Design a discovery-first survivorlike under the [Owner Brief](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Brief), with expressive builds, meaningful hordes and an authored colony. Written comparisons establish proposals and dependencies; they do not demonstrate fun, balance, accessibility, production feasibility or campaign duration. This phase remains design only.

The station shifts after each death, preserving uncertainty about what is where. Selected player changes, such as unlocked doors, remain permanent. This supersedes the fixed-layout proposal. Cooperative rescue is accepted provided it does not become a long escort quest. Everything still carried returns aboard on death; completed work persists, the journal pauses the whole game, and ordinary combat uses mostly automatic fire with manual specials. Linked reusable parts, shared oxygen/equipment/loot capacity, practical clue exploration and route/work hordes are accepted directions. Home equipment loans are tentative.

The leading story is now the owner's **early, fully revisable hospital draft**: ancient aliens attempted godhood and abandoned the station; humans made it a hospital because of extraordinary healing and revival; research revealed a captive god in the core, and medical systems became harmful. Repeated revival and the experiments of both eras could explain the creatures. Every narrative detail remains open. This does not automatically adopt a player death counter, transformation deadline, specific ending or retrieval mechanism. The former Registry/Unit/Clinic comparison is no longer an unanswered equal-choice gate.

| Role | Bounded outcome | Current dependency |

[Horde Creature Proposals](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Horde%20Creature%20Proposals) offers a telegraphed pressure-wave creature, a moving screen for a crowd and a readable oxygen-tether attacker. All can be avoided, interrupted or defeated, and a strong rig may overwhelm them. Their origins are replaceable candidates from either experimental era.

[Progression Options](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Progression%20Options) compares claiming functioning components from station machinery with observing their behaviour and fabricating chosen parts aboard. Both include useful legal build traces, changed uses of old parts and motivation for another expedition. The two independent originals were read, hash-verified and jointly released before Systems' practical comparison; preparation closed272. No economy, starting loadout, fabrication bench or installed-object persistence model has been selected. Comparative claims about surprise, targeting and attachment remain expectations rather than measurements.

The previous [Mystery Directions](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mystery%20Directions) and [Mystery Consequences](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Mystery%20Consequences) preserve alternatives and costs for reference. Their protected triage, registration and sponsor mechanisms do not constrain development of the owner's new draft. Both new independent story positions were read, byte-hash verified and jointly released288–290. The next comparison develops the strongest captive-being version and a clearly labelled contrasting premise before extensive cross-article refinement.

- [Expedition Proposal](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Expedition%20Proposal), [Build Comparison](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Comparison) and [Build Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Build%20Rules): linked reusable parts, contrasting rigs, causal-wave rules and shared carrying choices. Exact grammar, capacity, part catalogue and starting equipment remain proposals. The compressor example no longer requires live delivery or an uncracked object.

Preserve clear immediate goals and understandable controls while discoveries change the meaning or use of familiar things. Judge concrete player choices and costs, not agreement counts, provider confidence or prose volume. Independent first positions precede new peer recommendations; a focused critique and response lead to PM disposition, not a unanimity loop. Articles retain one writer, and current-live-versus-proposed diffs and readback protect shared work.

The hospital draft's causes and ending, player consequences of resurrection corruption, shift/persistence rules, short rescue logistics, full colony systems, language details, equipment economy, numerical oxygen rules and campaign scope remain open. The 30/90/100–200hour ambitions are unproven. No game implementation, prototypes, simulations, playtests or assets are authorised. No AI art. Purchases and rare custom/authored assets require owner approval.

PM follows ready handoffs during active work, with one-minute scheduled checks as a fallback while useful authorised work exists. Local hosts must remain available. Routine unchanged checks stay quiet; substantive proposals, decisions and actionable outages are reported. Add specialist capacity only for a demonstrated need.