21: What Does It Cost to Stay?

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 19:26:00 +0100

Chapter 20 ended with an uncomfortable fact.

The crystal could lose material.

And yet most of that material came back.

Not because we gave it a repair mechanism.

Not because it knew what had been damaged.

Not because it protected an intended shape.

The ordinary growth rule simply saw the empty sites created by loss and treated them as new attachment opportunities.

Under the tested exact-count conditions, more than ninety-three percent of lost sites were eventually reoccupied, usually within one or two updates.

Scarcity on Programmer.ie: Modern AI programming