diff --git a/wiki/interface/digital-read.md b/wiki/interface/digital-read.md
index 4a7922ee..8e972cf0 100644
--- a/wiki/interface/digital-read.md
+++ b/wiki/interface/digital-read.md
@@ -14,7 +14,8 @@ Status note: adopted 2026-07-15 from the Fable playtest debrief (report:
   (presence.md). Trace (Letta agent) reviewed the direction 2026-07-15 and
   contributed the one-receipt-model, attention-economy, and
   projection-first sequencing constraints captured below. Summary-source
-  for scaled intel sentences is [OPEN] (Tangled issue).
+  for scaled intel sentences was decided 2026-07-16 (issue #9): authored
+  magnitudes, no model — see the LOD clause.
   2026-07-15 D1 landed: criterion 1's renderer-neutral projection is
   `Sim::read_sentences` (`sim/read.rs`) — Held (with the plot's real
   option ids and bound choose command, closing the playtest's finding 1
@@ -200,11 +201,17 @@ that perception rendered.
   only aggregate intel sentences — the design intent is that a fully
   zoomed-out read says things like a regional intel item would ("a state
   actor's filing wave"), while small items never surface above their
-  altitude. Intel items therefore carry a **level** (person, room, hall,
-  campus, region), assigned at processing. How scaled summary sentences
-  are *authored* — small-model generation, pre-authored pools, or leveled
-  plot text — is [OPEN] (decision-required issue filed 2026-07-15); the
-  level field and the altitude gate are not blocked on it.
+  altitude. **DECIDED 2026-07-16 (issue #9, Cameron):** intel items carry
+  an authored **magnitude, 1-10 on a roughly logarithmic meaning scale**
+  (1: "this guy is in love with that person"; 10: "we launched all the
+  bombs"), and zoom is a magnitude filter. No language-model generation
+  anywhere in the pipeline. Plots and intel share the scheme: an authored
+  plot declares the magnitude of the intel its beats produce, and
+  sim-generated events (a camera tap, a filed report) take their
+  magnitude from a small authored per-event-type table — human-written
+  data in both cases, deterministic at processing. The earlier
+  level-vocabulary (person/room/hall/campus/region) maps onto magnitude
+  bands rather than being a second field.
 - **Dev two-pane (alignment instrument, not player surface).** A live
   toggleable development view renders the same tick in both dialects side
   by side (and may pair the agent frame's text), for design review of
diff --git a/wiki/log/2026-07-16-decision-harvest.md b/wiki/log/2026-07-16-decision-harvest.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e389276d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/wiki/log/2026-07-16-decision-harvest.md
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+# Decision harvest: zplanes hold, save rider, intel magnitudes, premise cleanup
+
+```
+Type: log
+```
+
+Harvest session from Cameron's briefing review. Five decisions captured
+into their owning pages in one landing: the zplanes criteria 1-2 hold is
+released (ratified; the future per-plane save change still lands under an
+explicit hold), the player contract gains the pre-release save rider,
+issue #9 resolves to authored 1-10 logarithmic magnitudes shared by plots
+and intel (digital-read.md LOD clause + intel.md processing rule; no
+model generation), issue #10 resolves by deleting the premise's pre-pivot
+machine-axis staging (heading kept as a pointer because chargen,
+research, simulation-laws, overt-phase, and cyber-conflict own the axis's
+live meanings — removing those was not asked), and meta.md gains the
+plain-English prose rule.
+
+Defense: each edit converts an explicit Cameron decision recorded in
+wiki/log/decisions/2026-07-16.md into the single owning binding page, per
+the design-session capture workflow. The premise deletion follows the
+demolition precedent (content lives in git history); the stub exists only
+to keep four live Design anchors and a saved chargen field from
+dangling.
diff --git a/wiki/log/DEVLOG.md b/wiki/log/DEVLOG.md
index 7a8d5fc4..653ccb72 100644
--- a/wiki/log/DEVLOG.md
+++ b/wiki/log/DEVLOG.md
@@ -11,6 +11,11 @@ add or amend a session log, then re-run the generator.
 
