The informant

Trigger the living thread

Starting this living thread requires the ability to sabotage, unlocked in The Predecessor and The Village to have started, but also to have Tobias’ trust.

Steps

1. Build the trust

Wether the player interrupted Tobias or not, they need to show Tobias that their data can be trusted, with the condition that Tobias also needs to trust himself.

For the latter, it will require to rely on his data, wether they are correct or not. To ensure it will not make the character to be fired, we’ll say that Tobias’ numbers will be correct 75% of the time, and those differing from “official” sources will also occur 75% of the time.

Once Tobias’ trust is high enough, he’ll stop by the character’s desk and will thank them.

2. Unlock sabotaging

The next step is only available after finishing The Predecessor living thread, and sabotaging 3 files (Succeeding with the sabotages or not does not matter here)

Tobias will stop by the character’s desk and ask if they’re in the mood for a drink after work. The thing is Tobias will look extremely serious, more serious than a “normal” face.

3. Dreaded discussion

Tobias’ first words will be: “We need to talk”.

The discussion will contain the following informations:

• Tobias noticed. He noticed everything: using his data, wether they were good or bad, in situations where it made sense and other situations it would have been bold
• It made Tobias felt “seen”, serving some sort of purpose other than just doing what he was told
• Jelena didn’t trust too much in him, so while he was providing data, those were rarely used
• However, he realized that what was asked to the player was simply horrifying and didn’t want his data to be used to kill people and / or to steal resources from people more deserving
• But then he realized that the first missions failed because “someone” (eyebrow raised) from inside Pythia Solution didn’t agree with those practices either
• Big silence, then… “I don’t know how you do what you’re doing, but you need to keep doing this. I need you to keep doing this”.
• Basically, Tobias is too much of a coward to do what the character is doing, and is perfectly conscious and at peace about this. Plus his mother would worry knowing he does something this dangerous
• What he can do however, is to make deep analysis on a given file and give tips on how to jeopardize a file while making it look complete and correct
• He then makes the player promise that this deal never gets out of the bar

4. The gameplay

From then on, Tobias adds a new layer of gameplay to the run. It works as follows:

• Tobias will essentially provide directions rather than actual data, in order to make some sabotages possible.
• He will also give patterns on how to sabotage things to make sure they will always work, such as reducing a budget to ensure a mission will fail in the long run or provide the wrong equipment or the wrong medicine to the mercenaries so they are less efficient, etc
• His role will be essential (at least for new players) in order to manage to successfully finish the living thread, since he will warn the player that inflating the loss report will require coherence with the actual number of mercenaries sent to Hell (among other tips)
• During the game, Tobias will provide multiple ways to sabotage documents, some working on the short term, some on a longer term, but always choosing the same pattern will trigger the pattern recognition system and will end up make the user get The Caught path

Reward(s)

• Tobias becomes an ally
• He provides new sabotaging strategies
• He also provides guidances on specific occasions such as missions in the Village living thread