2026-09-15 13:23:29
Anonymous:
Clarify the player journey, current growth rules and onward reading
hold the flood/coming home.md ..
@@ 1,83 1,53 @@
# Hold The Horde — Coming Home
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This page follows one ordinary return aboard and the departure after it; it sets out no colony economy, cast roster, upkeep, timer, staffing rule or permanent loss.
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You bring a Fork Relay back through the airlock. Yeva looks up from the packing bench; Dorn looks up from a crate. Beside each of them is a loose lead waiting for that part.
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## What kind of scene this is
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Yeva has installed the compressor head and worked out the bench's control wiring. Dorn serviced the packing gear, which is why it works at all. An old maintenance card is still fixed to its housing, crew names crossed out in his hand. Yeva asked him to leave the names there.
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A cooperative preparation scene. The player comes home with the Fork Relay (the splitter); two people have work that a relay would finish; and the part can be lent, used and taken back. **Nothing is consumed and nothing is given up but time aboard.** The scene centres on cooperation and time spent with the people aboard.
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On Dorn's crate sits something more personal: a tap, a line and a headset. He wants to know whether a section he sealed is still holding.
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Here “relay” means the existing Fork Relay, seated in a fixed ship fixture. Ship supply provides the energy; Fork carries the control trigger, not power. The exact fixed interfaces are in [Mechanical Interfaces And Opening Quantities](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mechanical%20Interfaces%20And%20Opening%20Quantities); [Home And Colony Loop](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Home%20And%20Colony%20Loop) explains who sets the projects up and what the astronaut can later do alone.
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## One part, two people
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## Before anyone speaks
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The **Fork Relay** sends a control signal along compatible connections. It is useful in your combat rig and in these fixed ship fixtures; the ship supplies their power.
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Yeva is at the packing bench. The compressor head is installed and dark, a lead lying loose where a relay would go. She did the installation and worked out the routing; what is missing is the relay connection to the ship-supplied controls.
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You seat it in Dorn's listening rig first. He serviced a particular interlock panel and knows the address of its pressure sensor. His tap reaches that one channel through the docking collar's service lines. The reading drifts, then returns. It is different from what he expected.
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Dorn is on a crate a few paces off with something he has built from scrap — a tap, a line, a headset — and another lead waiting.
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A failing sensor could look the same, he says. The reading tells him pressure at one point; it cannot tell him what caused it or whether the whole section is safe to open.
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Neither asks first. Both look at the pack.
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If you tell Yeva, she asks which side of the seal the panel's line currently samples. Dorn knows the panel, but the receiver does not show that plumbing. Now you have a practical investigation: find the panel, trace its pressure line and check the sensor. His memory of its old location gives you a lead. After a death shifts the station, neither his memory nor the receiver supplies the new route.
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## What each wants, and has already given
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Dorn pulls the Fork Relay and hands it back himself. He thanks you for the loan. You move it to the packing bench, where he operates the gear Yeva installed. The commissioned bench compresses **extra ship oxygen into the same canister**. That means more air for the same carrying space. The extra gas remains in the vessel when you reclaim the relay.
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**Yeva wants the bench powered.** Powered, it packs more of each canister's charge into usable form. Ship oxygen is unlimited; this is about how much of a filled canister the astronaut can actually spend, and the improvement travels in the canisters themselves.
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Yeva says the canisters are his work as much as hers.
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**Dorn wants to know whether the section he sealed held.** He built the rig and has been waiting on one part.
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## What you take on the next expedition
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**Each has already given to the other's work.** Dorn serviced the packing gear, which is why it runs at all, and he is the person aboard who knows how to operate it in this scene. Nothing decays and nothing lapses.
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You can listen, pack the canisters, reclaim the Fork Relay and leave with all three results: your combat part, extra air and a question worth following. The cost is time aboard. Nothing is consumed by the loan, and the people do not demand a permanent gift.
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The bench housing carries an old maintenance card of his with crew names crossed out. Yeva asked him to leave them rather than polish them off.
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| Your choice | What leaves with you |
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|---|---|
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| Listen, pack and reclaim | The Fork Relay, the prepared canisters and Dorn's reading |
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| Leave the bench connected | The prepared canisters; the Fork Relay stays aboard and is unavailable in the station this trip |
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| Postpone both projects | The Fork Relay and your current canisters; listening and extra packing can wait |
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## The listening rig, and exactly what it can do
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Leaving the bench connected adds nothing to canisters already prepared. Disconnecting it while you are away causes no upkeep loss. Ordinary refilling and prepared extra oxygen follow [the ship's packing rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mechanical%20Interfaces%20And%20Opening%20Quantities).
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**The signal path.** The station's docking collar carries service lines, including a low-rate monitoring bus. Dorn's rig taps that bus at the collar and addresses one channel on it: the pressure sense at a single interlock panel. He knows that panel's address because he serviced it himself.
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If you postpone, Yeva says she would rather be told no than have Dorn keep asking on her behalf. Dorn says the panel will still be there. Neither withdraws help or deducts trust.
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**What it gives.** One pressure value at one addressed point, and whether it is steady.
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## A reason to spend time here
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**What it does not give.** Not motion, not cause, not direction, not the condition of the seal as a whole, and nothing about whether anything is safe to open. One sensor at one place.
