`Sim::current_nudge` checked `act_one_complete` immediately after the game-over guard and returned unconditionally, so a latched act permanently suppressed PilotAtRisk, Underfed, NeedCompute, and SuspicionCooling. Guidance went silent exactly at the climax, including while the day job walked toward the fourth strike that ends the run. The check now sits below the survival block and above `Eyes`: the completion cue is a standing state that retires the Act One ladder it sits on top of (including QuietExitReady, which must never re-advertise a crossed boundary) and yields to every urgent diagnosis above it. Defense: implements the survival-first ordering the function's own doc comment already claimed — the day-job cover is the loss condition, so a starving band outranks progression — and closes the first of the two defects `wiki/gameplay/act-one.md` recorded against the shipped quiet exit in its "Ending Act One" section. That page is amended to state the new precedence and now names only the remaining single-human predicate defect; `wiki/mechanics/sim-mechanics.md` places ActOneComplete at its real position in the guidance chain, and `wiki/interface/narration.md` binds that the shared survival interrupts still outrank the persistent ACT ONE COMPLETE line. `a_closed_act_one_still_yields_to_the_survival_rungs` pins every rung of that block against a latched act. Observed in the agent frontend under `tools/observed-run.sh`: one save with `act_one_complete` and three strikes reads `now: ACT ONE COMPLETE` on a pre-fix binary and `now: PILOT 3/4 — next miss ends` on this one.