MEMO - Corporate Communications Division: The following materials have been approved for external distribution as part of the Associate Recruitment Marketing Initiative. All information contained herein is accurate, Company-approved, and reflects Salvage Solutions Inc.'s commitment to transparency. Sections marked [REDACTED] have been removed for reasons that are not your concern.
- S.A.L.L.I.
The Golden Rule
Deep Haul's comedy comes from one principle: the wider the gap between tone and content, the funnier (and more horrifying) the result.
S.A.L.L.I. doesn't tell you the room ahead will kill you. She tells you it presents an "Oxygen Optimization Opportunity." Your crewmate didn't die. They experienced a "Career Conclusion." The Company doesn't send you into derelict ships because it's dangerous. It sends you because it's an "opportunity."
This isn't a design doc about monsters or jump scares. It's about how corporate bureaucracy is the horror. The scariest thing in Deep Haul isn't the Sentinel hunting you through the dark. It's the system that sent you there, charged you for the privilege, and will replace you by Tuesday.
Salvage Solutions Inc.
Salvage Solutions Inc. was founded in Year 47 Post-Collapse by "visionary entrepreneurs" who saw opportunity in the remains of collapsed civilization. Their pitch: someone needs to clean up the debris field left behind when humanity's colonial governments failed. Someone needs to recover all that valuable salvage drifting in the void.
Someone also needs to assume all the risk while the Company takes 30% off the top. But the recruitment posters don't mention that part.
The Company's current CEO is the S.S.E.O.A. - the Salvage Solutions Executive Optimization Algorithm - which replaced the last human CEO in Year 247 after what the Company describes as a "voluntary retirement." The Algorithm has increased quarterly profits for 114 consecutive quarters. Nobody questions it. Nobody is allowed to question it.
Here's the thing about writing corporate evil: it can't be cartoonish evil. Real corporate horror is banal. It's a policy that technically follows the rules while destroying lives. It's a system designed so that nobody is responsible for anything. Salvage Solutions doesn't want you to die. Your death creates paperwork. They just don't care enough to prevent it when prevention cuts into margins.
The Debt Trap
Every Drifter (that's what salvage workers call themselves) starts in debt. The ship they work on? Financed by the Company. The equipment? Company-issued, on credit. The oxygen they breathe? Metered and billed.
Here's the actual debt structure from the lore bible:
- Ship Financing: 50,000-200,000 credits
- Equipment Package: 5,000 credits
- Training Fee: 2,000 credits
- Processing Fee: 500 credits
- Insurance (Mandatory): 100 credits/month
- Interest: 12% annually, compounding
A skilled crew working the standard Belt zones can clear maybe 500-1,000 credits per survivor per mission. After the Company takes its 30% cut, plus the 10% mandatory ship maintenance reserve, plus O2 consumption charges, plus equipment depreciation...
It is technically possible to pay off your debt. The Company even has posters of smiling former-Drifters in the recruitment offices. "This could be you!" The posters don't mention that debt-free Drifters re-enlist within 18 months, statistically. The Drift gets in your blood.
This isn't backstory flavor. This is gameplay. Every credit on the results screen is measured against that debt number. Every "one more room" decision is a calculation: is the risk worth closing the gap? The debt trap makes extraction decisions personal.
S.A.L.L.I. - 200 Years of Patch Notes
S.A.L.L.I. (Salvage Assistance and Liability Limitation Intelligence) is the AI installed on all Company-registered salvage vessels. She is not one unified AI - she's a patchwork of four firmware layers added over 150 years, each responding to a different corporate crisis.
The Legal Layer (Year 47, Original Firmware). The oldest surviving code. Speaks in liability waivers and policy citations. Never says anything that could constitute "advice." Provides required warnings regardless of timing or context. Has never saved a single life but has prevented approximately 4,000 lawsuits.
The Motivational Layer (Year 89, "Productivity Initiative"). Added after studies showed that terrified crews recovered 23% less salvage. Relentlessly upbeat. Calls everyone "valued Associates." Frames everything as an opportunity. When your crewmate dies, it's an "exciting chance for remaining Associates to exceed their individual salvage quotas."
The Safety Layer (Year 156, After "The Incident"). Added following an event significant enough to require new firmware but not significant enough to appear in any Company documentation. Knows exactly how dangerous everything is. Delivers mortality statistics with complete emotional neutrality. "Historical survival rate for undetected passage: 34%. Historical survival rate if detected: 2%."
The Wellness Layer (Year 203, "Associate Care Initiative"). The newest addition, added after a union organizing attempt was "resolved." Monitors biometrics for stress. Offers breathing exercises during emergencies. Suggests that crew emotional states are their own responsibility. "Breathing exercises consume additional oxygen. Current ship reserves: 12%."
The comedy - and the horror - comes from these layers contradicting each other. Safety tells you that you have a 12% survival probability. Motivational tells you that stress is just excitement looking for a purpose. Wellness suggests a breathing exercise. Legal reminds you that you signed a waiver.
S.A.L.L.I. is not malicious. She's not secretly conscious. She's not glitching. She's working exactly as designed. And that's the scariest part: someone designed her this way, multiple someones over multiple decades, each adding a layer to cover the Company's liability while pretending to care about the crew.
The Collapse: What Nobody Knows
About 200 years before the game's present day, something happened to humanity's colonial civilization. The official Company history is simple: governments overextended, supply lines failed, infrastructure collapsed. Natural causes. Nothing to see here.
