Metabolism M2.7: one species, many minds — strains (song-compiled LittleVMs), bodies with fixed allegiance, living wells, food-limited economy

metabolism/DESIGN.md

@@ -171,25 +171,22 @@ district. The film shows specialisation *evolving* inside one species.
 
 **Allegiance — the body.** Every organism also belongs to a macro-organism —
 its **body** — a polity of mixed strains that builds, defends and expands as
-one. Allegiance is a *field*: the population's composition per cell, advected
-frozen-in with the organisms as they move. And it changes:
-
-- **conversion** — at a contested front the stronger body captures ground and
-  converts the locals;
-- **defection** — when a body's presence collapses (its food gone, its ground
-  lost), its members flip to the neighbouring body;
-- **fission** — a coherent splinter cut off from its body, blessed by a strong
-  onset, is founded as a new body with a new colour;
-- **merger** — two bodies whose members fully intermix under a cooperative
-  regime become one.
+one. Allegiance is a *field*: the population partitioned by body, advected
+frozen-in with the organisms as they move. **Allegiance does not change
+sides.** A body is founded once and persists; war kills, it does not convert;
+there is no defection and no merger — territories stay legible because their
+colours never homogenise. What keeps more than one body alive is
+**colonisation**: a settlement on ground far from every body core, blessed by
+a strong onset, may plant a NEW flag (a fresh colour) — rare, and it grows
+the cast rather than reshuffling it.
 
 Bodies are few — the song opens 2–4, capped at ~8 so colour stays legible —
 and they are the drama. The film is the story of macro-organisms **fighting
-and cooperating**: skirmish lines at fronts, truces in consonant sections,
-symbiosis where one body's waste is another's food. The song sets the terms
-of diplomacy: consonant, harmonically locked material breeds symbiosis;
-dissonant, decorrelated material breeds rivalry; drops are expansion wars;
-breakdowns are truces and mutual building.
+and holding ground**: skirmish lines at fronts where the loser bleeds, truces
+in consonant sections, symbiosis where one body's waste is another's food.
+The song sets the terms of diplomacy: consonant, harmonically locked material
+breeds peace; dissonant, decorrelated material breeds rivalry; drops are
+expansion wars; breakdowns are truces and mutual building.
 
 A species name like "fast tonal weaver" falls out of the genome, so the report
 can talk about the world and not the track.
@@ -289,24 +286,24 @@ world behind the `Run` is being rebuilt.*
   per-song rule program: castes as rule entries (mutualism, social floors),
   interaction rules, per-section operator regimes (structural section
   changes), the event→response mapping, and a shared carrying capacity.
-- **M2.7 — one species, many minds** *(designed, not yet built — see
-  EVOLUTION.md)*: tribes/castes are dissolved into a single population field
-  with two live properties — a **strain mix** of song-compiled LittleVM
-  personalities evolving by local selection, and an **allegiance field**
-  whose macro-organisms ("bodies") convert, defect, fission and merge,
-  fighting or cooperating as the song's harmony and sections dictate — on top
-  of the living well timeline.
+- **M2.7 — one species, many minds** ✔ built: tribes/castes dissolved into a
+  single population field with two live properties — a **strain mix** of
+  song-compiled LittleVM personalities evolving by local selection, and an
+  **allegiance field** whose macro-organisms ("bodies") hold territory, wage
+  war (which kills, never converts) and colonise virgin ground — on top of
+  the living well timeline. The world's economy is food-limited: colonies
+  bloom on wells, starve off bare ground, and must keep moving to keep
+  eating.
 - **M3 — lens** the camera travels (track / reveal / establish) and reserves
   cuts for musical punctuation.
 - **M4 — film** mux frames + PCM to video.
 
 ## Current state, honestly
 
-The world is alive and the songs diverge on the metrics, but it is not yet a
-*film*: the renderer is a software-framebuffer proof, the reference tracks are
-synthetic test signals, the ground the population stands on is still furniture
-(four permanent springs), and the population itself is still three fixed
-castes instead of one evolving mix of minds. M2.7 (EVOLUTION.md) fixes both:
-wells that are born, drift and die; strains — song-compiled LittleVM
-personalities — whose mix adapts by local selection; and allegiances —
-macro-organisms that fight, cooperate, and change membership over time.
+The world is alive, the songs diverge on the metrics, and the population is
+now one species of many minds: strains compiled by the song, bodies that hold
+territory and war over living wells. It is not yet a *film*: the reference
+tracks are synthetic test signals, the lens still prefers the biggest knot to
+a traveling shot (M3), and muxing is waiting (M4). The allegiance layer is
+deliberately rigid — bodies never switch sides — so territories read; the
+drama currently comes from war, colonisation and the wells' own lives.