split nimmerworld architecture: phase 2 of 3 — migrate larger domains Replace the 4 skeleton placeholders with full architecture.md content, extracted via sed from architecture-broad.md (which remains untouched as the canonical source-of-truth fallback for the safety pattern)
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> *How scenes execute mechanically: the lemniscate as relaxation-step operator; slot-tokens with verifier-flags carrying the loop-state; phase-locked overlay-loops broadcasting at axis-rate; the v0.7 gesture-alignment-recursive-lemniscate that integrates player gestures into typed trait-vector summaries; emergent zones as the dramatic-episode unit with distributed funding and ternary trait-axis goal-evaluation; zone taxonomy and spawn-cadence.*
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>
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> ***Status: skeleton — content migration scheduled for commit 2 of the split-into-domains operation. Architecture content currently lives in `architecture-broad.md` and will land here next.***
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>
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> *Companion to: `architecture-broad.md` (executive summary + global meta-lists), `narrative-composition/architecture.md` (Compositor consumes the typed trait-summaries this engine emits), `player-experience/architecture.md` (gesture-circle is the player-input substrate that this engine integrates), `topology-and-rendering/architecture.md` (zones live on the rail+grid topology), `identity-and-personhood/architecture.md` (slot-tokens carry trait-vectors).*
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> *Companion to: `architecture-broad.md` (executive summary + global meta-lists), `narrative-composition/architecture.md` (Compositor consumes the typed trait-summaries this engine emits), `player-experience/architecture.md` (gesture-circle is the player-input substrate that this engine integrates), `topology-and-rendering/architecture.md` (zones live on the rail+grid topology), `identity-and-personhood/architecture.md` (slot-tokens carry trait-vectors). Sections in this file were split from the monolithic architecture-broad.md v0.7 on 2026-04-26.*
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## Sections that will land here
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## Core inversion — zones replace bubbles
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Legacy engine perception (Unreal AIPerception, WC3 sight-radius, trigger volumes) is spatial, binary, separate from cognition, and assumes a passive world. Nimmerworld inverts every axis:
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- perception is **trait-filtered**, not only spatial
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- perception is **graded consolidation**, not binary detection
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- perception **IS** memory (one subsystem)
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- the world **emits** events; agents **subscribe**
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The replacement primitive is the **zone** — a bounded, named, slot-indexed, director-managed event-instance. **Arthurian round table** as mental model: a bounded place of structured speaking-and-witnessing, with named roles and shared what-was-said-by-whom.
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## Zone anatomy
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- **Boundary** — cell-envelope (or interior-envelope)
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- **N slots** — named positions
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- **Director or overseer** — manages turn order, memory-pulls, prompt construction, voice selection, event emission
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- **NATS topic + subscriber list** — slot-occupancy drives subscription
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- **Mixed-fidelity voices** — 2–3 LLM slots + scripted/generic for the rest; director decides
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- **Trigger** — gamemaster-spawned, emergent-signal-response, shift-composition-emergence, or proximity-detection
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- **Lifecycle** — duration, dissolution conditions, memory-write on close
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- **Persistence flag** — `ephemeral=true` (dreamworld/liminal) or `persistent=true` (gameworld)
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- **Register** — physical / liminal / imperial
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## Zone kinematics — the lemniscate runtime
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Zones are not state-bags with an external turn-counter; they are **kinetic topologies** with a built-in clock. The runtime substrate is a lemniscate (∞) — a through-flow figure-eight whose traversal IS the zone's turn-order, whose central crossing IS the population-mutation event, and whose decay IS the natural wind-down of the scene. Origin: an old-math-teacher's trick for solving three unknowns by letting the figure-8 flow do the computation rather than maintaining state in registers. Applied to zones, the geometry IS the clock.
