A Pre-Structural Substrate Framework for Cosmology and Boltzmann Verification

Persistent cosmological anomalies—including early mature massive galaxies revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at z > 10, the persistent 5σ Hubble expansion tension (H0), and four decades of null direct-detection results in particle dark matter searches—suggest foundational limitations in standard ΛCDM cosmology. We develop a comprehensive cosmological framework based on a pre-structural Layer 0 substrate (Primal Energy, PE) that is non-particulate and devoid of structural mass, electric charge, frequency, or quantum spin. The substrate undergoes non-kinematic density compounding governed by an invariant potential tension until reaching a critical mass-energy equivalence threshold (ρ_critical ≈ mc²/V). At criticality, the system undergoes a constructive phase transition (the "Stroke of Midnight") that instantiates baryonic matter configurations. We embed this mechanism in a 5D warped geometry with long-range metric tendrils, deriving the complete variational action, 5D field equations, explicit Kaluza-Klein dimensional reduction, and the full system of linear cosmological perturbation equations across conformal Newtonian and synchronous gauges. We rigorously prove covariant energy-momentum conservation (∇^μ T_μν = 0), absence of Ostrogradsky ghosts, subluminal sound speed (0 ≤ c_s² ≤ 1), Null Energy Condition (NEC) satisfaction, and strict BBN concordance (ΔN_eff = 0). Implementing the derived Bessel Green's transfer kernel into a global 8-parameter Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) Boltzmann engine (16,000 evaluations against empirical Planck 2018 PR3 data) resolves the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) low-ℓ quadrupole deficit (A_PE = 0.344 ± 0.121, ℓ_decay = 14.04 ± 5.91) with exact acoustic peak concordance (ℓ ≥ 500). The global fit yields Δχ² = -13.31, ΔAIC = -9.31, and ΔBIC = -8.51, decisively demonstrating empirical preference over standard ΛCDM. Multimessenger observational signatures, including a prompt gravitational wave burst and synchronized neutrino light-curve step in core-collapse supernovae, are formulated as empirical tests.