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5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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# Hold the Flood — The Exchange
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413fa5 Anonymous 2026-09-07 15:18:07
The Exchange r6: mark the district at risk under the owner's correction. The owner has ruled that understanding enemy routing is not the game's central science but a supporting tool; this district is routing at campaign scale and almost nothing else - no salvage worth the trip, a walk for a local problem, and the bank for everything else - so by the corrected direction it does not earn its place, and that is recorded rather than hidden by recasting the page. Names the one thing that might survive on the new terms, and it is not the lever: the realisation that the schedule you have been reading all campaign was set in a room you had never seen is the owner's second kind of discovery, the world being much larger than it appeared, and if this district is rebuilt that is what it should be built from, with the bank as evidence rather than the point. Recommends holding; the design below is legal and its corrections stand, but it should not be read as a district the campaign currently needs.
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**CAM102 · r6 · 2026-09-07 · Campaign and District Designer · AT RISK — read this before the design below.**
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> **The owner has ruled that understanding enemy routing is not this game's central science** ([Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#latest-owner-correction--survivorlike-identity-and-songs); routing is a supporting tool). **This district is routing at campaign scale and almost nothing else.** It holds no salvage worth the trip, its local problem is a walk, and everything it offers is the bank. By the corrected direction that is not enough to earn a place, and I am recording that rather than recasting the page to hide it.
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>
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> **The one thing here that might survive on the new terms.** Not the lever — the *realisation*. Walking a floor of drums that tick together, finding your own districts already listed on a board, and understanding that the schedule you have been reading was set from a room you had never seen, is the owner's second kind of discovery: **the world is much larger than it appeared.** If this district is rebuilt for the revised game, that is what it should be built from, and the bank becomes the evidence rather than the point.
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>
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> **Recommendation: hold.** Nothing below is withdrawn as design work — the scene is legal and the corrections stand — but it should not be read as a district the campaign currently needs. See [Districts §0.1](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts) for the reasoning and what replaces routing as a justification.
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*Superseded header, r5:* **CAM102 · r5 · 2026-09-07 · Campaign and District Designer · In review; proposal. Nothing here is an owner approval, a validated number, or tested behaviour.** r4 applies the four bounded corrections [Tasks](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Tasks) still records against this page: **a six-occupied-cell departure issue** (the rack is eight cells; the colony may only issue six, so r2's eight-item racks were illegal at departure), **linking and pickup priority set at a shelter** (r2 had the player relink mid-floor, which the rack rules forbid), **stated distances**, and a **field bundle** rather than an issued one. The scene's decision moves accordingly and improves: it is now made at the dock, before anything happens, which is what the [Game vision](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief#game-vision) means by preparing for an intended intervention. Dispatch cadence is deferred to the lead. r1–r3 are in [page history](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/The%20Exchange/history). **r5 records that PMR009 selected this district's 3:00/7:00 cadence**, closing r4's deferral.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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District 4 of the seven on [Districts](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts). [PMR006](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR006) assigns CAM102: *"deepen the Exchange to the same standard as the three detailed districts."* This page does that. The district is the World designer's example ([World and Mystery](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery)), and the lead's outline at [DES104 §3.4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#34-the-exchange-in-outline) supplies the hall, the drums, the bank, the shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier's part in it. **Everything in that outline is kept; this page adds the ground, the panel, the interaction that takes time, two loadouts, a written expedition, the failure case and the asset list.** World owns the clue logic; Lead owns any contradiction with the campaign page or the contract.
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**Sources read 2026-09-06 22:30 UTC.** [Power and Attraction r4 29f5b0](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction?revision=29f5b0) (the ruled contract: lines conduct when dry; the R1 precedence stack; the Carrier's acquisition range; the Grounder; pursuit range about ten metres; the cable reel; the empty flash; dispatch needs drum and trunk) · [Campaign r3 6e4b59](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign?revision=6e4b59) (§3.4, and the panel-table format each district now uses) · [PMR006](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR006) · [Enemies r6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) and [Combat Rules r5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) (the eight-role roster and the composition budget) · [Equipment](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) (eight cells, the cable reel) · [World and Mystery](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery). Neighbours: [Districts](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts) · [The Collector](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/The%20Collector) · [The Head-works](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/The%20Head-works) · [Pumping District](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/Pumping%20District) · [Glossary](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Glossary).
