I know that you can't play a tile that doesn't connect to a link.

I know that when you do, you can cut of other links.

But can you dead-end the link you are expanding? Can you expand a link into a dead side of another tile? Can you expand a link into and edge that doesn't have a faction?

Yeah, you can do anything you want as long as you extend a line and stay within the boundaries of the puzzle area. Dead end stuff, run it into the edge, whatever.

See? I told you Allen!

I had this doubt myself yesterday playing for the first time, but it was fun to see that even thematically we could deduce the rules. You follow the conspiracy thread (extend the line) but that train of clues leads you nowhere (dead ends). Or maybe I'm just thinking about it too much.