The example give on page 205 ITS makes very little sense to me. I have a battery of questions:

1) What impact, if any, did Lidiah's Common Lore: Imperial Navy test have on her Blather check? Or did it affect the Provost's Scrutiny check?

2) Why is Lidiah's Blather test made at a -10? The arithmetic in the example simply doesn't add up: "The Provost is Talkative (+10) (his job is boring for a former Navy man), but letting contraband through would be very Bad (-30) for him, so Lidiah has a cumulative penalty of -30." By the numbers, it seems that Lidiah should be making a -20 Blather test.

3) Why is the provost taking a -20 penalty on his Scrutiny test?

Help is much appreciated.

...

Anybody? Alright, well...I'll just answer myself then, and see if anybody corrects me. I'll preface this by saying that I have read the relevant sections of Rogue Trader and Into the Storm, but could not find any clear answers, so this is just how I interpret the spirit of the rules.

Answers:

1) Short answer: The Common Lore check has no impact. Nowhere in the section 'Using Interaction and Lore Skills in Social Situations' does it specify what effect using a Lore skill has on a social skill check. However , I really like the idea of rewarding my players who have lots of Lore skills, so I'll say that a successful Lore test, modified in difficulty by how obscure the knowledge is, gives a +10 bonus to the next social skill check.

From the example, p 205 ITS, Lidya makes a Common Lore: Imperial Navy check at -10, because knowing exactly what all those service medals, ribbons and campaign badges mean is a little obscure, but she likely deals with a lot of Navy people, or has in the past. I don't know the character's background, I'm just guessing.

2) Lidya's total difficulty on her Blather test should be -10, however, the numbers still don't add up. Here's how I interpret that: The Provost is 'talkative', giving a +10 bonus to social interactions, however, the outcome of the event would be very 'bad' for him, so there's a -30 modifier as well. This brings Lidya to a -20 on her Blather test, but she did just succeed in a relevant Common Lore test, so she gets a +10 bonus. Again, this is assuming my answer to question 1 holds true.

3) Again, short answer: he shouldn't. Why would the Provost be taking a penalty? Perhaps if some other character were present trying to distract him, but the whole point of Lidya's Blather test was to improve the Provost's demeanor, thus making him amenable to her desired outcome (skipping the rest of the inspection, in this case.) There could be any number of reasons why the Provost is taking a penalty, but they are not explained in the example, and certainly not by the relevant rules discussed in this section, Using Interaction and Lore Skills in Social Situations.

I would love to hear anybody else's take on my ruling here; I welcome enlightenment.