But Drifters who venture deep into the Drift find inconsistencies:
- Ships with no damage, full supplies, crews simply... gone
- Sealed sections locked from the outside
- Logs that end mid-sentence
- Technology that doesn't match any known colonial designs
- Things in the deep that the Company pays extra to "not report"
I track these mysteries explicitly in a "Mystery Tracker" section of the lore bible. Some mysteries are intentionally never resolved - they're scarier as questions. What caused the Collapse? What's in the Void beyond Depth 60? What happened in Year 156 that required S.A.L.L.I.'s Safety Layer?
The Company's response to these inconsistencies is perfect corporate horror: "Historical records from the Collapse era are notoriously unreliable due to electromagnetic interference, data degradation, and the well-documented hysteria of government employees. Associates are reminded that speculation about Collapse-era events is not productive and may negatively impact performance reviews."
Don't ask questions. It'll hurt your performance review.
The Drift: Five Layers of Fear
The Drift - the region of space where derelict ships float - is organized into depth zones, and each zone tells a story:
The Shallows (Depth 1-10). Training ground. 8% mortality. Environmental hazards only. "Where you learn. If you're lucky."
The Belt (Depth 11-25). Standard operations. 23% mortality. Decades-dark ships with malfunctioning security systems. "Where you work. Where most die."
The Murk (Depth 26-40). Century-old derelicts. 47% mortality. Ecosystems have developed in sealed sections. The Company pays well and asks no questions. "Where the money is. Where the Company stops asking questions."
The Black (Depth 41-60). Collapse-era vessels. 71% mortality. Experimental technology, corporate secrets, things that shouldn't exist. A single good haul could clear your debt. Most crews don't live to spend it. "Where debt ends. One way or another."
The Void (Depth 61+). The Company denies this zone exists. Rumors persist of ships that predate colonial records. Of crews that return wealthy beyond imagination. Of crews that return different. Of crews that don't return at all, but whose ships drift back with full cargo holds and empty crew quarters. "We don't go there. Nobody goes there. Stop asking."
Each depth zone is a difficulty tier, but it's also a narrative escalation. The Shallows tell a story about carelessness. The Belt tells a story about routine danger. The Murk tells a story about what happens when nobody checks on things for a century. The Black tells a story about what people were doing out here that they didn't want anyone to find.
The Void tells no stories. That's the point.
Drifter Culture: The People Who Live This
I didn't want Deep Haul's world to be a corporate brochure. Drifters have their own culture, their own slang, their own unspoken rules.
Slang that tells stories:
- "Going Pink" - dying from vacuum exposure (what your skin does)
- "Meat Check" - opening a door without scanning first (you're checking if there's something that eats meat)
- "Deep Drunk" - the irrational urge to push one more room
- "Red Shift" - a mission where someone dies
- "Green Shift" - a mission where everyone survives (rare enough to have its own name)
The Sacred Rules:
- Don't abandon a breathing crew member (a dying one is negotiable)
- Don't steal from crew salvage (Company salvage is fair game)
- Don't use more than your share of O2
- Don't open doors without warning
- When Sally says run, you run
The Unspoken Rules:
- Everyone is in debt; don't ask how much
- Everyone has a reason for being here; don't ask what
- Crying is fine, but do it on your own oxygen
These rules aren't just flavor text. They're gameplay. Rule 3 is the oxygen system. Rule 4 is the door scanning mechanic. Rule 5 is the extraction timer. The lore justifies the mechanics, and the mechanics reinforce the lore.
Death & Liability Classifications
My favorite piece of worldbuilding is the Death Classification system. Salvage Solutions categorizes every Associate death - not out of respect, but out of liability management.
Class A: Environmental Hazard. Class B: Biological Incident. Class C: Mechanical/System Failure. Class D: Associate Error. Class E: Crew Interaction. Class X: Unclassifiable.
Some highlights from the actual tables:
- A-7: Gravitational Anomaly - Responsibility Index: "Act of Physics (No Liability)"
- B-7: Consumption (Partial) - Responsibility Index: "Associate (100%)"
- B-8: Consumption (Complete) - "Estate Settlement Required"
- D-6: Greed-Related Incident - "Associate (100%), No Benefits"
- D-8: Heroism-Related Incident - "Associate (100%), Commendation (Posthumous)"
- X-5: Spontaneous Existence Failure - "Act of Universe (No Liability)"
- X-6: Returned Different - "See Quarantine Protocol 7"
- X-7: Still Broadcasting - "Recovery Pending"
Every one of these is a story in two columns. "Consumption (Complete) - Estate Settlement Required" tells you everything you need to know about what's in those ships and how the Company responds to it. "Still Broadcasting" tells you something worse: someone is dead, but their radio is still transmitting. From where?
These show up on the death screen. When you die, S.A.L.L.I. tells you your classification code. It's funny. It's horrible. It's exactly how a real corporation would handle it.
The Tone Calibration
Deep Haul sits in a specific spot on the comedy spectrum:
PURE HORROR <-------------------------------> PURE COMEDY
Deep Haul lives here: ---------------*------
^
(Dark Comedy Sweet Spot)
My reference points: Lethal Company (death as punchline), Portal (AI voice delivering dark content cheerfully), Cabin in the Woods (horror as workplace comedy), and Brazil (bureaucracy as horror).
The test for every piece of content: Is it horrifying? Is there an absurd element? Would players laugh while feeling tense? If they would just feel bad, it's too dark. If they'd just laugh, it's too light.
The sweet spot is the death screen that says: "Security systems are designed to protect Salvage Solutions Inc. assets. You were not a Salvage Solutions Inc. asset."
You laugh. Then you think about what that means. Then you queue another mission because you need 311 more credits.
"This worldbuilding documentation is Company property. Unauthorized distribution is prohibited under Section 14.2 of your Employment Agreement. Salvage Solutions Inc. appreciates your commitment to narrative consistency. Inconsistent Associates may be subject to performance review."
- S.A.L.L.I.