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Authority
Intimidate the public. Assert yourself.
Cool for leaders, experts of psychological warfare, respect-junkies.
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Authority urges you to assert and reassert your dominance over those around you. It enables you to understand the power dynamics of groups of thugs, know how far you can push a perpetrator, and how to establish control of situations.
At high levels, Authority demands respect; even a perceived slight could send you into knee-breaking mode. With low Authority, however, you're forever in awkward situations —- like when you suffer psychological breakdowns after you yell at teenagers and they laugh at you.
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Empathy
Understand others. Work your mirror neurons.
Cool for judges of character, interviewers, interrogators.
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Empathy breaks into the souls of others and forces you to feel what's inside. It enables you to notice social cues others may miss: perhaps a hidden sadness you could coax out a little more, a strange joy from someone who should be bereaved, or a hidden resentment that could return to harm you later.
At high levels, Empathy really puts you in other people's shoes. You'll cry for their sorrows, punch walls to relieve their angers, and be an even more unstable cop. With low Empathy, however, you'll be an ungainly beast unable to talk to anyone without upsetting them.
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Esprit de Corps
Connect to Station 41. Understand cop culture.
Cool for cops, cop-aficionados, pretend-cops.
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Esprit de Corps is the very spirit of policing: the cop-geist. It enables you to understand your blue-souled sisters and brothers —- not only by picking up subtle signals from your partner, but by witnessing flash-sideways scenes as they play out in your precinct.
At high levels, you'll be the very heart of the police force: not only willing and able but obliged to take a bullet for your partner. However, without Esprit de Corps you'll be flying blind, unable to understand discreet remarks colleagues make in high-stakes situations; remarks that might just save your life.
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Inland Empire
Hunches and gut feelings. Dreams in waking life.
Cool for dreamers, para-natural investigators, mental creators.
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Inland Empire is the unfiltered wellspring of imagination, emotion, and foreboding. It enables you to grope your way through invisible dimensions of reality, gaining insight into that which sight can't see. What's really going? What do these enigmatic riddles mean for the world-fate?
At high levels, Inland Empire animates the inanimate. You'll have conversations with your clothing, conversations that may change the course of the investigation if you're not thrown in the loony bin first. With low Inland Empire, however, you'll be void of imagination —- and character. And then how will you shape the cosmos?
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Suggestion
Charm men and women. Play the puppet=master.
Cool for diplomats, charmers, sociopaths.
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Suggestion urges a soft-power approach. If people think they want what you want, you've already won. This skill enables you to implant ideas into the minds of others. You can make the citizens like you more. You can make gangsters turn on each other, too; many crime-rings have been broken by just a little doubt, after all.
At high levels, Suggestion makes you affable to everyone and more resistant to their charms in turn. But all that schmoozing and oozing charm will make you slimy. And you'll know it, even if no one else does. With low levels of Suggestion, though, you'll have difficulty getting any kind of rapport with others. You'll be alone, both during the day and at night.
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Volition
Hold yourself together. Keep your Morale up.
Cool for sane people, well-adjusted cops, the non-suicidal.
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Volition urges you to be a good guy —- to others and to yourself. It enables you to resist temptation: be it in a bottle, between a pair of legs, or at the end of an iron barrel that promises oblivion. Volition gives you the will to finish the investigation, improving your Morale —- one of the two health pools in the game.
At high levels, Volition makes you hyper-sane. When you're about to get funky, it keeps you normal. It's a bit of a party-pooper. At low levels, however, you'll have little Morale. Without it, you'll be a profoundly unstable cop, falling apart at the seams as you make irreversible mistakes.
