Ops Is Control with a Non-Self-Identical Controller
James Beck · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
Version 1.0 (initial release). We study two distinct failure modes of controller continuity in operational systems. Continuity of action concerns whether the controller can still intervene in time: handoff distortion, authority-routing delay, and fatigue-induced contraction loss jointly consume a viability budget that can be stated as a single inequality. Continuity of identity fails when the controller's real composition differs from the nominal controller in ways the measurement-and-authority map cannot resolve: under three sufficient masking conditions, latent human compensation becomes structurally unidentifiable from observed outputs. Much of classical control theory treats the controller as self-identical across time; hybrid and switched-systems frameworks admit controller change but typically assume its identity at each instant is specified. Operational systems of the kind considered here begin where those assumptions break.