# SIGNAL BLEED — HAWAIʻI
## Emergency Republic setting bible

**Canonical setting direction, recovered and reaffirmed by the user on 2026-09-22.** Real Hawaiʻi, a contemporary September 2026 starting point, cosmic horror and The Sounding. This supersedes the former fictional archipelago across the project.

The crisis, emergency orders, predictive surveillance, arrests, branch events and classified programs below are **alternate-history game fiction**, not reports of real events. Real place names ground play; fictional contractors, staff and interiors do not describe actual organizations or facilities.

## The premise

Hawaiʻi is trying to keep ordinary life moving: a shift, a delivery, a flight, a prescription, a ride home. During September 2026, fuel and logistics records begin describing movements that have not happened. Some of those movements happen later. Some never do. Acting on a warning changes the situation the warning appeared to describe.

Federal coordination expands into an enduring emergency system. Classified programs treat the Signal as predictive intelligence. People still need its help. The consequences of using it become somebody else's problem, somewhere the dashboard is not watching.

The Signal exposes possible branches, not infallible prophecy. Observation can alter the branch. A successful intervention can move a cost rather than remove it. None of this identifies the cosmic source, its motives, or a solution to the mystery. Preserve **The Sounding** as the larger cosmic premise; its exact event, date and ontology remain open.

## Accepted timeline

| Time | Event | Consequence for play |
|---|---|---|
| September 2026 | **September Compression**: a convergence of Hawaiʻi fuel/logistics anomalies amid the scenario's Hormuz, oil and election crisis. | Conflicting manifests, impossible scheduling and non-originating records first become operationally significant. |
| October 2026 | **Emergency Logistics Order** within the selected **Emergency Republic** direction. | Expanded federal coordination, emergency powers, port/fuel prioritization and security access. This is a fictional order, not an actual legal claim. |
| November 2026 | The election period becomes part of the emergency backdrop; November 3 was the session's election anchor. | Do not invent a winner or an approved constitutional outcome. |
| December 2026 | A prediction-linked arrest. | Signal-derived intelligence starts affecting people before an ordinary evidentiary chain exists. No real individual is assigned this fictional act. |
| Spring 2027 | **Branch Event One**: a warning targeting Honolulu Harbor and the airport leads to preemptive arrests and shutdowns. The predicted attack does not occur; intervention produces cascading Oʻahu failures. Records indicate an unacted branch with worse damage. | A warning can concern a possible branch. Non-occurrence does not prove the warning was fabricated or the intervention costless. Do not force one explanation for every anomaly. |
| Late 2028–2029 | **The Observer Trials**: a Hawaiʻi cell tests how observation and knowledge shift branches. | Who received which information, and when, becomes part of the investigation. |
| 2030 | Steering displaces consequences rather than simply preventing them. | Examine who bore the shifted cost; no exact incident/date is locked. |
| Later | Fragmentation follows the emergency architecture. | Date, borders, factions and campaign-present year are not yet fixed. |

JIITG is the recovered fictional program label for tracking **non-originating records**. Its full expansion and organization chart were not recovered; retain the acronym without inventing an approved expansion.

## Geography and scene anchors

The initial focus is Oʻahu, not a replacement set of invented islands. Broader Hawaiʻi remains available as the campaign expands. Real locations retain their real names and geography. Do not attach the former archipelago's settlement claims, island count, flag registry, closed island, invented history or inevitable inundation to Hawaiʻi.

| Real anchor | Fictional scene use |
|---|---|
| Honolulu Harbor | Cargo handoffs, conflicting arrival records, emergency allocation decisions. |
| Kalaeloa Barbers Point Harbor | A second harbor anchor for fuel/logistics pressure and mismatched dispatch records. |
| Daniel K. Inouye International Airport | Passenger/cargo disruptions, contradictory clearances and the airport side of Branch Event One. |
| Campbell Industrial Park | Fictional contractor offices, inventory checks and competing priority requests. |
| H-1 | The human consequences of disrupted movement: missed shifts, delayed deliveries and changed routes. |
| Sand Island | Fictional workshop, warehouse and recovery scenes tied to the harbor investigation. |
| Pearl Harbor | The military/federal interface in the fictional emergency storyline; distinguish it from civilian harbors. |

No precise sensitive layouts, routing guarantees, travel times or fictional facility addresses are asserted. New businesses and interiors are clearly fictional. The public board is a selectable location index; it is not a navigational chart.

