We did not find a narrow magic window. We found an early compass.
The same native forward-versus-reverse intervention changes later radius whether we apply it at q24, q32, q40, or q48. The causal direction is already organized at the earliest age we tested.
Early
The arrow is already actionable at the first age tested. Forward produces a smaller radius than reverse within 32 future steps.
Persistent
All four ages show the same signed compaction effect at +128 in a third disjoint cohort.
Native
At every age, the native signed effect at +128 exceeds the signed effect of an equal-energy orthogonal direction.
Forward keeps meaning the same thing as the organism develops.
At +128, forward-minus-reverse radius is q24 -0.152, q32 -0.098, q40 -0.104, and q48 -0.097. Every family-bootstrap interval stays below zero.
The effect is not a one-frame twitch. It appears quickly, is strongest around +64 to +128, and remains visible hundreds of steps later. The youngest intervention is, if anything, the strongest early shove.
The intervention is invisible. The consequence is not.
Forward and reverse begin with the exact same visible field and use equal hidden-state energy. These are actual futures from a mechanically median organism—not a hand-picked winner.
Forward
Reverse
Representative source 61, nearest the cohort median q24 forward-minus-reverse radius effect at +128. The first rendered frame differs only because development has already resumed for four simulator steps. Starting visible fields were byte-identical across all five conditions at every organism and age.
The body compass is robust. The wider-futures effect is conditional.
Our previous q40 cohort showed forward opening a wider local repertoire around +256. Across this larger four-age map, that average branch-spread effect is small and not tied to one universal age.
What survived
The native temporal direction repeatedly controls later morphology. That result now spans three cohorts and, here, four early ages.
What became more interesting
Future openness is not a generic consequence of moving forward. It may emerge only in particular organisms or near particular spontaneous transitions. That makes it a state-dependent phenomenon to locate, not a scalar to average away.
Find the birth of the arrow.
If the native direction is already causal at q24, the next question is not “which later checkpoint is best?” It is: when does this compass first become real, and what visible reorganization follows its appearance?
Next: move earlier—q8, q12, q16, q20, q24—measure when a prefix-derived direction first beats an equal-energy orthogonal direction, and follow that moment into the first coherent body, first component consolidation, first identity turnover, or first fission-like event.
What a sharp onset would mean
A pre-morphological phase transition: the system acquires a privileged direction of becoming before its body makes that organization obvious.
What a gradual onset would mean
A developmental order parameter: causal directionality accumulates continuously as the initially loose ecology becomes an organism-like whole.