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I would like to add that some chapters (cough...dark angels) are known to "loose" inquisitors quite often with the inquisitor disappearing into nowhere.

The "authority" of the high lords over the astartes is questionable with them producing secret legions (Minotaur) for the express purpose of giving them a countermeasure and some of the legions simply ignoring direct orders on a regular basis. It is much easier to see the imperium as closer to NATO and the legions as member nations (or perhaps like the original USA during the Articles of Confederation). If anything gets done it gets done with bribes, intimidation, bargaining, and common purpose. Unless you want to explore this dark labyrinth of complex politics it would be better to not "requisition" SM but rather ask nicely and explain the need in such a way the chapter sees it as part of their duty.

 Medium of Death wrote:
As powerful as the Inquisition is they wouldn't cross the High Lords.

They'd be more likely to just order a hit on the ones that were getting in the way too much.

 Medium of Death wrote:
The High Lords would have a problem with that I think.

As powerful as the Inquisition is they wouldn't cross the High Lords.

They do all the time. There are 2 groups of people in the Imperium who are beyond the reach of the Inquisition. The first is the God-Emperor, Himself. The second are the Adeptus Custodes who protect the God-Emperor's person and defend the Golden Throne. That's it.

The Inquisition even counts one of their own members as a High Lord of Terra. If they suspect the High Lords of heresy of some stripe, the Inquisition takes action. The High Lords have been purged on more than one occasion in Imperial history, not just by the Inquisition.

It should be noted however that inquisition ordos and inquisitors have also been purged or outlawed by high lords and other inquisition.

Eh, the Inquisition is purged most often by itself.

 ansacs wrote:
It should be noted however that inquisition ordos and inquisitors have also been purged or outlawed by high lords and other inquisition.

Other Inquisitorial bodies, perhaps, the High Lords don't have the authority (or remit) to declare an Inquisitorial Order heretical or subject to purgation.

High lords can declare them outlawed though (as they are not a religious body they would not declare them heretical). Remember a fair amount of the inquisitions power comes from having a single high lord.

The Inquisition is not subject to the laws of the High Lords. Their job is to watch over the entirety of the Imperium to ensure that it is defended from the Enemy Within, Without and From Beyond. They cannot do this if a Chaos-Tainted High Lord can just disband the Ordo Malleus.

Remember a fair amount of the inquisitions power comes from having a single high lord.

Their authority comes from having been handed it directly by the God-Emperor, Himself.

Actually the background is conflicting whether the emperor even knew that anything resembling the inquisition would be created. If you like the version with the emperor commanding Malcador the Sigillite then he didn't actually empower them to do anything but to discover heretic and xenos. They have badly overstepped those boundaries since and would thus have abused the emperor's words enough that it would be within reason to declare them heretical.

Their authority comes from their influence and military. This influence comes from different agreements with organizations throughout the IoM, the high lord they have, and their assassins.

Honestly it is not like high lords have not overthrown each other or groups haven't taken over Terra before in this setting. The only absolute power in the IoM is the emperor and his custodians (probably mostly due to the fact that they don't get involved). The rest of the groups have exactly as much power as they can bribe, intimidate, and influence.

Heck if it was what the emperor commanded mattered then most of the IoM would be in trouble with their obvious religious practices, variety of superstitions, and the IoM trying to dictate terms to the loyalist legions. A great example is the Edict of Nikaea, the emperor never rescinded that yet where is it now? It is one of the most amusing things about the setting that the GOD emperor i worshiped and all power in the IoM resides in his "decrees" yet almost none of his laws and edicts from before the horus heresy are followed and in fact many of them are directly contrary to the current IoM's policies.

If the GE gave them the authority to seek out heretics and xenos, then the HLoT would definitely fall under the first instance. The definition of "heresy" in 40K being "going against the Emperor's plans". Malcador acted in the name of the Emperor, as was his purview. So whether or not we go with the Inquisition being founded by the Emperor directly, or being founded by Malcador at the instruction of the Emperor... it doesn't really matter. Their authority descends directly from the word of the God-Emperor, which is where every major Imperial body, excepting the Ecclesiarchy, draws its authority, and it is from his exact words that each of these factions draws its purpose and its remit.

