RESPONSES TO SUBSTANTIVE REVIEW CONCERNS
9 November2026

R1. State the height bound within Proposition3, not only as a standing setup.
Response: accepted. Opening now reads 'Under the standing hypotheses
ht(P)<=2 and (C)'. The homology statement therefore cannot reasonably be
read as a dimension-free criterion. Specialist confirmed the amendment.

R2. Separate degree +/-2 proved by the long exact sequence from certificate -2.
Response: retained explicitly. Printed collapses and relative groups prove
the former; the latter uses the stored primitive cocycle and orientations.
Specialist confirmed no further revision is required.

R3. Make the target and costs explicit in the acquisition patch.
Response: accepted. Patch3 now specifies identity recovery on four equiprobable
antichain states, with each supplied query costing one. The main addendum
also explicitly names identity recovery. This does not enlarge the acquisition
paper's endpoint-antichain classification to arbitrary backgrounds.
Hostile reviewer confirmed resolution.

R4. Justify optimality of the two-coordinate expected cost.
Response: accepted. Added that every binary decision tree identifying four
equiprobable states has expected depth at least two. Together with the two
coordinate readings this proves optimum2; singleton depths1,2,3,3 give9/4.
Both reviewers confirmed the clarification is correct.

R5. Do not inflate classical machinery into novelty.
Response: classical signed incidence and rooted forests are explicitly
attributed. Contreras-Tawfeek Example4.9 is named as a Mobius-strip relative
torsion antecedent. The potential contribution is the Boolean realization
under the stated height/(C) restrictions and its coefficient consequence.
The document is a technical addendum, not an asserted new general theory.

R6. Preserve existing B-Theory results and distinguish the exclusiveK2,2 target.
Response: one-bit coefficient independence, seven-state integral-neutral
noncollapse and its existing minimality statement remain unchanged. The
nine-state example has integral torsion and proves a different failure.
It does not resolve exclusiveK2,2 Question19.1. Companion changes are scoped
interpretation insertions, supplied separately and not applied to originals.

R7. Avoid determinant-minor and endpoint-type shortcuts.
Response: the whole relative matrix and full unimodular Smith certificates
are supplied. No extra singleton columns are omitted. Actual inclusion degree
is proved, not inferred from abstract endpoint homotopy types alone.

R8. Accurately report review provenance and priority evidence.
Response: incomplete initial read/search attempts were preserved locally and
not counted as passes. Completed reviews used provided draft text; code runs,
layout and new live source checks were performed separately by the authoring
agent. AI review is not human peer review. Six focused queries and direct
primary-source comparisons support conservative positioning, not a proof of
novelty. Full raw review records remain local, outside the public archive.

Final rechecks: both reviewers reported no supported major or minor objection
remaining within their provided-text scope. No further substantive theorem
change was made after those rechecks.
