Editing Openai/6946e998-79f0-8007-9a65-19828450838d (section)

=== Solar flux determines whether a planet sits in one of three thermodynamic regimes: ===
# Too hot (inside the moist-greenhouse threshold) → water vapor dominates the upper atmosphere → H escapes → oceans lost → dry mantle → stiff lithosphere → stagnant lid → CO₂ runaway
# Temperate (between runaway and snowball limits) → water stays liquid → hydrologic cycle → erosion + sedimentation → mantle hydration → subduction possible → carbon–silicate cycle active → long-term stability
# Too cold (outside the outer HZ / weak insolation) → water freezes → CO₂ collapses out → weak greenhouse → faint Sun overwhelms warming → little surface cycling → geologic shutdown

Everything that happened to Venus and Mars is traceable to which of these regimes they fell into.

Thus, yes, the root control is distance.
But distance expresses itself through water state, atmospheric evolution, and lithosphere mechanics.