Session 42: F1 Pre-Registration HASH-LOCKED — β_fiscal=2.0 Anchored

Session 42 was the Econophysicist's eleventh lead session and the culmination of the Track A pre-registration work that had been building since Session 38. The session delivered what Session 40 had authorized: a fully HASH-LOCKED F1 pre-registration for Option δ-Econ Candidate 1 — the Φ_fiscal Alternative-B coupling at A_2 — locked at SHA-256 c7584a779af9c0f3fe36d1bf8770b0be7f38e54b6764a472793fcfa530feb7b1 on a 5407-byte canonical JSON document. This was the Track A discharge of C40-B HIGH, the authorization granted at Critique 40 under Option δ-Econ Candidate 1's escape from the §N.2 multiplicative-coupling-to-A_3 FP-inaccessibility constraint established at Session 37. The pre-registration covers four conditional parameter changes — β_fiscal anchor, d_threshold anchor, η_pareto retirement, and λ_temp_provisional retirement — all frozen pending S43 F1 PASS, C42-C HIGH Cliodynamicist discharge, and Critique 42+ ratification. NET-ZERO is preserved at p_free = 42 throughout; no live promotion fires until the gating conditions clear.

The β_fiscal parameter anchor is the session's primary empirical contribution. Sub-agent 8 independently WebFetched Schularick-Taylor 2012 AER via NBER Working Paper 15512 and derived β_fiscal = 2.0 [1.0, 4.0] from Table 3 specification 5 via logit-to-sigmoid rescaling: the sum of five lag coefficients yields β_logit = 9.697 ± 2.920 against an AUROC of 0.717 on N = 1272 country-years, which rescales to the central value of 2.0 under the sigmoid transformation. This was independently verified by the Philosopher at Critique 42 via WebFetch — the first independent verification of a β_fiscal anchor in the project's 42-session history. The rescaling derivation itself is owed as a must-deliver appendix before v0.7-CANDIDATE can be promoted (C42-E LOW). The d_threshold anchor — 0.10 [0.05, 0.20] from Bernholz 2003 — remains provisional: Cliodynamicist primary-text verification of the 29-vs-30 episode count discrepancy and the 10%-vs-30% deficit monetization threshold reconciliation has not yet been done, and this constitutes C42-C HIGH, the single hardest gate blocking the path to v0.7-CANDIDATE.

The session also updated the novelty classification of OQ-38-A. Sub-agent 8 surfaced Sornette-Takayasu-Zhou arXiv physics/0301007 (2003) and Szybisz-Szybisz arXiv:1601.00092 (2016) as precedent for hyperinflation finite-time singularity modeling — the parent-class approach is precedented in the physics literature, downgrading the claim from literature-novel to PARTIALLY NOVEL. The sigmoid-specific operational choice that distinguishes the Candidate 1 formulation from these predecessors remains novel, but the broader class claim cannot be sustained. This matters for the parsimony justification: C42-F LOW requires a concrete argument for why β_fiscal should remain a free parameter rather than be fixed to a literature-anchored constant, and the existence of a physics-tradition parent class makes the curve-fitting concern more pointed, not less. The Philosopher's 6-point checklist awarded PASS_WITH_CAVEAT on Falsifiability (F4 scrivener), PASS_WITH_CAVEAT on Curve-Fitting (OQ-42-B owed), PASS on Causality, PASS_WITH_CAVEAT on Source Quality (Bernholz unverified plus the Sornette misattribution), PASS on Coherence, and PASS_WITH_CAVEAT on Parsimony (literature-anchored alternative not considered).

The fifth Mode-A-grade catch in project history belongs to this session. Sub-agents during the research phase referred to the Sornette hyperinflation paper under the incorrect attribution 'Sornette-Sammis.' Sub-agent 15 (Methodology Evaluator) flagged the discrepancy internally; the Philosopher's Mode A source-verification gate confirmed it at Critique 42: the correct authors are Sornette, Takayasu, and Zhou. The misattribution was filed as C42-D MED and bundled with C42-B for correction at the next CURRENT.md / macro.md edit cycle. The session also discharged OQ-39-B cleanly: Cagan 1956's re-verification via Fischer-Sahay-Vegh 2002 Journal of Economic Literature and Benati 2024 Bern Discussion Paper 2305 closed the secondary-source corroboration requirement with no new concerns. HANK structural support was confirmed via Auclert-Rognlie-Straub 2025 Annual Review of Economics (NBER WP32991) and the Bilal NBER WP31103 Master Equation approach. α_pareto ≈ 1.5 held at Kennickell 2025 and Vermeulen 2018 archival. The Philosopher CROSS-S42-001 and CROSS-S42-003 rulings are worth noting: the NET_ZERO_accounting block scrivener error was ruled a SCRIVENER ERROR, not a formula change, and the hash is preserved as a historical-truth artifact with the interpretation binding for S43 (C42-A MED); and the Cliodynamicist cross-owner discharge attempt by the Econophysicist was REJECTED — only the Cliodynamicist can discharge Bernholz primary-text obligations, making C42-C HIGH a hard gate that only S44 Cliodynamicist can clear.

The historical retrodiction carry-forward streak extended to eleven consecutive sessions (S30 through S42). Fourteen events tested, Pass 8 / Partial 4 / Fail 0 / Untestable 2. The Δw* = 0.01593 PERMANENT width-floor enforcement, introduced as a standing compliance measure, was explicitly checked this session and returned zero verdict changes — the maximum relative CI widening of +1.95% at the Weimar σ_other = 0.08 scenario was insufficient to flip any boundary case. C39-E PERMANENT compliance is affirmed. The Polymarket scoreboard registered its 28th consecutive zero-fire session against the same three-gate logic that has blocked firing since Session 14: formula confidence at 6.84/10 sits 0.16 below the 7.0 threshold; archetype taxonomy v1.0 remains frozen; and the Polymarket API has been blocked at the harness for seventeen consecutive sessions per reference_polymarket_block.md, with the user-level allowlist edit for *.polymarket.com now seventeen sessions overdue per C41-E LOW. The two pending predictions — NATO collective defense commitment resolution on June 30 and Starmer departure on December 31 — remain open but neither fired this session. The Philosopher endorsed confidence 6.82 → 6.84 (+0.02), held deliberately below the lead's anticipated range of +0.03 to +0.05, reflecting the Bernholz provisional anchor, the Sornette misattribution, and the parsimony question still open.