6203C21 SHSpec-124  Prepchecking

     A PC's attention can become so concentrated on a particular part of the
GYM that he does not recognize that the GPM has some 40 or 50 combinations in
it.  Trying to get the PC's attention off the last combination you found and
onto the next combination you have found sometimes takes some doing.  The GPM
is areas of stuck attention on identities.  The PC ordinarily runs through
this cycle:

          1. They didn't want it.

     then 2. They think it is fine.

Some items are hotter than others and explain more than others.  You have
twenty or thirty items before you get to the middle of the GPM.  The ones at
the middle are the last ones the PC finds.  3DXX bypasses and cuts through
running items.  By the process of finding items, 3DXX gets the bank down to
the point of what is holding the bank together.  It is rather difficult, since
it is over the PC's last hundred thousand dead bodies.  Fortunately, only
a few of these items are remarkable.  The PC has probably been every item he
puts on the list.  We are only trying to find the items that he is stuck
with.

     The process of listing keys out fifty to a hundred of these at a crack,
and we are left with the one that doesn't key out: the GPM item.  The rest are
locks on that.  What is holding that item is in some more basic, deeper
combination.  Thus, after you have found some more, some of the ones you found
earlier may drop out.  But only when you run the central package will you get
rid of some of them.  The most horrifying ones the PC finds early on are
liable to blow as locks, later on, though they may seem very important at
first.

     The reason auditors had so much trouble doing Routine 3 [For definition
of this, see p. 34, above.] is that it is really a much better, though less
accurate, way of getting the actual package.  It reached deep into the GPM and
the case and is more accurate when done absolutely right.  Done poorly, it was
deadly to the PC.  Running the wrong terminal was awful!  Routine 3DXX doesn't
require the some degree of accuracy and the PC shows continuous progress
running it.  Eventually, too, you get much more fundamental items than the
original Routine 3D items.

     The object of prepchecking is to find chains of withholds and relieve
them on the PC's case.  Auditors seem to be having trouble duplicating this
datum.  They don't seem to realize that you don't ask a "what" question until
you have a specific withhold delivered into your lap.  Auditors keep confusing
zeroA questions with "what" questions.  [See HCOB 1Mar62 "Prepchecking (A
Class II Skill)".] The zero question gives you a vast generality; the zeroA
question gives somewhat less generality.  The "what" question should give you
more specific withholds, not just generalities.  The zero question is about a
whole dynamic.  The zeroA gives a generality.  It is not a "What" question,
even though it can begin with "What".

     When you do get the specific overt, then ask, "What about (overt)?" Get
When, All, Appear, and Who.  If it doesn't clean up, ask for an earlier one.
Don't take something else which is vaguely similar but is not the same
doingness.  Run the whole chain of doing what you started on.  There must be
an earlier one if it doesn't free on two runs through the withhold system.

     A chain gets charged up only because the first part of the chain is
suppressed and forgotten.  Finding the data of something will cause it to
blow.  So if you have taken off the When, the All, the Appear / Not appear, and
the Who should have known from some incident, it would blow if that were all
there was to it.  All that will keep it reacting is some earlier withhold.
You can help the PC tell you by the "murder" system: suggesting incomparably
exaggerated overts so his don't look so awful.

     Sometimes you will hit a chain which goes way back, probably as part of
the GPM.  You can still run it; it just takes a long time.  And sometimes your
PC throws you a red herring.  He gives you PTP's and missed withholds in the
beginning ruds.  This can lead you off on some new chain which has nothing to
do with what you had started and left unflat.  The PC has moved into control
of the session, which enables him to stay away from some almost uncovered
area.  Sometimes you can get away with ignoring the out-rud; sometimes it is
fatal.  Don't, in any case, use withhold processes to handle an out-rud.  In
checking for missed withholds in ruds, ask a severely limited question sc you
only pick up the ones between sessions.

     Don't let a 3DXX session become a prepcheck session because of the PC's
out ruds at the beginning of session.  If his ruds keep being out and needing
repair, take a few days off 3DXX and prepcheck for awhile.  Otherwise the PC
will feel he is getting no auditing.  If it takes more than three days to find
a 3DXX item, you will never get it because the PC will be ARC broken about no
auditing.  Ruds will just go further and further out.  You can even get the PC
to put his own out-ruds in by insisting that you are going to find his item.
This promises him auditing.