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66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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# Hold The Horde — Language and Journal
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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**Status.** A provisional contract for [Language Expedition](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Language%20Expedition), extending [Clues and Help](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Clues%20and%20Help) and [Oxygen and Observation](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Oxygen%20and%20Observation). It is neither owner canon nor a complete interface. The owner-required journal pause—including enemies and oxygen during combat—remains unchanged.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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## Provisional choice: record the test, not correctness
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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The journal preserves what was observed, supports comparison and records a voluntary test. It never grades freeform notes, labels a hypothesis supported/disproved or declares a word solved. For a route link it may record only **arrived at linked destination**, **attempt incomplete** or **arrived elsewhere**, with the actual place and interruption attached. Survivor help remains attributed testimony, not system truth.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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This reversible feedback separates a completed traversal from an interrupted one while leaving later evidence free to change the interpretation.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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## The information cycle
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| Step | Player interaction | What the game may assert | What remains the player’s |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| Acquire | Frame and commit an inscription with visible context and location | Captured pixels, place and time; nothing outside the frame | What mattered, what was omitted, whether to spend world time |
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| Compare | Pin records side by side; zoom; manually highlight candidate recurring groups | Which crops the player linked; an optional visual-match suggestion is labelled software-generated | Whether marks are the same sign, word or role |
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| Interpret | Write a freeform note; optionally link the current route to a stored destination as a prediction | The note’s authorship and revision history; the selected links, not their truth | Meaning, confidence and generalisation |
29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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| Test | Commit the link, leave the journal and traverse voluntarily | The location actually reached, or why the attempt ended before arrival | Whether the local route claim survived and what it says about language |
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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| Ask | Show a specific record or comparison to a survivor | Speaker, exact statement and stated basis | Whether to trust, combine or challenge it |
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| Retain | Reopen after death or on a revisit | Original record, annotations, testimony and past result | Reinterpretation under the new context |
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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Capture, positioning, waiting and manipulation happen in running world time with its oxygen/exposure. Opening, comparing and annotating pause the world. A paused view cannot reveal a new angle, sample a later state, operate a control or complete capture.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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## Proposed additions to the current journal
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The existing framed still, visible context and location remain. This article adds four bounded tools:
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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1. **Comparison board.** The player pins records and highlights groups; links say “player-linked.” On-request visual suggestions are fallible recorder assistance, not automatic pairing or meaning.
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2. **Revision-preserving notes.** Editing keeps earlier wording, so contradiction shows learning rather than rewriting history. Freeform text is never parsed for meaning.
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3. **Prediction/result pair.** The player links a route/control to a stored destination/outcome; afterwards the journal attaches the place, state or interruption. Selected records—not prose processing—drive it, and award no correctness or rule.
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4. **Attributed help.** A response records who spoke, what they did or saw and what is interpretation. One record cannot reveal unseen inscriptions.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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These are proposed changes. Automatic semantic labels, a confirmed dictionary, batch completion and undiscovered-site hints remain excluded. All four additions survive return and death as knowledge, not cargo. A revisit never overwrites an old still or outcome: the player captures a new state beside it, so an earlier arrival remains historical rather than promising the route is unchanged.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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## Applying the contract to both languages
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### Builders’ ordered language
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At the three-way junction the player captures `KETH SORAN VEL` above the left way, `SORAN KETH VEL` above the middle and `TAAN` above the right. They pin the first two, highlight the swapped groups and may note “first token says what a place is for; later tokens qualify it.” The note is ungraded.
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3490ef Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:29:48
Resolve focused language review (PM 254)
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Walking the ways is voluntary and costs ordinary oxygen/exposure. Two visible mains run along this spine. In the left pump hall, the pump main terminates at the pumps while the cable main crosses between walls. The middle way reaches a cable junction and continues past it; there the cable main terminates in banked connections while the pump main crosses and carries on. A small cooling pump also terminates in the junction, but it is visibly fed by a local branch rather than forming the end of the pump main. Token order therefore correlates with which of the two mains ends in the room, not with everything that terminates there. This supports a purpose-and-order reading over meaningless order, while compound place names remain a live rival. The bare `TAAN` above a stair-only vestibule is another consistent case, not proof. The journal records the places reached; it never marks `KETH` as “pump,” asserts a grammatical subject or upgrades the note to fact.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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Yeva can truthfully call the first two the crew’s pump road and cable road because she worked this spine. Her attributed gloss supplies referents, not the positional rule. The player must still compare order, interpret `TAAN` and decide whether the pattern applies elsewhere. Multiple persistent runs give an unaided route without guaranteeing every player notices it.
