I've been wondering about this, but what makes a recongregator a radical? The philosophy of their faction is to change the Imperium for the better, it doesn't state what their tactics or techniques are. For example, a monodominant would have a hard time working through the system on Malfi and still be a puritan, but a recongregator would want to take a hammer to as badly as a monodominant. Admittedly the recongregator's hammer would be made out of JUST AS PLANNED, but the principle remains the same. It seems to me a recongregator could just as easily use sorcery and xenos weapons as they could be a dyed-in-the-wool puritan. I only found out Recongregators were radicals in Disciples. Isn't stamping out the corruption eating away at the Imperium the purpose of the =][=, so why are they radicals. That raises another question, can the puritan factions openly flout their philosophies, or would they also have to play things close to the vest. Can someone break this down for me.

For that matter, where do the Illuminati and Hydraites come into play?

This thread will also serve as a discussion of Inquisitorial politics and factionalism in general.

What makes them radical is that they work for change at all. The Imperium's party line is that change brings instability to the Empire, making it tantamount to treason.

To put it another way:

The Imperium has been around protecting mankind for 10,000 years and has never faltered (significantly) in that protection in all that time. It stands to reason then that it's doing things right and has been doing so from the get-go. After all, the Imperium is ruled and guided by the Emperor and he is a pure God of Awesome. He guides the Imperium and, as such, saying the Imperium needs changing is saying that the Emperor's guidance is faulty or insufficient and saying that is basically saying the Emperor isn't all that Awesome and saying the Emperor isn't Awesome is freakin' Heresy!

That's why thinking the Imperium could use a could make-over is radical ;-)

Wait, so they are radicals because instead of framing their beliefs as "This Corruption is blasphemy against the Emperor, and must be cleansed" but as "The Imperium sucks, let's change it". This is why I love 40K. The Recongregators are probably the most inquisitorial of all the factions, they are a group of chessmasters and magnificent b****rds who alter the imperium for the better through covert acts of just as planned, and their stated goal is essentially the purpose of the Inquisition, to stamp out Corruption and Heresy, but because they worded their argument in the worst and most arrogant way possible, they are considered vile enemies of the Imperium. I LOVE IT!

Sun Stealer said:

Pretty much... The ecclisiarchy say that the Emperor more or less wanted to keep humanity pure (sidestepping the subject of the Asteres entirely), and I also get the general feeling that the Imperial Cult also suggests that the Emperor was the only person pure enough of spirit and mind to separate out "good" tech from "tainted" tech. Thus, with the Emperor gone, the Empire has gone into stagnation. Now, where this concept comes from is debatable. I personally like the idea that the Temple Tendency started out this way, both mad in grief over the Emperor and as a way to solidify power. Every political power that needs to shore up it's base preys upon fear, especially fear of the Other, or that which is not understood (xenos). Even the US government relied on it heavily over the last decade or so, using that silly terror alert color-code system to raise a general feeling of hysteria whenever something that might undermine the power of the administration occurred.

The thing that I enjoy about Warhammer 40k is that as you get a bigger and bigger picture, you realize that history, as it is written in the Imperium, is a big bloody lie, and that the Imperium's biggest threat isn't any xenos or warp creature or daemon, it's mankind itself.

Sun Stealer said:

It isn't so much that they are arrogant - the very core of their ideology verges on heresy.

The Imperium is a holy institution. The laws of the Imperium are not merely secular regulations, but religious commandments. The Recongregators, in seeking to change the Imperium, are trying to alter the divine creation of the Emperor.

Of course, there is also the more practical fear - the Imperium has stood for 10,000 years. Changing it is messing with a formula that has kept Mankind going for millenia. What if your change results in the fall of the Imperium? The consequences of failure could literally result in mankind going to hell (and by hell I mean the warp). Their agenda is too risky for the majority of Inquisitors, who view it as a ridiculous gamble.

As has been said, the Recongregators are radicals for wanting to alter the very structure of Imperial Society and the balance of power between the various institutions. In their defence, the Imperium is nothing like the one the Emperor wished to set up (although they probably don't know that, but they do know the Imperium changed radically after the Heresy) and the Imperium has been suffering from internal rot and creeping feudalism. That's what makes Radicalism so fun. It isn't orthodox, but it can address/attack problems that Puritans will not or cannot. Of course, their actions might just make things worse.

It's worth noting that the more hardline recongregators (and, indeed, most of those outlined in Inquisitor and The Inquisition ) see strife, not change as the best way to bring about improvements (and strengthen) mankind. They want to just tear it all down and reckon what survives is stronger. Even more than the attitude towards change, it is that which makes them radical.

Those that merely want to replace the Imperium or change it for the better are fairly moderate, although as the others have said, even that is radical for being wanting to change and counter the Emperor's divine plans.

I would also like to add that radicallism is not inherantly heretical, nor grounds for execution or the like (though affiliation with certain extremist radical groups may be). Radicals are just those that reject orthodoxy as being requisite for success and/or "the good of the Imperium". It is not uncommon for many radicals to be publically (publically among the =][= anyway) known as such, which is made evident in a lot of the fiction.

