One half of the sky has more contrast than the other. Average the CMB fluctuation power over hemispheres and the sky divides: the hemisphere centered roughly toward the south ecliptic pole carries about 7 percent more power than its opposite, an asymmetry first seen in WMAP's opening data release and confirmed, unchanged, by Planck a decade later, at significance near 2.5 to 3 sigma depending on estimator and scale range. The dipolar modulation extends across the largest scales (multipoles to about 64 and arguably beyond), with an amplitude near A = 0.07 and a direction that keeps suspicious company: it sits in the same general region as the Axis of Evil alignment, the parity asymmetry, and the Cold Spot, the recurring geography of the large-angle anomaly family.
Statistical isotropy is not a preference of ΛCDM but its load-bearing wall: the same fluctuation statistics in every direction, guaranteed by the inflationary mechanism that generates them. A hemispheric power gradient therefore has no standard source: single-field inflation cannot modulate power across the sky without violating its own consistency relations, and the proposed patches, a superhorizon isocurvature gradient crossing the observable volume, tuned multi-field modulations, are bespoke constructions invented to produce exactly this one signature. The model's preferred reading remains chance: a 1-in-100 fluctuation noticed a posteriori, an account that must be re-purchased separately for each aligned member of the anomaly family.
The standing is twenty years stable: temperature data are cosmic-variance-limited and the asymmetry will not move; polarization provides the independent retest, and LiteBIRD-class measurements will determine whether the modulation reappears there, which chance forbids and a physical modulation requires.