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Do inquisitors keep slaves?

Depends on what you mean by slaves. If you mean servitors (people who have been surgically altered to be mindless drones) then the answer is yes. If you mean people who have committed some grievous breach (real or imagined) of Imperial law, who are then 'offered' a job opportunity rather than an execution, then the answer is yes. If you mean people that they go out, capture, and force to do their maniacal bidding, then no, not that I have read.

Jimsolo wrote:If you mean people that they go out, capture, and force to do their maniacal bidding, then no, not that I have read.

Although, it's not like they couldn't if they wanted to.

However, it is a poor thing to enslave another.

It seems to be that the only armys big on Slavery are the Dark eldar and Slaanesh cults. Orks too if you count the gretchen.

The only imperial branch I know of that employs slavery is the Imperial Navy... they will often grab a few hundred people off a hive world to work the guns. Imperial battleship guns are worked like pirate ships of old... hundreds of laborers to move them into position on deck and keep loading them.

What's the difference between the categories of "Imperial Citizen" and slave?

I would guess that some inquisitors might make use of slaves other than the "you've got no choice" or servitor catagorys. I would say it is more likely they'll radicals (seriously, who voulentiers to become a daemon host).

Honersstodnt wrote:The only imperial branch I know of that employs slavery is the Imperial Navy... they will often grab a few hundred people off a hive world to work the guns. Imperial battleship guns are worked like pirate ships of old... hundreds of laborers to move them into position on deck and keep loading them.

That's not slavery, it's "impressment."

I guess the Impierial Navy is British then

Actually, the British Navy of Yore had VERY strict rules against Impressment, and had a mandatory 7 day cooling off period where you could just jump ship, no questions asked.

IIRC.

Gwar! wrote:Actually, the British Navy of Yore had VERY strict rules against Impressment, and had a mandatory 7 day cooling off period where you could just jump ship, no questions asked.

I thought one of the reasons the War of 1812 started was the impressment of American sailors by the British Navy.

Unfortunantly they didn't follow the rules very often.

and its hard to "Jump ship" when in the middile of the Ocean(remember how the War of 1812 started over this very issue)

Thinglike wrote:

Honersstodnt wrote:The only imperial branch I know of that employs slavery is the Imperial Navy... they will often grab a few hundred people off a hive world to work the guns. Imperial battleship guns are worked like pirate ships of old... hundreds of laborers to move them into position on deck and keep loading them.

That's not slavery, it's "impressment."

That's not impressment, it's volunteering.

They were willfully and fanatically serving the Emperor, and are never forced to do anything they don't want to. To suggest otherwise is heresy per your copy of the Infantryman's Uplifting Primer.

Like someone said, it comes down to how you define slavery.

They can (and do) command anyone to do their bidding, for years at a time, with no payment, on pain of torture and death.

It's not slavery though. It is service to the holy god emperor. See the difference?

Slaves, you see, are bought and sold for profit, or pressed into service through conquest, neither of which is the inquisition involved in. They just press you into service.

And slavery is very common in the imperium, at least by our definitions. Press gangs in the navy, entire guard regimens are formed by scooping up midieval populaces and forced into service, people are lobotimized and turned into servitors, and conquered populaces are forced to build monuments to the immortal god emperor.

Even space marines are often just abducted and told "serve or die", and it isn't like they are paid, get vacation time, or are allowed to retire.

The thing is, the definition of slaver is actually pretty difficult to nail down, and the more desperate the situation the blurrier the line gets. And in the imperium, the situation is pretty desperate.

hi I am the OP and the reason I asked this is because I was looking in the inquisition photo gallery and there were some pictures of slaves.

Wolf Priest Ranek wrote:hi I am the OP and the reason I asked this is because I was looking in the inquisition photo gallery and there were some pictures of slaves.

There are also pictures of a Star Wars 40k army in there. It may look cool, but that doesn't mean it if true to the official fluff.

I suppose in the sense that they probably have people working for them that didn't have too much of a choice in the matter. I certainly don't see them avoiding being heavy-handed in their recruitment.

However, I don't think in they tend to have them in the "This is my personal property and I have this here certificate of ownership" way. Just because they don't really need to. They've got enough power that they can get what they need out of who they need when they need it.

Maintaining a stable of people that they individually "own" just seems sort of petty and inefficient. Besides, the most useful agents are those they can have work independently and expect to get a decent performance out of without keeping constant surveillance on them. That generally means someone who is at least somewhat willing. Keeping a leash on a bunch of people is just more time and effort than it's worth.

Chongara, you seem . . . unfamiliar with the Imperium of Man.

haha, yeah Chongara, ever heard of the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Administratum?

Manchu wrote:Chongara, you seem . . . unfamiliar with the Imperium of Man.

Well, I've read a good chunk of the Dark Heresy books and the the two inquisition army codices. Certainly the Imperium it's self is a terrible almost certainly rife with slavery and the like. However, the impression I've gotten from those sources on Inqusitioners at least, is that they're largely autonomous individuals with very large and specific goals.

They tend to either have agents that have no idea they're working for them, which really doesn't feel like a direct master-slave relationship regardless of details of the actual work or agents that work directly for them. In the case of agents that work directly for them, it's generally easier they're not the kind that have to be actively held down. I could argue that things like mind-cleansing represent a real form of slavery, but even then the subject winds up willing in a sense.

