diff --git a/bin/dump-core b/bin/dump-core
index 885a99b6..be8375ac 100755
--- a/bin/dump-core
+++ b/bin/dump-core
@@ -30,15 +30,15 @@ mkdir -p var/dump
 
 # Make way for dump.  Ignore errors.
 rm var/dump/*.js || true
-rm core/core_[1-9]*.js || true
+rm core/core_[1-8]*.js || true
 rm database/core_*.js || true
 rm database/db_*.js || true
 
 # Get last .city file.
-city=$( (cd database && ls -1 *.city |tail  -1) )
+city=$( (cd database && ls -1 *.city |sort |tail  -1) )
 
 # Run dump.
 server/dump "database/${city}" core/dump_spec.json core
 
-# Link core file into database.
-(cd database && ln -s ../core/core*.js .)
+# Link core file into database, except core_99_startup.js
+(cd database && ln -s ../core/core_[0-8]*.js .)
diff --git a/core/core_99_startup.js b/core/core_99_startup.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..b9b3a2c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/core/core_99_startup.js
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+/**
+ * @license
+ * Copyright 2020 Google LLC
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+/**
+ * @fileoverview Start core database.  Note that, unlike most of the
+ * rest of the files in the core/ directory, this is hand-written.
+ *
+ * It assumed this file will be used when starting a full database
+ * dump; for that, a file in database/, generated by dump, will
+ * restart listeners intead.
+ */
+
+$.system.onStartup();
+$.tutorial.moveTo($.startRoom);
+$.pot.moveTo($.startRoom);
+$.seed.moveTo($.startRoom);
+$.thrower.moveTo($.startRoom);
+$.assistant.moveTo($.startRoom);