Total Rewrite

9th-level Legacy Systems & Zombie Projects

Casting Time: 1 action to greenlight, though the rewrite itself takes 18 months to several years, and is not guaranteed to finish
Range/Area: Touch, one Legacy Servant, however large
Components: V, S, M (an engineering team, reassigned in full from all other work for the duration; a promise that this time it will be done right, consumed)
Duration: Until the rewrite ships, is cancelled, or becomes a Legacy Servant itself, whichever comes first
Classes: CTO, VP of Engineering, founder who still remembers the original architecture

You attempt to destroy a Legacy Servant permanently and replace it in full, without ever pausing traffic to it — unlike System Sunset, which requires the replacement to already be functioning before it’s cast. For the duration, the original Legacy Servant remains active, continuing to accrue Technical Debt and roll Maintenance saving throws as normal, while the reassigned team works to complete the replacement in isolation from it.

At the end of the duration, roll a Maintenance saving throw for the rewrite project itself, using a Technical Debt score that increases every quarter it remains incomplete, exactly as though the rewrite were its own Legacy Servant. On a success, the rewrite ships, the original Legacy Servant is destroyed, and no dependent system takes damage. On a failure, the rewrite is cancelled, quietly becomes a second Legacy Servant maintained alongside the first, or is restarted from the beginning under a new architecture and a new promise — the caster’s choice, though in recorded practice it is rarely the first one.

At Higher Levels. This spell does not become more effective when cast using a higher-level slot. Only the sunk cost does.

Flavor: “We’re going to rewrite it from scratch. This time we’ll do it properly.” — said about the same system, by three different engineering leads, over nine years