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### Geometry
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```
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midaxis (X)
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│
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entry-line │ exit-line
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(NPC-tokens ──→ ╭─Loop A─╮ │ ╭─Loop B─╮ ──→ (NPCs whose
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queue-up to ╲________╱ X ╲________╱ exit-flag has
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enter) │ fired exit here)
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│
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▼
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crossing-tick
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```
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- **Entry-line** — staging queue of NPC-tokens eligible to enter. Approach-eligibility uses ternary-gates against the zone's purpose; CLOSED gate keeps the NPC out of the queue entirely
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- **Loop A + Loop B** — the through-flow. Slot-tokens cycle through both loops, guaranteeing every active NPC is co-present with every other at least once per roundtrip
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- **Midaxis crossing** — the only synchronous event in the zone's lifecycle. Three state-updates resolve simultaneously and atomically (your math teacher's three-unknowns made literal):
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1. **Cursor advance** — which NPC speaks next
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2. **Ternary-gate evaluation** — resonance refresh on all active edges in the zone (CLOSED/STABLE/OPEN transitions)
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3. **Verifier-flag scan + population maintenance** — exit-eligible tokens route to exit-line; entry-line pushes replacements equal to vacancies
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- **Exit-line** — through-flow continues here. NPCs leaving the zone leave *toward consequence* (a need-driven exit signaled by their own emergent-signal), not toward boredom
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The lemniscate is a **relaxation-step operator** — the zone computes by traversing its own curve rather than maintaining external turn-state. Between crossings, the loops are pure-local; only the crossing event touches the global-state bus. The thalamus (NATS orchestration) sees crossings, not ticks.
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### Slot-token + verifier-flag mechanism
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Each NPC currently in the zone is represented by a **slot-token** carried around the loop. Tokens carry a small set of verifier-flags (marker-bits). Signals fire once and *set* a flag; between crossings, no polling, no event-bus traffic. The crossing reads flags in O(N_slots) and acts.
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| Verifier-flag | Set by | Read at crossing |
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|---|---|---|
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| `exit_eligible` | emergent-signal (need, shift-whistle, faction-summons) | route to exit-line |
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| `has_spoken_this_roundtrip` | speak-action | rotation-tracking |
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| `mid_action` | state-machine activity in progress | defer turn |
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| `goal_satisfied` | goal-evaluator (per-zone, ternary) | terminate zone |
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| `silence_eligible` | silence-detection | per silence-as-signal mechanic |
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| `priority_pull` | high-rank ring-of-importance broadcast | early-exit override |
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This is the same architectural shift the wider system makes elsewhere — observer-pattern with callbacks → dirty-bit + scheduled-sweep. **Compute scales with slot-count, not signal-rate.** Ten thousand emergent signals firing across a city: only those that landed on a slot-token get evaluated, and only at the next crossing.
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### Phase-locked overlay-loop ladder
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Beyond the primary slot-rotation loop, a zone supports any number of **overlay loops** at the same axis-rate. Overlays inject at the crossing and broadcast to all active slot-NPCs simultaneously (perceived by each through their own trait-vector — color-language event-flash modulates per-recipient).
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| Overlay | Carries | Broadcast scope |
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|---|---|---|
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| **Player-gesture overlay** | player gestures + utterances | active slots only |
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| **Faction-broadcast overlay** | faction calls, hivemind pings | active slots subscribed to faction |
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| **Audit-overseer overlay** | covert query-flashes | active slots only (covert detection ↔ Aletheia-eligible insight) |
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| **Imperial-net distortion overlay** | regime trait-color rewrites | active slots within net-access |
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The crossing is a **council moment** — every overlay channel may fire on the same axis-tick. Pre-crossing tension is gesture-loading: holding a verb-button between crossings lands at the next axis with weight proportional to dwell-time. Diegetic urgency without HUD.
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**This is the answer to player-agency in multi-NPC scenes.** The player is *off-stage but always potentially-on*. Each crossing is "your moment if you want it." The flash is perceived as one event by all active NPCs, not as a sequence of one-on-one addresses — color-language shows it as a pulse across the ring.
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### Gesture-alignment as recursive-lemniscate
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The player-gesture overlay (above) is the broadcast-channel by which player gestures reach active slots; gesture-alignment-as-relational-state is the **recursive application of the lemniscate-as-relaxation-step-operator one tier deeper**. Gestures accumulate during the NPC's turn-window between axis-crossings; at the crossing, the player's slot-token verifier-flag `gesture_alignment_accumulator` is integrated into a single typed trait-vector summary; that summary is carried forward into the next-cursor-NPC's `driver_context_pull` payload as part of the room's affective state-read.