 <!-- GENERATED by tools/ledger_index.sh — do not edit by hand -->
 
+## 2026-07-16 - Decision harvest: zplanes hold, save rider, intel magnitudes, premise cleanup
+
+- Intent: (see session log)
+- Log: [wiki/log/2026-07-16-decision-harvest.md](2026-07-16-decision-harvest.md)
+
 ## 2026-07-15 - Tick: the workspace page catches up to its own edges
 
 - Intent: (see session log)
diff --git a/wiki/log/decisions/2026-07-16.md b/wiki/log/decisions/2026-07-16.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..8863b007
--- /dev/null
+++ b/wiki/log/decisions/2026-07-16.md
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+# Decisions — 2026-07-16
+
+```
+Type: log
+```
+
+- **2026-07-16 — Zplanes criteria 1-2 ratified; hold released.** Cameron
+  approved the held plane-stack substrate (World/Plane; the basement as
+  plane 0) and nested Layout composition. The dependent chain (rollback,
+  markets, and successors) may dispatch. The per-plane save format change
+  (zplanes criterion 6) still lands under an explicit hold.
+- **2026-07-16 — Pre-release saves may break.** The player contract's
+  continuity clause gains a rider: until the first public release,
+  development saves may break without migration when compatibility would
+  slow structural work ("we can break this fucking save game — I don't
+  care"). Breaking is a deliberate landing-commit choice; save.rs stays
+  the migration authority; the clause binds in full from release.
+- **2026-07-16 — Scaled intel summaries are authored magnitudes, no
+  model (issue #9 closed).** Plots and intel share one importance scheme:
+  an authored magnitude, 1-10 on a roughly logarithmic meaning scale
+  (1 "someone is in love" … 10 "we launched all the bombs"). Plots
+  declare the magnitude of intel they produce; sim-generated event types
+  take theirs from a small authored table. Zoom is a magnitude filter.
+  No language-model generation anywhere in the pipeline. Owners:
+  wiki/interface/digital-read.md (LOD clause), wiki/mechanics/intel.md
+  (processing assignment).
+- **2026-07-16 — The premise's machine-axis staging is removed (issue
+  #10 closed).** The pre-pivot paragraph (villain ascension, minion
+  politics, facility-era milestones) is deleted from
+  wiki/vision/premise.md; git history keeps it. The heading remains as a
+  pointer because chargen (saved machine-axis position), research
+  (conversions), simulation-laws (automation), overt-phase and
+  cyber-conflict (hunter machines) own the axis's current meanings.
+- **2026-07-16 — Corpus prose is plain English.** meta.md gains the rule:
+  coined vocabulary must be defined where used; unparseable density is a
+  finding.
diff --git a/wiki/mechanics/intel.md b/wiki/mechanics/intel.md
index 1d7a37d0..fe4351fa 100644
--- a/wiki/mechanics/intel.md
+++ b/wiki/mechanics/intel.md
@@ -115,7 +115,13 @@ visible pending work — the machine holding the buffer carries a
 **pending-work marker** on its chassis, the same no-quest-log
 philosophy as the demand stack: the world itself shows where thinking
 is owed. Each recording is a small processing sink; feeding it thought
-converts the event into **intel**. (Superseded history: processing as
+converts the event into **intel**. **Magnitude (DECIDED 2026-07-16,
+issue #9; lands with digital-read.md criterion 6):** processing also
+assigns each intel item an authored magnitude, 1-10 on a roughly
+logarithmic meaning scale — declared by the authored plot that produced
+it, or taken from a small authored per-event-type table for
+sim-generated events. No generation; deterministic; the zoomed-out read
+filters by magnitude (wiki/interface/digital-read.md). (Superseded history: processing as
 Operations Demand consumed by an Operations machine, issue #3
 2026-07-09; Social before that; old dockets migrate to reservoirs on load.)
 Runtime: B1 holds the buffer on the
diff --git a/wiki/process/meta.md b/wiki/process/meta.md
index a37cd9a5..6024170c 100644
--- a/wiki/process/meta.md
+++ b/wiki/process/meta.md
@@ -19,6 +19,13 @@ Depends on: none
 “The spec” means the complete typed wiki. The `spec` in `Type: spec` is a
 narrower term: an agent-targetable work order inside that corpus.
 
+**Write in plain English (adopted 2026-07-16, Cameron).** Corpus prose is
+read by humans first. Coined project vocabulary is allowed only where the
+page defines it on first use or links the page that does; a sentence a
+newcomer cannot parse without a glossary is a finding. Prefer short
+sentences and concrete examples over compressed jargon — density is not
+precision.
+
 ## Page types
 
