I noticed today that Vehicles Management II is the only non-tool (Blueprints, Terrain Leveling), non-Edict research requiring the Captain's Office research. You can get I and III, even IV, without ever researching the Captain's Office, but not II. Judging by the pattern set by the other three Vehicles Management researches, VM II should directly require Construction III, rather than Captain's Office II (which requires Construction III).
I probably wouldn't have noticed this if I wasn't doing an "officeless" rail-focused run to keep myself from relying on health edicts to keep the population alive...
CoI Update 3, v0.7.9 (b495).