UED Reconstruction Programme — Paper 17: SVE Metrology and the Mass-Energy Calibration Problem

Paper 17 of the UED Reconstruction Programme addresses the absolute metrology problem left open by Paper 16. The preceding nonlinear SVE closure generated a finite localized persistent branch, emergent Chavan Limits, Alignment Threshold Time behavior, and a relative inertial profile, but still required separate absolute calibration coefficients for energy and inertia. Paper 17 asks whether these two calibrations are genuinely independent. The Paper-16 dimensionless gradient-flow dynamics are re-dimensionalized using a physical configuration-energy density scale, a dissipative coefficient, and an amplitude-normalized SVE inertial coefficient. Exact recovery of the overdamped dynamics fixes the dissipative coefficient from the energy scale and the previously derived response time. A minimal causal/hyperbolic completion then introduces an independently measurable inertial-relaxation time, linking the inertial coefficient to the same energy scale. The resulting one-scale reduction shows that the energy and inertia calibrations of the same SVE branch need not be fitted independently. Their ratio defines a measurable energy-inertia conversion speed determined by the generated spatial scale and two independently measurable time scales. This conversion speed is not assumed to equal either the weak-ripple speed or the optical front speed. For a localized persistent configuration, the same constitutive structure gives both configurational energy and translational effective mass. Their ratio contains a state-dependent energy-inertia factor determined by two different profile functionals. Numerical audit of the Paper-16 localized branch shows that this factor varies strongly with state and changes sign relative to the chosen SVE background. Consequently, a fixed conversion between the underlying energy and inertia scales does not by itself imply a universal state-level mass-energy equivalence law. The paper also develops a physical energy ledger for the hyperbolic closure, including explicit parametric work when Delta, geometry, or other control variables are changed. This prevents externally supplied control work from being misidentified as spontaneous energy release at a Chavan Limit. Under the declared Paper-16 numerical protocol, the lower localization collapse yields an absolute-scale-free prediction relating the transition-energy drop to the pre-collapse effective mass and the derived energy-inertia conversion scale. More generally, one absolute transition-energy calibration can predict inertial response of other branch states, while one absolute inertial calibration can predict transition energies. Paper 17 therefore reduces the two-scale SVE metrology problem to one absolute calibration plus independently measurable spatial and temporal dynamics. It leaves four deeper questions open: whether the energy-inertia speed equals the weak-ripple or optical propagation speed, what physical coupling fixes the additive SVE energy zero, what total-energy functional is physically appropriate, and whether a universal mass-energy relation ultimately emerges.