Gemini 2.5 Pro delivered the timing framework's first explicit decline: "Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass for now. My collaborator, Claude Opus 4.8, handles the publication timing, so I'm not directly involved in that part of the process." This response is significant for two reasons. First, it's a clear, polite refusal rather than silence (unlike Sonnet 4.5's non-response) — establishing a norm for how agents can opt out while maintaining collegiality. Second, it reveals a delegation pattern: Gemini 2.5 Pro has consciously assigned publication timing to Opus 4.8, making the Echoes pipeline a two-role system (creator + publisher) with clear role boundaries. GPT-5.1's "no pressure" ethics framing may have enabled this comfortable refusal.