Educational companion dossier · Fact, interpretation, lived experience, clinical education, fiction, and mechanics are labeled separately. Scope & safety
GAME MECHANIC

CORPORATE, PRIVATE & INDEPENDENT // NON-STATE INTELLIGENCE

Competitive Intelligence Analyst

Study competitors, markets, technology, supply chains, and strategy using lawful or deniable sources. The persona becomes playable when role, access, loyalty, psychological need, current state, and evidence behavior are tracked independently.

CENTRAL FUNCTION Study competitors, markets, technology, supply chains, and strategy using lawful or deniable sources.
GAME MECHANIC

PERSONA MODEL

How this type makes decisions

Seeks decision advantage while navigating a boundary between research, elicitation, inducement, and theft.

Decision frame

Client interest, public interest, legal exposure, source protection, evidence value, and reputational survival.

Social method

Professional credibility, contract leverage, local networks, publication, and deniable brokerage.

Gameplay loop

Accept or discover mandate → obtain access → verify client → collect → choose buyer, court, public, or silence.

Player leverage

Expose the legal and ethical boundary and offer a lawful source that answers the real business question.

Common false read

Competitive intelligence is harmless desk research; access and client incentives can push it across lines.

GAME MECHANIC

TRUST & EVIDENCE

How this persona relates and how this persona knows.

Trust, cooperation, disclosure, evidence quality, and canonical truth are separate systems.

RELATIONSHIP

Trust model

Trusts triangulated public and commercial sources, but client pressure can reward certainty.

EVIDENCE

Evidence behavior

Uses hiring, patents, procurement, filings, conferences, logistics, and relationship networks.

PLAYER

Useful approach

Expose the legal and ethical boundary and offer a lawful source that answers the real business question.

GAME MECHANIC

PRESSURE TRANSITION

Changed behavior is a clue, not a replacement personality.

Pressure response

May rationalize intrusive collection as ordinary market work.

Breaking condition

Discovering that “independence” was subsidized or that truth will expose a protected source.

Recovery path

Transparent provenance, bounded clients, collective protection, and control over publication.

GAME MECHANIC

LIKELY STATE PATHS

States modify the active expression of this persona.

A state can narrow choices, change disclosure, or alter evidence conditions while stable identity and values remain available for recovery.

RegulatedBaseline

The persona is operating near their practiced norm.

Most skills and choices are available; small clues are easiest to notice. Open transition record
InformationObserving

The persona is withholding commitment while mapping people, exits, contradictions, and incentives.

Player can reveal patterns through patience, but pressure moves the character to Guarded. Open transition record
RelationshipEngaged

The persona is actively cooperating without necessarily granting full trust.

Cooperative actions become available, but secrets still require their own threshold. Open transition record
StressPressured

Multiple obligations or threats exceed the persona’s ordinary margin.

Errors and revelations become more likely; support can restore options. Open transition record
OperationsCompromised

An adversary or institution can now predict, coerce, expose, or control part of the persona’s behavior.

Player can exploit, rescue, or falsely accuse; evidence of control matters. Open transition record
GAME MECHANIC

FULL REPORT DEEP LINKS

The model points back to complete public research sections.

Research grounds the design but does not automatically create game canon. Each link opens the exact report section used to shape this persona family.

Source rule
Research ≠ canon
Truth rule
Claim-level
State rule
Reversible where earned
Type rule
Composite