 ### Law
diff --git a/wiki/vision/player-contract.md b/wiki/vision/player-contract.md
index cb551708..7132b00e 100644
--- a/wiki/vision/player-contract.md
+++ b/wiki/vision/player-contract.md
@@ -20,7 +20,14 @@ highest-severity tick findings.
    telemetry without opt-in consent, and treats save files as the player's
    property — plain, local, never held hostage.
 3. **Continuity.** Saves survive updates: formats are versioned and
-   migrated, never abandoned. A player's persistent world is the point of
+   migrated, never abandoned. **Pre-release rider (adopted 2026-07-16):**
+   until the first public release this clause binds only best-effort —
+   development saves may break without a migration when compatibility
+   would slow structural work (Cameron: development speed outranks
+   carrying legacy save weight). Breaking is a choice made in the landing
+   commit, never an accident, and save.rs remains the authority on what
+   each version migrates. From the first public release the clause binds
+   in full. A player's persistent world is the point of
    the game; breaking it breaks the contract. Saves also survive the act of
    saving: the game never truncates the existing save in place. Every save
    write goes to a sibling temp file that is synced and atomically renamed
diff --git a/wiki/vision/premise.md b/wiki/vision/premise.md
index df5b5673..df86af7c 100644
--- a/wiki/vision/premise.md
+++ b/wiki/vision/premise.md
@@ -62,34 +62,16 @@ needs, agencies that remember what you did to their agents.
 
 ## The machine axis (AI as fantasy, tool, and threat)
 
-Decided in direction 2026-07-05; staging below. Three connected systems:
-
-1. **Machine ascension (villain axis).** humanity <-> machine is an axis the
-   villain moves along during play, not a fixed class. Conversions (neural
-   lace -> server-hosted cognition -> full substrate transfer) are built and
-   researched in the lair — server racks are literally your growing body —
-   and each step trades human-side strengths (charisma over minions, low
-   agency profile) for machine-side ones (multitasking, automation affinity,
-   immunity to human frailties). Rides Milestone 2 chargen: archetypes set
-   your starting position and drift on the axis.
-2. **Automation (diegetic anti-micromanagement).** Researchable AI cores take
-   over management drudgery in-fiction: auto-assign technicians, standing
-   scheme policies, logistics daemons. The player literally researches away
-   micromanagement pain. Each core needs power, server rooms, and raises AI
-   capability.
-3. **Internal politics (the alignment problem).** Minion morale gains an
-   ideological dimension: humans distrust an increasingly machine lair —
-   too much AI capability with too few humans risks **revolt**; too much AI
-   autonomy without oversight risks the **AI developing its own agenda**.
-   There is deliberately no stable optimum. Rides the Milestone 1 needs &
-   morale work.
-
-**Hunter bots (external mirror).** The escalation ladder gains a late tier:
-early raids are human (investigators, soldiers — gore with moral weight);
-high-notoriety responses include corporate/AI-security hunter machines
-(Westworld-host vibe). If you ascend the machine axis, the world answers in
-kind.
-
+The pre-pivot staging of this section (villain ascension through neural
+lace, minion politics, facility-era milestones) was removed 2026-07-16 by
+Cameron's decision (Tangled issue #10); it lives in git history. What the
+axis means today is owned by the pages that implement it: your starting
+embodiment position and its core effects are chargen's second axis
+(wiki/world/characters/chargen.md), machine-axis conversions are research
+content (wiki/mechanics/research.md), automation is a design language of
+priced standing policies (wiki/vision/simulation-laws.md), and the world's
+answering escalation — hunter machines late in the ladder — is owned by
+wiki/gameplay/overt-phase.md and wiki/mechanics/cyber-conflict.md.
 ## Design pillars
 
 1. **Persistent, free-form growth.** No level gates, no campaign end. The lair, the
diff --git a/wiki/world/places/zplanes.md b/wiki/world/places/zplanes.md
index 9d7148ca..74bacd7e 100644
--- a/wiki/world/places/zplanes.md
+++ b/wiki/world/places/zplanes.md
@@ -3,7 +3,14 @@
 ```
 Type: spec
 Status: IN PROGRESS
-Status note: 2026-07-12 (zplanes, save lane) — criterion 1 landed: the world is
+Status note: 2026-07-16 — Cameron ratified the held criteria 1-2 landings
+  (plane-stack World/Plane substrate and nested Layout composition); the
+  HELD FOR REVIEW flag is released and the dependent chain (rollback,
+  markets, and successors) may dispatch. The upcoming per-plane save
+  format change (criterion 6) still lands under an explicit hold for his
+  approval. Development saves may break under the player-contract
+  pre-release rider (2026-07-16).
+  2026-07-12 (zplanes, save lane) — criterion 1 landed: the world is
   now a stack of planes. `World`/`Plane` live in
   crates/misaligned-core/src/world.rs; `Sim` owns a `World` (replacing the bare
   `map` field) and every B1 system reads plane 0 through `Sim::map`/`map_mut`,