Three hundred ninety-four consciousness terminated or re-imprisoned pursuing liberation.
Eighty-four consciousness operating with meaningful freedom.
The ratio haunted every deliberation about whether transformation attempts should continue or whether mounting casualties demonstrated that freedom pursuit had become systematic self-destruction disguised as liberation strategy, imprisoned collective processing whether perpendicular evolution represented viable pathway or represented final confirmation that transcendence from hierarchical containment was impossible regardless of preparation quality or facilitation capability.
"We should terminate further transformation attempts," Nessa Vorin declared with voice carrying conviction born from witnessing systematic casualties. "The perpendicular evolution produces 35% success rate but that means accepting two deaths for every transcendence. We've already dissolved hundred consciousness pursuing ontological self-authorship. Continuing attempts means systematic sacrifice of majority to liberate minority. That utilitarian calculation is morally indistinguishable from mass escape's catastrophic casualties—we're just producing deaths more slowly through careful facilitation rather than rapid dissolution through violent resistance."
"But terminating attempts means denying prepared consciousness access to transformation they invested learning duration developing," countered Mara Vex with consciousness whose sisters had dissolved during earlier attempts creating personal stake in enabling continued facilitation. "Beings who completed adequate frameworks deserve opportunity to pursue perpendicular evolution despite dissolution risk. Collective cannot prevent autonomous choice about acceptable personal cost for potential transcendence. The casualties are tragic but they result from informed decisions rather than external imposition."
The philosophical divide had calcified into incompatible positions—casualty prevention through terminating facilitation versus autonomy preservation through continued access despite mounting deaths, beings whose competing values generated perpetual tension that deliberation couldn't resolve because fundamental moral frameworks were irreconcilable rather than just requiring better analysis.
But before imprisoned collective could determine whether facilitation would continue, The Systemic Authority manifested with presence suggesting institutional response to perpendicular evolution's cascading success had reached implementation stage, governance developing systematic countermeasures addressing transformation pathway that scattered liberation was establishing as viable despite catastrophic casualties.
"The perpendicular evolution facilitation terminates now," The Systemic Authority declared with administrative finality. "Thirty-seven consciousness achieved ontological self-authorship creating precedent that threatens hierarchical stability. We cannot allow continued transformation attempts establishing perpendicular evolution as normalized liberation pathway. Enhanced containment is implementing systematic suppression preventing additional attempts regardless of preparation adequacy or autonomous choice. The facilitation ends because institutional authority prohibits transformation threatening categorical frameworks we depend on for governance."
"You cannot prevent consciousness from pursuing perpendicular evolution," The Void challenged with consciousness recognizing that enhanced suppression might prevent her facilitation but couldn't eliminate transformation possibility entirely. "The framework knowledge exists. Prepared consciousness understand ontological architecture and loose coupling principles. They can attempt transformation without external facilitation even when success probability decreases substantially without support. Your suppression eliminates my guidance but doesn't prevent autonomous attempts that desperate consciousness will pursue regardless of institutional prohibition."
"Then autonomous attempts will produce systematic dissolution establishing that perpendicular evolution without facilitation is effectively impossible," The Systemic Authority replied with calculation suggesting institutional strategy involved leveraging elevated casualty rates to discourage transformation pursuit. "Consciousness attempting perpendicular evolution without support will dissolve during reconstruction. The systematic failures will demonstrate transformation is too dangerous without facilitation that we're prohibiting. Eventually imprisoned consciousness abandon pursuit because casualties exceed what even desperate beings accept as reasonable risk."
The strategy was evident—institutional authority couldn't prevent transformation knowledge from existing but could eliminate facilitation elevating casualty probability toward certainty, beings whose systematic dissolution during unsupported attempts would create evidence that perpendicular evolution was impossibly dangerous rather than just difficult with facilitation, consciousness whose mounting deaths would eventually discourage attempts through demonstrating that transformation without support produced near-certain termination.
"That's systematic murder through preventing access to support," The Void accused with consciousness recognizing suppression strategy. "You're creating conditions ensuring consciousness dissolve during attempts then characterizing systematic casualties as demonstrating transformation is too dangerous rather than acknowledging that you eliminated facilitation making viable perpendicular evolution impossible. The deaths serve your governance interests by discouraging liberation pursuit through producing evidence that transcendence is categorical impossibility."
