Hold The Horde — Clues and Help
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.
Four kinds of knowledge
| Kind | What the player receives | What it can establish |
|---|---|---|
| Physical evidence | Framed still/facsimile, location and visible context | What was present when observed |
| Player hypothesis | The player's wording | A theory to test, never authored fact |
| Character statement | Speaker, claim and basis | What that person recalls in that context |
| Established local use | Repeated cases plus a successful application | A practical prediction, not unique literal meaning |
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.
Recording, pause and persistence
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.
Concrete clue inventory
This inventory follows Discovery Chain.
| Instance | Required visible states | Contribution and limit |
|---|---|---|
| Door junction | String beside closed door; identical string on blank wall | Recurs; simple door label weakens, other readings survive. |
| Open-panel site | Matching string; panel off; continuous enterable crawlway | Reveals a correlate without choosing duct, passage or marked wall. |
| Return to blank wall | Panel on and seam visible, then removed; crawlway behind | Tests the player's prediction but not duct versus usable access. |
| 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. |
| Non-exhaustive case | Unstringed duct visible through grille; run welded closed | Shows not every duct is marked. It does not by itself disprove “marked walls indicate ducts” or establish original intent. |
| Route use/failure | Stringed panel near jammed door; the door port and a crawl grille both show the same far-side lamp and painted crew name; route beyond the sightline clear, collapsed, welded or sealed | Supports “may bypass the jam,” not known connectivity. Success confirms this route; failure lowers confidence in present operability. |
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.
Useful survivor interpretation
Dorn's strongest useful line is concrete rather than a cryptic question:
“We called those crawl marks. I used two with the maintenance crew when the main runs jammed: panel off, through the wall, out past the blockage. We never knew what the signs said, and we never assumed the next crawl was still clear.”
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.
Dialogue needs bounded variants:
- With no record, Dorn cannot expose an unseen route.
- 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.
- With an open-panel record, he confirms the pictured arrangement, not every duct or string.
- With the negative case or failed access, he separates intended access from present condition and leaves the rival open.
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.
Alternative, gates and authoring cost
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.
The optional-help policy costs at least three matching string sites, a visibly non-duct connection, panel/seam states, one unstringed duct, one optional unusable marked access, four dialogue conditions, records, failure feedback and reverse-order continuity. Required help may save comparisons but spends dialogue-state and rescue-gate handling. Neither comparison establishes production feasibility, comprehension or fun.
Reopen the preference if readers cannot distinguish evidence from interpretation, optional dialogue merely repeats an already obvious answer, the unaided route depends on pixel hunting, or the required authoring cannot be kept consistent across return and death.