2026-09-08 12:30:43
Anonymous:
Revise mystery return and ending contracts after focused review
hold the flood/mystery consequences.md ..
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# Hold The Horde — Mystery Consequences
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**Status.** This systems comparison applies the working rules in [Death and Persistence](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Death%20And%20Persistence), [Rescue Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Rescue%20Rules), [Exploration Structure](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Exploration%20Structure) and [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules) to the actual three [Mystery Directions](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mystery%20Directions), first shared in Lead outline chat221. It is not adopted canon. The [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief) requires death to return the astronaut aboard this ship and leaves its cause, losses and persistence unresolved. Compatibility means a direction can preserve a working proposal, not that the proposal is an owner requirement.
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**Status.** This comparison applies the working [Death and Persistence](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Death%20And%20Persistence), [Rescue Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Rescue%20Rules) and [Exploration Structure](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Exploration%20Structure) to the three [Mystery Directions](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mystery%20Directions). None is canon. The [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief) requires return aboard this ship; cause, losses and persistence remain open. Compatibility does not make a working proposal an owner requirement.
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## Shared contract
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## Shared return, persistence and ending baseline
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Unless a direction explicitly reopens it, death leaves carried equipment and unbanked salvage in a recoverable cache at the death site. Journal evidence, recorded locations, deliberate infrastructure changes and people already **Sent** through the ship airlock persist. An unsent survivor remains in their authored station or abort state. Revival returns the astronaut, not their pack, and does not bank salvage or grant survivors automatic immortality.
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While service is active, each cause covers damage and oxygen deaths throughout playable station space. Death caches carried equipment and unbanked salvage. Journal evidence, locations, deliberate infrastructure and people already **Sent** persist; an unsent survivor remains in their authored state. No mechanism copies the pack, banks salvage, gains a hidden counter or fails because an ordinary power puzzle changed.
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Each cause must work for damage and oxygen deaths throughout the playable station while active. Its energy and body-matter path cannot be a concealed counter that produces surprise permadeath. A bounded system still needs a non-depleting loop or known safe stopping rule; “alien machinery” is not a material account.
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The apparent resolution is repair plus informed escape clearance: a real way out while still docked, so revival continues into the deeper path. Final departure ends service and completes the story. Continue/load returns before that choice with achievements and world changes intact. A mortal post-credits phase is a separate owner exception, not part of any mystery by default.
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Each baseline covers the astronaut only. Exclusion says nothing about another person’s loss or immunity; local rescue, abort and Sent rules remain. Eligibility needs a decision only when a scene offers a named, consenting person registration, admission or assignment.
## 1. The Registry — connected alien institution
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**Return and persistence.** Docking records the astronaut as this distressed vessel's complement and fixes the ship as their berth. On death, the authority retrieves the body through its service network, leaves unregistered carried objects at the death site, and reinstates the person at the berth. This reuses matter, keeps the cache and explains the fixed return point. Ship-synchronised suit telemetry can preserve the journal; uninterrupted personal memory additionally requires the latest neural state, not only the docking-time pattern. Berth service must remain fail-safe until release, or ordinary power puzzles could cause unannounced permadeath.
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**Return and resources.** Docking fixes this vessel as the return address; a protected casualty channel stabilises and retrieves the astronaut’s current body at death. Berth service repairs that same body, leaves unregistered objects at the death site, and returns the person to the fixed address. Current memory stays with the body; ship telemetry preserves records. Ordinary route-power changes cannot disable this channel.
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Old complements keep returning inside the station because their vessels or return addresses vanished; count does not degrade them or the service. Their hostility and strangeness therefore need a separate bounded condition, not an arbitrary astronaut exemption. Existing creatures remain after release.
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**Repair, stopping and continuation.** Repair restores the ship's ability to file an underway state; clearing its distress flag deliberately deregisters the astronaut and ends revival before departure. Apparent credits can follow that informed clearance. Continuing then means a clearly labelled mortal phase in the same station: release other trapped complements berth by berth. That deeper action stops further malformed returns but does not erase creatures already present. The player must be allowed to decline mortal continuation without losing the earned departure.
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**Repair and deeper continuation.** Repairing the ship and clearing the fault behind its distress state earns departure clearance; service remains until undocking. Later client filings reveal that blanket release would stop new returns but could strand coherent complements awaiting valid destinations. The deeper action becomes a berth-by-berth decision: restore a valid return route, suspend a harmful return, or leave an uncertain berth active. These choices change future returns and horde sources without erasing what already walks the station.
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**Survivors and resources.** Sent survivors do not join the docking-time complement automatically. Adding them needs a separate filing and owner choice: it turns revival into colony infrastructure and forces a survivor-death rule. Otherwise existing rescue rules stand. Retrieval and recycling are a closed loop, not limitless creation, but the direction must establish universal playable reach and why old complements became malformed while this astronaut does not.