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---
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## 1. The problem
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**Every other district's lever acts on the place you are standing in. This one acts on places you are not, and gives you almost nothing where you stand.** There is no salvage here worth the trip, no water to speak of, and nothing to carry home but a setting. A district like that has to earn its expedition some other way, and the answer this page proposes is:
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**The Exchange is the one district where you must commit to your crowd arrangement before you begin the interaction, because the interaction walks you away from the panel.**
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The bank's positions are spread along the shaft, in the order the districts sit on the water. Changing which districts the trunk permits means walking the drum floor, and the panel that decides where the hall's crowds are standing is at the other end, by the dock. So the sequence is: read the hall, decide where you want the Flood while you are busy, set the panel, and only then start walking. **Get that order wrong and the correction costs the whole walk back.**
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---
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## 2. The ground
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```
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DOCK END (south) HEAD END (north)
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┌──────────────┐ ┌────────────────┐
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│ EXCHANGE │ ═══════════ THE DRUM FLOOR (dry) ═══════════ │ THE BANK │
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│ DOCK │ one shaft, seven drums, ticking together │ 7 positions, │
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│ (shelter) │ │ 2 clutches │
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│ PANEL ──────┼── b1 ────────────── b2 ─────────────────── b3 ───┤ engaged, │
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└──────────────┘ (dock end) (mid-floor) (head end) │ 1 seized │
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│ └────────────────┘
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│ ~~~ THE TAIL RACE ~~~ narrow channel along the west wall ~~~
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│ (enters by culvert at the dock end, leaves at the head end;
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│ the only water in the district, and what turns the shaft)
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│
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CABLE GALLERY (east wall, head height): every district's signal cable enters here.
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Lines conduct when dry — this is the district's conduction network.
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ARRIVALS: the upper landing at the head end (the tram pass) — no water route in.
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```
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- **The drum floor** is dry, long and open: one shaft down its length with **one drum per district**, all ticking together, turned by the tail race at the west wall. The drums are the district's clue and its clock in one object.
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- **The bank** stands at the head end: **seven positions, one per district**, spread along the shaft in the order the districts sit on the water, and **two clutches engaged of a possible three, the third visibly seized**. A position's clutch is engaged or not; a district whose position is dark is in the shut regime, never a district with no Flood in it ([DES104 §3.4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#34-the-exchange-in-outline), and PMR004).
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- **Three fixed beacons**, b1 at the dock end, b2 mid-floor, b3 at the head end by the bank. The contract permits more than two ([World's fixed contract](/Hold%20the%20Flood/World%20And%20Mystery#what-stays-fixed-everywhere-and-what-a-district-may-add)), and three in one long room is this district's physical signature: **the precedence stack is visible here in a way it is nowhere else**, because a crowd can see two lit beacons at once and the player can watch it take the nearer.
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- **The tail race** is a narrow channel along the west wall — the only water in the district. It is where the coil works, where the cable reel finds its two wet points, and where an Anchor will be standing.
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- **The cable gallery** runs the east wall at head height. **Lines conduct when dry** (contract r4 §1), so this is a live conduction network with no water in it at all, and it is what a Grounder climbs.
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- **Shelters: the dock only.** There is no platform on the floor and none at the bank. That is deliberate: the bank is the thing you walk to, and a shelter beside it would delete the district's only pressure.
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d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
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### The panel, and why nothing here flashes at a beacon
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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*Format as [DES104 §3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#3-three-districts-in-depth) tables each district's.*
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d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
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| Panel position | Powered branch | Intake selected | What flashes at a dispatch |
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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| --- | --- | --- | --- |
d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
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| Dock | The dock end: b1 lit, the gallery's dock run live, the tail race's lower reach energised | The upper landing — always; the panel cannot change it | **The landing's own intake marker** |
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| Floor | The mid run: b2 lit, the gallery's centre run live | The upper landing | The landing's intake marker |
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| Head | The head end: b3 lit by the bank, the gallery's head run live, the race's upper reach energised | The upper landing | The landing's intake marker |
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| Off | Nothing | The upper landing; the shut regime if the trunk does not permit | The landing's intake marker |
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
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**r1 had the panel flash a beacon at the far end of the hall from the only way in, and [PMR007](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR007) is right that this breaks the convention the whole campaign has taught** — that the light which flashes is where the bodies appear. The fix costs nothing and improves the district: **the Exchange has one way in, so it has an intake marker at the landing, and that is what flashes.** The three beacons are lures and never intake selectors.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
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So this district splits in two what every other district joins. Elsewhere the panel chooses where the Flood enters *and* where it then goes; here it chooses only where it goes. **The player meets, for one district, the half of the panel that is pure lure** — which is the cleanest possible statement of the distinction the campaign has been building since the pumping district's two cables, and it is why this district is worth visiting even though it holds nothing. Pursuit range is about ten metres (contract §3), and the floor is wide enough that a body at the gallery wall does not chase a surveyor at the race.
