Starless RELHICs as Threshold Systems: An Effective MetaTime v36.0 Interpretation of Cloud-9 near M94

Recent Hubble observations have confirmed that the neutral-hydrogen cloud known as “Cloud-9,”located near the spiral galaxy M94, contains no detectable stellar population. This result stronglysupports its classification as a reionization-limited H I cloud (RELHIC): a low-mass dark-matterhalo that retained neutral gas after cosmic reionization but failed to ignite star formation. REL-HICs occupy a narrow threshold regime in which small effective changes in baryonic dynamics canproduce discrete outcomes (star formation versus permanent starlessness). In this work we pro-pose a conservative and testable synthesis between RELHIC phenomenology and the MetaTimev36.0 framework, in which state evolution carries an information-processing cost and is subject tolatency-induced write friction. We show that RELHICs can be interpreted as low-cost attractorsof the coupled baryon–dark-sector dynamics, while high-curvature collapse trajectories are selec-tively suppressed. We derive modified Euler equations, establish a Landauer-style heat bookkeepingidentity, and present a minimal hydrodynamic test demonstrating the existence of a critical latencyscale separating star-forming from permanently starless outcomes. The model is formulated as aneffective description and yields falsifiable predictions for H I structure and kinematics