Given the highly flexible nature and the personality-driven (rather than institutional-driven) nature of the IPO's chain of command, it may in fact be the case that both Yuri AND Steve are simultaneously the head(s) of TacDic and CID. Assuming that such an oddball arrangement worked I can see your counterpart simply shrugging and signing off on it.

>As for the Bureau, CID would seem like the logical place for it in the
>tree, but on the other hand, most of the D in BPRD does seem to be
>more about the shooty and the punchy than about investigation,

True. For me, the outside observer, it seems like the BPRD is mostly about pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge and meeting new and awesome things from previously unplumbed depths of the universe. It is only with reluctance that they decide that a great many of those things need to be buried at the crossroads after midnight. That for me would place them firmly in the "investigative" side of things. I see TacDiv as more of the place you put outfits whose entire reason for existing is to kick in the door and chop off some tentacles when the word comes down.

>and
>there's not really anything "criminal" in a conventional sense about
>most of what it looks into.

There's not? I mean, looking at the last few BPRD mini-stories, you've got a fair amount of petty larceny, assault, some breaking and entering, multiple counts of what is probably illegal immigration and squatting...

Also, one imagines Zeta Cygni has laws in place to deal with the occult. In a universe where Hell is a real place you can go to and magic has a verifiable existence, you'd think that, for example, someone would have to issue you a license if you wanted to summon demons on a freelance basis. You know, a piece of paper that says the state certifies you know how to draw a summoning circle and you're unlikely to get yourself possessed by something that wants to punch your soul out of your body and use it to make soup with.

>
>So, basically, once again you've caught me not having a Ph.D at
>this stuff. :)

I would be very interested in observing that dissertation defense. :)

-Merc
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