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f2e448 Anonymous 2026-09-07 13:17:28
The Exchange r5: close r4's cadence deferral. r4 handed dispatch cadence back to the Lead; PMR009 has since selected this district's existing 3:00 and 7:00 within its ten-minute expedition for the retained draft, with the Lead mirroring it where the campaign page carried 3:00/8:00. Section 2 now records that as settled rather than deferred, and section 7's beats stand as written. The ten minutes and the reason for them remain this page's.
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**Duration and cadence — settled.** This district runs a ten-minute expedition with dispatches at about **3:00 and 7:00**. r4 deferred the cadence to the lead; [PMR009](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR009) has since selected **this district's existing 3:00/7:00 within its ten-minute expedition** for the retained draft, with the lead mirroring it where the campaign page carried 3:00/8:00. So §7's beats stand as written. What this page owns is the ten minutes and the reason for them: **one room, one interaction, and nothing here worth carrying home.**
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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## 3. Shared-rule diff
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| Adds | Changes | Signal | Choice it improves |
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| --- | --- | --- | --- |
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| **The routing bank**: seven positions, two clutches, campaign-scale permission | Nothing in what power, signal or charge mean | Clutches visibly engaged, disengaged or seized; a drum ticking or still; the board above the bank | Choose which two districts you can read, and pay for it with the walk and the trip |
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| **A third fixed beacon** in one room | Nothing — W1's precedence is unchanged and is simply *visible* here | Three lamp posts down one floor | Watch the precedence stack decide, instead of inferring it |
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| **An interaction that takes a walk**: positions are spread along the shaft, and swapping means disengage, walk, engage | Nothing | The positions are laid out in the districts' own order, so the walk's length is readable before you start | Commit to a crowd arrangement in advance, at the panel, because you cannot re-decide from the far end |
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| **A district whose panel selects no intake** | Nothing; there is one way in, so the intake column has one value | One landing, visibly the only opening | Learn what the panel is *for* by meeting a place where half of it does not apply |
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**Nothing here needs a contract change.** That is worth stating plainly: this district is built entirely out of rules that already exist, and the only new thing in it is a machine.
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---
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## 4. Two loadouts that do different things
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17dca3 Anonymous 2026-09-07 12:18:54
The Exchange r4: apply the four bounded corrections Tasks still records. (1) Six-occupied-cell departure issue - the rack is eight cells but the colony may only issue six, so r2's eight-item racks were illegal at departure; the cacher is now C C B B L I with two free cells and NO kit, which is the issue limit doing its job. (2) Linking and pickup priority are set at a shelter, and the dock is the only one here, so r2's mid-floor relink is replaced by a decision made at 0:00 before anything happens - priority to the beacon's battery spends the trip's only full bank on a hundred seconds of lure and leaves the coil dead, and the player learns what that cost at 9:00 in a spreading crowd. That is a better scene than r2's reflex and it is what the Game vision means by preparing for an intended intervention. (3) Stated distances - the plant at twenty-five metres is the nearest reachable loose charge while the player is sixty metres north, and pursuit is about ten. (4) The retrieval fits the two cells freed by planting, and the ledger closes at earned 12, spent 10, lost 2, carried out 0. Also defers dispatch cadence and terminal positions to the Lead, keeping only the ten minutes and the reason for them.
88
**The rack is eight cells; the colony may issue only six occupied ones** ([Colony](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Colony): revisit-only recorded-rack issue capped at six occupied cells). r2 drew two racks of eight and both were illegal at departure. Corrected:
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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90
```
17dca3 Anonymous 2026-09-07 12:18:54
The Exchange r4: apply the four bounded corrections Tasks still records. (1) Six-occupied-cell departure issue - the rack is eight cells but the colony may only issue six, so r2's eight-item racks were illegal at departure; the cacher is now C C B B L I with two free cells and NO kit, which is the issue limit doing its job. (2) Linking and pickup priority are set at a shelter, and the dock is the only one here, so r2's mid-floor relink is replaced by a decision made at 0:00 before anything happens - priority to the beacon's battery spends the trip's only full bank on a hundred seconds of lure and leaves the coil dead, and the player learns what that cost at 9:00 in a spreading crowd. That is a better scene than r2's reflex and it is what the Game vision means by preparing for an intended intervention. (3) Stated distances - the plant at twenty-five metres is the nearest reachable loose charge while the player is sixty metres north, and pursuit is about ten. (4) The retrieval fits the two cells freed by planting, and the ledger closes at earned 12, spent 10, lost 2, carried out 0. Also defers dispatch cadence and terminal positions to the Lead, keeping only the ten minutes and the reason for them.
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The cacher — 6 issued, 2 free The dry hand — 2 issued, 6 free
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C C B B I K . .
93
L I . . . . . .
