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So there's two nagging questions I've had and I've decided to post them together instead of posting two topics.

One: The Imperium let command of its military forces be split to decentralize it a touch so a serious rebellion would be tougher to do. Yet they entrust the rule of an entire planet to one guy. Why not split each planet up between multiple governors, to deter rebellion because each governor would have a handful of others breathing down his neck. Instead you've got an endless parade of worlds declaring independence from the Imperium. Why's this?

Two: The Inquisition would have to let a lot of its stuff be pretty much common knowledge or no one would respect or even be aware of their authority. This is made even more big of an issue when you hear that inquisitors can commandeer whatever they want to achieve their mission. So what's to stop a group of pirates from impersonating an inquisitor to do scams of planetary proportions? Since a lot of key things about the inquisition would be common knowledge, how hard could it be to forge their symbols of authority?
"Hello, governor of Mordia. I'm an inquisitor. You can tell because I am in a robe and have this stone "I" in my hands. You must hand over all your daughters and your money or you'll be declared heretics by myself and the Ordo Hereticus."
Is the danger of inquisitorial impersonation ever eliminated or even mentioned anywhere?

its because all inquisition badges are tagged and read by every door they pass thru. pirates couldnt get within firing range of a planet with a forged or outdated inquisition code.

1. The Governors do have people watching: the Inquisition and the Arbites. They make sure the Governors stay in line. Of course, having to answer to a quick response in the form of assassins and massed Imperial Guard regiments probably makes many think twice. There's only one appointed to start with because the Imperium is too big to have a bunch of people making decisions on every little thing that happens on a planet, it would name them even slower than they already are.

2. You can't impersonate an Inquisitor. Each carries his/her own badge of office that is specially crafted and which contains activation and identification codes. Plus, even attempting this would likely sign your death warrant considering each and every Inquisitor is under the scrutiny of his/her piers.

Planetary commanders are supervised by the Adeptus Arbites which, make sure that all imperial laws are followed.
If a govenor decides to overthrow imperial rule then he has to deal with them, which can end badly as the planetary arbites are not only well entrenched
( which will usualy allow their astropaths to send a distress signal ).
In adition to the extensive resources of the Arbites ( strikecruisers, military grade equipment ) high ranking Arbites Marshalls seem to have authority comparable to some Inquisitors ( Marshal Byzantine comandeered an Imperial cruiser to achive his goals ) within their field of work.

The combined supervision trough the well equiped Arbites as well the very high chance of discovery and eventual retribution, even should the Arbites be eliminated, persuades all but the most foolhardy ( or well connected...) to stay within the Imperium.

iproxtaco wrote:Each carries his/her own badge of office that is specially crafted and which contains activation and identification codes. Plus, even attempting this would likely sign your death warrant considering each and every Inquisitor is under the scrutiny of his/her piers.

Okay, so it's not a possibility that's ignored. I haven't read any of those inquisition novels, is it like a keycard that you swipe through a machine to make it go "beep...beep...card accepted."

1. You might as well make every one a planetary governor.

2. Would it be easier to just kill a Inquisitor, and take his or her cloths?

If you split a planet between 3 governers thanyouve got three different countires on the same planet, all with a different idea and way of running their planet. It would be very hard to get along and get this done and be extremely inprofficient.

CuddlySquig wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Each carries his/her own badge of office that is specially crafted and which contains activation and identification codes. Plus, even attempting this would likely sign your death warrant considering each and every Inquisitor is under the scrutiny of his/her piers.

Okay, so it's not a possibility that's ignored. I haven't read any of those inquisition novels, is it like a keycard that you swipe through a machine to make it go "beep...beep...card accepted."

Probably. It's called a Rosette, it's individual to each Inquisitor and contains all their personal info. Basically, it's bordering on the realms of impossible, that someone could impersonate an Inquisitor for any length of time, because other Inquisitors or the former Rosette bearer's retinue/friends would uncover the truth pretty quickly, especially when this Inquisitor is constantly watched by other Inquisitors who look for almost this exact thing all the time.

Arbites do not answer to planetary governors, any planet of any sizable population is going have them, and those few that don't are checked frequently by arbites cruisers. Arbites are never stationed on the planet they are from to ensure they don't have any conflicting loyalties. Additionally the arbites are much better equipped than a PDF, and would make short of one in the event of rebellion, or atleast last long enough to call for help.

Inquisitorial credentials are designed with the highest levels of paraniod security imaginable, if you can crack them the cult of mars would do darn near anything to hire you or kill you.

