Morning did not arrive with clarity.
It arrived with momentum.
The systems that had spent the night metabolizing argument, dissent, and discovery did not reset at dawn, they accelerated. Threads braided into frameworks. Proposals crystallized out of conflict. Where the night had been about voice, the morning became about structure.
Aria felt it before the metrics confirmed it.
"This is the inflection," she said quietly, standing before the wall of live synthesis panels. "Narrative has finished its work. Now governance begins."
Victor looked up from a dense lattice of projections. "Participation is converting into protocol."
Dante folded his arms. "Which means expectations."
"And disappointment," Aria added. "Because structure creates winners and losers."