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Sent survivors are not in the docking-time complement. A concrete later offer to register one would require owner choice because it changes who can return; absent that scene, no global loss rule is reopened.
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**Decisive clue.** *Observation:* a berth ledger pairs a vital-loss event with body transfer from that sector and reinstatement at this ship. *Testimony:* Dorn says the same transfer family moved yard salvage but never saw its sealed destination. *Inference:* berth infrastructure moved and restored the registered person. The live rival is a ledger merely observing ship-local revival. Conserved tagged mass entering the berth recycler, with none leaving ship stores, discriminates. The player can route a harmless tagged sample through diagnostic return checkpoints; no deliberate death is required.
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**Decisive clue.** *Observation:* before one old berth’s release, an addressed creature killed in ordinary combat triggers a recovery transaction; after release it does not, while a still-flagged control berth does. *Testimony:* Dorn saw the same service move salvage but not its destination. *Inference:* the flag causally gates person recovery. The rival is a historical register merely observing another cause; the differing post-release result weakens it. Tagged material traced from service transfer into berth treatment can support the transport path, not exclusive causation or metaphysical identity.
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## 2. The Ship's Own Unit — separate causes
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## 2. The Appropriated Unit — human project, alien mechanism
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**Return and persistence.** A long-haul medical unit aboard the ship reinstates its assigned pilot in its fixed bay using berth power. Cache and record rules fit, but the direction does not explain how a ship-local unit obtains a body after remote death. A human emergency-recall tag could retrieve and recycle the astronaut while rejecting equipment. That preserves matter and repeated return, but makes body recall normal human technology and needs range and obstruction rules. A finite biomass tank instead creates death attrition and eventual failure; that consequential alternative is not recommended silently.
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**Return and resources.** Refuge workers secretly installed an appropriated alien recovery unit on this ship. A protected wreck-side anchor retrieves the astronaut’s actual current body from their individual casualty tag; the serial-addressed unit repairs and revives them aboard. Neither half works alone, and equipment remains as the cache. This explains return aboard **this** ship and why the station contains the answer.
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**Repair, stopping and continuation.** Repair keeps berth power stable until undocking ends the cycle. The other causes remain separate. If apparent credits require departure, continued relay investigation needs a route—return and redock, remote access, or another playable location. Otherwise credits should occur when departure becomes available, with undocking deferred. The deeper action must affect people, not only reveal a log.
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For the strongest complete version, an outside sponsor selected the test craft and engineered its failure and route back. This replaces coincidence with employer conspiracy and makes the opening less accidental; choosing coincidence instead would weaken causality but reduce predestination. The separate containment disaster retains human responsibility. Protected anchor transfer avoids a finite biomass counter.
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**Survivors and resources.** The assigned-pilot rule excludes Sent survivors unless deliberately reassigned. Reassignment is an owner choice because it may displace the astronaut or imply larger capacity. The recall/recycling mechanism remains a worldbuilding dependency; “legally required ordinary equipment” works only if that capability belongs in the wider human setting.
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**Repair and deeper continuation.** Repair plus navigation-lock removal earns escape; remaining docked preserves revival. Project orders and alien relay records reveal which hidden refugee groups are exposed. The player alters their route, warns them to stay hidden or exposes the controller. Sent people stay aboard. Final departure ends the link; earlier prototype shutdown is optional, not baseline.
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**Decisive clue.** *Observation:* a nonfatal tagged-sample test shows transmission, material arrival, the unit cycle and berth-power draw without mass crossing station services. *Testimony:* a survivor recognises its legal seal but cannot know whether it was altered. *Inference:* the ship performs recall and reinstatement. The rival is an unknown station field using the unit as endpoint. Capacitor draw alone cannot exclude it; authenticated firmware predicting the test plus conserved mass in the ship path discriminates. The manual and test are available without death.
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Coverage follows an individual casualty tag, not mere presence aboard a fitted ship. Only the astronaut currently has one. Installing or reassigning a tag in a named emergency would be an owner choice and must state what happens to the astronaut’s eligibility.
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**Decisive clue.** *Observation:* an archived fitting test names this ship’s unit serial and records tag capture, body transfer and onboard repair; its sealed logs match after ordinary deaths. *Testimony:* Dorn installed part of the fitting but never saw selection or navigation orders. *Inference:* the refuge coupled ship and anchor. The rival is station-only revival with passive hardware. A control run where transfer produced no revived subject until the serialled unit connected supports joint causation without deliberate player death.
## 3. The Clinic — actual-body triage
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**Return and persistence.** The clinic retrieves the actual body through ward-service routes, resuscitates it and delivers it to the manifest vessel. No stored person or new matter is required. Triage leaves loose equipment in a property pod at pickup—the cache—while suit telemetry preserves records. Every playable death site therefore needs a credible retrieval route, and hazards cannot destroy the body beyond resuscitation. Those are authored-space constraints, not brief facts.
