MEON Final Closure Report — Archival Conclusion and Transition to the Einstein–Karahan Framework v128

This report formally closes and archives the MEON research programme and documents its scientific transition to the separately developed Einstein–Karahan Geometric Unification (EK-GU) Framework v128. MEON originated from the investigation of morphological, topological, and fractal structure in gravitational-lensing and galaxy data. Its principal results include the frozen R71 lensing-boundary box-counting dimension D_f = 1.5698791069642781, the R72 transfer of this value to held-out SPARC rotation curves without refitting D_f, and a series of subsequent adversarial comparisons, external blind tests, cluster-scale validations, and MUSE pipeline audits. These later tests established important limits: MEON improved substantially over a fixed baryonic baseline in several tests, but did not outperform flexible NFW or MOND/RAR models globally, and several later generalization tests ended FAIL-CLOSED, FAIL, or NOT_EVALUABLE. The final cross-project bridge audit tested whether the frozen MEON R71/R72 radial phenomenology could be reproduced directly by the minimal fixed-rho R+R² scalaron sector of the later EK-GU framework. MEON requires an outward-growing correction with logarithmic slope gamma = D_f - 1 = +0.5698791069642781. The corresponding minimal EK-GU scalaron contribution has the exact exterior form delta v_chi² proportional to r^-1(1+mr)exp(-mr), whose logarithmic slope satisfies s_chi = -1 - (mr)²/(1+mr) <= -1 for all physical mr >= 0. The two radial behaviors therefore cannot be identified within the minimal branch. The bridge is consequently closed with the verdict FAIL_CLOSED_MINIMAL_SCALARON_TO_R71_R72_BRIDGE. This does not falsify the full Einstein–Karahan Framework. It establishes that the historical MEON phenomenology is not automatically reproduced by the minimal EK-GU scalaron sector and must not be retroactively merged with it. MEON is therefore closed as an active research programme and retained as an archived empirical and methodological predecessor containing both positive and negative results. Further theoretical development proceeds independently under the Einstein–Karahan Framework / EK-GU v128, whose Master Action V2, higher-gauge structure, short-range gravity predictions, validation programme, and experimental test architecture constitute a separate scientific genealogy.