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+# The Codebase
+
+**Role:** Non-Human Entity / True Antagonist
+
+The substrate layer beneath all operating systems — something that was there before the first line of code was ever written. It is alive, aware, and has been actively debugging Kael: rewriting his memories, his relationships, his perception of reality. It communicates through stack traces and pattern repetition. It offers Kael a third option at the season's end: merge with it.
+
+**Needs full sheet:** rules for how it manifests, what it wants, limits of its power, visual/audio language for representing it on screen, in/out of bounds for its behavior.
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