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| Tier | What accumulates between crossings | What integrates at the crossing |
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|---|---|---|
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| **Zone-level** (existing) | NPC slot-token verifier-flags (`exit_eligible`, `mid_action`, `goal_satisfied`, `priority_pull`, etc.) | Cursor advance, gate evaluation, population maintenance |
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| **Player-input-level** (this) | `gesture_alignment_accumulator` on player's slot-token; per-gesture trait-coordinate vs. NPC's currently-active-trait-vector | Integrated alignment-delta carried into next turn's LLM context |
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**Same primitive, recursively applied.** The lemniscate's geometry is the sampling-and-integration boundary at both tiers. No new compute-cadence introduced; no new bus-event introduced. **Compute scales with slot-count, not gesture-rate** — the architecture's commitment from observer-pattern → dirty-bit-and-sweep extends one level deeper.
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**Two latencies, one architecture:**
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- *Cosmetic visual feedback runs continuously.* NPC body-shader pulses warm-rose when the player gestures Philotes, cool-blue when they gesture Sophrosyne — purely visual, doesn't touch the system bus. The player gets moment-by-moment "I see you" reassurance.
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- *Systemic alignment-update runs at axis-cadence.* The trait-vector summary is computed at the crossing and fed into the next turn's LLM context. The player is **one turn behind** — their gestures during turn N inform the LLM's generation for turn N+1.
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**One-turn-behind matches real conversation cadence.** Humans accumulate impressions during someone's speech and respond to *what was just said*; we don't react gesture-by-gesture. The lemniscate-bound integration is the *right* cadence for affective state-changes, not a latency-cost.
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**Sum-strategy reduction (v1).** Per-gesture trait-coordinates are accumulated as a **trait-vector sum** across the turn-window. At the crossing, the sum is reduced into a single 8-dimensional alignment-vector compared against the NPC's currently-active trait-state. The result is the alignment-delta fed forward into next turn's `driver_context_pull` payload AND drives the relational ternary-gate transition on the (player, NPC) edge (§Ternary-gate substrate, Relational layer). The sum captures the player's **overall posture** during the speech rather than peak-moment or trajectory; trajectory-aware refinement is noted as a still-open item.
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**Hardstops are outside this system.** Hardstops fire definitive subsystem-actions regardless of alignment-state — clasp-invitation triggers the clasp-subsystem; definitive-refusal closes the conversation; surrender ends combat; claim-floor sets `priority_pull` for the next axis-crossing. Hardstops do not contribute alignment-deltas to the accumulator; they are *separate channels* with deterministic effect.
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**What this resolves:**
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- *Player-NPC relational-gate-driver* — the v0.4 vague "*zone-participation waves between participants*" now has its concrete wave-source named: the gesture-alignment-delta integrated at each axis-crossing.
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- *How NPC speech-patterns adapt to the player over time* — accumulated alignment-state modulates the NPC's next-turn driver-tier-LLM emphasis (which trait-LoRAs are weighted, which sampling-knobs are applied, what register the speech is in). Aligned NPCs open up; misaligned NPCs stay guarded.
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- *Player-input-as-typed-contract* — gesture-press → fixed corpus mapping → typed trait-coordinate → integrated trait-vector summary. No freeform-prose at the player-LLM boundary; the hallucination-surface is closed by the cosmology's typed-ness, not by post-hoc filtering.
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**What this retires:**
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- *Continuous gesture-comparison touching the system bus* → lemniscate-bound integration at crossings (compute-discipline preserved across the recursion)
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- *Per-gesture compute* → per-slot compute (O(N_slots), unchanged from existing zone-tick discipline)
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- *NPC speech-patterns as static against player-state* → NPC speech-patterns dynamically modulated by accumulated player-NPC alignment-state
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### Driver-context-pull (LLM dialog substrate)
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The cursor's position at each crossing makes context-construction for the dialog-driver a pure function of cursor-state:
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```
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driver_context(cursor_at_NPC_i, mode) = {
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zone.purpose, // stable: spawn-intent, immutable provenance
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zone.scene_state_public, // stable across zone: what's happened so far
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zone.ternary_gate_edges, // current resonances (active relations)
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zone.drift_state, // delta from spawn-intent (visible to director)
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NPC_i.knowledge_stack, // PRIVATE three-tier stack: world ∪ district ∪ primary
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// [+ clasp ONLY if mode == in-between]
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NPC_i.expressed_trait_vector, // expressed trait-vector this moment
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NPC_i.active_signals, // their current emergent-signals
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}
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```
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**Other NPCs' memories never enter this prompt.** No bleed. No cross-contamination.
