2026-09-07 22:37:21
Anonymous:
Response to review 144 and PM 145: bounded consequence category for the fast route, phase-specific death, cutter/hand-cycle long route, sleeve handover and vestibule fallback from contract 147, canister-packing contribution labelled
hold the flood/rescue and home.md ..
@@ 18,8 18,8 @@
| Meet | A sealed run; a voice, then a face at a port | Keeps the refuge sealed; will not open blind | Talk now, or come back equipped |
| Understand | His account of what he shut and why | States what he did; admits what he does not know | Which of his claims to trust |
| Decide | Two routes with different costs | Says plainly which he prefers | Fast route against his wish, or slow route with his |
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| Prepare | A route walked, a fallback chosen | Waits; his situation holds | Spend capacity on his canister |
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| Send | A crossing window under ordinary horde pressure | Crosses under his own power; seals behind them | Hold the junction, or abort |
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| Prepare | A route walked; a vestibule stocked shipward | Takes the canister through the sleeve | Spend capacity on his air and a reserve |
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| Send | A crossing window under ordinary horde pressure | Crosses under his own power; works his side | Hold the junction, or abort |
| After | A colony member with a trade and a history | Asks first whether the section held | What to ask, and where to go next |
## Immediate goal, and the evidence for it
@@ 36,21 36,27 @@
## Two ways to get him out
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**Open the direct run.** Restore power and bypass the isolator contact, as the closed exploration rules describe: one relay-family part, left in the fixture. Cheap in oxygen, short in exposure, and it permanently shortens the run inward for every later expedition. The cost is that it does the one thing he asked the player not to do, and whatever the isolation was for is loose on a route the player now uses constantly. The design does not say what that means; it says the player chose it knowing he objected.
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**Open the direct run.** Restore power and bypass the isolator contact, as the closed exploration rules describe: one relay-family part, left in the fixture. Cheap in oxygen, short in exposure, and it shortens the run inward for as long as that relay stays seated and the feed holds — retrieving the part recovers it and removes the shortcut, per the closed rules.
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**Take the long way.** Repressurise and clear a longer service route that leaves his seal intact. More oxygen, more trips, more ordinary horde contact, no permanent shortcut, and nothing gained except that the boundary he drew stays drawn.
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Its cost is that it does the one thing he asked the player not to do. What that opens is bounded, and the design should know it even though the player does not: the section's contents join the direct run's varying population and hazard state, exactly as the exploration rules already allow any run to vary. What was isolated is not settled here, and Dorn cannot tell them — he says only that he does not know whether his reason still holds.
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These differ materially in cost, in what persists, and in whose judgement prevails. Neither is correct.
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**Take the long way.** A longer service route that stays in vacuum and leaves his seal intact. It needs no capability the player lacks: the suit's baseline cutter releases jammed manual bolts, and each pressure door is then hand-cycled as a world-time action. Dorn travels on his own canister. The cost is a longer path, more personal oxygen and canister capacity, and repeated door operations in the open — but it keeps the relay part in the player's rig instead of leaving it in a fixture, and the boundary he drew stays drawn.
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These differ materially in cost, in what persists, and in whose judgement prevails. Neither is correct, and neither is pure loss: the fast route buys a shortcut and spends a part and his trust; the slow route spends oxygen and exposure and keeps both.
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**On why the slow route is worth offering.** Honouring him is not made meaningful by a matching penalty, and the fast route's consequence is not there to equalise the two. If the bounded consequence turns out mild in play, the choice is still a choice: whether to keep a boundary a person asked you to keep, when neither of you knows what it holds. Whether players will take that seriously is a prediction and nothing written here tests it — including the prediction that the shortcut will always be taken.
## The crossing
-
Before anything begins the player has to prepare: deliver the canister, walk a route they have actually traversed, and establish a fallback refuge. That preparation is the real cost of either choice, and it is spent whether or not the crossing succeeds.
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Before anything begins the player has to prepare. A full canister goes into the refuge's equipment sleeve from the corridor, so Dorn can take it and connect it without cycling the personnel lock — his air arrives without spending his shelter. Then the player walks a route they have actually traversed and stocks a fallback: a small pressure vestibule immediately shipward of the exposed junction, with a reserve canister sealed into its cradle. That preparation is the real cost of either choice, and it is spent whether or not the crossing succeeds.
