- The head begins in a readable powered rack and reserves its full shared capacity from the moment it is lifted, whether in hand or stowed; a full pack must first make room. **In hand**, it travels immediately but overrides equipment form: both builds lose their full functions and retain only basic defence. **Stowed** on the carry frame, it still occupies full capacity but restores full build use after a deliberate, exposed transfer. **Dropped**, it frees capacity and restores handling immediately, but stays behind, fragile and exposed. In-hand carriage is transitional during release, transfer or emergency re-pickup; once safe stowing is possible it is not intended as a competing long-return strategy. Ordinary hordes remain active during the return.

The player finds an energy-tool chassis and useful modules: a branching emitter, impact coupler, and heat-release module. Each occupies space. With ordinary fire launched mostly automatically under the owner's control choice, hits branch through a dense horde, impacts charge the coupler, and stored heat shapes a later special discharge started by a manual activation or a valid external event. Descended effects keep their original causal wave, under Build Rules and Combat Rules. The chain may overwhelm ordinary hordes; it is not capped to manufacture a weakness.

Before discovery, item inspection states verified individual behavior or material traits: an emitter branches, a coupler stores impact charge, scrap is conductive. It does not list all cross-object combinations. A local preview confirms only a proposed direct link between accessible endpoints; learned families help predict unfamiliar objects and plan what to carry before that check is available. Acquisition is readable without giving away the family pattern.

Near the target, alien service glyphs group components into **relay**, **sink**, and **isolator** families. During the rack’s readable shutdown, a visible power trace passes through a relay-stamped junction, drains into a sink-stamped buffer, and stops at an isolator-stamped contact. The clustered marks and observed behavior support the player’s inference. Every mark was already visible; a proposed notebook records only a chosen facsimile and location, without naming families, highlighting matches or translating.

| Power payoff | Impact-fed cascades through dense hordes | Player-sequenced material bursts |

| Reusable learning | Recognized original glyph predicts module compatibility | Recognized original glyph predicts salvage response |

Shared capacity is an accepted direction, not a remaining branch. Its unresolved risk is oxygen dominance: if another canister is usually correct, equipment and loot choices narrow despite sharing one interface. Exact capacity, canister value and encounter pressure remain untuned and unvalidated.