Radicals are not trusted because a rejection of orthodoxy may start as the acceptance of benign heterodoxy (i.e. different but not heretical), but that in and of itself will lead the less steadfast and virtuous individuals to err into true heresy (The Eisenhorn series is an excellent example of how this can happen, all driven by neccessity and the greater good). So the radicals get a lot of suspicion.

Recongregators are not quite as gentle as the opening post might suggest. They believe in a real upheaval of the status quo, and a complete overhaul of society (the Istvaanians are the faction that seek to simply increase strife and suffering however, and the two do NOT get along). While these are laudable goals, as the Imperium can't survive stasis forever (not that it's actually in any sort of stasis, but it is far too slow to adapt to last forever), it's also a very dangerous/risky approach, and if handled poorly could just as easily hand the Imperium to the Chaos gods on a silver platter, as it were.

So basically, they're radical because their ideas are... well pretty radical. They reject the orthodoxy of things as they are, and want to take a massive risk for what they think will be a good payoff. The combination of heavy heterodoxy and risk-taking more or less can define the nature of a "radical" compared to the cautious (as in "better not to risk things, these people might be tainted, burn them") and orthodox puritans.

Aureus said:

My PCs' inquisitor is highly puritanical, and would gleefully look for any execute, to the point of engineering said excuse, to execute radicals. Especially after the PCs discover that it was a radical inquisitor who's assets got out of his control and resulted in his patron's death.

Usually the prestige or alliances of a radical inquisitor will spare him from outright confrontation, but there's a reason why so many inquisitors work alone. I see radicalism as the "dirty little (open) secret" within the Inquisition. Accusations of radical viewpoints are just that, accusations. If it ever got out for example that Eisenhorn or Ravenor did some of the stuff they did, and there was proof of it, either's life would probably be quite forfiet.

TheFlatline said:

Well that's the difference though, having a heterodoxical and radical viewpoint/philosophy isn't a crime, it just makes enemies of the hardline puritans. Those sorts are the "acceptable radicals", who believe in supporting heterodoxy and in taking risks. If the deeply radical activities of many extremely radical Inquisitors ever got out though, especially stuff like what Eisenhorn did later in his career, then they'd be tried (maybe) and executed immediately. A handful of puritanicals are actually as bad though, as they kill loyal, valuable, or otherwise crucial (to the Imperium) psykers just because they hate them. If a puritan extremist's assassination of a Navigator got out, for example, they'd be killed just as quickly. Extremism, as in all things, is the real problem, radicals are just far more prone to take extremism all the way into real heresy.

Your example above is actually a good flip-side to the problem, you have a puritan who's so dogmatic in his orthodoxy that he's fabricate an excuse to kill a loyal Inquisitor just because of a philosophical difference. If such an act were discovered, he'd be the criminal.

TheFlatline said:

Minor point of contention here. Regarding the Astartes; the Emperor created the Astartes to be his instrument in bringing the galaxy under the dominion of Man. The Emperor is the Divine Savior of Mankind, and our God, therefore, what he does is infallible. (This would be the logic used to explain the creation of the Astartes)

"....so, the creation of the Astartes, as the instrument of His galactic plan, is also infallible. I can say with surety that our Divine Savior had forseen the terrible betrayal of Horus, and included this base treason in His plan for the betterment of Mankind. It is not for us to know the inscrutable minutae of His Divine Plan, but rather, to fulfill our portion of the Plan to which we were born, thereby painting the galaxy with the vast panoply of His Divine Will"

--Prestor Guilliman Rowe, exhorting the Initiates of St. Grendel the Thrice Blessed

Also, if I recall correctly, the Emperor intended to bring the Galaxy into a new age of Reason and Science. And specifically intended to eliminate Religion. Therefore, as soon as the Emperor was locked in the Golden Throne, humanity took a sharp left turn from the Emperor's will.

Recongregators are radical largely because they are free-thinkers, and because they upset the status quo that is so beloved of others; thought begets heresy, and all that. The Imperium is institutionally reactionary, always looking to its past rather than its future. Recongregators methods can be extreme or mild, open or insidious. As radicals go, they are one of the moderate factions; the Amalathians mirror in more ways than one. The Imperium has stagnated because its populated by stangnant people; an intelligent Admiral or General who insitutes new reforms or novel new tactics is a radical too, yet obviously not in the same way a Xanthite or Istvaanian is. In the BFG Armaggeddon fluff, it notes that once the great leaders like Admiral parol, Grand Master Helbrecht and Commissar Yarrick left the Armaggeddon system, the space war went from an Imperial victory to a stalemate, because most of the people involved were not thinkers. The mediocre will always reduce great endeavours to their own level. Puritan inquisitors are, in many cases, actually quite unimagianative, at least in the early stags of their career where the indoctronated preconceptions and imprinted unquestioning streak has not been challanged; they, like most humans, adhere to certain ways of doing things because they are fundementally intellectually lazy. Recongregators, for whatever reason, are not like that, and so for that alone they are radical.

I still like the idea that just because they called themselves "recongregators" instead of "purifiers" or something, that is what makes them radical. It's so delightfully insane.