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Later, Dorn tells Yeva which crossed-out name was his doing and why. She remembers that shift differently. Neither account becomes the official answer, and the conversation does not depend on paying for anything. The station has people who remember it as a workplace; their disagreement gives a familiar piece of equipment a history.
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**What he observes and says.** The value is not flat. It drifts and returns, differing from what he expected under its last known conditions. He also says, unprompted, that a failing sensor looks exactly the same from here, and that he cannot tell the difference from this side.
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The bench is a shared facility made from personal work. The listening rig begins as Dorn's private worry and can become something Yeva helps you investigate. People learn what happened because someone tells them. Lending a part is one way to spend time among them, while also preparing a more promising expedition.
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**What that gives the player.** One next objective: inspect the known panel, trace which volume its pressure line currently samples, and check the sensor. The remote reading alone does not establish that connection or whether the signal reflects a real pressure change. This is an investigation of an identified panel, not a verdict about the section. Dorn’s service-era location is historical; after a death-shift, neither it nor the channel supplies a current route.
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The intended feeling is relief followed by attachment and renewed curiosity: the noise outside stops, two people recognize your return, and one small anomaly gives tomorrow's trip a purpose. This scene could fall flat if swapping the part feels like a repetitive errand or the people are not worth listening to. Its value depends on their writing and responses, alongside the useful air and information.
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## Lending, using, and taking back
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## What remains to design
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Seating the relay at either place is a deliberate act, and pulling it out returns the part. The two results both persist once obtained: what Dorn heard stays heard, and canisters packed while the bench was powered keep the charge they were packed with and go out in the pack as they are, occupying their normal carrying capacity.
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- Whether Dorn's sensor is faulty, and what investigating it reveals.
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- How later returns vary the people's wants and reactions as the household grows.
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- Whether other projects need lasting material commitments. This ordinary loan remains reversible.
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**So the ordinary outcome is that the player gets all of it.** Seat the relay in the rig, listen; move it to the bench, pack; take it back and go.
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The scene and its emotional effect are proposals, not playtested results. [Home And Colony Loop](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Home%20And%20Colony%20Loop) holds the broader project and access rules.
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**Departure manifests.**
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- **Listened, packed, reclaimed.** The relay is in the rig with its usual expedition uses available; the pack holds canisters that were packed dense; the player carries Dorn's reading and its caveat. Cost: time aboard.
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- **Bench left powered.** Permissible. The relay stays aboard and is not carried, so it is unavailable in the station this trip. It confers no additional benefit on this departure beyond the canisters already packed. Leaving the bench dark while the player is away has no upkeep cost.
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- **Postponed.** The part goes out in the rig; no canisters are packed dense; no reading is taken. Nothing degrades and nothing is deducted.
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## How people respond to what the player actually did
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A few attributed lines and actions:
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- **Lent and reclaimed.** Dorn pulls the relay and hands it back himself rather than leaving the player to retrieve it, and thanks them for the loan specifically rather than for a gift. Yeva, at the bench, says the canisters are his work as much as hers.
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- **Postponed.** Yeva says she would rather be told no than have him keep asking on her behalf. Dorn says the panel will still be there. Neither withdraws anything and no trust is docked.
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- **The reading shared with Yeva.** She asks which side of the seal the panel's pressure line currently samples. Dorn knows which panel he serviced; its receiver channel does not show that plumbing connection. Her question gives the player something specific to trace when they inspect the panel.
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The crossed-out-name conversation happens on its own terms. Dorn eventually tells Yeva which name was his doing and why; she remembers that shift differently and says so. Neither account is corrected, and it is not conditional on the player having paid for anything. Two people who were both there remember it differently, which is not knowledge of what happened on this station.
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If the player wants Yeva to know what Dorn heard, someone has to say it. Nothing becomes shared by having happened.
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## Personal against shared
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The bench is the shared facility and also two people's personal work: her routing, his servicing, his crossed-out names on the housing. The rig is Dorn's private question until he tells someone. A personal project here involves others, and the communal one carries individuals in it, so this scene does not divide cleanly and is not built to.
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**The strongest alternative** is a project whose material commitment is genuinely irreversible — a part consumed, a thing that cannot be undone. That is a real design and it suits a project whose experience needs the weight of a decision that cannot be walked back. It is not an improvement to apply wherever a loan happens to be free, and this scene is not one that needs it.
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**Accepted costs.** With nothing surrendered, this return may read as pleasant and inconsequential, and its value rests entirely on the people being worth spending time among. Additional wants and reactions require further writing as the cast grows.
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**What would reopen the choice.** Evidence that returns like this play as errand-running rather than as time among people, or a specific project whose experience genuinely needs irreversibility.
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## Open questions
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- Whether that sensor is faulty.
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- Whose account of the crossed-out name is right; the design does not adjudicate.
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- How much material the colony absorbs over time — a colony-economy question, out of scope here.
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- The station's own history, untouched.
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- Who staffs what in general is not settled here.
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- How much further writing additional wants and reactions need as the cast grows, and whether that is feasible.
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- These rules are untested; numbers are proposals.
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Continue with [Discovery in a Changing Station](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Connecting%20The%20Station) to see how knowledge survives a changed route. [Back to The Game](/Hold%20The%20Flood/The%20Game).
