Open-Relational Ontology: Protected Core Statement

This document fixes the minimal protected core of Open-Relational Ontology. Its central claim is that being is neither an isolated self-contained core nor an exhaustively capturable manifestation. Rather, being appears only in relations while never being exhausted by any particular relational manifestation. Open-relationality is defined here as the ontological structure in which a being is relationally manifested, remains open to differential possibility, and is never reducible to any single manifestation as its final account. This structure is expressed through a minimal modal core in which being entails the persistent availability of differential possibility while remaining identifiable as the same being. The aim of this document is not to construct the full system of Open-Relational Ontology, but to fix its smallest possible axiomatic core for purposes of conceptual priority, identifiability, and further development. The core is intended to preserve three claims simultaneously: relational manifestation, structured difference, and structural non-closure.