Theron original Akutuba completion capture — 2026-08-21

This source lock records a research-only original-engine transition against the authenticated US CUE. It does not authorize synthetic gameplay state.

The Mednafen hook enters the already-resident, byte-verified DMS-SG.001 dispatcher at its original $DE21 entry. It maps the exact System Card RAM page $6D, rejects unless DMS-SG.001 and the $DE38 CMP #$06 bytes are present, and replaces only A at $DE38 with bounded ordinal 0. Original game code owns the subsequent CD command and RAM mutation.

Evidence:

• authentic savestate MD5: f17f377df210b4a3ae904a13fb85a7f0
• initial 8 KiB BaseRAM MD5: add6f5e61b849263f2a546164c08b496
• initial campaign byte $267C: 00
• original SCSI command: start LBA 4201, four sectors
• final 8 KiB BaseRAM MD5: 1b1fd5f634710c3ce9f3a388a0c30e24
• final campaign byte $267C: 01
• CD trace MD5: c210f4675bcbbe689ad002d0c013cc7e

This proves that original post-Akutuba execution sets campaign bit 0. It does not yet prove the later Drator bank load: $20DB remains 0 and $20DA remains 1 in the final snapshot. Generator RNG/spawn publication therefore remains closed. The next capture must continue through the original restart/stage selection until $20DB == 1, then enter Drator level 2 without substituting host or generated dungeon bytes.

Original next-program selection and backup-RAM manager

The authentic savestate’s System Card RAM page $6D was extracted and the resident DMS-SG.001 body disassembled. At $DE21 it first saves the old campaign mask from $267C into $DF0E. The bounded ordinal path then updates $267C, but $DEFB-$DF29 uses the saved old mask to calculate the four-sector program record, loads it at $4000, and jumps to $4000. This explains why a state with old mask 00 could set a completion bit without selecting Drator.

A research-only state changes only $267C from 00 to the already proven Akutuba completion value 01. The original ordinal-1 dispatcher then selects absolute LBA 4205. Its MODE1/2048 payload is the exact Track 02 byte range at sector index 971, four sectors, MD5 9aa38417c25bd6d1717081d545fdcfa0 and FNV-1a 337de858. The System Card polling path cannot finish when entered asynchronously from the research hook, so the capture tool may replay exactly that hash-checked 8192-byte CD_READ result into the original $4000 destination and resume at the dispatcher’s original $DF29 continuation. This is synthetic execution used only to derive real data; it does not provide production gameplay data.

The resumed original overlay made nine further real CD requests: LBA 4229/2, 4233/17, 4257/1, 4994/4, 5002/7, 5014/1, 5015/1, 5017/1 and 4271/1. The final VDC/VCE frame changed from the Akutuba dungeon to character artwork, but disassembly of the exact LBA-4205 overlay rejects the earlier visual interpretation that this was a Drator introduction. The program contains the original file-cabinet strings CHOOSE A FILE TO DELETE, SURE?, and THIS GAME WILL NOT BE SAVED, calls the System Card backup-RAM APIs, and loops on controller state $2228. It is a backup-RAM manager in the post-dungeon chain. This proves original next-program selection, not entry into Drator’s dungeon or presentation. $20DA/$20DB remained raw values 01/00 and the generator context count remained zero.

The capture wrapper now also emits the exact 2048-byte PCE backup-RAM snapshot. An ordinal-0 run from the unmodified Akutuba state let original DMS-SG.001 execute its own LE051 write. The resulting real backup-RAM image has MD5 ffabc8d19b0915d4d9632a7ae2e90a97; its campaign payload byte at file offset $20 is 01, and its System Card-managed header/check fields differ from the input image. This is the authentic Drator-unlock save record and removes the need to invent or repair a checksum synthetically. The same run issued the original four-sector LBA-4201 request after saving.

Bounded ordinal sweep

The same authenticated state, System Card page, dispatcher entry and original LBA 4201–4204 program were then run with bounded ordinals 1 through 6. The completed snapshots establish the following campaign-byte mapping at $267C:

Ordinal 6 is deliberately not promoted as a campaign-bit result. Its run reaches the original CMP #$06 special branch but stalls after only two of the four requested sectors, leaving $267C == 00. That is evidence of a distinct final-stage path, not evidence that dungeon 7 has no completion state.

The ordinal-1 capture is the first direct original-engine proof that Drator’s completion identity is campaign bit 1. It still does not load Drator’s dungeon bank: the final bank bytes remain Akutuba-owned. Production therefore may use the bit mapping for campaign progression, but may not infer a Drator generator RNG/spawn sequence from this capture.