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**Return and resources.** Protected triage arrests damage, retrieves the actual body through service routes, resuscitates it and delivers it to the manifest vessel. Nothing stores or recreates a person. Loose possessions form the cache; suit telemetry preserves records.
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Every playable death site therefore needs a protected service route or bounded patient-transfer reach. Supported gameplay hazards leave recoverable physiology because triage intervenes at the lethal threshold; total bodily destruction cannot be an ordinary death presentation inside coverage. A blocked visible route or local power change cannot silently prevent return. These are content and worldbuilding constraints, not evidence of feasibility.
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**Repair, stopping and continuation.** Repair remains required. Discharge or shutdown visibly ends revival. Apparent credits can occur with departure ready; continuation is mortal while the player recovers and transmits the archive. A real deeper resolution must change an ongoing condition—free remaining patients, block a continuing programme, or choose whom to trust—not merely add backstory.
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**Repair and deeper continuation.** Repair and discharge authorisation earn escape; treatment remains active until departure executes discharge. Records reveal an external programme still sending cases. The player can revoke experimental protocols, release viable patients and send evidence to a chosen recipient. This changes active treatment and the programme’s continuation, not merely lore.
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**Survivors and resources.** Sent status does not equal clinic admission. Consent-based intake would reopen survivor mortality and rescue design; otherwise current rules stand. Actual-body recovery avoids a matter reserve, while ward logistics and fail-safe power bear the burden. Destroying a route cannot make the next death permanently fatal without an explicit warning and alternative.
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Sent status does not equal clinic admission. A later consent-based intake for a named survivor would reopen that person’s eligibility only; it would not settle global survivor loss.
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**Decisive clue.** *Observation:* a casualty tag and scans follow the same wound markers and body mass through intake and ship delivery. *Testimony:* Yeva saw retrieval but thought it was disposal. *Inference:* triage revives the same body. The rival is destruction followed by reconstruction. Continuous tagged material through treatment, including one embedded fragment, discriminates; matching appearance does not. A recently killed creature can be tested through a diagnostic branch, avoiding required player death.
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**Decisive clue.** *Observation:* archived telemetry and scans follow the same wounds, mass and embedded tag through treatment. *Testimony:* Yeva maintained one junction and saw bodies pass wardward, but thought it was disposal. *Inference:* triage treats the same body. The rival is destruction then reconstruction. Restoring an observation window and matching two checkpoints supports bodily continuity—not metaphysical identity or valid consent—and needs no fatal experiment.
## Comparative burden and decision interface
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| Direction | Working-rule fit | Largest unresolved burden | Revival end / continued play | Consequential choice |
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| Direction | Working-rule fit | Largest burden | Apparent / deeper / final | Concrete eligibility scene |
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| Registry | Strong if transfer creates caches | Reach, fail-safe power and malformed old returns | Flag clearance; optional mortal berth-release phase | Keep revival personal or let the colony register |
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| Ship's Own Unit | Cache fits; causal account incomplete | Human body recall and post-departure access | Undocking; continuation path not yet fixed | Accept recall as normal human technology and define patient assignment |
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| Clinic | Strong if authored retrieval reaches every death site | Body survivability and universal service access | Discharge/shutdown; mortal evidence phase | Keep intake astronaut-only or reopen survivor eligibility |
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| Registry | Strong with protected transfer and current-state capture | Invalid-address malformation and per-berth outcomes | Escape cleared / resolve other berths / undock | Offer one named survivor registration |
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| Appropriated unit | Coherent with individual tag and two-part recovery | Arranged landing, sponsor conspiracy and joint alien/human chain | Lock removed / protect refugees and confront project / depart | Install or reassign one casualty tag |
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| Clinic | Strong if all deaths remain recoverable | Retrieval coverage, damage boundary and active external programme | Discharge authorised / free patients and expose programme / depart | Admit one named survivor with consent |
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Before an owner decision, [Mystery Directions](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mystery%20Directions) must resolve the exact matter/energy/retrieval rule in each direction, the location and reversibility of post-credits play, and the concrete human outcome of the Ship and Clinic deeper actions. The owner must choose any expansion of survivor eligibility and whether a mortal continuation phase is desirable. Those are owner choices; route coverage, clue validity and causal accounting are design dependencies. None of this establishes fun, balance, feasibility or campaign duration.
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The direction choice does not also decide loss of revival, where the deeper action occurs or whether survivor eligibility expands. Before owner comparison, the companion article must identify both alien languages’ distinct origins and uses in every direction, keep survivor knowledge bounded by actual work, and align these apparent/deeper/final actions. The owner’s central choice is among the strongest concrete stories; mortal continuation or a specific survivor exception should be presented separately only if worth adopting. None of this establishes fun, readability, feasibility or duration.
