Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Mellon wrote:
There must be some inquisitors who mainly do paperwork as their methods of research and investigation. Silent rooms with thousands of scribes reading statistics over shipment manifests, census data and tithes to look for anomalies.

"Sir Interrogator. Second degree tome-reader Olexa at table 455 have noticed a 6% increase the Atkins systems import of compact foodstuffs with a potential storage time over 50 years. This trend is ongoing since 987.M41 and is not matched by a decrease in any other import of foodstuff. Third degree scribe Inox has matched this with anomalies in their tithes, where the metallic density of ore delivered have dropped from 4.1% to 3.6% since the last census at 982.M41. And most importantly: import of devotional artwork and educational texts regarding the Emperor (blessedbehisholysoulforeveralightinthedarkness) have decreased by roughly 1.8% per year running for at least three decades!"

Actually, paperwork is probably what most Inquisitors do 90% of the time. The actual field work is probably only the exciting part. After that, reports need to be made and lots of research needs to be done.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Actually, paperwork is probably what most Inquisitors do 90% of the time. The actual field work is probably only the exciting part. After that, reports need to be made and lots of research needs to be done.

Again not so much paperwork and reports, as reviewing and deciding. Obama once said there are no easy decisions on the President's desk, because anything easy will have been decided and taken care of at a lower level.

So you have a report from Interrogator Smythe, laying out the evidence and his findings so far. What resources do you give him, if any? Because if you send in the Grey Knights, then there might not be any GKs available when the Kaiju-sized demon appears half a sector away. But if you don't the whole world may be lost. Maybe sending in some SoBs and Arbites will be enough. Or maybe not...

That's the sort of thing the Inquisitor has to wrestle with. Not so much an expense report for all the holy oil his flamer car uses, but more making the right call every single time, because mistakes cost worlds.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Actually, paperwork is probably what most Inquisitors do 90% of the time. The actual field work is probably only the exciting part. After that, reports need to be made and lots of research needs to be done.

Again not so much paperwork and reports, as reviewing and deciding. Obama once said there are no easy decisions on the President's desk, because anything easy will have been decided and taken care of at a lower level.

So you have a report from Interrogator Smythe, laying out the evidence and his findings so far. What resources do you give him, if any? Because if you send in the Grey Knights, then there might not be any GKs available when the Kaiju-sized demon appears half a sector away. But if you don't the whole world may be lost. Maybe sending in some SoBs and Arbites will be enough. Or maybe not...

That's the sort of thing the Inquisitor has to wrestle with. Not so much an expense report for all the holy oil his flamer car uses, but more making the right call every single time, because mistakes cost worlds.

Though like a president. A inquisitor has advisers, trusted members and fellows they cam call upon for perspective or second opinion if required. They may have ultimate power but does not mean they can call on others services as required. Like maybe contact there mentor if they have a very hard case for a hand in cracking it and extra staff etc.

 Deadshot wrote:
The Inquisition is not any of the above forces. The Imperium is split into 2 branches, with the Emperor as Head of State and God. All power comes from him. On one of these branches is the Adeptus Terra and the High Lords, everyone underneath them. From therenit branches out. Everyone reports to the organisation above them (Chapter Masters the exception with power beyond that), and each man reporting to someone else all the way up to the High Lords.

The Inquisition is the other branch. They have unlimited power because they are the Right Arm of the Emperor and they speak with His voice. The difference between them and the other orgs listed is that the Inquisition don't have a jurisdiction or to answer to anyone but each other, and only on a political scale for 90% of the time. An Arbite needs permission of the Adeptus Terra, the Ad Mech need to sanction a tech retrieval mission and they all report to someone. An Inquisitor turns up and has total authority and only a much higher Inquisitor can overturn him, and usually don't. Furthermore, a Witch Hunter of the Ecclesiarchy can only hunt witches and do witchhunter things. On the other hand, a Hereticus Inquisitior, while taking special personal interest in witches and heretics, is equally able to switch focus to Daemons, Aliens or other Ordos. They have unlimited power, they are His voice

That's how it supposed to work....in theory.


However, there are political realities in the Imperium. Unless the situation is dire, Inquisitors have to know when to be diplomatic and when to be a thug. When it comes to certain entities in the Imperium, the wise Inquisitor knows when to say "please" and "thank you". Just because you have the power doesn't mean you just tread on someone else's turf because you can. Especially when comes to powerful entities that can make an Inquisitor's life miserable, like the Astartes and Administratum.