Also the echlesiarchy is also a strong line of defense as they are likely to call you a heretic and bring some battle sisters in to blast the crap out of you and your army.

Now despite all these precautions planets can and do rebel,sometimes having independence for years, until the administratum notices a lack of tax revenue, or the echlesiarchy notices a lack of tithes. At which point an inquisitor or confessor will likely be sent to investigate, and if they comeback with bad news, or are not heard from in certain time frame, in comes the guard/marines/sisters/ect. The imperium has a redundancy of methods that keep individual planets in line. Even the space marines are not free of some level of scrutiny, as the flesh tearers are well aware of by now.

Read Dark Heresy and its supplements. They explain all this.

CuddlySquig wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Each carries his/her own badge of office that is specially crafted and which contains activation and identification codes.

Okay, so it's not a possibility that's ignored. I haven't read any of those inquisition novels, is it like a keycard that you swipe through a machine to make it go "beep...beep...card accepted."

In "Enforcer" an inquisitor uses his bagde of office (separate from a rosette - that one doesn't contain codes, it's just a symbol) to unlock doors on a boarded Ministorium ship, so kind of yes. It does seem to have very high levels of access to anything sanctioned for use by Imperial organisations.

There are still ways of using an inquisitor's authority without rights, ofc.

The badge with all the codes etc is kept by the inquisitor, but sometimes he'll be forced to deputize a trusted aide to carry out something on his behalf - if in a hurry he'll just give the aide his rosette to use if necessary. One could aquire one of these symbols and try to fast talk some hapless junior officers. Demanding all the maidens would probably sound suspicious to them, but hitching a ride to the next system on a navy patrol route might pass. It is after all a fully geniune Inquisitorial symbol even if not the badge with codes.

And then there's all the times when an inquisitor uses his ID codes for different reasons. Take Eisenhorn for example, when trying to figure out how cultists can land on Cadia without being detected or somehow showing up as suspicious flights. Eisenhorn's favorite trusted transport Captain Maxilla solves the problem for him by demonstrating the use of Eisenhorn's own landing codes which he's transmitted from his bridge so many times. Inquisitorial clearance, you are free to land - approach vector following... You won't get all an inquisitor's codes but with good enough surveillance you could piece together a few useful ones.

Because the Imperium is too stubborn.

Not all Inquisitors have the same level of access though, but I've probably just stated the blindingly obvious.

dbsamurai wrote:its because all inquisition badges are tagged and read by every door they pass thru. pirates couldnt get within firing range of a planet with a forged or outdated inquisition code.

The second they tried they'd probably have some lower level Inquisitor assigned to hunting down the vile heretic.

CuddlySquig wrote:So there's two nagging questions I've had and I've decided to post them together instead of posting two topics.

One: The Imperium let command of its military forces be split to decentralize it a touch so a serious rebellion would be tougher to do. Yet they entrust the rule of an entire planet to one guy. Why not split each planet up between multiple governors, to deter rebellion because each governor would have a handful of others breathing down his neck. Instead you've got an endless parade of worlds declaring independence from the Imperium. Why's this?

Two: The Inquisition would have to let a lot of its stuff be pretty much common knowledge or no one would respect or even be aware of their authority. This is made even more big of an issue when you hear that inquisitors can commandeer whatever they want to achieve their mission. So what's to stop a group of pirates from impersonating an inquisitor to do scams of planetary proportions? Since a lot of key things about the inquisition would be common knowledge, how hard could it be to forge their symbols of authority?
"Hello, governor of Mordia. I'm an inquisitor. You can tell because I am in a robe and have this stone "I" in my hands. You must hand over all your daughters and your money or you'll be declared heretics by myself and the Ordo Hereticus."
Is the danger of inquisitorial impersonation ever eliminated or even mentioned anywhere?

Well, the answer to the first question is easy. There are a frikken buttload of planets in the Imperium. If every planet had a hundred different rulers, you'd end up with a system something like the United Nations... A completely ineffectual, utterly symbolic organization with no legitimate political or military power. A single ruler, however, has the benefit of usually getting whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. Rule by committee is inefficient, and the Imperium has more than enough inefficiencies present in its system already. A single ruler can make decisive decisions on important issues much more quickly than a group of rulers. That's why most national governments today have a head of state. Yes, there's usually a parliament or a congress, but it's the executive officer who makes the important decisions and leads the nation. A planetary governor is like a President, except on a larger scale.

As to the second question, the Inquisition is, by nature, a very secretive organization. They function without having to reveal their methods because everyone with two braincells to rub together knows to fear their reputation. Ultimately, the only thing stopping someone from impersonating an Inquisitor is the knowledge that doing so is resigning oneself to a punishment worse that death.