## People and institutions

People have agency beyond their function in a crisis: family, work, disagreements, loyalties and ordinary ambitions. Do not force a common birthplace, ancestry or childhood onto player characters. A crew can be connected by work, family, a neighborhood, a previous incident or the September response.

Established institutional roles: emergency coordination and security; the fictional JIITG program; a Hawaiʻi observer cell; logistics and communications workers; community and household networks. Do not invent later named factions as previously approved canon.

Adapted fictional supporting cast: Halloran & Vey is an investigative/loss-adjustment firm; Otty keeps its records; Mrs. Ansel handles its fictional contract access. Transpelagic and Halcyon Vitality are fictional contractors used in existing cases, not claims about real companies. Their personnel and premises are invented. “Grandmother” remains an unexplained voice, not a specified cultural or religious figure.

## How the horror works at the table

- Show a record, a person, a time and a discrepancy. Avoid explaining the cosmic layer.
- Distinguish a prediction, an observed branch, and an established event. Record who knew each one.
- Once a fact is established through play, do not silently erase it to make the GM's preferred future occur.
- An intervention can work locally while shifting costs elsewhere. Show evidence of the displacement; do not make every success meaningless.
- Helpful voices and practical assistance may remain genuinely helpful. The old blanket rule that every forecast/help is globally correct no longer applies.
- Keep the **Theorize** engine: the table determines case truths through play. That does not rewrite the approved setting chronology or force an answer to what The Sounding is.

## Rules continuity

Keep existing move math, playbook mechanics, Static, Bonds, Bleed and the eight-segment Aperture unless separately revised. **Take a Sounding** remains the move name. “Off soundings” may remain character language, not an invented fact about Hawaiʻi folklore. The Aperture tracks branch intrusion across a season, not an island count. Its existing case/claimed/failed-Theorize triggers remain; community record loss matters only when fiction and the established GM trigger justify it.

No automatic evacuation of Hawaiʻi, island depopulation, missing numbered island, mandatory sea-level collapse or preset finale. A local evacuation can be an outcome of a played case, never a prewritten universal cure. Any optional capacity rule must be scoped to that scene and disclosed before choices it prices.

## Lifepath integration

Origin → Career → Incident → Fallout. Choose direction → roll → choose a consequence → record the change. Rolls shape history and consequences; playbook selection remains free. Previous life can predate September 2026 without implying the emergency program already existed. A path spanning Observer Trials is a later-start option, not the only opening date.

Store scenario date, phase date, source/visibility of each branch record, recurring people, obligations, known consequences and unresolved hooks. Later events cannot be available in an earlier-start path. Do not silently resolve constitutional outcomes or fragmentation through a random table.

## What is still open

Exact later campaign-present year; fragmentation date and form; full JIITG name; later factions; exact Sounding event; detailed lifepath tables and numeric balance. These are specific unknowns, not reasons to restore the superseded setting.

## Real-world anchors and sources

Checked 2026-09-22. Sources verify geography/names only, not fictional crises:
- [HDOT Harbor Users](https://hidot.hawaii.gov/harbors/harbor-users/) identifies Honolulu Harbor and Kalaeloa Barbers Point Harbor in its Oʻahu district.
- [Daniel K. Inouye International Airport](https://airports.hawaii.gov/hnl/) identifies the airport in Honolulu on Oʻahu.
- [Pearl Harbor National Memorial](https://www.nps.gov/perl/index.htm) provides a real-place reference distinct from the fictional program.
Other anchor names are carried from the user's chosen geography; verify specific addresses/layouts against official sources before adding them. No current-news claim is needed to establish the fictional September Compression.