Hold The Horde — Mystery Consequences

Status. This systems comparison applies the working rules in Death and Persistence, Rescue Rules, Exploration Structure and Build Rules to the actual three Mystery Directions, first shared in Lead outline chat221. It is not adopted canon. The Owner Brief requires death to return the astronaut aboard this ship and leaves its cause, losses and persistence unresolved. Compatibility means a direction can preserve a working proposal, not that the proposal is an owner requirement.

Shared contract

Unless a direction explicitly reopens it, death leaves carried equipment and unbanked salvage in a recoverable cache at the death site. Journal evidence, recorded locations, deliberate infrastructure changes and people already Sent through the ship airlock persist. An unsent survivor remains in their authored station or abort state. Revival returns the astronaut, not their pack, and does not bank salvage or grant survivors automatic immortality.

Each cause must work for damage and oxygen deaths throughout the playable station while active. Its energy and body-matter path cannot be a concealed counter that produces surprise permadeath. A bounded system still needs a non-depleting loop or known safe stopping rule; “alien machinery” is not a material account.

1. The Registry — connected alien institution

Return and persistence. Docking records the astronaut as this distressed vessel's complement and fixes the ship as their berth. On death, the authority retrieves the body through its service network, leaves unregistered carried objects at the death site, and reinstates the person at the berth. This reuses matter, keeps the cache and explains the fixed return point. Ship-synchronised suit telemetry can preserve the journal; uninterrupted personal memory additionally requires the latest neural state, not only the docking-time pattern. Berth service must remain fail-safe until release, or ordinary power puzzles could cause unannounced permadeath.

Repair, stopping and continuation. Repair restores the ship's ability to file an underway state; clearing its distress flag deliberately deregisters the astronaut and ends revival before departure. Apparent credits can follow that informed clearance. Continuing then means a clearly labelled mortal phase in the same station: release other trapped complements berth by berth. That deeper action stops further malformed returns but does not erase creatures already present. The player must be allowed to decline mortal continuation without losing the earned departure.

Survivors and resources. Sent survivors do not join the docking-time complement automatically. Adding them needs a separate filing and owner choice: it turns revival into colony infrastructure and forces a survivor-death rule. Otherwise existing rescue rules stand. Retrieval and recycling are a closed loop, not limitless creation, but the direction must establish universal playable reach and why old complements became malformed while this astronaut does not.

Decisive clue. Observation: a berth ledger pairs a vital-loss event with body transfer from that sector and reinstatement at this ship. Testimony: Dorn says the same transfer family moved yard salvage but never saw its sealed destination. Inference: berth infrastructure moved and restored the registered person. The live rival is a ledger merely observing ship-local revival. Conserved tagged mass entering the berth recycler, with none leaving ship stores, discriminates. The player can route a harmless tagged sample through diagnostic return checkpoints; no deliberate death is required.

2. The Ship's Own Unit — separate causes

Return and persistence. A long-haul medical unit aboard the ship reinstates its assigned pilot in its fixed bay using berth power. Cache and record rules fit, but the direction does not explain how a ship-local unit obtains a body after remote death. A human emergency-recall tag could retrieve and recycle the astronaut while rejecting equipment. That preserves matter and repeated return, but makes body recall normal human technology and needs range and obstruction rules. A finite biomass tank instead creates death attrition and eventual failure; that consequential alternative is not recommended silently.

Repair, stopping and continuation. Repair keeps berth power stable until undocking ends the cycle. The other causes remain separate. If apparent credits require departure, continued relay investigation needs a route—return and redock, remote access, or another playable location. Otherwise credits should occur when departure becomes available, with undocking deferred. The deeper action must affect people, not only reveal a log.

Survivors and resources. The assigned-pilot rule excludes Sent survivors unless deliberately reassigned. Reassignment is an owner choice because it may displace the astronaut or imply larger capacity. The recall/recycling mechanism remains a worldbuilding dependency; “legally required ordinary equipment” works only if that capability belongs in the wider human setting.

Decisive clue. Observation: a nonfatal tagged-sample test shows transmission, material arrival, the unit cycle and berth-power draw without mass crossing station services. Testimony: a survivor recognises its legal seal but cannot know whether it was altered. Inference: the ship performs recall and reinstatement. The rival is an unknown station field using the unit as endpoint. Capacitor draw alone cannot exclude it; authenticated firmware predicting the test plus conserved mass in the ship path discriminates. The manual and test are available without death.

3. The Clinic — actual-body triage

Return and persistence. The clinic retrieves the actual body through ward-service routes, resuscitates it and delivers it to the manifest vessel. No stored person or new matter is required. Triage leaves loose equipment in a property pod at pickup—the cache—while suit telemetry preserves records. Every playable death site therefore needs a credible retrieval route, and hazards cannot destroy the body beyond resuscitation. Those are authored-space constraints, not brief facts.

Repair, stopping and continuation. Repair remains required. Discharge or shutdown visibly ends revival. Apparent credits can occur with departure ready; continuation is mortal while the player recovers and transmits the archive. A real deeper resolution must change an ongoing condition—free remaining patients, block a continuing programme, or choose whom to trust—not merely add backstory.

Survivors and resources. Sent status does not equal clinic admission. Consent-based intake would reopen survivor mortality and rescue design; otherwise current rules stand. Actual-body recovery avoids a matter reserve, while ward logistics and fail-safe power bear the burden. Destroying a route cannot make the next death permanently fatal without an explicit warning and alternative.

Decisive clue. Observation: a casualty tag and scans follow the same wound markers and body mass through intake and ship delivery. Testimony: Yeva saw retrieval but thought it was disposal. Inference: triage revives the same body. The rival is destruction followed by reconstruction. Continuous tagged material through treatment, including one embedded fragment, discriminates; matching appearance does not. A recently killed creature can be tested through a diagnostic branch, avoiding required player death.

Comparative burden and decision interface

Before an owner decision, Mystery Directions must resolve the exact matter/energy/retrieval rule in each direction, the location and reversibility of post-credits play, and the concrete human outcome of the Ship and Clinic deeper actions. The owner must choose any expansion of survivor eligibility and whether a mortal continuation phase is desirable. Those are owner choices; route coverage, clue validity and causal accounting are design dependencies. None of this establishes fun, balance, feasibility or campaign duration.