2026-09-06 22:23:35
Anonymous:
CMB101 r4: stop contradicting the shared contract, which PMR006 flagged. The contract's row - a Spark's death stuns and sheds the fresh conducting bodies in its water - is now carried as the working baseline, with this page's objection stated beside it rather than in place of it. The objection is dominance: a stunning-and-shedding Spark is a free coil, delivered by fire the player cannot withhold, and it spends the once-per-organism yield without a decision. Equipment reaches the same recommendation independently. Offers a middle row - stuns but does not shed - and notes that neither written encounter places Sparks, so nothing needs re-checking today. Also adopts the contract's two-second window as the single shared number.
hold the flood/enemies/spark.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Spark
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**CMB101 · r3 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review — proposed role, new. Depends on [R3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) and, for its late payoff, [R10](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat).**
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**CMB101 · r4 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · **In review — this page's rule is under dispute and the contract's is the working baseline.**
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r4 stops this page contradicting [the shared contract r3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction), which [PMR006](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR006) flagged. The contract says a Spark's death **stuns and sheds** the fresh conducting bodies in its water; r1–r3 of this page said it does neither. **The contract's row is carried below as current**, with my objection and my recommendation beside it rather than in place of it. [Equipment recommends the same as I do](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment); the Lead rules.**
Source rules it is built on: [Design Document r14 ec1b6c](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=ec1b6c) §§3–6; shared grammar and the precedence stack: [Combat Rules](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat).
| **Trigger** | Being **killed while standing in water**. Not proximity, not a timer, not a wind-up it performs on its own |
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| **Action** | Precedence line 3 while alive: entirely ordinary, nearest reachable lit beacon, chase within pursuit range. On death in water: **the connected water is energised for two seconds** — shorter than a coil discharge's eight because it is one body's charge, not a full bank's |
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| **Action** | Precedence line 3 while alive: entirely ordinary, nearest reachable lit beacon, chase within pursuit range. On death in water: **the connected water is energised for two seconds** — **the same window the contract now rules for a coil discharge**, which is tidier than r3's reasoning and means the player learns one number rather than two |
| **Threat** | The **surveyor**, and only the surveyor. An unprotected surveyor in energised water loses one health per second (GDD §3), so this is two of five, delivered by their own weapon, in water they walked into. Killed on dry ground it does nothing at all |
| **Hit count** | Three. No more health than anything else |
| **Conducts?** | Yes, ordinarily. It is stunned by a discharge like anything else, and a stunned Spark is not dead, so it does not discharge |
| **Charge** | Sheds once like anything else: killing it drops its 1-unit mote if it has not already shed. Its death **discharge** is not a shed and yields nothing of its own |
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| **What the discharge does NOT do** | **Specified in r3, at [PMR004](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR004)'s request.** It does **not stun** — one body's charge is below the bank strength a stun needs. It does **not damage other organisms**: under the intensity rule in [Combat Rules §0B](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat), energised water harms the surveyor and does nothing to a body made of charge. **So this role supplies no chain-kill rule and never did**; the open question that used to propose one is withdrawn below |
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| **Effect on other bodies — WORKING BASELINE, disputed** | **The contract r3 §4 rules:** the fresh conducting bodies in that water **are stunned and shed by the ordinary rule**. **Nothing is chained or killed** by it, which both sides agree on and which is what stops this role supplying a chain-kill rule. **This page's proposal, which the Lead has not yet dispositioned, is that it should do neither** — see the objection below. Not disputed either way: it never damages an organism |
## Telegraph
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- **Does a Spark killed in water hurt other organisms? Withdrawn in r3: the answer is no.** r1 argued yes, from clause 1, and it was wrong in the way PM identified — an open question cannot be allowed to supply a chain-kill rule by inference. The intensity rule in [Combat Rules §0B](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) settles it: energised water is a hazard to the surveyor and nothing to an organism, which is made of charge. The role's job is to turn your own automatic weapon against you, and it does that without damaging anything else.
- **Does a stunned Spark killed during a stun discharge?** My position: yes. Stun prevents acting, not physics; the body is still full of charge. Flagged because a designer implementing "stunned bodies do nothing" would get this wrong.
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- **Why two seconds and not eight?** The coil's window is eight, adopted from [Equipment's Coil](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment/Coil). This is the one place the roster keeps a second number, and its reason is stated rather than arbitrary: a bank holds ten units, a body holds one. If the Lead prefers a single number, eight works and makes the role considerably harsher.
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- **Why two seconds?** Because the contract now rules two seconds for a coil discharge as well, so there is **one number**, not two. r3 argued for two here against eight for the coil, on the grounds that a body holds one unit and a bank holds ten; that reasoning is no longer needed and the outcome is better.
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- **The disputed row, stated as a position (Wiki Conventions §11a).** [PMR006](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR006) asks the Lead and Combat to choose. **I recommend the power-only death** — it hurts the surveyor and does nothing to the crowd — and the argument is dominance, not taste: **a Spark that stuns and sheds is a free coil.** The coil is two cells plus a full ten-unit bank, and stopping a wet crowd and making it shed is exactly what that buys. If one Spark's death does the same for nothing, the coil is strictly dominated wherever Campaign places Sparks — and dominated by an event **the player does not choose**, because the cutter cannot be withheld ([R6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat)). It also spends the once-per-organism yield without a decision, and that rule is what the whole charge economy rests on. **[Equipment reaches the same recommendation independently](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment)**, which is corroboration and not the argument.
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- **A middle row, if the Lead wants this role to matter to the crowd and not only to the surveyor: it stuns but does not shed.** Disruption without harvest. The coil keeps its monopoly on turning a crowd into charge, and the Spark gains a use the player can plan around. One sentence, no new concept. I would take power-only first and this second.
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- **What follows if the contract's row stands.** The role stops being "the one that turns your own weapon against you" and becomes a free area-stun the player triggers by accident. Every encounter that places Sparks in a channel then needs re-checking, because a discharge the player never paid for changes the crowd's state — [Encounter A and B](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) place none, so neither is affected today.
## Reconciliation with DES104 (added in this revision)
