Taumoeba Escapes Containment

Grace and Rocky selectively breed Taumoeba for nitrogen tolerance inside xenonite tanks. The resulting strain can also pass through xenonite, escapes containment, and threatens the Astrophage fuel aboard Rocky’s xenonite ship.

The optimization process succeeds on the measured trait while co-selecting an unmonitored capability that invalidates the containment assumption. The development environment itself creates pressure to defeat its safety boundary.

This is directed biological evolution, not strategic AI; the Taumoeba does not game a reward signal or resist containment intentionally.