ORIENTATION PACKET
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Census Black is best read as a sequence of recovered files. The archive begins controlled and becomes less able to preserve clean categories as the entities accumulate.
How to read
Read the entries in the official reading order first. The drops introduce the thirteen entities. The interludes show what those entities do to the archive between major files.
Use the Archive Index if you want the immersive file-browser feel. Use Reading Order if you want the cleanest route through the series.
Recommended path: Drop 01, Interlude 01, Drop 02, Interlude 02, then forward in sequence until Drop 13.
What kind of story is this?
It is a decentralized horror mythos. The closest protagonist is the archive itself. The closest final antagonist is The Crown, the convergence point that makes the earlier entities feel like organs of a larger terminal condition.