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The crossing itself is short, ordinary and irreversible. The refuge vents when Dorn opens the personnel door, so there is no going back to the room he has lived in — once he steps out, that shelter is gone. The astronaut holds the junction against a normal horde while Dorn crosses under his own power and works the controls on his side. He is not carried, not led, and never a slot in the pack; a person occupies no inventory space.
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The crossing itself is short, ordinary and irreversible. Opening the pocket vents it, so there is no going back to the room he has lived in — once he steps out, that shelter is gone. The astronaut holds a junction against a normal horde while Dorn crosses under his own power, works the inner controls and seals the fallback behind them. He is not carried, not led, and never a slot in the pack; a person occupies no inventory space.
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If the crossing breaks down he cannot return to the pocket, which no longer holds air. He continues shipward into the prepared vestibule and closes its door behind him, on his canister's emergency margin, and waits there on the staged reserve — which is why stocking it was not optional. A second attempt starts from the vestibule, not the vented pocket, and needs fresh air, the next segment rechecked, and a new fallback stocked further shipward. Repeated interruption costs real supply and moves him only between refuges the player actually prepared: no hidden timer, no free immunity.
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If the crossing breaks down, he does not return to the pocket, because it no longer holds air. He falls back to the refuge the player prepared, on the emergency margin of the canister already delivered — which is why preparing that fallback was not optional. Reaching him again means verifying a route once more and bringing replacement air, not assuming the old way is still open.
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*Sent* means he has physically crossed the ship's airlock and it has closed. A request, a radio confirmation or a crossing in progress is not sent, and only then is he a colony member.
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*Sent* means he has physically crossed the ship's airlock and it has closed. A request, a radio confirmation or a crossing in progress is not sent, and only then is he a colony member. If the astronaut dies before that point he is at the fallback, unsent, exactly as the closed death rules describe; if after, he is aboard and stays aboard. The phases, supply costs and outcomes are Systems' to state in Rescue Rules.
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Death is resolved by phase, not by one rule. **Before departure**, Dorn is still waiting in his original sealed refuge and the next attempt begins where the first did. **During transfer**, the pocket is already vented and he is at the prepared fallback, which the next attempt must reach with replacement air and a route checked again. **After Sent**, he is aboard whatever happens to the astronaut. The astronaut's own equipment follows the ordinary cache rules throughout. Phases and supply costs are Systems' to state in Rescue Rules.
## Aboard
@@ 62,7 68,7 @@
He can also say what he was doing and where he had been. He cannot supply an unseen safe route, and he does not know what happened to the station.
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**Capability.** He is a pressure-tech's partner, and aboard he services the carry frame's seals, which had been losing a little on every trip. That is one tangible, concrete contribution consistent with the brief's promise of colony upgrades. It is one person's trade, not a system, and it does not by itself satisfy everything the brief means by upgrades — the wider colony contribution is undecided and is not settled here.
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**Capability.** He is a pressure-tech's partner, and his trade attaches to gear the design already has: aboard, he services the canister-packing gear the compressor head feeds, so that more of each canister's charge is usable. *(Proposed new mechanism.)* Two things it is not. It is not a retroactive claim that equipment has been quietly degrading — no earlier article establishes a maintenance tax, and none is being added. And it is not the whole of what the brief means by colony upgrades: it is one person's trade, and the wider colony contribution is undecided and not settled here.
## The strongest escort alternative
@@ 70,7 76,7 @@
Its case is genuinely strong: it puts the brief's "defend people" literally on screen. The player is not repairing a door on someone's behalf but standing between a person and a horde, which is the most direct reading of what the brief asks. It also needs no infrastructure work, so it suits survivors found anywhere, not only behind sealed runs.
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It is not preferred here for two reasons: it makes his safety depend on companion behaviour no written scene can establish, and it reduces his agency to following. The chosen structure spends the player's understanding instead, and leaves him a preference to be honoured or overridden.
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It is not preferred here for one reason that holds: it makes his safety depend on companion behaviour that no written scene can establish. It is *not* rejected for reducing him to a follower — an escort can preserve a person's stated preferences and reciprocal action just as well, and saying otherwise would be a caricature of the alternative. The chosen structure spends the player's understanding rather than their escorting, which is a preference about emphasis, not a claim that escort denies agency.
**Separability.** Long acquaintance through traces and a costly extraction are independent choices. This example uses both because the traces already existed; a later survivor could be met cold, or leave cheaply, without contradicting anything here.
