Directive 2: Include a Number (Hints & Answer)

Hint first (no full spoiler): The Committee accepts exactly ten symbols for this one, and you learned all of them before kindergarten.

Directive 2 requires your password to contain at least one digit, 0 through 9. The Committee has approved exactly ten symbols for this purpose and sees no reason to expand the list.

Words like seven do not count. The checker is looking for an actual digit character. Numerals only. Roman numerals are letters and the Committee treats them accordingly.

The full solution

Add a digit anywhere in your password. Position does not matter.

• potato7 (APPROVED)
• 9lives (APPROVED)
• Friday9!venus (APPROVED, and built to survive later audits)

The interesting question is not whether to add a digit but which digit. Two future directives care deeply about this choice:

1. Digits have sums, and those sums will be regulated.
2. One digit will eventually be declared contraband.

If you want a digit that pulls double duty now, 9 is a strong pick: it is a perfect square digit sum all by itself, which matters in about six directives.

Avoid leaning on a single digit repeated everywhere. When a digit gets exiled later, you want the eviction to be cheap.

What breaks later

Directive 2 never technically breaks, since removing all digits is rarely the problem. The problems are downstream:

• Directive 8 requires the sum of all your digits to be a perfect square (0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25…). Every digit you add from this point forward changes that sum. Choose digits like you are filing taxes, because you are.
• Directive 19 exiles one specific digit from your password entirely. If that digit appears in your carefully balanced sum, you will be re-balancing under pressure. Diversify your digits the way the Committee diversifies its filing cabinets.
• Rules 9, 10, 13, and 23 will each force new digits into your password whether you like it or not, and each arrival disturbs the digit sum again.

The pattern for the whole game starts here: a trivial requirement now becomes a constraint system later. Add your digit, note it in your personal ledger, and keep a mental running total of your digit sum from this moment on. The players who track it early do not panic in Act III.

Also worth a glance before you move on: Directive 6 will start policing your total length, and digits count toward it like everything else.

Stamp: APPROVED. Next window, please.

Stuck on a different directive? Browse all 30 rule guides or return to the vault. Fern believes in you.