**Status:** working systems contract for the ordinary-return example in [Coming Home](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Coming%20Home). It tracks one relay, two projects and their information/material results. It is not a currency, project queue, upkeep system or colony economy. Benefits and emotional effect remain unvalidated.
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**Status:** working systems contract for the cooperative return in [Coming Home](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Coming%20Home). It tracks one relay, two projects and the results they produce. It is not a colony economy, upkeep system or requirement that every human scene consume scarce material. Human effect and production cost remain unvalidated.
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## Arrival and ownership
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## Arrival and relay states
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The scarce object is one ordinary relay-family part carried from the station. Before a live return it occupies capacity and would remain in the ordinary death cache. Crossing into the ship banks it; it then appears in ship storage unless it remains installed in the astronaut's rig. Dorn and Yeva can show their incomplete projects, but neither silently takes or reserves it.
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One ordinary relay-family part returns from the station. Before a live return it occupies carrying capacity and would remain in the ordinary death cache. Crossing into the ship banks it; it then appears in ship storage unless still installed in the astronaut's rig. Dorn and Yeva show their incomplete work, but neither silently takes or reserves it.
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The player may seat or remove the relay at either project, carry it on departure, or postpone with it stored. Seating is commitment only while installed: this is a reusable equipment family under [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules), so removal returns the same part and stops the powered device. No timer, upkeep, degradation or relationship penalty advances while either project waits.
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The player may seat or remove the relay at either project, carry it on departure, or postpone with it stored. The relay is reusable equipment under [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules): removal returns the same part and stops the powered device. No timer, degradation, upkeep demand or relationship penalty advances while either project waits.
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| State | Relay location | Active result | Result that survives removal |
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| State | Relay location | What operates | What survives removal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cached before return | Station cache | Neither project | Existing records only |
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| Stored / postponed | Ship storage | Neither project | Incomplete room states and prior conversations |
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| Dorn's rig powered | Rig's service seat | Pressure signal can be heard | What Dorn heard, as attributed knowledge |
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| Packing bench powered | Bench's service seat | Dense canister preparation | Charge embodied in canisters already prepared |
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| Reclaimed | Storage or astronaut rig | Both ship projects dark | Prior knowledge and prepared canisters |
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| Stored / postponed | Ship storage | Neither project | Incomplete room states and conversations |
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| Listening | Dorn's receiver seat | One addressed interlock sensor can be read | Dorn's attributed observation, once made |
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| Packing | Bench service seat | Improved canister preparation | Charge in canisters already prepared |
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| Reclaimed | Storage or astronaut rig | Both projects dark | Communicated knowledge and prepared canisters |
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The relay never powers two devices or stays aboard and in the carried rig simultaneously.
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The single relay never powers both devices, or stays aboard while also carried.
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## Dorn's listening rig and information flow
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## Dorn's receiver and its physical channel
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Dorn has built the coupling, line and headset. The relay routes a concrete input from a hull sensor line: pressure movement at a particular point along the section he sealed. The player explicitly seats the relay and Dorn listens. This can establish that the line carried movement and roughly where; it cannot identify the cause, establish that the entire seal held or say the section is safe to open.
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The station docking collar carries a low-rate monitoring bus among its service lines. Dorn's shipboard tap addresses one channel on that bus: the pressure sensor at a single interlock panel. He knows its address and crew location because he serviced that panel. This proposed physical channel does not depend on answered hails and does not invent an earlier player-placed sensor.
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The relay may be removed immediately afterward. The rig stops receiving, but Dorn retains what he heard. That result does not become common colony or player journal knowledge automatically: Dorn must tell the astronaut, and someone must tell Yeva if the player wants her to know. On departure the account can make that particular point worth inspecting while leaving route, risk and interpretation open.
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When powered, the receiver gives one pressure value at that point and whether it is steady. Dorn observes a drift and return where he expected a sealed dead volume to stay flat. He also states that a failing sensor looks identical from aboard. The reading therefore establishes neither motion, cause, direction, the side of the seal, whole-section condition nor safety. Removing the relay ends monitoring, but Dorn retains what he observed.
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## Yeva and Dorn's packing bench
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Yeva installed the compressor head and worked out the ship-power routing. Dorn services the pressure hardware and retained his marked maintenance card on the housing. The relay supplies the required power route only while seated.
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Knowledge sharing is an action. Dorn tells the astronaut; the astronaut may then tell Yeva. She asks whether the addressed panel is on the near or far side of the seal. Nobody aboard can settle that. The bounded next goal is to revisit the known panel and determine whether its sensor is faulty, not open the section.
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Before power, ship-produced oxygen receives the ordinary proposed fill. While powered, the bench prepares canisters with more usable charge, the existing proposed Dorn contribution from [Rescue and Home](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Rescue%20and%20Home). The ship still produces unlimited oxygen and earlier canisters were not secretly degraded. Removing the relay stops future dense preparation. A canister already prepared retains its own charge; it is an embodied result, not continuing operation of a dark bench.
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On the following departure, dense canisters can support greater reach for the same carried pattern or similar planned reach with more room for equipment or salvage. No exact capacity, charge or preparation duration is asserted.