These impressions most come from the Dark Heresy material, that speaks on the organization and moethods of Inquisitioners. I just don't get the feeling it would actually be of any benefit to them hold slaves in the common sense of the word.

I could certainly be missing something either in that material itself or from something more "Canon" than Dark Heresy, that has inqusitoners themselves in charge of forced labor camps and the like but that really seems more the realm of other offices in the imperium.

haha, yeah Chongara, ever heard of the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Administratum?

They hold and run slave camps for sure. However the Adminstratum is not the inquisition and isn't made primarly of inquisitioners it's an entirely different office of power.

It's like asking if the National Parks Service tortures people for information and then claiming they do because the CIA does it.

I think having a 'typical' slave in chains ect would be seen as a bit luxurious for an Inquisitor, even if it were legal. Certainly it would be frowned upon. Slavery such as pressing a common librarian into your own personal logicator or record holder, is that slavery? Recruiting warriors and such on threat of death, slavery? *shrugs*

Chongara wrote:

Lotet wrote:
haha, yeah Chongara, ever heard of the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Administratum?

They hold and run slave camps for sure. However the Adminstratum is not the inquisition and isn't made primarly of inquisitioners it's an entirely different office of power.

It's like asking if the National Parks Service tortures people for information and then claiming they do because the CIA does it.

why did you just compare the Inquisition with the CIA (which is pretty appropriate) and then compared the National Parks with the governing and controlling force of the Imperiums munitions, manpower and data?

annnyway, even an Inquisitor needs to file his large aquisitions (or get a servant to do so as the case would always be). the can't just show up and expect to be obeyed (of course some do and they get away with it) but when they meet up with a General the files have usually been filled out and everything is set. well, everything is organized enough to start bossing people around anyway, why else would they have paper pushers working for them?

Whether an Inquisitor's Acolytes--or Throne Agents, for that matter--are slaves or not has little to do with whether Inquisitors or the Inquisition owns slaves. To illustrate the point with a metaphor similar to your own: that's like saying plantation owners had no slaves because they employed overseers. Many important institutionalized relationships in the Imperium are forms of slavery. The function of the Navigator Houses is a prominent example. Also, don't forget that one of the primary functions of the Inquisition itself is a kind of slave-harvesting: the culling of worlds' psykers to feed the Golden Throne. And, as has alread been brought up, what do you think Servitors and Chapter Serfs are?

Servitors are criminals or vat grown. I rarely hear of cases where your random citizen undergoes that treatment unless they muck up.

Serfs = Slaves? I'm not sure.

Lotet wrote:why did you just compare the Inquisition with the CIA (which is pretty appropriate) and then compared the National Parks with the governing and controlling force of the Imperiums munitions, manpower and data?

The point wasn't to draw direct parallels between the organizations in the sense that Inquisition = CIA, Adminstratum = Parks service.

It was just to make the point that you can have two departments of the same government operating in very different manners. I could have just as easily brought up how the FDA will be paid off by pharmaceutical companies whereas the NHTSA generally won't be.

Manchu wrote:Many important institutionalized relationships in the Imperium are forms of slavery. The function of the Navigator Houses is a prominent example.

That's fine but I'm really only talking about what inqusitioners themselves do on an individual basis. Are Inquistioners serving a government that condones and benefits from the use of slaves? Yes, and that's the least of it.

Are they themselves, personally slave owners? I'm not convinced.

Also, don't forget that one of the primary functions of the Inquisition itself is a kind of slave-harvesting: the culling of worlds' psykers to feed the Golden Throne.

Slave harvesting is different than slave-owning.

And, as has alread been brought up, what do you think Servitors and Chapter Serfs are?

Serivtors as I understand are no longer human enough you could count them as slaves. They've had their brains chopped, and chemically fired then had a bunch of control circuts shoved in it. There isn't any sapience left to enslave. You can't be denying something its freedom when it's fundamentally incapable of exercising free will in the first place.

I'm not sure what the servants of Space Marine chapters really have to do with Inqusitioners on an individual basis.

The process of making someone a servitor is enslaving them--it's the very height of slavery. And slavery is wrong IRL precisely because of its dehumanizing effect.

Manchu wrote:The process of making someone a servitor is enslaving them--it's the very height of slavery. And slavery is wrong IRL precisely because of its dehumanizing effect.

You're not enslaving them, you're effectively killing them. You just happen to have bunch electronics and mechanics to make a robot out of the body. Sure the flesh still alive but everything that made them a person is gone. What you're left with is an object.

The Grey Knights, a Space Marine Chapter that is entirely a part of the Inquisition, has serfs--which, yes, are slaves. The willingness or docility of the slave has nothing to do with whether or not they are a slave. A person who is content to be a slave is still a slave. I will concede that neither Ravenor nor Eisenhorn were portrayed as owning slaves. But the Inquisition is an extremely diverse group. In a culture thoroughly pervaded by slave-holding, it would be harder to argue that no Inquisitor owns slaves than at least some if not most Inquisitors do.

Manchu wrote:What's the difference between the categories of "Imperial Citizen" and slave?

That depends on what planet you live on. Many planets allow some freedoms for their people. Others are far more restricted, effectively having planetwide slavery of all but the governing body.

I don't buy that servitor-ization is more like murder than slavery. Slavery is the disregard of dignity for the sake of employing the subject in labor. Murder is not merely the violation of dignity or personality or capacity, but more specifically the termination of life.