**Status:** working proposal. Wall strings may be a fragment of an alien language, but this chain fulfils no whole-language requirement; service notation remains distinct. Journal details, Dorn's wider knowledge and station history stay open. Legibility, value and cost remain untested.

The preferred structure is **physical inference with optional, truthful survivor interpretation**. Comparison can support a reasoned decision; Dorn can clarify it, but neither rescue nor dialogue makes a panel usable.

The recurring string can support “this wall is a candidate access.” *Access*, *service way*, *removable wall* or maintenance responsibility remain possible meanings. Entering one crawl confirms that route, not the wording or every mark.

Sampling a new angle/state, manipulating evidence and committing a framed record use world time. The record stores that view and location without automatic interpretation. Opening the journal pauses everything, including enemies and oxygen. Paused examination covers stored records and the already-visible frozen view; nothing advances.

Captured records persist on return and through death and revival. They are knowledge, not cargo or cache contents. Personal notes may contain observations, quotations, plans or hypotheses; their wording persists without automatic validation. This facsimile example requires no in-game editor and does not prohibit a later annotation interface.

No record grants hidden permission. Knowledge changes which wall to open and route to budget for; failure gives visible feedback and a recoverable next action.

| Non-duct access | Matching string beside open removable slab; passable connection has ordinary floor, walls and standing clearance, no duct hardware | Weakens “strings mark ducts”; supports access across physical forms. |

Strings, seams, panels and connections must agree in every visit order. Crawlways plus the visibly non-duct passage support “matching strings identify candidate wall access” more strongly than “strings identify ducts.” Maintenance responsibility remains a real rival, and no builder intent or literal wording is claimed.

Each released fastener and a fully moved panel are visible completed checkpoints that persist; cancelling loses only the unfinished stage and spent time/oxygen. Journal pause advances none. The cutter is suit-issued, non-detachable and not exchangeable for a module. The decision is whether a promising crawl justifies world-time work, uncertain traversal, oxygen and exposure versus known door stages or retreat. No tool or capacity rule is added.

This is distinct from Dorn's paint. Firsthand use grounds the crew gloss and seam advice. Dorn does not know the wording, whether it names access or maintenance responsibility, or current route condition. He does not choose which crawl is worth the oxygen.

- With one string recorded, he gives the crew term “crawl mark,” his firsthand basis and the actionable suggestion to inspect the panel seam. This is an early optional survivor-led information path.

Without Dorn, the open crawl, returnable blank wall and non-duct passage support the same candidate-access prediction. This provenance is not every player's experience. In either path the player judges context, spends resources and interprets the outcome. Missed strings recur; records retain breadcrumbs. Collapse or welding makes failure legible but still lowers confidence. The door or retreat remains only if threats and oxygen allow. No path guarantees progress.

The selected policy permits two routes: early optional survivor interpretation after one record, or unaided physical comparison. Early help offers clearer direction and a visible colony role while leaving contextual inference and action to the player; the unaided route makes the practical reading emerge from their comparisons. Neither is inherently more reliable or more “owned” by the player.

The strongest alternative makes Dorn's interpretation required. Its exact gate is **Dorn rescued and aboard, with a wall-string record shown in the matching dialogue state, before authored information is sufficient to recognise the crawlway around the jammed door**. That guarantees a shared explanatory beat and could require fewer environmental comparisons, but makes this discovery depend on rescue and a return to the wall.