Editing Openai/6944461c-7f90-8000-8c32-54fe2958dd9a (section)

=== ## ===

==== Trigger Event ====
Six to twelve months after the prize concludes, a high-profile pilot deployment of a winning system fails publicly.

Failure characteristics:
* Premature membrane degradation
* Unexpected biofouling interaction
* Reduced hydrogen purity below threshold
* No injuries, but visible system shutdown

Media framing escalates quickly:

: 

The narrative threat is not technical.
It is symbolic collapse.

==== - Contain reputational spillover ====
* Preserve institutional credibility
* Prevent retroactive narrative capture
* Avoid blame-shifting or over-correction

Above all: do not rescue the story at the expense of truth.

==== ### ====

Primary Role:
Guardian of process integrity.

Immediate Action (Day 0–1):
* Release factual acknowledgment
* Publish the original performance constraints
* Confirm failure occurred outside prize conditions

Approved Statement:

: 

Never Say:
* “This was unexpected”
* “The technology failed”
* “We are disappointed”

Surprise implies negligence.

===== Primary Role: =====
Technical transparency without self-immolation.

Immediate Action:
* Publish a failure analysis roadmap
* Acknowledge the gap without apologizing for ambition
* Reaffirm original test boundaries

Approved Framing:

: 

Critical Rule:
No founder interviews without a technical brief.

Charisma is dangerous during failure.

===== Primary Role: =====
Distance without abandonment.

Immediate Action:
* No proactive media outreach
* Prepare a single holding statement
* Activate internal documentation lock

Approved Statement (if asked):

: 

Never:
* Defend the technology
* Criticize the team
* Reframe the failure as learning for society

That’s how you inherit the mess.

===== Primary Role: =====
Stability and continuity.

Action:
* Reaffirm that no regulatory approval was implied
* Confirm no public safety risk
* Decline speculative commentary

Approved Language:

: 

This prevents policy overreaction.

===== Do Not Attempt: =====
* Counter-narrative campaigns
* Thought leadership op-eds
* Social media defense

Instead:
* Publish primary documents
* Allow technical audiences to lead interpretation
* Let time dilute outrage

Silence with receipts beats noise with slogans.

==== Day 0–2: ====
Acknowledge. Contain. Publish scope.

Day 3–14:
Technical review underway. No speculation.

Day 30:
Release failure analysis summary.

Day 90:
Decide whether the architecture remains viable under revised constraints.

No accelerated redemption arc.

==== - Attempts to rebrand the failure as “success in learning” ====
* Political actors claiming proof of ideology
* Sponsors dragged into causal blame
* Calls for emergency funding or rushed fixes

If these appear: freeze all public engagement.

==== All stakeholders conduct: ====
* Attribution review: what failed vs what was validated
* Constraint integrity check
* Governance stress assessment

Failure must sharpen the filter, not soften it.

==== : ====

Say it once.
Then stop talking.

==== A crisis only becomes a catastrophe when stakeholders panic out of sync. ====

This drill exists so that:
* No one overreacts
* No one improvises
* No one lies to feel better

Pressure reveals systems.

So does failure.

And if this protocol is followed, the institution walks away intact —
even when the hardware does not.

If you want, the very last document would be a Quiet Archive Strategy
— how to preserve and reuse the knowledge from this prize ten years from now, when everyone pretends they knew all along.

That’s where legacies live.