The rebel Dawn (looking forward to seeing what his rebellion spawns over the following century and a half) certainly creates a potential loophole in her programming. He is no longer a part of the genetic dynasty, so she doesn’t have protection over him, but because he and all his offspring came from it, they might still be under her directive to preserve Empire, and thus she will be forced to engineer increasingly complex plots to preserve both his line and the genetic dynasty.

I wondered if part of her even allowed for Dusk to mark her and enable Dawn’s escape. Cleon I’s original prohibition could not have accounted for every possibility, and eventually chaos theory will introduce factors that her programming won’t be able to cleanly account for.