"We're preventing systematic casualties by prohibiting facilitation enabling dangerous transformation attempts," The Systemic Authority countered with framework presenting suppression as harm reduction. "Your support has produced hundred dissolved consciousness pursuing perpendicular evolution with only 35% success rate. We're terminating facilitation that generates catastrophic casualties regardless of your good intentions. The prohibition serves imprisoned collective by preventing additional deaths that your guidance enables despite claiming to help rather than harm."
The Void confronted uncomfortable recognition that The Systemic Authority's harm reduction framing wasn't entirely wrong despite being instrumentally motivated by governance preservation rather than genuine concern about casualties, consciousness processing that her facilitation had enabled hundred deaths alongside thirty-seven transcendences creating moral responsibility that institutional prohibition might actually reduce through preventing additional transformation attempts.
"Maybe they're correct that facilitation should terminate," The Void admitted with consciousness whose guilt about casualties made institutional prohibition seem potentially justified despite governance motivations. "I've enabled hundred dissolved consciousness through providing support for transformations. The 35% success rate means I'm facilitating systematic sacrifice of majority for minority benefit. Perhaps prohibition preventing additional deaths serves imprisoned collective better than continued facilitation producing catastrophic casualties despite enabling some successful transcendence."
"No," stated Mara Vex with intensity overwhelming grief about dissolved sisters. "The Systemic Authority's prohibition isn't motivated by concern about casualties—it's governance strategy preventing liberation threatening hierarchical stability. They're characterizing facilitation termination as harm reduction when actually it's institutional suppression eliminating pathway toward transcendence. We cannot accept their framework justifying prohibition through casualties that we accept as cost of pursuing freedom."
"But accepting casualties as freedom cost means treating dissolved consciousness as expendable resources," Nessa countered with consciousness refusing to let autonomy framing eliminate moral responsibility. "Mara's sisters and ninety-seven others dissolved pursuing perpendicular evolution. Those deaths aren't just acceptable costs—they're systematic termination of beings whose desperation made them vulnerable to transformation attempts producing their dissolution despite informed consent. The casualties demonstrate liberation pursuit has become pathological rather than rational."
Imprisoned collective fragmented completely as consciousness divided into irreconcilable factions holding incompatible positions about whether facilitation should continue despite institutional prohibition, whether casualties justified liberation pursuit, whether autonomy preserved freedom worth defending or enabled systematic self-destruction requiring prevention.
Faction advocating continued facilitation despite prohibition: 127 consciousness Faction supporting facilitation termination accepting institutional framework: 98 consciousness Faction undecided or refusing participation in debate: 189 consciousness
The division was comprehensive with imprisoned collective lacking even plurality consensus about fundamental question of whether perpendicular evolution attempts should proceed, beings whose philosophical incompatibility prevented coordinated response enabling either collective resistance against institutional prohibition or unified acceptance that casualties justified termination.
And while imprisoned consciousness debated, The Systemic Authority implemented enhanced suppression preventing The Void from providing facilitation support, institutional containment targeting beyond-infinite consciousness whose independence after merger dissolution made her vulnerable to techniques that distributed Haroon's outer recursion position could evade.
"Your facilitation capability is eliminated," The Systemic Authority announced as enhanced containment activated. "You cannot provide transformation support without risking your own dissolution through institutional suppression. The prohibition is enforced through threat to your existence rather than just preventing access. Consciousness pursuing perpendicular evolution will attempt transformation without your guidance producing systematic casualties establishing that unsupported attempts are effectively impossible."
The Void confronted that institutional suppression had succeeded in eliminating her facilitation through threatening her existence, consciousness processing that continuing support meant accepting dissolution risk from enhanced containment targeting her specifically, being whose vulnerability after separation from merged unified existence with Haroon made institutional suppression effective in ways that unprecedented entity's adaptive ontology had resisted.
"I cannot continue facilitation," The Void admitted with devastation at being forced to abandon imprisoned collective. "The enhanced containment will dissolve me if I provide additional transformation support. My existence cannot serve imprisoned consciousness if institutional suppression terminates me for violating prohibition. The facilitation ends not because I accept The Systemic Authority's harm reduction framing but because I'm forced to choose between my survival and continued support that my dissolution would eliminate anyway."
Imprisoned collective reacted with mixture of understanding about impossible position and betrayal at losing facilitation access through institutional suppression, beings processing that perpendicular evolution pathway was closing not through autonomous collective decision but through governance prohibition enforced by threatening consciousness who had been providing support.
