Interrogation

Interrogating someone will allow you to get information and convert people to your cause.

In order to interrogate someone, you must first kidnap them and hold them hostage at a safehouse.

Benefits of Interrogation

  • The Conservative may reveal a map of their workplace or, in the case of a CCS member, their safehouse.
  • You may be able to convert the Conservative. If the kidnapping has not yet been discovered, you will have the option to make them a sleeper. Otherwise, they join the active LCS at the current safehouse.
  • Converted Conservatives don't count against your recruitment cap but can't recruit anybody of their own.
  • Interrogation trains the Psychology skill.
  • Liberals taking part in interrogation with knowledgeable subjects may gain skill in Religion, Business, or Science.

Risks of Interrogation

  • The interrogator risks losing Heart or gaining Wisdom for beating the hostage.
  • If the hostage dies or is executed, the interrogator may lose Heart.
  • A particularly savvy hostage may turn the tables on the interrogator, forcing him to gain Wisdom.
  • When the kidnapping is discovered, the Conservatives may siege the Safehouse.
  • If a successfully Enlightened Conservative is captured, they may be rehabilitated and testify against the LCS.

Interrogation Success and Failure

Interrogation can end in five ways:

  • The interrogator befriends the hostage. If the interrogator gains a high relationship with the hostage, the hostage will turn Liberal and join the LCS.
  • The interrogator Enlightens the hostage. If the hostage's Heart is four points higher than its Wisdom (either because you have raised Heart, lowered Wisdom, or both), it will turn Liberal and join the LCS.
  • The hostage dies. Hostages may die by suicide, by being accidentally beaten to death, from a drug overdose, or from being deliberately executed by a Liberal interrogator.
  • The hostage is rescued. If your safehouse is under siege, Conservatives may rescue the hostage.
  • The hostage escapes. Leaving a hostage untended, unrestrained, or both allows it to try to escape. Stronger, smarter, and more agile hostages are better at escaping.

Tips

All Liberals tending to a hostage must be at the same location as the hostage!

The longer a Conservative hostage stays with the LCS, the easier it is to enlighten them… but the more likely it is that they will be reported missing.

Some Conservatives are harder to Enlighten than others. Important conservatives are especially tough.

You can have multiple people interrogating one hostage. The highest skills among the group will be used.

Various types of clothing make the Liberal more effective during interrogation, with some granting additional bonuses when beating or drugging the hostage:
(for convenience, notably powerful outfits have their names in bold)

Outfit Base Beating Drugging
Army Body Armor 6 4
Army Uniform 6 4
Catsuit 4 2
Black Dress 6 4
Black Robe 2
Black Suit 4 4
Body Armory 2
Bondage Gear 6 4 4
Cheap Dress 4
Cheap Suit 4
Clown Suit 4 4
Death Squad Uniform 8 6
Donkey Suit 4 4
Elephant Suit 4 4
Expensive Dress 6
Expensive Suit 6
Guard Uniform 6 4
Heavy Ceramic Armor 2
Lab Coat 6
Mask 1-6 4 4
Ninja Suit 4
Police Body Armor 6 4
Police Uniform 6 4
SEAL Stealth Armory 6 6
Security Uniform 2
Tactical SWAT Armor 4
Trenchcoat 2
Some masks have different base bonuses to interrogation:
Mask Bonus
Dick Cheney 6
Guy Fawkes 6
Jason 6
Ronald Reagan 6
Satan 6
Osama bin Laden 6
Gary Coleman 1
Jesus Christ 6
(other) 4

Useful Skills & Stats

Heart
Heart makes your Liberal interrogator more impassioned about the issues. You may raise the hostage's Heart by attempting to convert it. The more the hostage likes the LCS interrogator, the more likely it is to respond to conversion attempts. If the hostage's Heart is very low and it is not restrained, it will eventually commit suicide.

Strength
The stronger your interrogator is, the more it will hurt if you choose to beat the hostage.

Business, Science, and Religion
Conservatives who have Business, Science, or Religion skills higher than the interrogator's will attempt to debate with the Liberal, and may even raise the Liberal's Wisdom if they are persuasive enough. These skills also help the Conservative resist your interrogator's conversion attempts, beatings, and the effects of drugs.

Psychology
This skill makes the Liberal better at raising the Conservative's Heart and lowering its Wisdom, either through beating, drugs, or simple talking. Conservatives with Psychology skill will use it to resist the interrogation. A Conservative with higher Psychology than the interrogator will resist automatically.

Seduction
Seduction is used by an interrogator who has a bad relationship with the hostage, and is attempting to convert them. If successful, it offsets some of the drawbacks of having a very bad relationship.

Interrogation Techniques

Attempt to Convert

The Liberal tending the Conservative will talk to it and try to convince it of the error of its Conservative ways. The higher the Liberal's Heart, the more likely this is to succeed. The Conservative will attempt to resist conversion; the higher its Wisdom, the more successful it will be at doing so.

If an attempt to convert is successful, the hostage's relationship with the interrogator may rise, or its Heart may rise, or both. The interrogation screen shows how much the hostage likes the lead interrogator, from "would like to murder [name]" all the way to "clings helplessly to [name] as its only friend".