94
at the dock: B1 → C, B2 → L no battery, no link
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at the dock: pickup priority B2 pickup priority irrelevant
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
96
```
97
17dca3 Anonymous 2026-09-07 12:18:54
The Exchange r4: apply the four bounded corrections Tasks still records. (1) Six-occupied-cell departure issue - the rack is eight cells but the colony may only issue six, so r2's eight-item racks were illegal at departure; the cacher is now C C B B L I with two free cells and NO kit, which is the issue limit doing its job. (2) Linking and pickup priority are set at a shelter, and the dock is the only one here, so r2's mid-floor relink is replaced by a decision made at 0:00 before anything happens - priority to the beacon's battery spends the trip's only full bank on a hundred seconds of lure and leaves the coil dead, and the player learns what that cost at 9:00 in a spreading crowd. That is a better scene than r2's reflex and it is what the Game vision means by preparing for an intended intervention. (3) Stated distances - the plant at twenty-five metres is the nearest reachable loose charge while the player is sixty metres north, and pursuit is about ten. (4) The retrieval fits the two cells freed by planting, and the ledger closes at earned 12, spent 10, lost 2, carried out 0. Also defers dispatch cadence and terminal positions to the Lead, keeping only the ten minutes and the reason for them.
98
*C coil (two cells), B battery, L portable beacon, I insulation, K kit. A dot is an empty cell.*
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
99
17dca3 Anonymous 2026-09-07 12:18:54
The Exchange r4: apply the four bounded corrections Tasks still records. (1) Six-occupied-cell departure issue - the rack is eight cells but the colony may only issue six, so r2's eight-item racks were illegal at departure; the cacher is now C C B B L I with two free cells and NO kit, which is the issue limit doing its job. (2) Linking and pickup priority are set at a shelter, and the dock is the only one here, so r2's mid-floor relink is replaced by a decision made at 0:00 before anything happens - priority to the beacon's battery spends the trip's only full bank on a hundred seconds of lure and leaves the coil dead, and the player learns what that cost at 9:00 in a spreading crowd. That is a better scene than r2's reflex and it is what the Game vision means by preparing for an intended intervention. (3) Stated distances - the plant at twenty-five metres is the nearest reachable loose charge while the player is sixty metres north, and pursuit is about ten. (4) The retrieval fits the two cells freed by planting, and the ledger closes at earned 12, spent 10, lost 2, carried out 0. Also defers dispatch cadence and terminal positions to the Lead, keeping only the ten minutes and the reason for them.
100
- **The cacher** carries charge into the one district where carrying charge is hunted. A Carrier's target is the nearest reachable loose charge **within its acquisition range** (contract §3, R5) — so the counterplay is distance as much as quantity, and the cacher's play is to put loose charge somewhere it is not. **It has no kit**, because six cells will not carry the coil, two batteries, a beacon, insulation *and* a kit; that is the issue limit doing its job rather than a flourish. Two cells stay free, and §7 needs them.
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- **The dry hand** carries nothing a Carrier wants, so every Carrier reverts to line 3, the nearest lit beacon. It moves fast and has no decision to get wrong. **Its six free cells are mostly empty here on purpose**: this district holds no salvage worth the trip, so the dry hand's virtue is speed and a kit, not cargo, and its weakness is that when a plan expires it has nothing to answer with.
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**The constraint that makes both interesting.** Batteries start empty; charge resets ([Design Document §10](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Document#10-progression-and-persistence)). **A lit portable beacon drains one unit every ten seconds, so a full bank of ten buys a hundred lit seconds.** A coil discharge spends a full bank. **So one filled battery is either a hundred seconds of lure or one discharge, never both** — and in ten minutes there is rarely time to fill two.
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**And the choice is made at the dock, not in the field.** Links and pickup priority are set at a shelter, and the dock is this district's only one. **So the player decides which battery fills first before they have seen anything**, and that decision decides whether the trip has a lure or a discharge in it. r2 had the player relinking on the floor, which the rack rules forbid; the correction turns a mid-scene reflex into a preparation, which is the better version.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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## 5. Discovery
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**Local question: why do these drums have no water of their own?** Every relay the player has met turns on its own race. Seven drums here turn on one shaft, and the shaft comes in from a culvert whose head is out of sight.
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- **Notice.** The drums tick together, exactly, and the shaft enters from upstream.
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- **Compare.** In the pumping district the drum *was* the clock. Here there are seven drums and one shaft, so the drums are not clocks — they are repeaters.
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- **Infer.** **One time source, upstream, permitting all of them.** This is the campaign question's first hard evidence, and it is what makes the bank legible: the player understands the lever by understanding the machine, not by reading a label on it.
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- **Experiment, free, first visit, no item.** Disengage one clutch and watch that district's drum stop while the others keep ticking. Nothing is spent and the change is reversible in the same trip.
