the first survivor, and the review that withdrew it

A programme that produces nothing but negative results eventually produces something that clears every gate. This one did: after a long run of closures, a candidate passed the engine check, the realized check, the mirror comparison and every fold it was asked to survive. It was the first candidate in the record to do so, and the pull attached to it was strong, because a programme with no survivors is hard to keep alive.

A review was convened before the candidate was announced. It asked one narrow question, and it was not about the search: how was a single accounting convention treated — what happens to an item carried across a reporting boundary rather than flattened inside it.

The answer inverted the result. Under the other convention the candidate's advantage shrank to a fraction of what the convention choice itself contributed, and the ranking at the top of the grid changed hands. A winner whose identity depends on a convention is not a winner; it is the signature of an artifact, and the review said so in those words. The candidate was closed, and the family behind it was closed with it.

The part that cost something came last. The gate itself was amended so that the convention could not vary silently again, and the programme was parked at its final honest state — no replacement candidate, no re-tune, nothing announced. What it proves is the means and the willingness to disqualify the best-looking result in the record, on an argument about bookkeeping rather than about evidence.