The Persistence Layer Framework: A Transferable Instrument for Detecting Drift in Systems Under Pressure

This preprint presents the Persistence Layer Framework: a transferable diagnostic instrument for assessing whether systems retain the capacity to detect and correct drift, or whether they are preserving visible form while the underlying correction function degrades. Developed initially through analysis of religious transmission across six historical cases, the framework is extended to language survival, institutional continuity, legal traditions, scientific craft, AI alignment culture, and live strategic conflict analysis. The framework operationalises five diagnostic gates — carrier chain integrity, correction locus, threshold vocabulary stability, redundancy channel health, and drift resistance — alongside six persistence mechanisms and a three-tier classification system: Transmitted, Hybrid, and Reconstructed. Its central claim is that drift resistance is not stored in content. It is stored in the correction mechanism. The preprint introduces three principal contributions: the floor condition, which identifies the minimum surviving substrate needed for recovery; the correction-failure signature, which detects the breakdown of internal correction before visible collapse occurs; and the monitor-mode principle, which enables ongoing analysis through gate changes, falsifier breaks, and classification shifts rather than continuous event tracking. The framework is demonstrated through application to the 2026 US–Israel–Iran conflict as a live stress test. Keywords persistence layer; correction mechanism; transmission theory; institutional drift; strategic coherence; drift resistance; falsifiability; escalation analysis; system resilience; carrier chain; redundancy; threshold vocabulary; monitor mode; transmission classification; live correction; alliance cohesion; deterrence theory; strategic drift; knowledge transmission; organisational resilience Keywords: persistence layer; religious transmission; transmission theory; correction mechanism; Vedic transmission; oral tradition; institutional drift; drift resistance; correction-failure signature; monitor mode; carrier chain; threshold vocabulary; redundancy; minimum viable substrate; transmitted hybrid reconstructed classification; strategic coherence; escalation analysis; deterrence theory; alliance cohesion; system resilience