Introduction & Opening Frame¶
This page covers everything that happens before and around the first episode: the setup in Mission Control, the premise as your students will meet it, the FALX Terminal, and your two live moments as the Agent. All of it runs at the top of Period 1, and the class comes out the other side in Ep. 1: The Caucasus.
Before the First Session¶
Create your cohort in Mission Control as an Operation FALX curriculum (the choice is set once at creation and cannot be changed afterward), create the characters (one of the eight Recentius personas per team of three to four students), and create and assign your operatives. The teams meet their Recentii in the fiction during the first session, so the assignments should exist before the class walks in. Distribute operative codes at whatever moment suits your classroom; the dossiers become meaningful once the first Latinity Points (LP) land.
The Premise, As Students Meet It¶
Students believe they are starting the Operation LAPIS tutorial. The console is branded OP. LAPIS and never shows them the FALX name, so the day should feel like the easy first day of a training program until, partway through, the Demiurge's transmission breaks in: the TSTT is coming apart at its foundation, there is no time left, and the untrained recruits are going in now. Don't preview any of it, because the interruption only works once, and it works best on a room that believed in the tutorial.
One framing rule holds from this moment through the whole curriculum: the stakes live inside the machine. What is endangered is the world the TSTT models and holds, never the students' real lives, and every account of the danger locates it there ("the world we keep here," "nothing left in here to learn from"). If a nervous student asks directly, the honest answer is that nothing in the machine can follow them home.
The FALX Terminal¶
The opening frame is delivered through the FALX Terminal, an interactive set piece styled as a 1960s console. Run it full-screen on the projector and let the boot sequence and the start of the tutorial play. From there the Demiurge's transmission breaks in with the crisis briefing, and the terminal holds for your first live moment (the Advocacy, below). His concession then rolls straight into your second (the Room Decides, below), the final order plays, and the frame ends on a single word of Latin, "Ite," followed by a white flood and a green ITE switch that carries the class into the first immersion at the Caucasus.
A final terminal returns at Period 15 for the Demiurge's debrief, the reward, and the invitation to re-enlist in Operation LAPIS.
The Agent's Role¶
The terminal delivers the Demiurge; you are the live human layer. At two points the console pauses and waits for you, and you step out from behind it as an in-fiction character: the operative who advocates for this cohort and then goes in with them.
One rule holds the whole scene together: you argue, and you do not win. The Demiurge hears you, agrees that you are right, and sends the students anyway. You are modeling a trusted adult who fights for the kids, can't get them out of the hard thing, and chooses to walk into it beside them; if you "win," the mission has no reason to start and the frame collapses. So advocate with real feeling, then accept the answer and stand with them, because the acceptance is what you give the room.
Both moments follow, each with a full memorizable script and a beats-only version for improvising off your actual room.
Pause Point 1 — The Advocacy
What the moment is doing. The crisis briefing has just ended on "I know what you are going to say. Say it.", and the terminal holds on an "awaiting agent" line. You turn from the screen and speak to the unseen Demiurge on your students' behalf: these are children, they haven't finished training, and this isn't fair to them. You mean it. Then you press the yellow advance switch, and the Demiurge answers: he agrees with you, overrules you, and promises you will go with them.
Full script (memorizable):
(Turn from the screen to the class. Drop your voice. You are arguing with someone with far more authority than you, and you are doing it anyway.)
"Wait. Wait. You can't be serious. These are recruits. They walked in this morning to start the tutorial. Half of them don't know how to move their own Recentius across a room yet, never mind anything past it.
You wrote the rules. You wrote the one that says nobody goes into the deep past until they're ready. And now the first time it actually matters, you want to throw that rule out and send in the children?
(beat)
They are not ready. I am telling you, to your face, they are not ready. And I am not going to pretend otherwise just because you're in a hurry."
