**Status.** Two concrete proposals for the opening expedition, developed from the independently saved openings released in project chat 314–316. They are options for owner reaction, not established canon or tested experiences. Exact timing, capacity, starting parts, enemy counts, targeting, rooms, and fiction names remain open.

The broken ship has made an emergency dock despite the station's stay-away warning and silence. It is habitable and can refill the astronaut's suit, but station current is back-feeding through the collar into the ship's damaged electrical bus. The ship is already broken, so solving this problem does **not** promise escape. The immediate goal is narrower and honest: **reach Collar Control, remove the isolation bridge, and bring it aboard so repairs can proceed without the station feeding the fault.**

The airlock display shows the live back-feed entering the nearest station rooms. The suit continuously shows oxygen, condition, shared carrying capacity, and a reverse breadcrumb through passages actually traversed. It reveals no unseen global route.

The proposed starting rig has two readable connections:

- **Threat Sensor → Pulse Projector.** While a valid target remains in the shown arc, the projector fires whenever it becomes ready; it does not require the target to leave and re-enter.

- **Manual Trigger → Barrier Plate.** The special control raises a short-lived directional barrier with visible facing and readiness.

The integral oxygen tank, navigation, journal, and emergency cutter are worn suit functions, not detachable or ported rig parts. One proposed spare canister competes with the rig and empty loot space under the owner's shared-capacity rule. These exact starting items are illustrative.

Both options use three compact spaces between ship and control, staged bridge removal, and an ordinary crowd drawn by the final noisy stage. Automatic fire deals with routine nearby threats; the player decides when to place the barrier, whether to continue working, and whether remaining oxygen justifies another attempt. Completed fasteners persist. Clearing every enemy is never required, and a powerful build is not punished with extra spawns.

Before the route splits into either option's discovery, the astronaut sees one future lead through an inaccessible observation window: a human-painted **R-3** ward label, a breathable-pressure indicator, and a repeated knock from inside. This is authored evidence encountered during the first life, not a signal invented only after death. It supports a concrete next question—*how do I reach R-3, and is someone alive there?*—without answering it.

The route is Airlock Corridor → Cargo Turn → Collar Control. At Cargo Turn, a glass-front service board has one incoming pulse and a physical selector. One output powers the **patient-bay shutter**, which blocks the crowd's side approach. The other output releases the rack holding the isolation bridge. The separate **airlock corridor remains open and usable as the return route** in either state.

A loose Fork Relay sits in the maintenance cradle. Its visible input, two outputs, and flow animation match the public connection grammar on the player's rig. The player can try it without losing anything: an invalid socket refuses the preview before commitment, and a valid but unwanted connection can be removed while the board is accessible.

The discovery is immediate and actionable: a reusable build part can also operate station machinery.

- **Install the Fork in the board.** Both outputs remain powered, so the rack releases while the patient-bay shutter stays closed. The return corridor is still open. The Fork remains installed in Cargo Turn, persists there through death, and is not duplicated aboard.

- **Keep the Fork.** Use the selector sequentially—release the rack, then choose whether to repower the shutter before the noisy extraction. Carrying the part preserves a future branching-build opportunity but takes shared capacity. If the shutter is unpowered, that side enemy route is open; the airlock corridor is still the player's way home.

This is not a room-binding action and does not explain the late station-wide puzzle. It teaches only that the same readable part can matter in a rig or in infrastructure, and that installed objects are no longer carried property.

The final bridge fastener calls a crowd from the patient bay and the control-room service grille. Leaving the Fork in place removes the patient-bay approach but sacrifices the part. Keeping it preserves the loot and accepts a second approach unless the player spends time switching the shutter back on. The manual barrier can close one lane briefly; automatic projector fire repeats as long as a valid target remains and the weapon is ready. The astronaut can cancel after any completed fastener, retreat through the airlock corridor, refill, and resume.

If the player returns alive with the isolation bridge, it is installed aboard and the next expedition can pursue the already-observed R-3 ward. The ship can now distinguish R-3's live pressure pulse from the collar fault, giving a current local bearing but no route. This consequence follows from the repair and is available to an alive returner; it is not a reward that requires death.

Ignoring the Fork, misunderstanding it, or carrying it without a use does not block the bridge: the selector always permits sequential operation. A player can return the Fork to the board later if that local route remains accessible. After a death, its recorded room and any installed state remain known while the old route becomes historical. No single missed observation gates the build system or R-3.

The route is Airlock Corridor → Receiving Bay → Collar Control. A contested main passage crosses Receiving Bay. Beside it, a hospital gurney lift cycles after a fallen creature is pushed onto its plate and returns empty. A second body produces the same result. The player directly observes that the lift transports bodies upward; this **suggests a risky route to investigate but does not prove that the destination is safe, breathable, unlocked, or intended for a living astronaut.**

The player can step onto the lift or take the known main passage. Boarding commits them to a short trip with oxygen still running and no knowledge of the landing. Refusing it loses no required progress.