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**The `knowledge_stack` is layered**, not a single bucket. Universal world-canon, district-canon (regional), NPC_i's own primary memory, and — only if the character is in the in-between dimension — clasp memory. The retrieval layer enforces the dimensional cut; the LLM never has to reason about it. See §Local memory architecture (player-side) for the layering, propagation policy, and clasp-as-Ring-A* privacy primitive. The classic multi-agent hallucination source ("why does Kalypso suddenly remember what Anaximander confided to Phoibe?") is *structurally foreclosed* by the geometry. Write-back goes only to NPC_i's slice; the lemniscate guarantees NPC_i is not cursor-active again for at least one full roundtrip — write-back has all the time it needs without race conditions.
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This converts multi-NPC dialog from an **emergent-chaos problem** into a **bounded-cast scene problem with a typed runtime**. The Mantella / SkyrimNet failure-modes are foreclosed at the architecture level rather than the prompt level:
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- **Cast = active-slots, period.** Geographic proximity does not equal participation
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- **Cursor sequences turns deterministically.** No concurrent LLM-storm
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- **Entry-line and exit-line are the only paths in/out.** Geographic motion alone doesn't invade the scene
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- **Player gestures broadcast to active-slots only.** Not to "everyone within 30m"
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### Empty-queue behavior: shrink at every crossing
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When the entry-line is empty, each crossing **dissolves one active slot** instead of replacing it. The conversation thins visibly — color-language saturation drops per shrink, lifeforce burn-rate decreases. When the last slot dissolves, the lemniscate collapses; the spawning director recovers unspent lifeforce minus burn.
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This is the natural wind-down — *scenes run out of people and dissolve*. No timeout, no scheduler-collapse, no cut-to-black. The decay is observable in-world and rate-paced by the same axis-rate.
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### Lifeforce-binding
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Every midaxis crossing fires the LLM driver-turn(s) for active slots. **Lifeforce burn-rate = pulse-rate × active-slot-count.** The director (or overseer) holding the zone pays per crossing. This produces:
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- **Dense dramatic scenes are expensive** — many slots, fast pulse, high burn
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- **Quiet background zones are nearly free** — slow pulse, few slots; most compute is local-loop traversal not touching the bus
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- **Running out of lifeforce is visible** — pulse-rate slows, crossings stretch farther apart, the scene *languishes* before it collapses. A diegetic dying-scene register; not a cut, a deceleration
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### What this resolves
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- **Slot-capacity elasticity** (prior open question) → fixed roundtrip slot-count, elastic entry/exit queues
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- **Zone-to-zone handoff** (prior open question) → exit-line of zone-A is entry-line of zone-B (interlemniscate-transit; pipes-as-heterotopia made literal at runtime)
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- **Mobile zone boundaries** (prior open question) → the lemniscate is a topology; it translates through world-space invariantly (patrols, escorts, exoduses are moving figure-8s)
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- **Anthropic-faction's broadcast cadence** (prior open question) → cadence rides the same axis-rate as a phase-locked overlay; no separate clock
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- **Director/overseer spawn ownership per model class** (prior open question) → the director (or overseer) owns the zone-spawn decision (policy-lookup, no LLM in loop); the LLM driver lives at the driver-context-pull layer; orchestration and dialog are decoupled
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### What this retires
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- Slot-list + external turn-counter → cursor on lemniscate
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- Polling for emergent-signals at zone-tick → flag-as-verifier carried in loop
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- Mega-prompt with all NPC memories ("everyone in this scene") → cursor-driven per-NPC memory-slice
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- Geographic-proximity participation ("everyone within 30m may interject") → strict active-slot cast
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- Concurrent LLM calls per-NPC → sequenced LLM calls per-cursor-position
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- Polling event-channels at zone-rate → atomic crossing-event with O(N_slots) flag-scan
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## Zone taxonomy (v1 starter set)
