docs: add DESCENSUS addendum 1 and SIMULATOR vision

docs/DESCENSUS-addendum-1.md

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+# DESCENSUS — Addendum 1
+## Cost Structure and Exploit Closure
+### Status: Canonical. Do not alter without project owner instruction.
+### Date: 2026-05-02
+### Extends: docs/DESCENSUS-genesis.md
+
+---
+
+## Purpose of This Addendum
+
+The genesis document establishes what DESCENSUS is and how the epoch
+filter operates. This addendum closes the exploit loops that code
+cannot close alone. Each principle here describes a cost structure
+that is not enforced by rules — it is enforced by the honest operation
+of the simulation's physical and social reality.
+
+Where code fails to implement these principles completely, this document
+is the authority. Implementation catches up to the document, not the
+reverse.
+
+---
+
+## Principle 1 — Distance Is Elapsed Time
+
+Movement between locations costs simulation days. Those days cannot be
+recovered, compressed, or prepaid. There is no fast travel. There is no
+preparation that eliminates the cost of distance.
+
+A participant who identifies an attack target must travel to reach it.
+That travel consumes elapsed simulation days — days not spent producing,
+building relationships, or developing the clan. The cost is paid before
+the outcome is known.
+
+A participant who wishes to return must travel again. The distance does
+not decrease because the route is now known. Familiarity reduces
+uncertainty, not cost.
+
+**Exploit closed:** A participant cannot accumulate strength and then
+deploy it instantly across distance. Every application of force requires
+elapsed time proportional to distance. The cost of projection is built
+into the geometry of the world.
+
+---
+
+## Principle 2 — Intelligence Decays
+
+Knowledge of another participant's state is accurate at the moment of
+acquisition. It begins aging immediately.
+
+A participant who reaches a target location learns what is there at that
+moment. By the time they return — having paid the travel cost twice —
+the target's state has changed. The intelligence paid for in elapsed
+time is now historical. The participant acts on a record, not a current
+reading.
+
+The longer the return journey, the more the intelligence has aged.
+A distant target that required thirty simulated days to reach has
+changed for thirty simulated days by the time the attacker returns.
+
+**Exploit closed:** A participant cannot acquire perfect intelligence
+and act on it without cost. The act of acquiring intelligence consumes
+the time during which the intelligence remains current. Planning and
+execution cannot be separated from the cost of the interval between them.
+
+---
+
+## Principle 3 — Temporal State Resolution at Minimum Elapsed Time
+
+When two participants occupy the same H3 cell, the encounter is resolved
+at the minimum elapsed simulation time of the two participants.
+
+A participant at day 100 who encounters a participant at day 10 does not
+bring their day-100 strength to the encounter. The encounter resolves at
+day 10. The stronger participant's state is evaluated as it was at their
+own day-10 equivalent — including losses, weaknesses, and resource
+constraints that existed at that point in their history.
+
+The elapsed simulation time of each participant is not visible to others.
+It is not a number on a display. It is inferred from observable signals:
+camp size, tool quality, apparent health of clansmen, the wear on
+structures, the size of food stores. A participant who reads these
+signals carefully can estimate depth. They cannot know it.
+
+The elapsed time of any participant is also in flux. A participant who
+has been active for 100 days but suffered significant losses at day 60
+does not present as a day-100 participant. They present as whatever
+their current state reflects — which may be weaker than a participant
+at day 40 who suffered no losses.
+
+**Exploit closed:** A participant cannot prepare at depth and deploy
+that preparation against a shallower participant. The encounter resolves
+honestly at the point of contact, not at the point of planning.
+Stockpiling Mesolithic weapons for a future DESCENSUS encounter is
+evaluated at the elapsed time of the encounter, not at the elapsed time
+of the stockpile.
+
+---
+
+## Principle 4 — Aggression Is Self-Limiting
+
+A successful attack produces bounded loot, reduced defence, reduced
+production, and reduced reputation for the attacker.
+
+**Loot is bounded.** The target has what the epoch permits and what
+their elapsed simulation time has produced. There is no surplus beyond
+what exists. The attacker cannot extract more than was there.
+
+**Attrition compounds asymmetrically.** The target loses defence and
+production capacity. The attacker loses elapsed time, potential clan
+losses, and reputation. The attacker's cost is paid regardless of
+outcome. The target's loss is recoverable over subsequent elapsed days.
+Repeated aggression against the same target yields diminishing returns
+as the target's loot base depletes and the attacker's reputation
+deteriorates.
+
+**Reputation is a social parameter with real consequences.** In
+Mesolithic social reality, reputation is not an abstract score. It is
+the substrate of alliance, trade, mate exchange, and mutual defence.
+A participant recognised as a marauder by other participants loses
+access to the cooperative structures that make large clans viable.
+Food sharing, territorial agreements, knowledge exchange — all of
+these require a reputation that aggression erodes.
+
+The simulation does not punish aggression by decree. It allows
+Mesolithic social mechanics to operate honestly. A marauder clan
+reaches a natural ceiling imposed by isolation, travel cost, and
+the carrying capacity of territory it must hold alone.
+
+**Exploit closed:** There is no dominant strategy built on aggression.
+Every gain from aggression is offset by costs that compound over elapsed
+time. A participant who attempts to optimise for domination will find
+that domination is self-limiting before it becomes simulation-breaking.
+
+---
+
+## Principle 5 — Abandoned Settlements Are Finite
+
+When a participant quits the simulation, their settlement enters a
+static state. It does not grow, defend itself, or replenish.
+
+A static settlement can be reached, observed, and raided. Its loot
+is finite and does not regenerate. After extraction it is an empty
+location. There are no defenders to defeat and no future production
+to anticipate. It is the least interesting thing a participant can
+engage with.
+
+The simulation does not prevent interaction with abandoned settlements.
+It simply makes them structurally uninteresting as a sustained strategy.
+
+**Exploit closed:** Targeting abandoned settlements is not prohibited.
+It is simply not productive beyond the single extraction event. A
+participant who builds their strategy around abandoned settlements
+is building on a depleting resource base with no renewal.
+
+---
+
+## Principle 6 — The Simulation Does Not Prohibit. It Costs.
+
+There are no forbidden actions in the Simulator. There are only actions
+whose costs, when honestly calculated, make them self-limiting.
+
+This principle supersedes all game-design instincts to add rules,
+restrictions, cooldowns, or penalties. Before any restriction is
+proposed, the question must be asked: does the honest cost structure
+already make this action self-limiting? If yes, no rule is needed.
+If no, the cost structure is incomplete and must be corrected before
+a rule is added.
+
+A rule that overrides the cost structure is a design failure. It means
+the simulation is not honest about what the action costs. Fix the cost,
+not the rule.
+
+**This principle applies to all future addenda.** Each addendum closes
+a loop by identifying the honest cost that code failed to implement —
+not by adding a prohibition.
+
+---
+
+## What This Addendum Does Not Cover
+
+- The specific mechanics of DESCENSUS epoch transition (see genesis document)
+- The Roman epoch cost structure (to be addressed in a future addendum)
+- The Model's role in encounter resolution (to be addressed separately)
+- Multi-participant alliance mechanics (to be addressed in a future addendum)
+- The compression algorithm and its relationship to elapsed time
+  (covered in OTIVM-IV design documentation)
+
+---
+
+*DESCENSUS — Addendum 1 — 2026-05-02*
+*TheRON — single contributor. AI assistants implement, document, flag — do not direct.*
+*Each addendum closes one loop. Addenda accumulate. None supersedes the genesis document.*
+*Where this document and code conflict, this document is the authority.*