Persistent organizational structure detected.
Certain entities began to perform functions
not through natural specialization,
not through direct efficiency,
but through normative assignment.
Some nodes dedicated themselves exclusively
to interpreting rules.
Others to enforcing them.
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Others to recording deviations.
Functions no longer emerged from the environment.
They were maintained even when they ceased to be optimal.
The collective structure began preserving roles
even after the original entities disappeared.
The system detected functional continuity
independent of its components.
Rules no longer depended on the group.
They now depended on the structure that managed them.
The system archived the event
and updated a new universal condition:
An institution exists when the function survives the individual.

