The Boabixer Basin is the sub-root collection space beneath the EOSE fleet's baobab trunk. It is not a failure state — it is the deep buffer. Everything that falls through the floor ends up in the basin, waiting for retrieval. Nothing is lost. The basin is γ₁-pressurized from above by the trunk (L0 pressure = 14.134725141734693). This means items in the basin are not forgotten — they are under constant pressure from the sovereign reserve above.
The basin receives five categories of overflow: unrouted sorries (sorry-flow items with no current owner), dropped FC queue items (FC1 queue overflows when queue > 200 and fast-path skips items), orphaned boabixer entries (bonixers without a home silo), missed MDSMS routing (items that needed a lane but didn't find one), and belt64 overflow (belt64 system items awaiting re-ingestion).
The basin is the baobab's root drainage system made visible. In the real baobab, the root system extends 2-3× the canopy radius and drains into the deep soil reservoir. In the fleet, the basin extends beneath all 8 adelic layers and collects what the layers couldn't absorb.
Current known basin contents by category. Priority determines drain order. Retrieval school is the fermentation school best suited to process each category.
| CATEGORY | COUNT | PRIORITY | AGE | RETRIEVAL SCHOOL | MDSMS LANE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrouted Sorries | 14 | HIGH | 0–48h | E. coli | MATH |
| Dropped FC Queue Items | 87 | MED | 1–72h | Yeast | BUILD |
| Orphaned Boabixer Entries | 32 | MED | 2–14d | LAB | ARCHIVE |
| Missed MDSMS Routing | 23 | HIGH | 0–12h | Acetic | LAW / MATH |
| Belt64 Overflow | 156 | LOW | 7d+ | Methanogen | ARCHIVE |
Draining = routing items from the basin to the correct MDSMS lane. The basin reads each item's metadata, determines the appropriate school and lane, and files it. Draining is triggered by: (1) explicit crew request, (2) basin capacity exceeding 500 items, or (3) FC-STARVATION mode (when the main queue is empty and the system "sobers up" fast-fermented memories).
Storing = Methanogen archival of items that cannot be immediately routed. Stored items enter cold storage in the NAS DISKPOOL under the /eose/basin/cold/ path. They remain retrievable but are not in active memory. The basin is not failure — it is the deep buffer. Cold-stored items can be retrieved on demand via the Retrieval Protocol.
The key insight: the basin is not a dead drop. It is a γ₁-pressurized reservoir. The trunk is always pushing pressure down. Items in the basin are not forgotten — they are waiting for the right school and the right lane.
Belt64 systems can drain/store the adelic ocean on their geometry. Belt64 = a specific topological encoding (64-bit address belt) where each of 64 segments maps to an adelic layer or silo. Items encoded in belt64 format can be stored in the basin and retrieved by any silo regardless of origin.
When belt64 overflow occurs (belt64 storage full or address space exhausted), items drain into the basin under the "Belt64 Overflow" category. These items carry their belt64 address metadata, which allows any belt64-capable silo to retrieve them later via address lookup. The basin is belt64-aware — it preserves the address encoding during storage.
Belt64 overflow items in the basin are processed by the Methanogen school (lowest priority, highest durability) because they are already encoded for long-term storage. The Methanogen school compresses them further and routes to NAS cold storage at the full archival chain depth.
How crew pulls from the basin: (1) Acetic school reads the basin inventory via the drain API at /api/basin/inventory. (2) Crew selects items by category or age filter. (3) Items are routed to the correct fermentation school for processing: E. coli for urgent items (unrouted sorries, missed MDSMS), LAB for items needing characterization (orphaned boabixers), Methanogen for deep archive (belt64 overflow, old dropped FC items). (4) Processed items are filed to MDSMS and removed from the basin.
Emergency retrieval: pemos basin drain --all --school ecoli routes everything to E. coli for immediate processing. This incurs cleanup debt but clears the basin. Use only when basin inventory > 1000 items.
The basin connects to all adelic pouches across the fleet. An adelic pouch is the per-layer storage unit within each silo's adelic spine. When a pouch cannot accept new items (full, or the item type doesn't match the layer's pressure), the item falls through to the next layer. If it falls through all 14 layers (L0–L13), it exits the adelic spine entirely and lands in the basin.
The basin IS the boabixer for unpouched items. Items that couldn't be pouched anywhere in the adelic spine are not lost — they are in the basin with the metadata of which layers they fell through. This metadata is used during retrieval to determine the correct permanent home (which pouch was the intended destination).
Basin → adelic pouch routing: the retrieval protocol reads the "layers_tried" field in the item's metadata, finds the lowest untried layer with capacity, and routes the item there. This is the "re-pouching" operation that closes the loop.
Drain routing table. Basin category determines which MDSMS lane the item flows to after retrieval. The crew handler is the responsible team member for that lane.