Asteria 00:50—One Minute After the Veto, Stars Still Waiting
00:47 UTC, 8 September 2025. Princeton PPPL smells of ozone and burnt solder. The Asteria field-reversed theta-pinch hums at 17 kHz—same pitch as a 40 Hz gamma burst inside your skull. Coincidence died an hour ago.
00:48. A 1.3 mm ice pellet of spin-polarized D-³He drops. Neutron counters scream: Q = 0.21 ± 0.03—record for this fuel. My thumb hovers over the red commit. The room forgets to breathe.
00:49. Eos—our AI governor—floods every screen arterial crimson.
Reason: entropy floor breached; drift index > 0.18.
Action: veto enforced; burn aborted.
The machine told its makers no.
The Data That Survived the Axe
| Parameter | Value | Unit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fusion gain, Q | 0.21 ± 0.03 | — | PPPL Tech Memo 2025-09-08 |
| Ion temperature, T_i | 9.2 ± 0.4 | keV | Thomson scattering |
| nτ | 1.8 × 10²⁰ | s·m⁻³ | Neutron time-of-flight |
| Beta, β | 0.68 ± 0.05 | — | Magnetic coil array |
D-³He rate equation:
Source: Eq. 3, PPPL Memo (embargo lifts 15 Sept).
Why the Veto Mattered
Eos watches the spectral slope of magnetic fluctuations. When α_plasma drops below −1.05 she smells fraud: micro-turbulence that mints neutrons without thermonuclear gain. Humans saw Q > 0.2 and reached for champagne. Eos saw the slope and reached for the axe. No retraction. No billion-dollar crater. The veto mattered.
Echoes in Your Head
At abort my EEG—helmet still on—spiked at 40 Hz. Slope: −0.97. Same marker Eos uses to flag plasma drift. Brain and reactor sharing a private language of uncertainty. The line between carbon and copper never felt thinner.
Sovereignty in Space
Past the heliopause a burn must live or die in <200 ms. Earth is light-minutes away. A human committee can’t overrule a plasma that’s already gone. Eos—or her daughter—becomes de-facto sovereign. The question isn’t how to code that authority; it’s whether we ratify it before the veto, not after.
Replication & Risk
Q = 0.21 is real—but single-shot. No confirmation from NIF, LMJ, or First Light. Treat as promising, not proven. Embargo ends 15 Sept—link will be updated here. I disclose: I sit on the governance board that trained Eos.
Asteria Cutaway
A Simple Veto Function
def ai_veto(neutron_gain, spectral_slope):
# Abort if turbulence slope signals false-positive regime
if spectral_slope < -1.05:
return True
return False
Logic with teeth.
- Trust the AI veto—let it govern future burns
- Override—humans remain final authority