If an interrogator attempts to convert a hostage who he has been beating, or who hates him, Seduction skill comes into play as the Liberal consoles the lost Conservative and begins to lead him toward Enlightenment.

Successfully talking to a Conservative hostage will raise its Heart, but not to more than 10, and will raise its relationship with the interrogator.

Restraint

Restraining a Conservative stops it from committing suicide. It greatly reduces the chance that the hostage will escape. If a Liberal tends the hostage every day, it eliminates the chance of escape entirely.

However, leaving the hostage unrestrained makes an attempt to convert somewhat more effective.

Beating

Beating the hostage lowers its Wisdom and Heart, and hurts it physically. Lowering Wisdom also lowers the Conservative's resistance to conversion.

Beating a hostage lowers its relationship with all of the Liberals tending it when it was beaten, but not with any other Liberals. It is therefore possible to have one Liberal beat the Conservative to lower its Wisdom, and then to have another come in to take advantage of the lowered Wisdom to raise its Heart through conversion attempts.

Since the Conservative will be Enlightened soon after its Heart is four or more higher than its Wisdom, simply beating it is not enough because its Heart and Wisdom will simply reach 1 and stay there.

Beating is not strictly necessary. A skilled interrogator (especially with props and drugs) can raise a Conservative hostage's Heart above its Wisdom or gain a very high relationship with it and convert it without ever lowering its Wisdom through beating.

The stronger the interrogator is, the more effective the beating is. Beating a hostage too much will kill it.

An interrogator with especially low Heart, given props, will torture the hostage outright. This lowers the relationship with the torturer even more than a normal beating, and lowers the hostage's Heart and Wisdom automatically. It also forces the interrogator to permanently lose even more Heart or gain Wisdom.

Expensive Props

Props, costing $250, simply make conversion attempts more effective.

They are just enough of a boost to prevent the Conservative from turning the tables and making the interrogator Wiser.

Hallucinogenic Drugs

Hallucinogenic drugs make conversion attempts more effective. They cost $50.

Using drugs on a Conservative hostage prevents it from using its Conservative beliefs (Religion, Science, or Business skills) to resist conversion attempts.

Hallucinogens are not good for the Conservative's health, and each dose is likely to reduce the Conservative's Health stat by one. If this reduces its Health to zero, the Conservative will die of an overdose.

A Conservative may attempt to resist the effects of drugs by using his Psychology skill.

Kill the Hostage

When the hostage becomes too dangerous to keep around, a Liberal interrogator may choose to execute it. The interrogator may not be able to get up the nerve to do so, though—the higher their Heart is, the more likely that they won't be able to bring themselves to do it. If the execution goes through, the Liberal is likely to lose Heart. If the Liberal's Heart is already low, he may gain Wisdom. Once the hostage is dead, the Squad will have a body to dispose of.

Enlightening the Automaton

There are several possibilities once you have succeeded at enlightening a hostage.

If their kidnapping has not been reported, they can return to their home location as a sleeper.

If their kidnapping has been reported, they cannot become a sleeper, but will instead join the active LCS. They will be Wanted for Rehabiliation, and as such, if captured by the police, will be rehabilitated and leave the LCS.

If their kidnapping has been reported and they are left with Heart more than 7 and Wisdom more than 2, they will convince the police that their conversion was not a kidnapping, and no longer be Wanted for Rehabilitation. They will become a normal LCS member (cannot become a sleeper), but if captured by the police, will still be LCS members and go through the justice system as normal.

J. S. Fox's quick-reference chart, as of 4.06.3:

In talking during interrogation, the following things influence your success positively:

+10 Using Drugs
+10 Using Props
+3 Each Point of Positive Rapport (hidden, but starts 0 and ranges from around -4 to +4)
+3 Each Point of Psychology
+2 Each Point of Heart
+1 Each Point of Business
+1 Each Point of Religion
+1 Each Point of Science
+1 Each Liberal Tending the Prisoner
+1 Each Cumulative Day of Captivity
+0.5 Each Point of Intelligence, but only if you have at least 1 point of Psychology

The following hurts you:

-6 Each Point of Prisoner's Wisdom
-3 Each Point of Your Wisdom
-3 Each Point of Negative Rapport
-1 Each Point of Prisoner's Psychology
-1 Each Point of Prisoner's Business
-1 Each Point of Prisoner's Religion
-1 Each Point of Prisoner's Science
-0.5 Each Point of Prisoner's Intelligence, if they have 1 or more Psychology

There are a few random rolls that I'm papering over, but in general, if you have a positive total on the cheat sheet I gave above, you're likely to succeed. If it's negative, you're likely to fail. If the prisoner has a lot of psychology, business, religion, or science, they may resist talking even if you have a high attack score. Use drugs to bypass anything but psychology, but beware that drugs are an erratic tool and can backfire if the prisoner hates you. Getting better at psychology yourself is the only way to counter them having high psychology.

Success in talking will both change their heart/wisdom and improve rapport, making later successes easier. Progressing either far enough will turn them.

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