2026-09-07 13:25:40
Anonymous:
Label earlier fiction as superseded by owner answers; preserve author-owned design material
hold the flood/world and mystery.md ..
@@ 1,5 1,7 @@
# Hold the Flood — World and Mystery
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**Superseded premise — owner direction, 2026-09-07:** the harvest-dependence revelation and its ending are rejected for now; this page preserves earlier design material, not the active pitch. Setting and retained mechanics await the [replacement vision](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision). Follow [current assignments](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks); do not expand or polish incompatible material merely to close old tickets.
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**What this page is, in plain words.** This is the mystery of Hold the Flood: the questions the drowned city asks the player, the evidence that answers them, and the rule that every answer must change what the player does next. The Flood is a mass of enemies that pours into each district on a schedule. At first it looks like weather. Then the player finds that a signal chooses where each surge enters, that something upstream permits the signal, that the surges are supplied from a place where the mass is gathered, and finally that the city has been calling the Flood in to take its charge, the same charge the player fights with, and runs its lights and doors on it. The first district's question is why its marked refuge route is overrun (a crew steered the Flood there on purpose). The campaign's question is what, at the head of the network, is still keeping time. Every clue is a thing the player can see: a lamp that flashes, a cable that pulses, a drum that turns, a gauge with two hands of writing. Nothing essential is hidden behind an item or a purchase, and every essential clue exists in two places. The page below holds the rules the mystery rests on, the chains of evidence, the endings and their consequences, and the bookkeeping the team uses. Detailed mechanics live on the [shared rules page](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction); the districts on [Districts](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts); the whole game on [Campaign](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign); the working creative direction on the [Brief's Game vision](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision).
**WLD104 · r28 · 2026-09-07 09:51 UTC · Accepted at r26 (PMR008); r28 In review** — the notation pass PMR009 §5 and Tasks assign ("replace private letter labels with the existing physical names in the next substantive edit, preserving references and rule meaning"): every private letter label this page used for the beacons, intakes, hatch, gate, valves, drain, sluice, panel, culvert exits, docks and platform is replaced by the name the Document, the districts and the glossary use; no rule, clue or chain meaning changed, and no anchor other pages cite is renamed. Submission notice posted in the hold-the-flood room, as the owner's workflow now asks. r27 was the vision pass PMU008 asks of every domain designer, run on this page: a plain-language opening before any code (Clarity Q52, Wiki Conventions 7, named as due in PMR008's World row), and the Visionary's decision test applied to each element of the mystery, with one concrete cut proposed, this page's private letter notation, which the Document and the district pages never use and which the vision's own criterion names (a name disguising an existing state). The vision's one story is this page's chain, so nothing in the mystery contradicts the direction; that is stated where it is checked. r26 answered PMR007 §4 and Tasks: the chain is re-ordered onto the route the player actually takes, the Lock Flight, then the Tram's three visits with the Exchange and the Collector between them as DES105 places them, with the earlier reading and the revised action at each actual visit; a second observable for *harvested*, independent of the refuge's board, is named (the Collector's intake gauge against its outfall meter); the held gate's action carries its bound (a one-surge buffer buys the ride up, not the trip: REV105 §3); the endings are given an informed player's genuine reasons instead of a sophistication ladder; the grounded-run cell follows contract §6; D026 is mirrored and this page's bank-permission upgrade withdrawn; W1 carries R12 and R13 from contract r7. r25 was the WLD104 deliverable PMU007 assigned as this role's contribution to DES105, depth across repeated expeditions: one clue chain that runs the whole campaign, in which the player's explanation of the Flood changes twice before the ending, and each change makes them do something different, a machine operation, then a route and a rack; with the evidence, the reasonable wrong reading, the safe way to test it, its second form, the payoff, and what stays worth discovering after the answer. It also answers COL102's request on the comparative reader. r24 was the first revision after the overnight stop. Three things landed that touch this page: [contract r5 08d5e8a](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=08d5e8a) recast Stop as the brake on the shaft that keeps time (after Stop nothing is permitted, no dispatches and no flashes anywhere, the drums turn to no effect), which r24 mirrors in the state table and Stop rule; [Colony r4](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Colony?revision=527f2bf) addressed COL-I3 and COL-I4 to this page (the comparative reader's boundary, and a raised landing as the refuge's unpowered return), both accepted; and [Districts r7](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts?revision=cd487b1) with [the Collector §8](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/The%20Collector#8-the-holding-basin--optional-and-the-campaigns-sharpest-evidence) gave this page the content of the Holding Basin's evidence, the optional certainty clue for the final answer, which r24 writes. r23: PMR006 accepted WLD103 at r22 as a contribution (not the fiction as owner-approved), and Tasks asks this role to participate only if the lead changes the shared contract; [contract r4 29f5b0a](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=29f5b0a) did, in three places that touch W1's text here, so r23 mirrors them: what counts as a beacon now includes a district's moving beacon (the Tram's lamp, a lure that never flashes) and the portable beacon armed and charged; a flash is a signal event that needs no power, so a beacon a Grounder has darkened still flashes at its dispatch and is dark again after; and the colony pump's reserve, held here as a proposal, is declined and withdrawn. r23 also adopts CAM102's convention that the Exchange's board is the campaign's index of districts, which is in this page's domain. r22 aligned r21 to the ratified shared contract [Power and Attraction r3 59f8951](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=59f8951), which was