(Press the yellow ADVANCE switch. The Demiurge replies on screen; read it, or let a student read it, and let it land. He concedes that you are right, lifts the rule anyway because the world will not wait, and promises you go where they go. Then, quieter; the fight is over and you lost, and you are deciding what to do about it:)
"...All right. All right. I argued. He heard me. We're going anyway.
But you heard him too. I'm coming with you. Wherever this puts you, I'm there. I'm not sending you anywhere I'm not standing myself."
Beats-only version (improv): genuine alarm the moment the briefing ends (they just got here; they haven't trained); name the broken rule (he wrote it himself); plant your flag without hedging (they are not ready, and I won't pretend they are); press advance and let the concede-and-overrule land; then lose, and choose: you argued, you lost, you're going anyway, and you are going with them. That last line is the one that matters.
What not to do. Do not let the Demiurge appear to change his mind because of you; he decided before you spoke. Do not reassure the students it will be easy or safe; your comfort is presence, not false safety. Do not rush past the promise that you go with them: it is the emotional hinge of the opening, and it pays off thirty seconds later.
Pacing note. After you press yellow to release the Demiurge's reply, the concession auto-plays and rolls straight into Pause Point 2; the blue and white switches light without another press. Deliver "I'm coming with you" and go straight into asking the room how it feels.
Pause Point 2 — The Room Decides How It Feels
What the moment is doing. You ask the students, in effect: he is sending us in now, with no training; how do we feel about that? The room reacts, and you read which way it leans. This is the one place students appear to steer the story. The truth, which they never need to know: they are not voting on whether to go. They are revealing how they feel about going, and the Demiurge meets the feeling. Either way, they go. The choice is real, but it is emotional, not plot-level, and that is exactly the kind of choice this curriculum trusts them with.
The hidden mechanism. Two switches light and pulse: blue and white. The students see two glowing switches and no words. Only you know the mapping: blue means the room is uncertain or afraid (nervous, hesitant, quiet); white means the room is eager (excited, loud, "send us in"). There is no wrong choice and no way for the room to see the fork. If the class is truly split, lean blue: the reassurance plays fine to eager kids, whereas the eager reply can feel dismissive to a nervous one.
Full script (memorizable):
(Turn to the class. This one is a real question, and you actually want their answer.)
"Okay. You heard him. No tutorial. No training. He's sending us into the oldest part of the whole machine, right now, today, to chase down whatever broke it.
So I want to hear it from you. Knowing all that... how are we feeling about this?"
(Genuinely let them answer; take a few voices. Then read the room and press blue or white. The Demiurge answers what they just felt.)
If you pressed white (eager), the Demiurge tells them they said yes before they knew what it would cost, and that when it gets hard, they should remember they chose it. Add one human line on top, lightly, almost a warning you don't fully understand yourself: "...He's right, you know. Remember that you said yes. That might matter later."
If you pressed blue (uncertain), the Demiurge tells them their fear is good, because it means they understand what he is sending them into, and to look to their left and right: every one of them goes where they go, and they are not alone. Add one steady line to the nervous room: "Look around. He means it. You're not doing this alone, and neither am I. Scared is fine. Scared and together, we can work with."
Either way: turn back to the screen, press advance to take the final order (find what was taken, set the story back where it begins, and come home), and then the last word, "Ite." The screen floods white and the green ITE switch wakes. Press it to cross over.
What not to do. Do not tell the students what the switches mean or that there is a fork; the magic is that the Demiurge seems to hear the room, and a visible menu kills it. Do not overrule the room's real mood to get the reply you would prefer. Do not undercut a nervous room with forced cheerfulness; the Demiurge validates the fear rather than erasing it, and so should you.
Crossing Over¶
The ITE switch lands the class in the cold of the Caucasus, inside Recentii they have never played, with a man in a blue toga sitting on a boulder nearby. From here, continue with Ep. 1: The Caucasus, where the immersion prompts, the session workflow, and the sample in-character replies pick up the story.
Next: Ep. 1: The Caucasus