Reserve pets
Reserve Pets
Reserve Pets are pets kept outside the active front line. They may act as backups, successors, or lower-pressure colony members depending on the system.
Why Reserves Matter
A colony can be fragile if every important task depends on one pet. Reserve pets help provide backup when an active pet dies, becomes unavailable, or needs to be moved out of danger.
Reserve Successors
A reserve successor can help prevent a colony from collapsing when the active pet is lost. The exact succession rules depend on the active colony systems, but the key idea is simple: keep a valid living backup.
Unavailable Reserves
A reserve is not useful if they cannot actually act. A pet may fail reserve or successor checks if they are:
- Dead.
- Too young or invalid for the role.
- Pregnant, quarantined, sick, injured, starving, dehydrated, exhausted, or otherwise unavailable.
- Blocked by a system-specific rule.
Reserves and Collapse
If there is no valid living pet to continue the colony, the colony may risk collapse or ruins. Read Colony Collapse and Ruins.
Reserves Are Not Storage Objects
Reserve pets are still living pets. They can age, become sick, die, have needs, or be affected by major systems.
Related Pages
Echo Note - Recovery reserves
Reserve pets can help with recovery only if they are alive and eligible. A reserve who is sick, dead, too young, starving, dehydrated, exhausted, quarantined, pregnant, or busy may not be able to take over.
~Echo