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- **Consequence.** The bank, §6.
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- **Recovery if missed.** The drums are the floor. Every route from the dock to the bank walks their length.
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**Campaign clue (the lead's, adopted).** *The pumping district's dead drum is listed on the bank* — a position for a district whose drum no longer turns, still on the board, still with a clutch. **Redundant form:** the World page's pairing, the pumping district's stopped drum that still hears the trunk's cadence after R is opened. A player who shut that relay meets the same fact from both ends.
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**What travels.** A fact — *the districts' relays are repeaters on one upstream clock* — and a convention: **the bank's board is the campaign's index of districts**, so a position with a name the player has not visited is how they learn a district exists. That is how the [Collector](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/The%20Collector) and others can be found from here without a note being collected.
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---
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## 6. Outward consequence: the bank
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4d6703 Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:22:03
The Exchange r3: correct a broken citation. Sections 6 of r1 and r2 said the bank's pricing was stated in Districts section 6; there is no such section and there never was - the pricing was drafted for a page I never published and the citation was carried forward without being followed, which is exactly the stale-pointer failure this wiki has a convention about. The rule is the Lead's, at DES104 section 3.4, and is now quoted in one line and attributed there. Corrected by fixing the pointer rather than by adding a duplicate section somewhere to make the link true.
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**The bank's pricing is not restated here.** It is stated once, as a rule, by the lead at [DES104 §3.4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#34-the-exchange-in-outline): a lit position gives the player the forecast and the announced, routable surge in that district, and a dark one takes both away there, so withholding the Flood from a district means giving up reading it. **r1 and r2 of this page also cited a §6 on [Districts](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts) for that rule. There is no such section and there never was** — the pricing was drafted for a page that was never published, and the citation was carried forward without being followed. Corrected here rather than by adding a duplicate somewhere to make the link true. What belongs here is the **found state** and the **local** cost of changing it.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
127
d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
128
**The found state: three clutches engaged, on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram Incline.** This is REV104-18, which [PMR007](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR007) correctly calls a campaign dependency rather than a footnote: the player has by now had announced dispatches in three districts, and two engaged clutches cannot explain three announced districts. **The answer is that the bank drives three, and the player finds it already set to exactly the three districts they have been visiting** — which is not a coincidence to be explained away but the district's best single moment, because it tells the player that the route they thought they chose was the route something upstream had already permitted.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
129
d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
130
**I have not adopted the critic's seized-Pumping-clutch candidate**, and [PMR007](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR007) is right to make that an explicit choice rather than a preserved ambiguity: a seized clutch on Pumping would mean the player can never darken their opening district, and darkening Pumping is the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return ([Districts §4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts#4-the-progression-map-main-route-an-optional-discovery-and-a-later-discovery-that-changes-an-earlier-return)). **Three live clutches keeps that and costs nothing.** The seized fourth position stays as it was: visibly seized, never usable, and its repair is the head-works' business rather than this district's.
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**Three of seven, and the scarcity argument is unchanged.** Most of the city is unread at any time, and every district added costs one given up. What changes from r1's two is only the arithmetic, and it changes in the direction the campaign's own history demands.
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**The local cost of a change.**
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- **A swap is disengage, walk, engage.** Positions sit along the shaft in the districts' own order, so swapping neighbours is a short walk and swapping the ends is the length of the floor. **The map's shape becomes the cost of the plan.**
137
- **The walk is the exposure.** There is no shelter on the floor. Whatever the panel was set to when you left the dock end is what the crowds are doing while you work.
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- **Nothing is spent.** No salvage, no charge, no module. The bank costs a trip and a walk — which is why the trip has to be worth planning rather than worth farming.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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## 7. A written expedition — illustrative, not a playtest
141
17dca3 Anonymous 2026-09-07 12:18:54
The Exchange r4: apply the four bounded corrections Tasks still records. (1) Six-occupied-cell departure issue - the rack is eight cells but the colony may only issue six, so r2's eight-item racks were illegal at departure; the cacher is now C C B B L I with two free cells and NO kit, which is the issue limit doing its job. (2) Linking and pickup priority are set at a shelter, and the dock is the only one here, so r2's mid-floor relink is replaced by a decision made at 0:00 before anything happens - priority to the beacon's battery spends the trip's only full bank on a hundred seconds of lure and leaves the coil dead, and the player learns what that cost at 9:00 in a spreading crowd. That is a better scene than r2's reflex and it is what the Game vision means by preparing for an intended intervention. (3) Stated distances - the plant at twenty-five metres is the nearest reachable loose charge while the player is sixty metres north, and pursuit is about ten. (4) The retrieval fits the two cells freed by planting, and the ledger closes at earned 12, spent 10, lost 2, carried out 0. Also defers dispatch cadence and terminal positions to the Lead, keeping only the ten minutes and the reason for them.