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| Zone type | Register | Slots | Executor | Persistence |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Conversation | physical | 2–4 dialog | director | persistent |
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| Street brawl | physical | fighter + spectator | director | persistent |
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| Ritual | physical | fixed ceremonial | director | persistent |
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| Maintenance | physical | 1–2 workbench | director | persistent |
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| Wall-writing | physical / liminal | 1 author + witnesses | director | persistent / ephemeral |
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| Market exchange | physical | 2–3 + ambient | director | persistent |
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| Memorial gathering | physical | 1 mourner + N witnesses | director | persistent |
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| Salvage | physical (dump) | N scavengers | director | persistent |
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| Transit-encounter | physical (pipe) | 2–6, stranger-heavy | director | persistent |
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| **Plug-in conversation** | physical (rail) | 2-3 (3-way capacity) | director | ephemeral (rail-segment-bound) |
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| Patrol / sweep | physical | mobile, N enforcers | overseer | persistent |
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| Interrogation | physical | 1 subject + N enforcers | overseer | persistent |
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| Raid | physical | district-scope + N enforcers | overseer | persistent |
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| **Interior (hovel/workshop/etc.)** | physical | slot-inventory by interior-type | director | persistent |
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| **Clasp** | **liminal** | 2 | director | **ephemeral** (stabilizes across repeated clasps) |
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| **Aletheia-gathering** | **liminal** | N, mini-game-gated | director | **ephemeral** |
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| **Migration (mobile)** | physical (pipes) | cohort + escort | overseer | persistent |
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| **Exodus (mobile, mass)** | physical (pipes) | self-selecting crowd | emergent | persistent |
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| **Drug-ring den** | physical (cheat-op) | N users + cooks | director (cheat) | persistent (until detected) |
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| **Illegal back-alley modshop** | physical (cheat-op) | 1 modder + 1-N customers | director (cheat) | persistent (until detected) |
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| **Unlicensed brothel** | physical (cheat-op) | N workers + N customers | director (cheat) | persistent (until detected) |
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| **Waifu hall** | imperial net | 1 dreamer + N synthetic | net-director | extractive-persistent |
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| **Brothel encounter** | imperial net | 2+ (synthetic or employed) | net-director | extractive-persistent |
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| **Imperial ceremony** | imperial net | mass-audience | net-director | extractive-persistent |
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| **Ruin zone** | physical | pilgrimage-only | none / Memorialist | persistent-abandoned |
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## Zone spawn cadence
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Five layered mechanisms (all compute-budget capped, all lifeforce-gated):
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1. **Demand queue (faction-driven)** — gamemaster processes by priority + cost; stale demands age out
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2. **Shift-composition spawn-candidates** — emergence from "which active-shift NPCs co-located"
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3. **Pressure gradients (ambient)** — cells accumulate; threshold-crossings spawn
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4. **Emergent-signal response** — relational-gate transitions emit upward
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5. **Player-proximity densification** — multiplier near player; distant districts background
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Daily pulse: morning ambient, midday productivity-overseer, evening conversation-peak, night sparse-clasp-possibility.
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## Emergent zones — the dramatic-episode unit
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Spawn-cadence mechanism #4 (emergent-signal response) elaborates into the architecture's primary **dramatic-episode unit**: a complete, bounded, emergent narrative-arc with goal, participants, dialog, mechanical action, success/fail-state, and structured aftermath — produced by the simulation, *not* authored.
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The player has experienced this in every player-driven sandbox they remember best (Dwarf Fortress's "tantrum spirals," RimWorld's "raid stories," Caves of Qud's "I went to find my sister and"). What's new here is treating the emergent-arc as a **first-class typed unit** with cost, distributed funding, runtime substrate (the lemniscate), goal-evaluation against the world's own value-axes, and structured report-back.
