GAME BRIEFING
How this lens changes the investigation
Three reports are not three sources when they all derive from one memo, one sensor, one rumor, or one coordinated group. Map origin and transmission before counting corroboration.
Observable clues
- Shared wording, timestamps, metadata, or unusual errors across reports.
- Witnesses who discussed the event before separate interviews.
- Multiple systems that depend on the same upstream device or database.
- Evidence created before the disputed claim became public.
Evidence tests
- Draw a source-origin tree for every supporting item.
- Collapse copied or derivative items into one evidentiary path.
- Prioritize records created independently and before coordination was possible.
- State the remaining number of independent paths, not the number of documents.
Do not assume
- Counting volume as independence.
- Assuming agreement proves truth when sources influenced one another.
- Treating a second screenshot of the same database as a new source.
- Ignoring shared institutional incentives.
Gameplay outcomes
- Prevents source laundering and coordinated rumor from becoming “confirmed.”
- Rewards players who trace evidence provenance rather than collecting duplicates.
- Changes whether irreversible action thresholds are met.
FICTIONAL PRACTICE // NO ANSWER STORED
Work the lens before revealing the reasoning
Three departments report that Mara entered the east stairwell at 02:14, but all three records may depend on one access-control export.
Quotes badge export row 7782.
Copies the security memo’s time verbatim.
Uses a separate pressure sensor recorded at 02:16.
A night porter recalls seeing Mara but spoke with security before interview.
Count independent corroborating paths.
Reveal the worked result and explanation
Defensible result
There are at most two reasonably independent technical paths: the badge export and the pressure sensor. The clinical note is derivative, and the witness statement may be contaminated.
Why
- Cards A and B are one origin, not two.
- Card C comes from a different device and time.
- Card D may still matter but should be marked for possible post-event influence.
Common reasoning failure
Calling the event “four-source confirmed” because four documents exist.
Accessibility: The exercise is a static text comparison followed by an optional disclosure containing the worked reasoning. No answer is submitted, scored, timed, or stored.
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The elevated source set adds an operational explanation without replacing the public evidence chain.
Open access terminal