# Cascade and Energy Budget

## Cascade in V3

Cascade is a personal relational substrate: a radial map for representing who or what is currently active in an operator’s relational field.

The canonical V2 map has:

- **127 hexes**;
- **7 rings**, R0 through R6;
- **5 currencies**;
- **5 warmth bands**.

The geometry is a design substrate, not an empirically validated cognitive ceiling. The map can be used as a reflection surface without claiming that every person has exactly 126 relationships available.

## The rings

| Ring | Name | Tempo | Count | Working meaning |
|---|---|---|---:|---|
| R0 | You | — | 1 | Sovereign reference point |
| R1 | Inner Circle | Yearly | 6 | Lifelong or foundational anchors |
| R2 | Archetypes | Quarterly | 12 | Role relationships and durable patterns |
| R3 | The Longing | Monthly | 18 | People or aims you reach toward |
| R4 | The Echo | Weekly | 24 | Recurring weekly connections |
| R5 | The Wave | Daily | 30 | Daily rhythm connections |
| R6 | The Current | Hourly | 36 | Real-time or ambient presence |

R0 is not a relationship slot. It is the observer-actor’s sovereign seat and the reference point for the rest of the map.

## The five currencies

| Currency | Meaning | Useful observation |
|---|---|---|
| **Hearts** | Direct overlap and explicit resonance | What happened between us? |
| **Stars** | Shared category, field, or context | What do we recognize in common? |
| **Moons** | Complement and difference | What does this connection make possible that I cannot do alone? |
| **Hourglasses** | Running maintenance ledger | What did this require and return? |
| **Balloons** | Passive presence or ambient awareness | Who remains present without active exchange? |

The currencies are not a ranking system. A relationship with fewer Hearts may still be structurally important through Stars, Moons, or Balloons.

## Warmth bands

| Band | Score | Working meaning |
|---|---:|---|
| Blazing | 80–100 | Very high current intensity or synchrony |
| Hot | 61–79 | Strong resonance or frequent exchange |
| Warm | 41–60 | Steady reciprocal flow |
| Cool | 21–40 | Declining, newly forming, or lightly maintained |
| Cold | 0–20 | Inactive, ruptured, or intentionally dormant |

A warmth score is a snapshot. It is not a value judgment about a person.

## The Daily Three

Run this at a consistent time. Three minutes is a target, not a performance test.

### 1. Report available capacity

```text
E_available = ?
```

Use a 1–100 self-report for the amount of attention, time, care, and repair capacity available for active relationships today.

This is not a mood score, medical measurement, or objective energy reading.

### 2. Estimate current load

For active connections, estimate `A`, `ω`, and `ζ`, then use the same rough expression:

```text
E_rel ≈ k · A · ω · ζ
E_total = Σ E_rel
```

Use the result to notice concentration and tradeoffs, not to pretend to precision. Calibrate the numbers to your own consistent practice.

### 3. Make one structural decision

| Observation | Possible decision |
|---|---|
| Load clearly exceeds available capacity | Reduce one high-cost commitment or move one connection to a cooler maintenance tempo |
| Capacity exceeds current load for a sustained period | Invest in repair, depth, or one new connection |
| Load and capacity are close | Maintain; no change is a valid decision |
| A rupture is unresolved | Name the repair need, raise the estimated burden, and avoid pretending the connection is stable |

One decision per day prevents reactive thrashing.

## Recalibrating repair burden

Treat ζ as a slow estimate, not a mood dial:

- quick repair within a day: no automatic change;
- repair taking several days: consider a small increase;
- unresolved rupture: increase the burden estimate and reconsider the maintenance tempo;
- sustained reciprocal repair over time: consider a small decrease.

For asymmetric situations, keep two notes—what repair I can do and what repair the other party actually does. Do not collapse a one-sided relationship into a falsely shared score.

## Four patterns

### Saturator

Current load roughly matches available capacity. The system is stable but has little room for expansion.

### Investor

Capacity exceeds current load for long enough to support deepening, repair, or carefully chosen expansion.

### Overdrawer

Current load exceeds capacity for a sustained period. The operator is relying on deficit and needs a structural change.

### Throttler

The deficit is large enough that active reduction is required. Throttling is a protective response, not a failure.

## What Cascade is not

- Not a social network or public ranking.
- Not a demand to fill all hexes.
- Not a replacement for direct communication.
- Not a therapy tool or clinical assessment.
- Not a method for optimizing people away.
- Not proof that the map’s geometry is a law of human cognition.

## Cosmic-weather connection

The Cascade map is the human-scale application of the same diagnostic grammar used in the cosmic-weather extension:

- Phase: what rhythms are coordinated?
- Field: what surrounds and pressures the operator?
- Arc: what threshold event changed the state?
- Form: what pattern is persisting?
- Lattice: which relationships and pathways carry the load?

The analogy is useful because it makes boundary conditions visible. It is not evidence that social relationships and heliospheres share one mechanism.