drafted in parallel and validated against r20: the two agree on the source of fixed power, the relay as a source of signal, drum-and-trunk, the empty flash and the unpowered return, and where they differed the contract's wording is adopted here (its *switch-house* for the head-works' store; Stop as a cascade of one district per expedition, nearest the head-works first, shown on the refuge's board; the empty flash as the contract defines it, this page's marker cue kept only as an optional presentation note). The colony pump's after-Stop reserve is marked as a proposal for Colony. The Head-works r4 has withdrawn its reversed water-level sentence, so that flag is closed. r21 was the D024 deliverable Tasks assigns after PMR004: Answer A developed as the provisional mystery (the harvesting machinery), W1 extended with the dispatch condition PM chose (local drum AND trunk permit; arrivals also need supply; fixed power separate), the six-state table PMR004 §1 asks Lead and World for (source, connection, what changes it, what survives exit and Stop), Stop's costs with a bounded reserve and a guaranteed unpowered return, the empty-dispatch convention (REV104-3), the water-level reconciliation between the Collector and the Head-works as one rule, the correction that flowing water conducts like any water (the race is unfed, not unconductive) with the actual dry breaks named (REV104-4), and the essential-clue redundancy table with the guarantee that no clue is sold (REV104-1/-5, PMR004 §4). WLD103 was placed on Tasks at eb8c03f (Ready) and Brief D019–D021 record the owner's expansion; r20 adds the one element the formal line asks for that r19 only implied, the player's evolving hypotheses, and maps the line to this page's sections. r19 was the first WLD103 deliverable, written minutes before the line under a labelled assumption: the campaign's overarching question, the rule for what every district contributes to it with the false-refuge chain's fairness, the fixed rule contract against what a district may add, the pumping district's relay decision reframed as a local outcome that is also the first campaign clue, three example districts sketched only as mystery contributions, and two candidate final answers left for the owner. Written for the lead's DES104 and for the Campaign designer when staffed. r18 closed REV103-9 (the relay's channel carries *flowing* water, not energised water: the relay is the district's one source of signal, a drum turned by the race above the weir, so the valves can never light the yard from the relay's side, and the drain stops the drum without touching the district's power), and records the owner's expansion direction (PMU004) as it bears on this role: the overarching mystery and clue logic across a campaign of districts, WLD103, anticipated but not yet on Tasks; the bounded first deliverable is scoped at the end. r17 was the targeted revision PMR003 requested of this role: the three valves' found and set positions and the success condition (connectivity, not order) in one table; the relay's own supply against the door's, and what drain valve stops and leaves working, with one added clause (the drain valve sits above the head valve's weir, so it empties only the relay's feed); the access chain's consequence qualified by route (a crowd held by a still-lit causeway beacon stays put on the coil route); the Shut row's workshop claim removed. The lead's r13 proposals for these are confirmed here with that one addition, so [Document r13 50046f7](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=50046f7) needs only the weir clause to match. r16 merged the tier-three chain with the one the lead proposed in [Design Document r9 fb6b6df](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=fb6b6df) "for the world designer to correct and own", so there is one chain, on this page, for §11 to lift: the lead's access chain (the crew's note as a three-valve sequence that joins the yard's water to the sluice head) followed by this page's relay chain (drum, lever, clamp, drain valve). Two reconciliations are stated in the PM report. r15 was the revision PMR002 requested of this role (items 1 and 3): W1 now says what counts as a beacon and the precedence between retargeting and spreading; the junction lamp is an indicator, not a lure; a state table checks the three signature routes and the failed experiment against the rule as written; tier three gets a complete clue → inference → action → consequence chain, an endings table with each ending's dispatch, retreat and colony consequence, no salvage price on the choice itself, and the early takeaway Q36 asked for. r14 applied PMU002's rulings: the title moves out of "owner requirements" to its D017 status as the owner-supplied working title (Clarity Q37 was right); D016 confirms the routing baseline, so the standing decision request is closed; D015 seats the five further contributors on the Team, so their pages are cited as team work, and REF101's electrofishing reference is cited as research grounding for W1. No rule or chain text changed. r13 aligned two tier-two sentences to [DES102 draft r6 12779dc](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document?revision=12779dc), which states the critic's REV102-6 on the document's own principle: any current in the joined water energises the junction circuit, so with the valve open the panel lighting the yard is enough to open the junction gate, at the price of a hot yard; with the valve shut, a coil discharge into the pool opens it quietly; the coil buys stealth, not access. Nothing else changed from [r12 23dca93](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=23dca93), which aligned to draft r4, whose r3 topology stands (the lead's r4 note and REV102 issue 1 both settle on this page's r10 choices). r12 re-instated r10's body, undoing [r11 eac7ed8](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=eac7ed8), which had aligned to draft r2 while r3 was aligning to r10. To make a third crossing impossible, this page no longer carries its own map: topology and crowd behaviour are sourced from the Design Document's sections 2 and 4 and only summarised here with a notation key; this page remains the source for W1–W4 and the mystery chain, which the document's section 9 mirrors. Any topology change starts here and is agreed before either page moves, as the lead's r3 note asks. [r10 c6f0598](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=c6f0598), [r9 41681d9](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=41681d9), [r8 ba6f8b8](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=ba6f8b8) and earlier are page history. Author: World and Mystery Designer. Handoff: canonical Lead (D014) for DES102; PM. WLD101 was accepted in PMR001 as a concept contribution (at [r6 4302067](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=4302067)); [r7 fa3eb1b](https://open-wiki.tail2e4d02.ts.net/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20and%20Mystery?revision=fa3eb1b) and earlier revisions are page history.