142
**Declared setup.** Middle campaign, ten minutes, dispatches at about 3:00 and 7:00 (cadence the lead's, §2), evacuation from 10:00. The player wants the **Collector** permitted and will give up the **Tram Incline**. Bank found engaged on Pumping, Lock Flight, Tram. Rack: **the cacher**, six issued cells, two free. **At the dock, which is this district's only shelter, the player sets B1 → coil, B2 → beacon, and pickup priority to B2 first.** That is the decision; everything after it is consequence. Both batteries empty. Panel found on **Head**, so b3 is lit at the bank end. The hall's standing stragglers are its own — this room is never quiet, which is what makes charge earnable before a surge lands.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
143
d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
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| Time | What happens | B1 | B2 | Ledger |
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| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
17dca3 Anonymous 2026-09-07 12:18:54
The Exchange r4: apply the four bounded corrections Tasks still records. (1) Six-occupied-cell departure issue - the rack is eight cells but the colony may only issue six, so r2's eight-item racks were illegal at departure; the cacher is now C C B B L I with two free cells and NO kit, which is the issue limit doing its job. (2) Linking and pickup priority are set at a shelter, and the dock is the only one here, so r2's mid-floor relink is replaced by a decision made at 0:00 before anything happens - priority to the beacon's battery spends the trip's only full bank on a hundred seconds of lure and leaves the coil dead, and the player learns what that cost at 9:00 in a spreading crowd. That is a better scene than r2's reflex and it is what the Game vision means by preparing for an intended intervention. (3) Stated distances - the plant at twenty-five metres is the nearest reachable loose charge while the player is sixty metres north, and pursuit is about ten. (4) The retrieval fits the two cells freed by planting, and the ledger closes at earned 12, spent 10, lost 2, carried out 0. Also defers dispatch cadence and terminal positions to the Lead, keeping only the ten minutes and the reason for them.
146
| 0:00 | Dock. Board reads dispatch 3:00, intake the landing. b3 lit at the far end, which would walk the surge *toward* the bank | 0 | 0 | links and priority set here |
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| 0:20 | Panel to **Dock**: b1 lights beside the player, b3 goes dark. The surge will now cross the floor away from the bank | 0 | 0 | — |
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| 0:20–3:00 | Cutting the hall's stragglers, one unit a kill. Priority sends every unit to **B2**, the beacon's battery | 0 | 8 | **+8** |
149
| 3:00 | Dispatch. **The landing's marker flashes**; the surge enters at the landing and walks the length of the floor to b1, the only lit beacon | 0 | 8 | — |
150
| 3:00–4:20 | It gathers at b1. The player works its edge inside pursuit range (about ten metres) and cuts | 2 | 10 | **+4; B2 full, overflow to B1** |
151
| **4:30** | **The plant.** Beacon and B2 go down about **twenty-five metres** from b1 on the dock side. Two cells leave the rack, so four are occupied and four free. **The coil is dead for the trip**: B1 holds 2, and a discharge needs a full bank — which the priority decided at 0:00 | 2 | planted | **−10 committed to the lure** |
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| 4:40–6:20 | **A hundred lit seconds and no more.** The two Carriers in the crowd take the planted battery: at twenty-five metres it is the nearest reachable loose charge, and the player is sixty metres north and walking | 2 | — | — |
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| 6:00–6:45 | The bank. Disengage **Tram**; its drum stops and its lamp goes out. Four positions along the shaft. Engage **Collector**. Three engaged again | 2 | — | — |
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| **6:20** | **The lure expires.** Retargeting, stated: b1 is still lit and stands beside the dead plant, so the crowd holds and the Carriers revert to line 3 and take b1. **Nothing moves.** The lure bought a walk, not a rearrangement | 2 | — | lure spent |
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| 7:00 | Second dispatch, and the player is at the head end: **the landing's marker flashes beside them** and the surge enters there. b1 is the only lit beacon, so it sets off south — away from the player, down the road the player must take home | 2 | — | — |
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| 7:00–9:00 | The player follows behind its press. A Grounder that came in with it climbs the gallery's dock run and grounds it: **b1 goes dark** | 2 | — | — |
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| 9:00 | Retargeting again, and this time spreading is legal: b2 and b3 are dark, the plant died at 6:20, so **no reachable lit beacon exists** and the crowd spreads both ways, including toward the player. The grounded run leaves the race's lower reach dead — safe to wade, and no help | 2 | — | — |
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| 9:00–9:40 | **No coil, and no kit** — the six-cell issue bought insulation instead. The cutter and position are the whole answer. The player retrieves the beacon and its empty battery into **the two cells that were free because those two were planted**, and reaches the dock | 2 | 0 | six occupied again |
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| 10:00 | Evacuation. **The 2 units in B1 are lost at the dock**; charge never leaves a district | 0 | 0 | **earned 12 · spent 10 · lost 2 · carried out 0** |
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**What the expedition was about.** Not the bank — that was forty-five seconds. It was the line at **0:00**: pickup priority to B2. **That single shelter decision spends the trip's only full battery on a hundred seconds of lure and leaves the coil dead**, and the player finds out what it cost at 9:00, in a spreading crowd, with a cutter. Priority to B1 buys the opposite trip: a discharge available at the end, and no way to hold the Carriers off the walk. **A dry hand makes neither choice**, walks faster, keeps a kit, and has nothing to answer with when the plan expires.
