# Causal Story Capture **Domain:** Identity / Prediction / Narrative Governance **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Maturity:** Foundational ## Definition **Causal Story Capture** occurs when an explanation of how a person arrived at a present state becomes a constraint upon which future states remain imaginable or institutionally available. The transition is subtle: **“This helps explain why I became this.” → “Therefore I could never have become otherwise.”** Explanation becomes verdict. A useful causal model acquires jurisdiction over the future person. ## Westworld Interface William uses childhood violence in [[wiki/Westworld S3E6 — The Model Beneath the Model|Decoherence]] as evidence that his later trajectory was inevitable. [[wiki/Rehoboam|Rehoboam]] performs the same operation at civilizational scale by treating modeled trajectories as definitions and removing opportunities that could falsify them. ## Governance Consequence When a model changes access, treatment, employment or custody, it can manufacture the future it predicted. [[wiki/Forecast-Induced Dissipation|Forecast-Induced Dissipation]] removes counterfactual lives; [[wiki/Institutional Retrocausality|Institutional Retrocausality]] lets the predicted future reorganize the present. ## See Also [[wiki/Peak Person|Peak Person]] · [[wiki/Forecast-Induced Dissipation|Forecast-Induced Dissipation]] · [[wiki/Counterfactual Opportunity|Counterfactual Opportunity]] · [[wiki/Prediction Is Not Jurisdiction|Prediction Is Not Jurisdiction]] · [[wiki/Developmental Priors|Developmental Priors]]