- **Ride the lift.** It reaches a compact mortuary landing above Receiving Bay, behind the crowd's main approach. The player sees where transported bodies went and reaches Collar Control by a quieter service door. If that door is locked or the landing is unsafe, a powered return control calls the lift back; the failed guess costs world time and oxygen rather than the expedition.

- **Take the main passage.** The route and return are known, but the player must cross the crowd and decide when the manual barrier is worth spending. The gurney remains available for later investigation.

This option proposes that Receiving Bay, the lift shaft, and the mortuary landing are one **compact local assembly** that moves together through shifts. That continuity is required for a lift with two physical stops to remain intelligible. Its explicit cost is one less relationship available to reshuffle and a bespoke upper landing that must remain valid across local states. This is a narrow opening-content exception, not a guarantee for every lift or a general rule that machines preserve neighbouring rooms.

The main route asks the player to cross intermittent pressure from one crowd, then protect staged bridge removal in Collar Control. The lift route may avoid the first crossing but can consume more oxygen if the player must return from an unhelpful landing. Both paths converge before extraction, so neither avoids the core automatic-fire/manual-barrier encounter.

An alive returner has already seen R-3 from the Airlock Corridor. Removing the isolation bridge lets the ship separate the ward's pressure pulse from the back-feed, producing the same local bearing and next expedition as Option A. Riding the lift may add a second self-chosen question—what else the hospital transported there—but it does not replace the practical R-3 lead.

The powered return control makes an unhelpful landing reversible while it remains reachable. If the lift fails visibly before departure, the player keeps the known passage. After a shift, records can identify the compact assembly and its observed two stops, but cannot promise where the assembly now sits relative to the ship. The player is never told that a body-safe route is human-safe.

No task, item, or secret requires suicide. A cautious player can finish the collar work alive and begin the R-3 expedition. The first natural death may happen during the bridge extraction, on the return, or later.

Revival aboard reveals two owner-set rules without adding a penalty:

1. The cargo and rig manifest contains everything still carried immediately before death, including the isolation bridge or Fork. Consumed supplies stay spent; a Fork installed in the station stays installed and does not duplicate.

2. The same airlock now opens onto a recognisably different station room. Completed fasteners, unlocked doors, and placed objects remain recorded, while traversed routes are marked historical after death. The player receives a current local bearing for the still-active collar fault or R-3 pulse, not an omniscient replacement map.

For clarity, this proposes a small authored set of first-post-death airlock neighbours that each presents a readable local opportunity. It is opening-specific content, not evidence or a promise that later shifts always produce a convenient destination. The useful choice after revival is whether to finish any remaining collar work by following its live trace or pursue the R-3 survivor lead through the new arrangement. There is no cache run, forced equipment replacement, hidden death counter, or unchanged-corridor grind.

| Question | Option A — service board | Option B — body lift |

|---|---|---|

| Discovery changes | Install a reusable part for a safer route, or carry it for future builds | Risk an unknown transport route, or take the known contested passage |

| Strongest case | Introduces the accepted linked-part fantasy through one legible choice with station and rig value | Delivers a stranger, more physical “I wonder if I can do that” moment without relying on signage |

| Accepted cost | The opening teaches carried versus installed state and a three-port board on top of basic combat | Requires a compact lift assembly, return control, body handling, and bespoke destination content |

| Main risk | Feels like an interface lesson rather than an incredible discovery | Players read body transport as proof of safety, or the lift dominates whenever its landing is favourable |

**Recommendation: Option A, the service board.** It connects immediate survival work to the owner's second priority—expressive linked builds—while producing a decision that matters in the current crowd encounter. Its state is also easy to state honestly after death: carried Fork returns; installed Fork persists. The accepted cost is a less uncanny first discovery and a somewhat denser rules lesson. The document therefore does not stack the body lift into this version; R-3 supplies the next human mystery instead.

Option B is the strongest alternative if the owner values a more surprising physical route discovery over teaching the reusable-part grammar immediately. Choosing it accepts the compact-assembly/content burden and delays the first build-part decision.

The exact starting loadout, carrying capacity, oxygen margin, enemy composition, first-shift neighbour set, R-3 occupant, and relationship between the collar work and later room binding remain proposals. Neither option establishes story causation, corruption, a language, or what completing the station-wide connection does.

A desk review can check causal coherence and owner fidelity, but cannot establish that the Fork is understood, the lift is tempting without feeling mandatory, the horde is readable, oxygen creates good pressure, or the first shift feels surprising rather than punitive. Those require later owner-authorized implementation and real-player observation; none occurred here.