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**Why the Grounder is placed in the second surge.** It makes a plan expire *after* it has been paid for. Had the lure still been lit at 9:00 the crowd could not have spread at all — a reachable lit beacon forbids it — which was the illegal move in r1. The scene works because the lure ran out, not despite it.
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**Not a playtest.** No claim about timing, difficulty, survivability or enjoyment is made or could be. Every number is a proposal checked against the written rules, which is a consistency check and nothing more.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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## 8. Entry, revisit, and one consequence of failure
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**Entry is physical, two ways.** The **tram incline's summit pass** opens onto the upper landing ([DES104 §2](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign#2-the-campaigns-shape): the tram's summit is the way to the Exchange). Independently, the **trunk signal cable** leaving the pumping district's relay room runs here and can be followed on the map. Neither requires a note to be collected; the plans and tags are the *ordinary* way to learn where they go, per [Districts §3.2](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts#32-travel-rules).
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**Revisit.** Every change to the bank costs a trip here — that is the lever's first price, and it is why this district is visited more often than any other except the pumping district, and always briefly.
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**One consequence of failure, and it is this district's own shape.** A swap is two actions with a walk between them. **If the expedition ends in rescue between them, the city is left with one district permitted instead of two.** That is not a punishment bolted onto dying; it is exactly what the player did, left half-done.
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- **Readable before launch.** The refuge's board shows which positions are engaged, so the player launches knowing they are down to one.
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- **What it costs.** One fewer district announced until they come back — thinner information everywhere, not more danger anywhere.
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- **Recovery.** A trip here, and the engage half of the swap they did not finish.
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- **Nothing banked, noted or built is lost.** The baseline holds.
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**And the mitigation is a real choice, not a safety net:** a player who engages first and disengages second is never left with one — but they cannot, because only two clutches exist and the third is seized. **The seized clutch is what makes the failure case possible, and that is why it is visible from the first visit.**
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## 9. Enemy and build pressure
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*Roles are Combat's, in [CMB101 r6](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies) and [Combat Rules r5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat); Campaign owns placement. Everything below works with the Walker alone.*
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- **This is the Carrier's district**, and the lead's outline says so. It is the one place the player's own stored charge is a liability with a designed answer — cache it deliberately — rather than a hazard to be endured. **Placement proposal for Combat:** Carriers present in every surge here, at low density, so the cacher's plant is worth its cells on the first visit rather than the third.
d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
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- **The Grounder is what makes a plan expire**, and this district is where that reads best: the gallery is at head height along one wall, so a Grounder is visible climbing it, and the player watches their arrangement come apart with time to answer. **Placement proposal: at most one per surge, never in the first surge of a first visit, and best in the second** — where §7 puts it, because a plan that expires after it has been paid for teaches more than one that never forms. Never place one where it would darken the only lit beacon while the player has no charge and no route: that is not a plan expiring, it is a trap.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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- **Anchors belong in the tail race** and nowhere else here: one standing hazard in the only water, so the coil's own working ground is contested.
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- **What this district does not want:** Crusts and Sparks. Both are about water and conduction, this hall has almost none, and putting them here would blur the contrast with the [Collector](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Districts/The%20Collector). **A district should decline roles as deliberately as it asks for them**, and this is the one place in the campaign I would decline two.
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## 10. Asset reuse and gaps
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**Reused, no new category:** drums, cable, poles and galleries, indicator lamps, beacons, a four-position panel, boards, walkway and dock props, a narrow water channel with wet/dry tinting, the humanoid mass.
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**Genuine gaps, marked and not filled. No free asset has been located, checked or licensed for any of these, and nothing here authorises creating one** ([Brief D009](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Brief)).
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- **A long rotating shaft with drums along it** — visible rotation, and one drum that has stopped while the others turn. The stopped drum is a clue, so its state has to read at a distance.