You can get further with honey than you can with gak.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
However, there are political realities in the Imperium. Unless the situation is dire, Inquisitors have to know when to be diplomatic and when to be a thug. When it comes to certain entities in the Imperium, the wise Inquisitor knows when to say "please" and "thank you". Just because you have the power doesn't mean you just tread on someone else's turf because you can. Especially when comes to powerful entities that can make an Inquisitor's life miserable, like the Astartes and Administratum.

Ofc, it does depend on the Inquisitor in question. Eisenhorn tries to work with local authorities when he can, even allowing them to attach an observer to his team, but if they're not cooperating he'll pull out his credentials and mention his authority in greater detail. Jax Draco in "The Inquisition War" is the undercover type, posing as an extremely wealthy merchant with a private warp-capable ship and a gorgeous mistress (a Callidus assassin). In the same book is one of the kick-down-doors type of Inquisitors, one who walks in waving his badge and demanding cooperation NOW.

But I agree that the point above is a good one. Asking for help and making the helper feel like he's contributed something valuable usually works better than demanding stuff because "Authority". Who is more likely to go above/beyond the call of duty to help you, someone treated as a valued ally or someone told to shut up and jump into step?

It also depends on the situation. Legal authority is not, after all, the same as actual resources.

An inquisitor can turn up on a frontier outworld and legally speaking can essentially commandeer....well...anything.

But if he turns up on a frontier outworld on his own, the Lord-Governor (who will have a company or so of special forces at his disposal) may be legally obliged to obey his instructions but in practical terms can decide to have him shot and deny ever meeting him to the one member of the Arbites assigned to the local three star systems if he finds him too annoying. Enough people get lost in warp transit or murdered by non-specific heretics and criminals that even inquisitors must fall prey to it occasionally, and unless there's a specific reason to go looking, it may be months or even years before another Inquisitor even notices he's missing.

By comparison, if you arrive on a sector heartworld, there will be enough Imperial adepta present that the Inquisitor could arrive with an entourage of five thousand inquisitorial stormtroopers, and can operate openly and know there are organisations which will ensure individuals comply with his wishes.....but can also be confident that, openly or not, he's playing in the backfield of other inquisitors who do have the ability to obstruct his commands, meaning that if he wants to have a senior member of the Imperial Nobility (who's important to the political stability of the sector) purged, he'd better have some damn evidence he can show to a conclave of his peers.

Inquisitor are among the most interesting idea in the 40K setting for the fact that they are only as strong as they are powerful. They are literally the embodiment of might makes right. Sure, any action they take is "legal" but whether they survive even their peers is a reflection of how much power they actually wield.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Actually, paperwork is probably what most Inquisitors do 90% of the time. The actual field work is probably only the exciting part. After that, reports need to be made and lots of research needs to be done.

Again not so much paperwork and reports, as reviewing and deciding. Obama once said there are no easy decisions on the President's desk, because anything easy will have been decided and taken care of at a lower level.

So you have a report from Interrogator Smythe, laying out the evidence and his findings so far. What resources do you give him, if any? Because if you send in the Grey Knights, then there might not be any GKs available when the Kaiju-sized demon appears half a sector away. But if you don't the whole world may be lost. Maybe sending in some SoBs and Arbites will be enough. Or maybe not...

That's the sort of thing the Inquisitor has to wrestle with. Not so much an expense report for all the holy oil his flamer car uses, but more making the right call every single time, because mistakes cost worlds.

Yup, and seeing the bureacracy of the Imperium, that is probably what takes up most of an Inquisitor's work. the Inquisition even has an entire ordo (the Ordo Scriptorum) solely dedicated to sifting through the archives and records of the Adeptus Terra, trying to find any important messages, orders or reports that may have been lost in the bureacratic mess. Truly they are the unsung heroes of the Imperium of Man.


Also, the Inquisition codex gives the approximate strenght of some of the minor Ordos.
The Ordo Astartes and Ordo Astra (overseeing the SM and stellar cartography) currently have around 50 members, the Ordo Militarum overseeing the IG has more than 500, the Ordo Excorium (who review and monitor all requests for Exterminatus) has more than 100 members, the Ordo Barbarus (monitoring pre-industrial worlds) has less than 10 members and the Ordo Desolatus has only one member