Hold The Horde — Rescue and Home
Status: a working proposal after focused review. This example follows one authored person from their first traces to a contribution aboard the ship. The fiction and rescue structure are proposals; they do not settle the cast, station history, revival explanation, colony economy or global survivor loss.
The brief asks for survivors the player knows, helps and cares about, who become a home community and provide understanding and upgrades. This example combines acquaintance through traces with a short cooperative extraction. Those are separable choices: another survivor may be met directly or leave with less preparation.
The person and the immediate goal
Proposed fiction: Dorn is the work partner Yeva named from his handwriting. He is alive behind a section his painted marks describe, maintaining a small sealed refuge and controlling what he still can. Its damaged personnel lock cannot cycle without venting the pocket. Its atmosphere supports the example's waiting state between expeditions, but the refuge produces no oxygen and cannot refill the astronaut. Dorn needs a full portable canister connected to his own suit before leaving.
The player can leave the ship with a concrete goal: reach the sealed run and find out whether anyone is behind it. Existing journal records show painted copies of a cut mark, in one hand, on fittings along a route. These support an inference that someone placed them deliberately; they do not prove who, why or whether that person remains alive. A voice through local radio, then a face at a port, supplies the next evidence.
Dorn states both a need and a preference. He wants to leave, but does not want the direct run opened. He sealed it for a reason and admits he does not know whether that reason still holds or whether anything remains isolated. He is a witness with a partial account. The player can weigh it and override his wish.
The loop
| Stage | What becomes available | Player decision | Dorn's action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notice | Marks from an identifiable hand along a route | Follow this evidence or pursue another objective | His earlier work leaves traces |
| Meet | Contact through the sealed refuge | Talk now or return equipped | Describes his need and refuses to open blind |
| Understand | An account of what he sealed and what he does not know | Which claims to trust | States his preferred route |
| Prepare | Two traversable routes and a stocked abort refuge | Commit equipment and air; choose a route | Takes his canister and confirms suit flow |
| Cross | A short ordinary-horde defence | Signal movement, hold the junction or abort | Moves under his own power and operates controls |
| Home | An authored reunion and later contribution | What to ask and investigate next | Responds to the rescue and works aboard |
Two ways out
Open the direct run. Restore the feed using a relay-family part left in the fixture. The powered hoist shortens travel while the feed and installed relay remain. Retrieving the part recovers it and stops that powered access; it does not undo every consequence of opening the section.
The player gains a shorter, less exposed crossing, commits a useful part and overrides Dorn's stated wish. The proposed consequence category is that the opened section can contribute its contents to the run's population and hazards. This does not identify those contents or guarantee a compensating punishment. Dorn and the player have uncertainty; this is new example fiction, not a conclusion established merely by the exploration rules allowing population changes.
Take the long way. Keep his boundary closed and retain the relay. The service route remains in vacuum. The suit's baseline cutter releases visible jammed retaining bolts, and pressure doors are then hand-cycled as world-time actions. This costs distance, preparation trips, oxygen and repeated exposure during door work. Dorn travels on his own canister; no new repressurisation tool is assumed.
The choice concerns route and equipment costs as well as whose judgment prevails. Honouring a person's wish can matter without a matching material reward. Overriding it does not automatically deduct trust or inflict an unstated relationship penalty; Dorn's response belongs to the authored scene. Which route players prefer remains untested.
The crossing and continuation
The astronaut passes Dorn's full canister through a pressure-rated equipment sleeve separate from the damaged personnel lock. Dorn takes it, connects his suit and confirms flow without opening the personnel door. Once committed through the sleeve it is no longer carried cargo. Dorn himself never occupies an inventory slot.
The player traverses the chosen route and stocks a designated abort refuge with a separate reserve. During the exposed crossing the astronaut holds an ordinary horde at a junction while Dorn crosses under his own power and operates the controls on his side. Either can call an abort. The original room vents on departure; Dorn cannot return there for air.
The rescue uses a finite sequence of prepared refuges. An intermediate interruption ends in the stocked vestibule immediately shipward of that segment's junction. Its reserve supports the example's stable waiting state. A renewed attempt needs fresh travel air, a rechecked segment and a stocked abort destination. At the final approach, a vestibule beside the ship airlock can reseal and serves as the abort destination; it is restocked for each attempt. There is no demand for another refuge beyond the ship. Rescue Rules specifies the phases and supply commitments.
Sent means Dorn is physically aboard and the ship airlock has closed. Before any departure, astronaut death leaves him in his current waiting refuge: the original room initially, or the reached vestibule on a retry. Interruption during transfer sends him to that segment's designated abort refuge, still unsent. After Sent, astronaut death leaves him aboard. Carried equipment returns with the astronaut in every case, per the owner decision in Death and Persistence; a canister already committed into the sleeve was handed over and stays with Dorn.
Home and the next expedition
Yeva recognises him before he speaks. Dorn first asks whether the section held. If the player opened it, they tell him and see his response. The scene should communicate a person processing what happened, rather than substitute a generic reward notice; its emotional effect is untested.
Interpretation: Dorn explains what his paint meant to him. It was one person's shorthand using a borrowed shape, not a universal machine notation. Previously recorded painted copies can now be read as personal, local and potentially different from another person's marks. He can describe his own work and whereabouts without providing unseen safe routes or explaining the whole station.
Capability: a proposed contribution is servicing the compressor-fed canister-packing equipment so that more of each canister's charge is usable. This introduces a possible improvement, not retroactive equipment degradation. It is one person's trade; the wider colony upgrade structure remains open.
Alternative, accepted cost and reopening
The strongest alternative is continuous physical escort: give Dorn air, travel together, and defend or avoid throughout the return. It makes sustained protection visible and can preserve his preferences and reciprocal actions. It also exposes more traversal to companion behaviour and makes discovery detours part of escort reliability.
The staged approach is preferred for this example because it concentrates cooperation at chosen crossings while preserving the earlier acquaintance and route decision. Its own costs are authored sleeves, refuges, transitions and survivor behaviour; the stable waiting and abort structure may feel protective or contrived. The short defence may feel thin, and long-route preparation may feel like busywork. Reopen the preference if the relationship or cooperation lacks weight, or the concrete escort alternative better serves the intended experience. Neither approach is validated by this written scene.