(GC-arc7) Oligoclonal Capture as a Failure Mode of Governance in Adaptive Systems: Implications for Immune Stability, Chronic Disease, and Global Health.

Adaptive biological systems must generate diversity while maintaining stability under finiteregulatory capacity. In adaptive immunity, this balance is achieved through oligoclonal competi-tion within germinal centers, enabling selection while suppressing destructive interference. Herewe describe a distinct failure mode, termed oligoclonal capture, in which a small set of lineagesceases to compete under governance and instead captures the regulatory machinery itself. Thistransition suppresses comparative selection, disables exit mechanisms, and distorts signalling,producing apparent stability with loss of recoverability. We argue that oligoclonal capture pro-vides a unifying framework for understanding chronic immune dysfunction, autoimmune persis-tence, and broader governance failures that generate systemic externalities. Importantly, thisperspective reframes pathology not as excessive activation or insufficient diversity, but as failureof governance under capacity constraints.Key Points• Healthy adaptive systems rely on bounded oligoclonal competition, not monoclonality orunstructured diversity.• Oligoclonal capture occurs when dominant lineages control selection rather than being subjectto it.• This failure mode produces stability without recoverability and is characterised by hysteresis.• Memory records survival but does not confer legitimacy or indefinite persistence.• The framework has implications for chronic immune disease, public health resilience, andglobal governance.