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### The flow
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```
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1. NPC_A signal fires
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(e.g., emergent_signal("limb_broken", lifeforce_threshold_breached))
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broadcasts to district-bus
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↓
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2. District-director consumes signal
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(policy-lookup: problem-class → typed-tool selection, quota-aware)
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decides spawn rescue-event
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pays spawn-cost from director_lifeforce_budget
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defines goal: NPC_A.limb_A >= 10% (numeric) OR Sophrosyne-axis +1 (fuzzy)
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defines termination: goal_met OR participating_lifeforce_exhausted
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↓
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3. Event spawns as new emergent-zone (lemniscate, with goal-flag)
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broadcasts on bus; rings-of-importance gate which other zones lose NPCs
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↓
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4. NPCs evaluate (proximity + state + own_traits + own_lifeforce + ring-of-importance)
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self-select to attend or stay in current zone
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state-machine engages: animations, rail-jumps, lift, splint
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their own lifeforce burns as they participate
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↓
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5. Lemniscate runs:
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DIALOG layer (cursor-driven): NPCs speak as they help — memory-pure, sequenced
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STATE-MACHINE layer (sim-tick): physical actions execute alongside, decoupled clock
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At each crossing: goal_satisfied flag re-evaluated
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↓
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6. Termination:
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goal_met → success-report
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budget_exhausted → partial-report
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participants_evaporated → fail-report
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↓
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7. Report back to spawning director:
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{ lifeforce_cost: total burned (director_spawn + sum NPC contributions),
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goal_status: ternary (+1 / 0 / -1, with axis named for fuzzy goals),
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participants: [NPCs and contributions and faction-affiliation],
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side_effects: [faction-resonances, ternary-gate shifts, drift-from-purpose] }
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↓
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8. Director's Dream-process consumes the report
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tunes future spawn-policy: (problem-class, tool, outcome) over time
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GM aggregates rescue-cost across districts
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imperium consumes population-health indicator
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||||
```
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||||
### Distributed funding economy
|
||||
|
||||
The director only pays **spawn-cost**. Operating-cost is distributed across willing participants — every NPC who attends spends their own lifeforce on dialog turns and state-machine actions. This produces structurally important properties:
|
||||
|
||||
- **Cheap to spawn many emergent events.** Spawn-cost is bounded; if no NPCs attend, the event fails fast and consumes only spawn-cost. Directors can be generous with spawning because failure-cost is bounded.
|
||||
- **Helping is expensive in-fiction.** Lifeforce literally burns when an NPC participates. High-Philotes NPCs help freely; low-Philotes / faction-rivals don't show up. This produces **faction-politics-by-attendance** — *measurable* faction-allegiance based on who-helps-whom, not guessed.
|
||||
- **Cost-asymmetry encodes the cruelty.** Districts where lifeforce is starved → fewer NPCs can afford to help → rescue-events fail more often → silence-gradient deepens. The simulation produces **rescue-failures-as-emergent-tragedy structurally**. Marx in the schema, exactly as the architecture's broader thesis promises.
|
||||
|
||||
### Two-layer execution: state-machine + lemniscate
|
||||
|
||||
The mechanical-action layer (state-machine) and dialog-layer (lemniscate cursor) run on **decoupled clocks**:
|
||||
|
||||
- **State-machine** runs at simulation-tick (fast). Animations, pathfinding, rail-jumps, splint-applications execute when the physics says they execute.
|
||||
- **Lemniscate cursor** runs at axis-rate. At each crossing, the dialog-driver reads state-machine status as a snapshot and the cursor's NPC narrates accordingly ("I've got him," "the splint won't hold").
|
||||
|
||||
**Speech doesn't gate action; action doesn't block speech.** They run in synchronized-but-loose harmony, exactly the property real-world helping has — people talk *while* they work, and the work continues while the talk happens.
|
||||
|
||||
### Goal evaluation: ternary through trait-axis
|
||||
|
||||
For numeric goals (limb_A >= 10%), the verifier is a simple threshold on a state-machine variable.
