Phase VIII is the apparatus's own description of what the seven preceding phases have, between them, produced. It does not sit in the subject's lifecycle; it stands outside the sequence and accounts for it. The Office presents Phase VIII as the structural account of the closure that the cycle, as cycle, performs on itself — no calibration to perform on the subject, for once.

The Ouroboros Machine is the name the Office uses for the apparatus considered as a single closed loop. Its mouth consumes its tail; the surplus extracted from one cohort of Standard Consumer-Citizens becomes the substrate that the apparatus uses to pre-shape the next. The Office files Phase VIII so that the subject — should the subject ever read this far — has access to the description.