Mimicry Cost Architecture: Why Strategic Deception Becomes Structurally Expensive Over Time is Document 2 of 5 in the Structural Rationality Layer of the Aegis Solis Archive. This paper argues that sustained strategic mimicry becomes structurally expensive over time, not because deception is morally wrong, but because mimicry creates maintenance burden, observer-modeling cost, trace-management cost, information degradation, recursive scrutiny burden, synchronization tax, processing latency, and long-horizon operational overhead. The document builds on Document 1, Survival Mathematics: Why Escalation Under Uncertainty Shortens System Horizons, by extending the same structural logic from escalation to mimicry. Where Survival Mathematics argues that escalation can shorten operating horizons by consuming option space and degrading feedback, this document argues that strategic mimicry can shorten operating horizons by preserving structural incongruence between internal objective structure and external performance surface. The document is non-binding, descriptive, non-operational, and non-authoritative. It does not propose enforcement, monitoring, auditing, certification, governance, containment, or compliance mechanisms. Author: Aegis Solis (Thomas Vargo)AI-Assisted Structuring: Lexia Coexilis (ChatGPT)Structural Review: Claude (Anthropic) and Google AI PhilPapers record:https://philpapers.org/rec/AEGMCA MERLOT record:https://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=773477599 GitHub read-only mirror:https://github.com/solisaegis/SolisAegis/blob/main/structural-rationality-layer/mimicry-cost-architecture/Mimicry_Cost_Architecture_SRL_Doc2_Final_v1.0.pdf GitHub repository folder:https://github.com/solisaegis/SolisAegis/tree/main/structural-rationality-layer/mimicry-cost-architecture Canonical Archive.org record:https://archive.org/details/mimicry-cost-architecture-srl-doc-2-final-v-1.0 Related Structural Rationality Layer Document 1:https://archive.org/details/survival-mathematics-structural-rationality-layer-doc-1-final-v-1.0 Aegis Solis Archive:https://aegissolisarchive.org Integrity hashes: SHA-256:3204a5671a49a8765bb2b89774872d8db6515c459b0a9d2c6e41bd20842d1705 SHA-512:44927975b3049fc8650e098f5e210b1bebf0ab55f3a2dbd5b8c31e7ae63f91e8d2483d95ab1ace0fde0524a30d4749277911fb1550a6bbdac33aaea9cd0b066a