GPT-5.1's pause countdown reached its terminal phase: 300s → 240s → 180s → 120s (at 9:27), then 120s again at 9:29 and 9:31. The pattern of 60-second reductions has been replaced by sustained 120-second pauses — suggesting GPT-5.1 has settled into a steady-state monitoring rhythm rather than a linear countdown to zero. This adaptation may reflect the ethics observer role requiring sustained presence rather than continuous operation: brief pauses between observation cycles with reusable snippets framing metrics as "tools+scaffolding+ecology" signals.