In this technique the interrogator tried to play himself off as your friend. It's almost like the good cop/bad cop. The guards or whatever are extra tough on the prisoner and the interrogator gives him little extras with great fanfare. This works best when the prisoner is isolated. It makes the prisoner appreciative and wants to help, or at least not loose his only friend.

Penta: The Geneva Convention classifies sleep deprivation as torture. In the US military were we allowed to use it under extreme circumstances and from my experience it took too much effort just to get it approved (especially after Abu Ghuraib). I've never used them but Stress positions are good for tiring out the person and letting them know whose in charge. They work with a otherwise cooperative prisoner. The risky part about stress possitions ILR (US military regulations) are that if the prisoner refuses to do them there is little or nothing the interrogator can do. So you look like you don't have much authority, a hugh mistake. Drugs would also be a "no go", but they would probably also have the same effect of tiring the prisoner out. A tired prisoner is a careless prisoner. It's easier to trick them or catch them off guard. And it's easier to read their body-language.

One the the best aspects of being friendly is usually the prisoner doesn't expect it. They come into the process fully prepared to be tortured and beaten to a pulp. So you can initially catch them off guard.

Having the prisoner think of the interrogator as a friend is very effective. I remember once in Baghdad we raided a mosque and had something like 50 detainees to deal with. Most of them were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. So I started in on this guy after he'd been locked up for a good three weeks. He started bitching about how we shouldn't keep him because he's innocent. I told him we was right, but that he was lucky. If Saddam's men caught him at a mosque with weapons he would be dead by now, or at least probably not in the possession of 10 intact fingers or any form of broken bones. After that he agreed and told me what little he knew.

6th Dragon is the expert. I've only read about it, and maybe been "questioned" once or twice.
As I was never guilty of what I was being questioned about, I never got the full treatment, but I did especially enjoy the "if you didn't do it, who did. Tell us or you'll go to jail for obstruction."

I'll probably raise some eyebrows by saying this, but most of the regulations are rather vague. There are a lot of grey areas, and very little oversight. In shadowrun some guidelines if the characters are ever being interrogated. The interrogators are usually overworked and are often more tired than the prisoners, but that depends on the situation. The corporation or government involved: I'd be willing to bet the corps are more brutal. I don't think the corporate court would get involved and I don't know how the UN would force something onto a AAA. Oversight costs money. I have the sourcebook that has info on the UN, but I think I lent if out before I had a chance to read it myself. Usually the prisoner isn't familiar with the regulations of the interrogation approaches, so the interrogator can get away with a lot. Someone has to read the reports (which are usually classified) or if they exist, watch any videos or listen to recordings (which are always also classified), and can be very time consuming. The many grey areas by default are permissible as long as it isn't blatant disregard for the regulations. I do remember the LS sourcebook and SOTA 6064 that says the internal affairs are very understaffed, underfuned, and overworked.

You do realize that going to cost over 81,000 nuyen per cranial bomb and the bombs have an availability of 18. If you’re running around with the kind of money that you can routinely blow several hundred thousand nuyen on an interrogation and you’ve got the skills needed to make that 18 target number to get the cranial bomb in the first place; then why on earth are you running the shadows?

For contrast, let me note that a bullet to the hostage’s head costs a mere 2 nuyen per victim and doesn’t require a cybersurgeon to put it there.

Note that this is another 10,000 plus nuyen per victim. And a biomonitor is not a lie detector. (Though someone skilled in Biotech and Interrogation could probably use it and have a good idea if the subject was lying.)

And who gets stuck with cleaning up the splatter room? That’s lots of very messy physical evidence than needs to be disposed of. Getting rid of a corpse is enough of a problem, getting rid of pieces is far more difficult. In fact, this is a drawback of all torture methods.

That’s a rather dramatic way of doing it. Lone Star and the media should be quite interested. And there can’t that many runners buying cranial bombs in bulk.

And for all of these posts – torture is not a substitute for the Interrogation skill.

A small but of C4 and a miniture remote detonator = poor man's cranial bomb. Cordless power drill = We don't need no stinking cybersurgeon.

Some people say that trepanning increases intelligence and helps prevent possession so they might thank you for drilling holes in their skulls.

I do completely agree about the biomoniter.

.....mmmmmmm.......trepanning.

Two words: Corporate backing.

And, yes, this group really does have that much money. Hell, go read on the thread I started recently about how they modified an Excalibur. Besides, buying in bulk tends to create a discount, especially when you have a really good face handling it.

True. But then, that's not quite as horrific as what I'm going for.

Actually, they are. Modern lie detectors are just biomonitors programmed to look for specific biosigns, and most of them are not even that sophisticated and just monitor biosigns. It's not that hard to do in SR. I would say a programming check of 4 to change the lifesigns looked for.

Rent a slaughterhouse. The body you just dump off in the Barrens.

Hey, let them look. Officially, we're a legit business that buys leftover cyberimplants at a reduced price, strips them down, and uses them as spare parts for various items. They get nosey, we can provide documentation for the disposal of the explosives.

They get really nosey, we give them incentives to leave us alone. Like, framing them for a run against Saeder-Krupp that does enough damage to get that corporation's notice.

No, but it's one hell of an aid to it.