It seems that with Dark Heresy: Ascension the Inquision was retconned into having no power over the high lords of Terra, when up until now they explicidly had and were only accountable to the Emperor of Mankind himself.

I don't really have a comment on it, other than my dislike for the change. Any ideas on the reasons for the retcon, or was it just a mistake?

but dont the highlords speak for the emperor in his stead, and therefore who the inquisition answers to and even then they have the Inquisitorial High Lord

No. The right to investigate a High Lord of Terra were always explicidly part of the Inquisitorial Mandate. That even one of the High Lords would need a very good reason to refuse an order given by an Inquisitor was always one of the examples used to show the power of the Inquisitorial Remit.

The Inquisition is (now: was) supposed to be completly autonomous and beyond the authority of any part of the Adeptus Terra.

ThenDoctor said:

Yes, the Highlords of Terra are the voice of the Emperor. Yes, amongst their numbers sits the highest ranking Inquisitor. NO, the Inquisition has never held power over ANY of the Highlords. Should sufficient evidence be gathered, and a conclave rule it, a Highlord might be able to be judged and brought to the Emperor's justice.

The Inquisition was created and empowered not by the Emperor, but by the Highlords, as the Emperor was already interred in the golden throne.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Theoretically, an Inquisitor has remit to persue any heresy anywhere... But as ThenDoctor pointed out, in reality, it's not that cut-and-dried (but then, nothing ever is in the Imperium... or real life for that matter). In the Imperium, the only people who are believed to know the will of the Emperor and commune with him are the High Lords. So, if an Inquisitor were to condemn a High Lord to death, said High Lord could simply state that such is not the will of the Emperor. And then all you have effectivly is two people arguing about what God says (and we all know how those arguments go). Only problem is one of them probably has a hell of a lot more power and clout backing his argument unless the other was wise enough to gather a lot of equally powered back-up before posing such an allegation.

There is no equally powered back-up. You would have to have overwhelming evidence otherwise the High Lords would work to protect one of there own. To thwart pretty much anything you could bring to the table they would just have to tap one of the temples. An army is all good and well, but a Callidus will effectively put a stop to you long before you can bring said army to bear against the High-lord.

Hmmmm, so if any of the High Lords are corrupted, even the Inquisition has little recourse? Wow, that's messed up ...

One of the high lords is an Inquisitor. This happens for a reason. Also, the High Lords much like the Inquisition will self govern and root out their own corruption.

Bombernoy said:

Yes, there is equally powered backup... other High Lords ;-) What you elaborated on is what i was getting at in a more round-about manner. But, still, there are others: 100 chapters of marines might do it, a religious fanatic who gathers a faithful army on any planet he lands on who the warp seems to favor as well as at least two space marine chapters and the Adaptus Mechanicus as a whole who will fallow him as he lays siege to Terra, the entire combined might of all the Inquisitors of a Segmentum...

As for the mentioning that there's nothing that can be done about a corrupt Lord of Terra, what do you think the other High Lords would be doing while the corrupt one goes all corrupt-crazy? They sat back and let it happen once, would they risk a second? Someone would just need to poke them (and not get burned in the process of poking) in the right direction with enough damning evedance to substantiate their fears and necessitate action.

Graver said:

It's all a matter of theoretical power, and practical power.

Theoretically, the Inquisition has power over every single man, woman and child, no matter their position, from the lowliest peasant to the most powerful High Lord of Terra, and answering only to the Emperor of Mankind himself.

Practically, it's harder than that. High Lords don't get to their positions of power without a hell of a lot of support, including that of members of the Inquisition. An Inquisitior, practically, has to follow the politics of the Imperium, gather his own base of support, almost certainly including other High Lords, before challenging one of those that rule the Imperium in the Emperor's stead.

After all, who do you think makes sure that the Imperium works in a manner that allows the Inquisition to work not only effectively, but at all?

Bombernoy said:

You just keep restating my points, don't you ;-p If it were easy to go against a High Lord of Terra, then half the crack-pt Inquisitors with their bizarre ideas about what the Imperium should be and what's good for it would be able to remove any High Lord standing between them and Their Vision before other Inquisitors could take that Inquisitor down.