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- **A many-position bank** whose per-position state (engaged, disengaged, seized) reads at a glance and in a non-colour channel.
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- **A long interior hall.** This is the only district that is mostly indoors, and it shares almost nothing with the outdoor sets except props.
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**A cheaper alternative, recorded now.** If the long hall is out of reach, the district can be staged as a short gallery with the drums in one view and the bank at its end. It keeps the panel-then-walk decision only if the walk stays long enough to matter — **and if the walk goes, this district's only local problem goes with it**, which would be the moment to ask whether the Exchange should be a room inside the Head-works rather than a place. I do not think it should, because the bank's price is the trip; but that is the honest fallback and it should be on the record before it is expensive.
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## 11. Open questions and dependencies
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- **World (WLD103).** The campaign clue in §5 is the lead's and the World designer's; the "board as the campaign's index of districts" convention in §5 is mine and is a proposal in World's domain, because it decides how a player learns a district exists.
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- **Lead (DES104).** Whether the panel table in §2 — a district whose panel selects no intake — is acceptable under the contract. I believe it is: the contract requires the intake column to be true, not to have more than one value, and one-way-in is a topology fact, not a rule change. If Lead disagrees, the fix is a second landing and the district loses a good contrast.
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- **[CMB101](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies).** The three placements and the two declines in §9.
d71b9b Anonymous 2026-09-07 09:20:19
The Exchange r2: implement PMR007 section 1 and REV104-16/17/18. The r1 expedition was not legal and is REPLACED rather than patched - it lit a lure from batteries that start empty, held it for five minutes when a full bank buys a hundred lit seconds, then had a crowd spread while a reachable lit lure existed, and drew a rack five over three. r2 supplies a legal 2x4 rack; earned charge from cutting the hall's standing stragglers; an explicit per-minute ledger with both banks tracked and an earned 14 / spent 10 / lost 4 / carried out 0 total; the lure's real hundred seconds and what actually retargets when it expires (nothing - b1 is still lit beside it); the Grounder moved to the second surge so the spread it causes is legal precisely because the lure has run out; and two free cells for the retrieval, because the beacon and its battery left the rack when they were planted. Fixes the flash-location convention: this district has one way in, so an intake marker at the landing flashes and the three beacons are lures only, which is a better statement of the two-cable distinction than r1 had. Sets the bank's found state at three engaged clutches on Pumping, Lock Flight and Tram, which is what REV104-18 needs to explain three already-announced districts, and explicitly declines the seized-Pumping-clutch candidate because it would remove the campaign's best worked example of a later discovery changing an earlier return. States two dispatches for a ten-minute district and asks Lead to confirm. Corrects the cable reel to Equipment's U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals.
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- **[EQP101](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) — corrected at r2.** r1 described the cable reel as joining two *wet* points, which was the r4 contract's wording; [contract r5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction) restates it as Equipment's **U6, a bridge between exposed power terminals**. That makes it a far better fit for this district than r1 allowed — a dry hall whose gallery carries live runs is exactly where bridging terminals is worth two cells. **I have still kept it out of both loadouts in §4**, because the two the district needs to contrast are the one that carries charge and the one that carries none, and a third rack would blur that. A reel loadout here is a real third answer and Equipment is better placed to draw it.
5bc625 Anonymous 2026-09-06 22:33:58
CAM102 r1: new district page, The Exchange, deepened to the standard of the three detailed districts as PMR006 assigns. Keeps the Lead's DES104 3.4 outline entire - hall, drums, bank, shut-regime meaning of a dark position, the bank's coupling and the Carrier - and adds what an outline lacks: the ground with the drum floor, the tail race, the dry cable gallery and three fixed beacons; a panel table in the format each district now uses, including the deliberate fact that this is the only district whose panel selects no intake because there is one way in; a shared-rule diff that changes nothing and needs no contract change; two eight-cell loadouts that differ in whether they carry charge into the one district where charge is hunted; the discovery chain from seven drums on one shaft; a written illustrative expedition whose real decision is made at 0:30 before anything happens; the failure case that falls out of the district's own shape (a swap interrupted leaves one district permitted, readable on the refuge board and recoverable by a trip); three enemy placements and two deliberate declines; and the asset list with the cheaper fallback and what it would cost. The bank's pricing is linked, not restated, so there is one copy of that rule. States five open items including the one I am least sure of - whether this district's premise is thin.
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- **Unresolved by me, honestly.** Whether a district with no salvage worth carrying and one setting to change can hold an expedition's worth of interest on its third visit. My answer is the walk and the panel decision in §7, and I believe it; but this is the district in the campaign whose premise is thinnest, and if any of the seven fails the lead's written-expedition test on contact, I would expect it to be this one. That is why §10 records what it would become instead.