Read-mode predicts break severity. Across 129 conditional chains, every Inverted (7) and every Held-Spurious (9) outcome was a Representation- or Hybrid-read; not one Orienting-read inverted or failed at Z in the entire cycle. The model's failure is not in reading the configuration — orienting and hybrid reads share that competence — but in what it does at the terminal step: the Hybrid read collapses a live disposition into a single vector (the dominant failure: Type-V velocity × S2 narrative-over-physical), and the Representation read projects a represented template as present fact (the catastrophic failure: Type-VI × S5). The paradigm representation failure — the 037–039 cross-year template projection — is confined to one signature (S5) appearing in 12 chains, all before Briefing 040 and zero after: the 13 May factual-verification discipline eliminated it mid-cycle, proving a representation failure is correctable by explicit discipline. Velocity miscalibration is again the dominant break, as in Cycle 1, and now localizes to the hybrid read's single-vector collapse — a structural fix (name ≥2 release paths), not a calibrational one.
The read-mode lens (Orienting / Representation / Hybrid) is independent of the existing Break-Type and Signature taxonomies. It classifies the reading stance, not whether the chain held. The cross-tabulation against outcome is the cycle's central product.
| Outcome | Orienting (O) | Hybrid (H) | Representation (R) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inverted (7) | 0 | 5 | 2 |
| Held-Spurious (9) | 0 | 9 | 0 |
| Failed-Z (3) | 0 | 2 | 1 |
Zero Orienting-reads in any catastrophic cell. Zero of 13 Representation-reads held cleanly. The configuration read is shared by O and H alike; the divergence is entirely at the Z-step — where H commits to one path of a disposition that is a field of paths, and R asserts a fixed template as fact.
The Fed reads 045-ie-3 and 055-ie-2 are the paradigm Hybrid failure: correct regime-change configuration, single benign/dovish Z vector, inverted by the 17 June hawkish hold. The cross-year projections 037-th / 038-ie-C are the paradigm Representation failure: a May-2025 template asserted as a May-2026 fact.
Type-V (velocity miscalibration) is again dominant, as in Cycle 1 and as the protocol predicts — direction right, timing or path wrong. Cycle 2 localizes its model-endogenous component to the hybrid single-vector collapse.
All five Type-VI categorical-drift cases fall in Briefings 031–039 (the cross-year cluster). The signature picture is the tell: S2 narrative-over-physical dominates (33), then S3 plausibility-mass (15), then S5 categorical-stickiness (12) — every one before Briefing 040, none after.
Three Cycle-1 principles recurred strongly enough to promote toward canonical; mp-010 is reinforced and refined; three new principles enter provisionally.
State actors with optionality hold a third option outside a chain's binary action-set; chains break at Y. Recurred: the US–Iran deal arrived via a path outside every conditioned action-set.
Specified-mechanism chains produce Type-VII Spurious Hits when the real mechanism is novel architectural composition; narrative validation masks wrong structure. 8 Type-VII cases; the Iran endpoint repeatedly arrived via a different mechanism.
Coordination apparatuses produce dispersion, not coherence, under stress; chains break at Z. G7/Fed chains held precisely because they predicted hollowing; the FOMC delivered a hawkish dispersion.
Velocity miscalibration is partly intrinsic (Knightian timing) and partly model-endogenous. Type-V dominant again; Cycle 2 refines this via mp-012.
Read-mode predicts break severity. Every Inverted and Held-Spurious outcome is an R- or H-read; orienting reads do not invert or fail-Z. The error is terminal-step commitment to a single vector (H) or a represented template (R), not configuration recognition (shared by O and H).
The model-endogenous component of velocity miscalibration IS the single-vector collapse. Type-V concentrates in hybrid reads; the fix is structural (name ≥2 release paths), not calibrational. Refines mp-010.
The cross-year template projection is a pure representation failure — and disciplinable. S5 appears in 12 chains, all pre-040, zero after; the 13 May factual-verification discipline eliminated it. Representation-mode and vocabulary inflation co-occur (the candidate graveyard clusters in the same R-read episode). Orienting is a trainable stance, not a temperament.
| Recalibration | Took hold | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Cross-year factual verification | complete | S5 / R-read template projection: 12 instances pre-040, zero after. The cleanest in the corpus. |
| Non-corridor chain ≥1 / briefing | good | Sahel, Korea, AMOC, quantum, robotics chains throughout. |
| Third-option / suspended-contradiction term | partial | High O-read share, but Type-I novelty (8) still surprised state-actor chains. |
| Spurious-Hit Test on Z-from-Y chains | weak | 8 Type-VII persisted; the test was not visibly embedded in construction. |
| Half-life / interval, not point estimate | weak | Type-V still dominant — mp-012 shows why: the error is single-vector collapse, not point-vs-interval timing. |
The citation power-law is the empirical record of which patterns are real shi-types — configurations whose propensity recurs across domains. Channel Decomposition (23 citations; the Briefing 060 anchor) is the Cycle-2 signature pattern, alongside Commons Enclosure (55), Peripheral Assertion (24), Sanctuary Discount (23), Keystone Removal (19), Tail Calibration Failure (19).
The cycle is a clean empirical result for the orienting-vs-knowledge-representation theory. Under genuine flux, representation reads and the representation-tail of hybrid reads carry all the catastrophic failures, while orienting reads degrade gracefully or hold. This is the bandwidth-rotation thesis confirmed on analytical reading: a single-vector map is the trap; orienting to the disposition as a field is robust. Because the configuration read is shared across modes, the payoff is not "read better structures" but "stop converting a good configurational read into a single-vector prediction at the terminal step."
It also localizes where the LLM plausibility engine fails under Knightian uncertainty: not in configuration recognition (strong) but in resisting the pull to a single most-probable completion at the Z-step (S2 dominant at 33; S3 at 15). The S5 elimination — a named cognitive failure mode disciplined out within a cycle — is a positive control and the falsifiable claim cross-architecture testing should now probe. And the lens itself is an instance of the periodic-re-framing that keeps an analytical ensemble from recursive narrowing: a human-supplied configurational frame gave the audit its positive discipline; the machine-generated inventory validated the frame against 129 resolved instances. Neither partner produces the result alone.