The Officio Assassinorum is a separate organization from the Inquisition. The Vindicare, Culexus, Callidus, etc. are all separate temples of the Assassinorum, and are as separate from one another as they are from the Inquisition. While a lot of assassins are "on loan", that does not mean that the =I= "owns" these agents. The Ordo Sicarius, of the Inquisition, monitors the Officio Assassinorum for heresy, mutation and similar threats, but the Inquisition has Ordos that monitor all kinds of things, without being "in control" of the thing they monitor. Case in point, the Ordo Hereticus monitors the Ecclesiarchy for signs of heresy or recidivism, but that does not mean the Inquisition runs the Ecclesiarchy!

Heck if it was what the emperor commanded mattered then most of the IoM would be in trouble with their obvious religious practices, variety of superstitions, and the IoM trying to dictate terms to the loyalist legions. A great example is the Edict of Nikaea, the emperor never rescinded that yet where is it now? It is one of the most amusing things about the setting that the GOD emperor i worshiped and all power in the IoM resides in his "decrees" yet almost none of his laws and edicts from before the horus heresy are followed and in fact many of them are directly contrary to the current IoM's policies.

The atheist-Emperor thing is relatively new, not a defined fact of 40K going back to the beginning. They wanted to make the Great Crusade kind of a period of the Age of Enlightenment, and the current era sort of a Dark Ages thing, but in order to do that they had to make the Emperor a militant atheist, which is, as I said, a relatively new development. The Emperor himself never told people to stop worshiping him, he simply specifically told Lorgar to stop wasting time building temples and get on with the military campaign. Many people have interpreted this to be him refusing the worship of people, but it is not. The Emperor was already being venerated as a god in his own lifetime, one of those cults would found the first iteration of the Ecclesiarchy.

Honestly it is not like high lords have not overthrown each other or groups haven't taken over Terra before in this setting. The only absolute power in the IoM is the emperor and his custodians (probably mostly due to the fact that they don't get involved). The rest of the groups have exactly as much power as they can bribe, intimidate, and influence.

Once on a large scale, which lead directly to the creation of a new police-body within the Imperium that was a Chamber Militant for the Ordo Hereticus until just a few months ago. At other times the damage was relatively well-contained and the wider Imperium never knew anything about it before the Inquisition had the situation under control and the problems resolved.

The Edict of Nikea, as you may have seen in other posts on these very forums, no longer applies because its wording is no longer applicable. It only applied to the Librariums of the Astarte Legions. Guess what they don't have in M40 (or even in M32)? Legions of Astartes. They only have Chapters. Therefore, the Edict doesn't apply.. .or so the argument goes.

The two options for the creation of the inquisition is either the emperor tasked Malcador or 4 trusted servants did it under their own motivation. In fact there is an interpretation that the inquisition may be actively seeking to stop the resurrection of the emperor.

The emperor did not create the inquisition himself and never gave them unlimited authority and control of the IoM. There is no getting around that, though the inquisition can bring down a high lord or anyone else by proving corruption they do not have authority to command a high lord or to take over battle groups/SM chapters from their "authority" they some of them are lords and one is a high lord. This is what gives them the power to take over battle groups not their inquisitor status. The inquisition is not a force above the rest of the IoM it is a secular force parallel to the IoM political force with 1 member on the high lords of terra. Very similar to the catholic church's influence on Europe in the "middle ages" where they had massive influence but then France turns around and invades to raise it's own choice of pope...

The lore is what it is now. The age of the lore has nothing to do with it as by that metric squats should exist. In fact normally the newest lore is the is the most relevant but in 40K there is no truth, it is all interpretation and rumour.

I never said that the assassins are trained by them. They do however hire huge numbers of assassins and have death cult assassins in their henchmen.

The reorganization of the legions was in fact also in direct contradiction to the emperor commanding their creation. With no permission from the emperor to do so. In fact almost any change from the IoM as under the emperor is contradictory to his commandments and should have been heresy, if the IoM's history aware leadership actually cared about the commands of their god emperor that is.

The records of the minotaurs are sealed in vaults that even the Inquisition is not allowed to access, right? That would be one thing the High Lords have authority over the inquisition for. Although.... one wonders if the "high lords in charge of the Minotaurs" includes that inquisitor who's a "high lord" (note also that the inquisitor high lord changes every 5 or so years, too, which means there's constantly a NEW inquisitor that's a high lord. Is he in cahoots with the others regarding the minotaurs or not? )

Basically, even when the inquisition doesn't have access to it, the inquisition still has access to it.