Protected acquisition and continuation: A nonlinear construction and its UCM correspondence

How can a controller return near its starting state while retaining information that matters at its next challenge? This fifth working paper in the Ev5 series develops an explicit nonlinear construction within the Unified Coherence Model (UCM) research programme. A protected calibration identifies an initially unknown context. A reset removes the guaranteed identifying cue from the current state, while retained information remains available to select a protective action. The subsequent outcome, interpreted against the known action and model, identifies the context again and renews a memory margin that supports reliable later selection. Complete exact and bounded-error proofs establish protected acquisition and repeated continuation of the joint controlled state and memory. A withholding comparison shows that removing every accessible context distinction eliminates the worst-case protection guarantee at the first operating decision. It does not establish inevitable failure or the unique necessity of one memory mechanism. The construction makes UCM’s connected roles of tension, resistance, awareness and feedback mathematically inspectable through ordinary identification, retention and control mechanisms. Its contribution is a conditional realization of these relationships, including renewed information robustness within supplied resources. Physical implementation, maintenance of those resources and derivation of the complete quantitative UCM remain open. The paper reports mathematical arguments and hypothetical parameter checks, rather than experiments or simulations.