A Falsification Sheet for the Finite-QEC Substrate Programme: Sharp Empirical Ways to Kill, Demote, or Constrain the Framework

This note is deliberately adversarial. It collects the simplest empirical ways to falsify, demote, or sharply constrain the finite-QEC substrate programme described in the companion papers [14–20]. The point is not to list numerical agreements. It is to state, in ordinary observational language, where the framework makes departures from standard ΛCDM plus the Standard Model, and what future data would force a retraction. The cleanest near-term kill switches are: a confirmed primordial tensor signal at r 10−3, a dark-energy reconstruction excluding w(a) =−1 + a/28, a scalar tilt excluding ns = 27/28, a reproducible secular drift in the frozen constants G or α, a neutron electric dipole moment far above 10−31 e cm with no additional CP source, and dark-matter phenomenology requiring the dominant component to be a freely streaming particle gas where the canon assigns extended wall/shadow support. Several tests are branch-level rather than global: excluding the 17.7 keV sterile-neutrino component, refuting the R4 line law behind MOND-like behaviour, or killing the K04 debris-wall mechanism would retire those branches without necessarily collapsing the matter and spectroscopy sector. A final foundational test concerns trans-ΛQCD Lorentz-invariant quanta: the canon now uses framed causal-set null chains rather than a finer oscillator lattice, so the representation of high-energy detector amplitudes is inseparable from the cosmological-constant premise. The result is a compact “try to kill it first” map for readers and experimentalists. Revision (2026-06-15). Added the CMB third-peak parameter-free no-go (z_eq ≈ z_rec) and two new gravitational-wave channels: a pulsar-timing-band stochastic background (sub-threshold) and a ringdown-echo template (Δt ≈ 56 ms at 30 M⊙, reflectivity R ≈ 1, spacing set by the lattice cutoff a₀ = 1/ΛQCD). Version 2.1 (2026-06-15). Echo correction: the v2.0 near-unit ringdown-echo (R~1) channel is WITHDRAWN; the canonical prediction is a large-echo null (one-way record channel, not a coherent mirror), echo searches retained as upper-bound tests. The CMB third-peak no-go and the PTA stochastic-background entry are unchanged. 2026-06-20 canon refresh: Updated to current falsification ledger: CMB zero-mode conditional completion, K04 pinned-fossil demotion, R4/MOND scheduler-record line status, HBC amplitude local-printer gate, trans-Lambda normalized-leg precision/LV tests, and refreshed reproducibility hooks; build/render checked locally; not Zenodo-synced. 2026-06-21 canon refresh: This version incorporates the 2026-06-21 ANCHOR/DRIFT/PTMS canon refresh and rebuilt local PDF. 2026-06-25 canon refresh: Zenodo-synced on 2026-06-20: new-version published as 10.5281/zenodo.20776772 (concept 10.5281/zenodo.20693692); local build/render previously checked. 2026-06-21 canon refresh applied where needed; PDF rebuilt and checked. Zenodo-synced on 2026-06-21: new-version published as 10.5281/zenodo.20786108 (concept 10.5281/zenodo.20693692). 2026-07-02 canon refresh: 2026-07-02 update: synchronised with canon after the response-layer, CMB/halo, and trans-Lambda_QCD revisions; records the killed dark-energy registration and current kill-switch ledger.