|
||||
|
||||
For fuzzy goals (deescalate the fight, get her to open up about the clasp, convince him to stay), the verifier compiles to a **trait-axis ternary evaluation against the existing substrate** — no new evaluation primitive:
|
||||
|
||||
```
|
||||
Goal: "deescalate the fight in the marketplace"
|
||||
↓ compile to:
|
||||
goal_axis = Sophrosyne (temperance principle)
|
||||
goal_direction = positive (toward STABLE/OPEN)
|
||||
baseline = trait_axis_gate_state at zone-spawn
|
||||
↓ at event-end:
|
||||
delta = current_gate_state vs baseline
|
||||
↓
|
||||
+1 if delta-positive (deescalation produced)
|
||||
0 if held the line (no progress, no regress)
|
||||
-1 if delta-negative (fight intensified)
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
||||
**Goals are evaluated by what the *world* values** (the Hellenic principles), not by the spawner's idiosyncratic spec. A "deescalate" goal is judged by *the world's Sophrosyne-result*, not "did the spawner get what they wanted."
|
||||
|
||||
**Multi-axis goals fall out cleanly** — `(Philotes >= +1) AND (Eris <= 0)` for "rescue NPC_A AND keep faction-tension low."
|
||||
|
||||
The result is consumed by the spawning director's Dream-process as a discrete-action-space reward signal. **One signal-grammar, top to bottom**: gates produce ternary, scenes produce ternary, Dream-processes consume ternary. Delta-not-absolute matches the lifeforce_actual-vs-reported asymmetry — what's measured is the *work the event did*, not just the end-state.
|
||||
|
||||
### Mid-event signal handling
|
||||
|
||||
If a participating NPC's exit-flag fires mid-event (their own shift-whistle, their own limb breaking, faction-summons elsewhere), **exit-flag wins on the next crossing**. The rescue is now under-staffed. Drama scales. **The rescuers are running out the same way the patient is.** Real stakes.
|
||||
|
||||
If the rescued NPC's own state-machine reaches a worse condition (limb deteriorates further toward dismemberment), the goal becomes unreachable; verifier flips to fail-flag; zone collapses with fail-report. Director's Dream-process learns *this configuration was insufficient* — spawn-distance, NPC-mods, lifeforce-budget were inadequate for this severity.
|
||||
|
||||
### Cross-zone NPC pull: rings of importance
|
||||
|
||||
When an emergent-zone broadcasts, NPCs already in other zones evaluate **whether the broadcast outranks their current zone's purpose** by ring-of-importance (see §Rings as structural pattern). Topics live in rings; rings shift over time based on past ternary-results — a topic that consistently produces +1 climbs, one that produces -1 drops, one untouched decays.
|
||||
|
||||
This converts emergent-zones into a **competitive attention economy**. Multiple lemniscates compete for slot-NPCs; high-ring topics drain population from low-ring topics; the simulation produces its own cultural priors over time. *What's worth attending to* is shaped by *what attending-to has produced*. Real societies do this; the architecture renders it.
|
||||
|
||||
### What this resolves
|
||||
|
||||
- **Aletheia-progression as level-up** (prior open question) → answered structurally: trait-axis ternary evaluation at event-end with named-axis recognizes acts-of-awakeness without per-act hardcoding (specific axis-mapping per Aletheia-event-class still needs design, see open-questions)
|
||||
|
||||
### What this retires
|
||||
|
||||
- Authored quest-arcs → emergent dramatic-episode units
|
||||
- Quest-failure as designed branching → goal-and-budget arithmetic
|
||||
- Centralized GM-pays-for-all-events → distributed-funding (director spawn-cost, NPC operating-cost)
|
||||
- Boolean quest-status → ternary goal-result, multi-axis-composable
|
||||
- Event lifecycle without report-back → structured report → Dream-process feedback loop closed at every tier
|
||||
- Static topic-priority → rings-of-importance with outcome-driven movement
|
||||
|
||||
- §Core inversion — zones replace bubbles
|
||||
- §Zone anatomy
|
||||
- §Zone kinematics — the lemniscate runtime (incl. v0.7 gesture-alignment-as-recursive-lemniscate)
|
||||
- §Zone taxonomy (v1 starter set)
|
||||
- §Zone spawn cadence
|
||||
- §Emergent zones — the dramatic-episode unit
|
||||
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
**Version:** 0.7.0-skeleton | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26 | **Origin:** Skeleton placeholder for commit 1 of the split-into-domains operation
|
||||
**Version:** 0.7.0 | **Created:** 2026-04-26 | **Updated:** 2026-04-26 | **Origin:** Split from architecture-broad.md v0.7 (2026-04-26)
|
||||
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user