CuddlySquig wrote:

iproxtaco wrote:Each carries his/her own badge of office that is specially crafted and which contains activation and identification codes. Plus, even attempting this would likely sign your death warrant considering each and every Inquisitor is under the scrutiny of his/her piers.

Okay, so it's not a possibility that's ignored. I haven't read any of those inquisition novels, is it like a keycard that you swipe through a machine to make it go "beep...beep...card accepted."

It's a rosette.

Each Inquisitorial Rosette is unique to the Inquisitor who owns it. People in positions of authority can ask someone who claims they are an inquisitor to prove it by allowing them to scan the rosette, which will register against a database. You'd have to kill an Inquisitor to get their rosette if you wanted to forge it, but of course in that scenario, you would just have the rosette anyway, so you wouldn't need to forge it. But just having a Rosette that belongs to an inquisitor you clearly aren't poses its own problems:

In the Ravenor novels, there is a point where he's loaned his rosette to one of his female acolytes, who then uses it to prevent herself being arrested by the Arbites. Obviously, the rosette is registered to Gideon Ravenor, so they arrest her anyway because he is known to be a male inquisitor, and Ravenor himself has to intervene & say something to the effect of 'No, no, shes not an imposter I allowed her to use this Rosette with my blessing'

Theres another scenario in the novels where Ravenor and some of his agents

Also. Read the inquisition novels, they're awesome.

Some truly stupid criminals do try to forge rosettes or impersonate Inquisitors.

The Inquisition, understandably, takes a *very* dim view of such activities, and death at their hands is the *least* of your worries.

CuddlySquig wrote:So there's two nagging questions I've had and I've decided to post them together instead of posting two topics.

One: The Imperium let command of its military forces be split to decentralize it a touch so a serious rebellion would be tougher to do. Yet they entrust the rule of an entire planet to one guy. Why not split each planet up between multiple governors, to deter rebellion because each governor would have a handful of others breathing down his neck. Instead you've got an endless parade of worlds declaring independence from the Imperium. Why's this?

Because they knew about Earth World Wars and how would that effect most of the Imperium's planets. We Humans are like animals, we follow the stongest in our clan. If there are several of them the result is always the same: War for supremacy.

Two: The Inquisition would have to let a lot of its stuff be pretty much common knowledge or no one would respect or even be aware of their authority. This is made even more big of an issue when you hear that inquisitors can commandeer whatever they want to achieve their mission. So what's to stop a group of pirates from impersonating an inquisitor to do scams of planetary proportions? Since a lot of key things about the inquisition would be common knowledge, how hard could it be to forge their symbols of authority?
"Hello, governor of Mordia. I'm an inquisitor. You can tell because I am in a robe and have this stone "I" in my hands. You must hand over all your daughters and your money or you'll be declared heretics by myself and the Ordo Hereticus."
Is the danger of inquisitorial impersonation ever eliminated or even mentioned anywhere?

Who is stupid enough to even try that? Common people of the Imperium are afraid of the Imperial Guard, not to mention Imperial Inquisition who has the power to summon such things that it make your brain explode in pure epicness. Trying to imprison an Inquisitor is like trying to imprison Astartes Chapter Master - only fools try this.

Having Multiple Planetary Governors would be like ancient Romes Consuls. They would have either have fought openly against each other or in cladestine class war like Dune or the house Harkonen vs atreides vs corrino type affair.

Nazi Germany had a decentralised structure (to a degree, still had an autocrat at the top), with units in competition with each other in a dog eat dog mantra. A good example is the strange relationship of Reinhard Heydrich and Himmler, Heydrich was the SS Poster boy and feverant Nazi, but ultimately a great threat to Himmler. It is postulated that Himmler had a hand in his death after a week he suffered blood poisoning after the assassination attempt on Heydrich in Prague. Apparently he told the doctors to stop treating him and let him die. We will probably never know the truth.

While a single planet may have only a single Planetary Governor, this is not to mean that he has sole rulership of the world. Several worlds in the Imperium undergo periods of civil wars and such for dominance of the planet, or over resources or any other such thing that humans normally go to war over, and so long as it does not impact the Imperial Tithe, the Administratum and, indeed, the Imperium at large couldn't give a feth less.

As I recall, doesn't one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels take place in a war-torn hive that is under attack from one of its rival hives? That this rival has fallen to Chaos is important for the plot of the book, to be sure, but it is evidenced throughout that warfare between these two nation-states is not an unheard-of activity, however infrequent it might be.