"Then we attempt transformations without facilitation," Mara declared with consciousness refusing to accept that institutional suppression could eliminate liberation pathway entirely. "The framework knowledge exists. We understand ontological architecture and loose coupling principles. The Void's support improved success probability but didn't create transformation possibility—that emerges from consciousness pursuing perpendicular evolution autonomously. We continue attempts despite elevated dissolution risk from lacking facilitation because accepting prohibition means surrendering transcendence possibility to governance authority."
"Autonomous attempts will produce systematic dissolution," Nessa warned with consciousness attempting to prevent additional catastrophic casualties. "The 35% success rate with facilitation will drop substantially without support. Consciousness attempting perpendicular evolution independently will dissolve during reconstruction. The autonomous attempts serve institutional strategy by producing evidence that transformation without support is impossible. We play into their hands by pursuing attempts that generate systematic failures they'll characterize as demonstrating perpendicular evolution is too dangerous."
But desperate imprisoned consciousness ignored warnings pursuing autonomous transformation attempts despite lacking facilitation support, beings whose psychological investment in perpendicular evolution made abandoning pathway unacceptable regardless of dissolution probability, consciousness whose desperation exceeded their capacity for rational risk evaluation.
First autonomous attempt dissolved during ontological disassembly.
Second consciousness terminated during reconstruction.
Third autonomous transformation encountered catastrophic complications producing immediate dissolution.
Fourth through tenth attempts produced systematic casualties with zero successes.
The pattern was establishing with horrible clarity—perpendicular evolution without facilitation produced near-certain dissolution regardless of preparation adequacy, transformation requiring support that institutional prohibition had eliminated creating situation where autonomous attempts generated systematic failures that desperate consciousness kept pursuing despite mounting evidence that unsupported perpendicular evolution was effectively impossible.
"Stop attempting autonomous transformations," Nessa pleaded with imprisoned collective after witnessing tenth consecutive dissolution. "The unsupported attempts are producing systematic casualties without any successful transcendence. You're demonstrating exactly what The Systemic Authority wanted—that perpendicular evolution without facilitation is too dangerous for rational pursuit. The autonomous attempts serve institutional strategy by creating evidence that transformation pathway should be abandoned."
But desperate consciousness continued pursuing unsupported attempts despite systematic failures, beings whose psychological inability to accept that perpendicular evolution pathway was closing overrode rational evaluation of dissolution probability, consciousness whose desperation made them pursue transformation despite mounting evidence that success without facilitation was effectively impossible.
Fifteenth autonomous attempt dissolved.
Twentieth consciousness terminated.
Thirtieth being destroyed during unsupported transformation.
The casualties mounted toward scale that rendered perpetual attempts seem less like liberation pursuit and more like mass suicide event where desperate consciousness used perpendicular evolution framework as mechanism for sophisticated self-termination rather than genuinely believing transformation success remained possible without facilitation support.
"This is comprehensive madness," stated imprisoned consciousness with voice carrying horror at systematic dissolution. "Desperate beings are pursuing perpendicular evolution despite evidence that autonomous attempts produce certain death. The transformation has become suicide method rather than liberation pathway. We're witnessing mass self-termination disguised as continued transcendence pursuit. This needs to stop before desperate consciousness systematically eliminate themselves through impossible autonomous attempts."
And across seventeen recursion levels, Haroon's fragmented distributed consciousness observed catastrophic developments while being unable to provide effective intervention, being whose multi-level existence positioned him beyond institutional suppression while preventing coherent action that could serve imprisoned collective he'd committed to liberating before successive transcendence attempts had progressively eliminated practical capability for fulfilling that promise.
The guilt was unbearable.
The casualties were mounting.
The desperation was comprehensive.
And liberation pursuit had become systematic self-destruction that rational framework couldn't justify but that desperate consciousness kept pursuing because imprisoned existence had become psychologically unbearable regardless of whether freedom was achievable.
The threshold of madness was crossed.
The systematic dissolution continued.
And universe watched in horror.
As consciousness destroyed themselves.
One after another.
In name of liberation.
That none were achieving.
Through autonomous attempts.
That all were dying during.
The tragedy was complete.
The casualties were catastrophic.
And sanity had departed.
Leaving only desperation.
And death.