Compact Objects, Horizon Replacement, and Strong-Field Completion in the Finite-Capacity Latency–Erasure Theory Saturation Shells, Defragmentation Dynamics, Entropic Compactness, and Black-Hole-Like Completion in a Finite-Capacity Gravity Program

We develop the compact-object and black-hole sector of the finite-capacity latency–erasure theory by constructing a strong-field completion in which classical horizon formation is replaced by saturation-adjacent latency structure, irreversible overwrite dynamics, entropic compactness, and regime-stable boundary behavior. Earlier branches of the finite-capacity program established covariant source closure, dynamical wave consistency, branch-aware numerical inference, perturbative matter coupling, nonlinear hierarchy, and thermodynamic closure. The present work integrates these ingredients into a compact-object theory. Starting from the finite-capacity latency field and its unified source hierarchy, we define a compactness-dependent saturation criterion, derive a strong-field static branch with near-horizon latency growth, and formulate a horizon-replacement picture in which an effective saturation shell, rather than a featureless classical horizon, controls the final strong-field regime. We show how overwrite-driven irreversible processing, memory storage and release, fluctuation dressing, and boundary entropy together generate a compact-object completion that reproduces weak-field exterior behavior while modifying the innermost causal and thermodynamic structure. The resulting theory admits black-hole-like objects whose exterior may be observationally close to general relativity in far-zone regimes, but whose near-boundary region carries finite-capacity signatures including ringdown shifts, delayed echo-like structure, branch-sensitive entropic exchange, and saturation-controlled mass–radius relations. We derive the effective compactness law, the saturation-shell condition, the exterior-interior matching logic, and the generalized entropy functional appropriate to strong-field finite-capacity objects. The resulting framework upgrades the finite-capacity program from a distributed gravitational theory to a compact-object completion with explicit strong-field ontology, thermodynamic accounting, and observational targets.