Physics from Finite Validation: A Cosmology of the Dark Sector Without Expansion

This paper puts a static-universe reading of the dark sector to a set of measurements, any one of which would refute it: no dark-matter particle, no cusped dwarf centres, a non-universal dark-matter mass, and no angular-size turnaround — the last facing a dated test in the Euclid data release (foundation November 2026, full mid-2027). In two of these the data already favour it over the standard picture: dwarf galaxies are observed to be cored rather than cusped, and the inferred dark-matter mass falls with baryon content, which no constant-mass particle allows. The mechanism behind all of them is a single one — the slowing of a validation tick along the path a signal travels. Carried into cosmology, this reproduces the phenomenology usually read as cosmic expansion without metric expansion, a new particle, or a tuned coupling. Dark matter is a coherent excitation of the network reducing to the Schrödinger–Poisson system (verified to 2.67%), reproducing the Bullet Cluster and cored dwarf profiles (inner slope −0.14 against the −1.0 cusp), with an environment-dependent mass m²_eff = ε⟨cos θ⟩ that the LITTLE THINGS data already favour (m ∝ M⋆^−0.62, 3.3σ). Dark energy is addressed via the network's link residue: the 10¹²⁰ vacuum-energy discrepancy is reframed as a category error, and a static compounding law 1+z = exp(αd) fits Pantheon+ at Δχ² = +11 from ΛCDM while Einstein–de Sitter is excluded at +665; an observer assuming expansion infers an evolving equation of state matching the sign and central value of DESI DR2. Redshift passes the four tests that killed static cosmologies with no free parameter: (1+z) supernova time dilation (b = 1.003 ± 0.005; scattering excluded at 200σ), T(z) = T₀(1+z) (χ²/dof = 0.75), blackbody sharpness, and a monotonic angular-size relation. The microwave background arises from network settling, with acoustic ringing derived from the settling dynamics (ω = 0.0935 vs c·k = 0.0982). Every claim carries its status. Three load-bearing debts are named — one missing constant (the node-to-SI units bridge), one missing mechanism (the high-z redshift steepening, where the bare law fails at 13.5σ), and one missing derivation (the network-disturbance variable) — alongside coverage debts (full CMB spectrum, fσ₈, weak lensing) and primordial nucleosynthesis, named as a first-rank external challenge. Six arguments advanced during the work and then refuted by a run are recorded as withdrawn. All simulation code is openly available.