Now, this might just be me misunderstanding the designer's intent, but the Politico tree has some weird stuff going on.

In the top row (the row labeled 5), the two right-hand columns are both topped with Plausible Deniability. The right-most version is flagged as permanent and the one to the left of it is not. That seems odd, but perhaps it is intended. The permanent version of Plausible Deniability, however, has a gray connecting line that leads down to a talent box in the second row (the one marked 10) that contains yet another permanent Plausible Deniability. In other words, the Politico character is getting the exact same thing if they go down this path.

Again, this might be intended, I just wanted to bring it up in case it was a typographical error.

Apologies, but I now understand better how this works and I can see that is it NOT a typographical error at all. I just needed to re-read the "Talent Ranks" section in Chapter IV a bit more carefully.

Feel free to delete this thread, moderator.

And also, kudos to the designers for including the rule that if I am travelling along a talent tree and I hit an unranked talent that I previously acquired elsewhere, I automatically unlock that box for no cost. That's good, intuitive design work.