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## Yeva and Dorn's packing bench
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## The valid sequence—and the missing tradeoff
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Yeva installed the compressor head and routed the ship supply. Dorn's completed pressure-hardware service is why it can run, and he operates it in this scene. The prerequisites are that completed setup, the ship's unlimited oxygen supply and the relay seated while packing. This creates no maintenance schedule: the bench does not degrade when Dorn is absent, and wider staffing or survivor-loss rules remain open.
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The current rules permit a full sequence aboard:
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Before power, ship oxygen receives the ordinary proposed fill. While powered, the bench prepares canisters with more usable charge, the existing proposal in [Rescue and Home](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Rescue%20and%20Home). Earlier canisters were not secretly degraded. Removing the relay stops further improved preparation, but charge already placed in a canister remains embodied there; it is not continued operation by a dark bench.
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1. Seat the relay in Dorn's rig and receive his limited account.
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2. Remove it and power the packing bench.
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3. Prepare the intended departure's canisters.
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4. Remove the relay and carry it in the astronaut's rig.
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Prepared canisters still occupy their normal carrying capacity. They may support more reach for a chosen carried pattern or similar planned reach with more capacity for equipment or salvage. No exact charge, slot allocation or preparation duration is asserted.
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The final manifest then contains the one relay, the prepared canisters and Dorn's retained knowledge. Nothing is duplicated: the projects are dark, while their produced results persist.
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## Intended sequence and departure
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This sequence is honest, but it means the three uses in Coming Home do not presently compete. Ship oxygen is unlimited, no meaningful shipboard preparation wait exists, and prepared canisters retain their charge. Leaving the relay in the bench therefore provides no additional established benefit for that departure while withholding it from the rig. Skipping either free shipboard step or postponing may express the player's wishes about participation and sharing, but is not a material tradeoff under these rules.
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This scene is a cooperative loan and preparation sequence:
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The article will not repair that by inventing a packing delay, erasing prepared charge, duplicating the relay or allowing the bench to run after removal. A real persistent choice needs a different prerequisite.
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1. Seat the relay in Dorn's receiver, hear one transient, and reclaim it.
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2. Seat it in the bench, prepare the departure canisters, and reclaim it.
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3. Leave carrying the single relay, those canisters and Dorn's limited account.
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## Coherent alternative commitment
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Both ship projects are dark on departure. Nothing is duplicated: prepared charge and communicated knowledge persist because they are produced results, not operating benefits. Leaving the relay in the bench remains permitted but gives no additional established benefit for this departure. Darkness during the expedition and unspecified ship time are not invented costs.
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The smallest alternative is the pressure-regulator core from the independent proposals: ordinary salvage with a thin diaphragm brazed into a custom pressure housing. Cutting it free destroys the seal, so installation in the packing bench is physically irreversible. A recoverable relay could still be loaned to Dorn's information rig, but it would be a separate object; the scene would no longer compare two uses of one part.
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Other participation choices remain honest. Leaving the bench powered leaves the relay aboard and offers no additional established benefit to that departure. Postponing sends the relay out in the rig with ordinary canisters and no reading. Selective listening or packing is also possible. These are choices about which human activities and information the player engages with, not exclusive material expenditures.
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With one core, the real choice is install the permanent bench improvement, retain the core for another pressure project, or postpone. That supports an honest commitment but changes Coming Home's chosen material and personal-versus-shared comparison. A continuously operating project that genuinely matters during the expedition could instead justify leaving a relay installed, but no such benefit exists in the submitted scene.
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## Visible human responses and content states
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## Necessary authored states
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After listening, Dorn unseats and returns the relay himself, thanking the player specifically for a loan. At the bench, Yeva says the canisters are his work as much as hers and returns the relay beside them. On postponement, Yeva says she would rather hear no than have Dorn keep asking through her; Dorn says the panel will still be there. Neither withdraws anything. When told the reading, Yeva asks which side of the seal owns that address, making its uncertainty actionable.
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Room states are limited to both devices incomplete/dark, listening rig powered, bench powered, and both dark after reclamation; prepared canisters and shared accounts are separate results. Dialogue needs inspect/ask, seat at each device, share or withhold Dorn's account, remove, postpone, and return after following the lead. Yeva and Dorn continue authored ship activity in all states rather than freezing at request markers.
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The crossed-out-name disagreement remains an ordinary later conversation, not payment or punishment. Neither memory is made station history.
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The recoverable sequence has the strongest support from current equipment rules and lets one object connect two people's work. Its accepted cost is that the intended scarce choice disappears. The one-use core restores commitment at the cost of changing the scene and authoring a new material property. Reopen between them only by choosing which experience matters here; prose cannot establish attachment, pacing or production cost.
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Necessary room states are both devices incomplete/dark, receiver powered, bench powered and both dark after reclamation. Dialogue variants cover inspect, listen, share, pack, remove, postpone and return after checking the panel. The sequence's strength is visible cooperation without manufactured loss. Its risk is becoming an automatic pre-departure checklist rather than time among people. Irreversible commitment remains credible for another project whose material and experience justify it. Reopen this choice if the interaction becomes compulsory repetition or a concrete permanent project supports a stronger human decision without hidden degradation, delays or loss rules.
