corridor narrows. Reserve capacity approaches zero. The no-return surface is closer.

The maintenance cost C_sep, which a robust organism could afford indefinitely, now consumes resources needed for survival. The effective threshold drops: R/R₀ < 1 in the scaling function. Level 5 becomes structurally available.

This is not revenge. It is the organism protecting survival when it cannot afford the luxury of permanent separation. When the war ends and robustness returns, the threshold rises again.

You have just watched the same architecture produce different answers for the same node under different conditions. The node did not change. The organism’s capacity changed. The correction is not about the person.

It is about the geometry.