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### Visitors’ paired language
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3490ef Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:29:48
Resolve focused language review (PM 254)
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The player separately records a visitor threshold half ending `OSH·a` plus a further token beside the middle doorway. Before making any prediction about the far bay, they have recorded two or three other pairs at the ends of transfers whose direction is independently visible: a driving device pushes into a line at one end, while a vessel receives and fills at the other. Across those pairs, one further token recurs at the driving end and another at the receiving end. This small comparison supports a source/destination distinction in this distributed register; it does not translate either token or establish a rule for the entire visitors’ language.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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3490ef Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:29:48
Resolve focused language review (PM 254)
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Much later, beside a far bay whose builder run begins `SORAN`, the player finds `OSH·b` carrying the receiving-end token, while the junction half carries the driving-end token. They can pin both halves and manually link them. An on-request recorder suggestion may surface the visually similar bracket token, but does not assert a semantic pair, relation or direction; recognising how the further tokens correspond to the observed transfers remains interpretation.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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The visitor pair suggests a route from the junction toward the bay; the builder runs independently suggest both concern cabling. The player previously turned back at the junction on supply, so the passage continuing beyond it remains untraversed. They may link that continuation to the far-bay record and attempt it. The test completes only by continuously traversing the continuation and emerging at an identified outlet. Reaching the far-bay anchor records **arrived at linked destination**. Reaching a terminal outlet at another persistent anchor records **arrived elsewhere**. Neither event translates `OSH`, proves every pair is a route or confirms the builder grammar.
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3490ef Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:29:48
Resolve focused language review (PM 254)
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Yeva says plainly that she never read the visitors’ hand. Her road names constrain a token-to-place comparison but do not translate tokens; the visitor relation and combined route inference remain the player’s. If `OSH·a` was missed, another persistent pair can expose the distributed use, while the builder runs alone support a weaker route hypothesis. A completed route spends world time and oxygen and reveals a destination; a detour may interrupt the work planned for that expedition. Under the owner’s death rule, every item still carried comes home, so the player may press on, retreat where practical or end the trip by dying and return aboard with that load. A blockage, intermediate junction, unanticipated branch, retreat, interruption, abandonment or death before the defined terminal records **attempt incomplete**, not “arrived elsewhere”; only a fully traversed candidate with no unresolved continuation yields an incompatible destination. Supply and threats still shape what happens before the trip ends, without requiring equipment loss or a perilous walk home.
29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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The same distinction applies to controls. A powered, intact control with the relevant component can record the visible state after activation. Missing power, a removed component, interruption or an unfinished action records absent test conditions or an incomplete attempt—not evidence against the prediction and not a general diagnostic guarantee.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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## Withheld correctness versus bounded confirmation
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3490ef Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:29:48
Resolve focused language review (PM 254)
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**Withhold structured result records.** The player relies on the world and their notes, with no arrival/test status. This keeps interface authority low and allows ambiguity, but does not uniquely create ownership: explicit help or an observed result can still leave comparison, generalisation and action to the player. Its cost is a possible diagnostic burden; oxygen, damage, missing power and contextual exceptions can make an unfinished test harder to distinguish from a failed reading. Visible environmental evidence remains available and may explain the outcome even without a journal status.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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3490ef Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:29:48
Resolve focused language review (PM 254)
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**Bounded observation and help — preferred.** Record the reached place, visible control state or incomplete condition, and keep testimony attributed. On-request visual suggestions among already captured records are provisionally kept. Their accepted cost is some reduction in unaided noticing, which the earlier wording underplayed. The reason to keep them is visible in the complete episode: surfacing a lookalike only brings two records together; the player still appraises whether the halves pair, infers the source/receiver distinction from independent transfers, applies it to a new pair and chooses whether to act. Manual comparison remains fully usable. Predictions that every player will ask or that matching alone is the whole discovery are not established facts. The player still words the hypothesis, judges whether an observation bears on it, reconciles human knowledge and pays the world cost of acting. The other costs are authored outcome states, comparison consistency and a risk that even factual status labels feel more authoritative than intended.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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[Language Design Evidence](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Language%20Design%20Evidence) describes shipped uses of uncertainty, candidate meanings, repeated contexts and validation, but provides no public dataset proving transfer to this oxygen-limited station. Its multiple-context precedent supports planned redundancy, not a mandatory instance count or guarantee.
66516a Anonymous 2026-09-08 12:55:39
Add provisional two-language journal interaction contract
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29c16b Anonymous 2026-09-08 13:07:05
Clarify observable language-test outcomes and incomplete attempts
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Reopen the provisional choice if later authorised observation shows players treating arrival records as language answers, cannot diagnose attempts, or use comparison as clerical transcription. Stronger confirmation or fully withheld structured feedback would then be real alternatives. Nothing written here establishes comprehension, fun, authoring feasibility or campaign duration.