But to nit-pick a bit, though. At least two chapters of Space marines and the bulk of the Adaptus Mechanicus did lay siege to Terra around M36 and the other chapters of marines had long ago decided that they were just going to stay out of all that. They were also lead by a religious nut...

MILLANDSON said:

That's the catch isn't it? The inquisition is only and answerable to the Emperor and the High Lords of Terra answer only to Emperor. But it would take ball's of steel to deliver that.

On paper they are equal, in reality one can get aid from all and sundry and the other has all and sundry sworn loyalty to them. Unless you have some of the High Lords on your side you aren't even getting through the door (cause they are in charge of the Custodes too).

MILLANDSON said:

Just to make that clear: I am talking only about the theoretical powers here, not about the practical.

I am well aware of the practical limitations of the power any Inquisitor might have over the Inquisition.

My question also isn't wether the High Lords of Terra always had lawful authority over the Inquisition, because I know they didn't. If you don't believe me, look it up in the Codex Imperialis, page 31 or the core book for the Inquisitor boardgame, page 96. The Inquisitor corebook even specifically includes the High Lords of Terra as being under the Jurisdiction of the Inquisition in the same way that "the lowliest clerk" is.

[Edit: It's one of the reasons why the Inquisitorial represantative can change with every session of the High Lords: because every single Inquisitor, no matter how young and inexperienced, has enough theoretical authority to sit between the High Lords as their equal]

I am only interested in the change about this. Why the High Lords aren't anymore!

I don't understand, what's the wording of it? As in the Inquisition doesn't have remit, or the Inquisitors usually ignore or something different again?

Lets take a long hard look at established fluff...

The last instance when a High Lord of Terra went visibly, irrevocably corrupt was Master of The Administratum Goge Vandire.

Yes, Inquisition *did* exist back then. Yes, they *did* have mandate to investigate him. Probably many Inquisitors did. All of them ended up dead and forgotten in history because the immense power Goge Vandire wielded just brushed them aside. In the end it took Skitarii, several Chapters of Adeptus Astartes, Adeptus Custodians, Brides of Emperor and personal influence of Emperor himself (we still don't know what he said to Alicia but it must've been pretty **** influential stuff) to stop Goge Vandire.

So even if the lore says Inquisition can, theoretically, investigate anyone (even a high lord) the real question is... So what? Investigating a High Lord of Terra will certainly be a campaign-changing, once-in-your-very-short-expected-lifetime event, not something you do between the Demon and the Rogue Psyker cases.

Polaria said:

What "so what"? I said that I am only interested in the theoretical side of this. The reason why I am only interested in the theoretical side of this matter is, because it is what was changed!

If you just really want to talk about the ways in which a campaign about investigating on of the the High Lords of Terra might go and what might happen, please make a thread for it. Don't derail this one.

Gokerz said:

Where was this changed in Ascension though? Can you give a page reference and/or a quote on it?

Polaria said:

Thing with Vandire was that, he did actually do most of it fairly legitimately within the system to end up in a position of power without being much shadier than anyone else probably did to attain it, he just did it better than anyone else... it was actually the system that was weak and subject to being abused by unscrupulous people for their own ends. Its one of those bits of 40K fluff I find specifically interesting because its a distinct point in the history where the act of Heresy as a crime actually is clear cut enough to be simply "Opinion" from a disagreeing faction, the faction won the war, wrote the history and ended up re-writing what consititutes Heresy and the role of Administration at the highest levels of the Imperium. So Vandire by default ended up a posthumous Heretic by those that defeated him

My PC's are sniffing around this as a subject matter in their investigations and its causing a bit of consternation in terms of administering justice to 'Heretics' is that they're doing it to people that are essentially just a divergent sect of Emperor worshippers that didn't back the winner on the day when Vandire died... I sense some weakness to potentially be exploited in the morally weak

Gokerz said:

Where in the book does it actually say that Inquisitors cant investigate High Lords of Terra. If your saying that based on the line about inquisitors only answering to High Lords and Emperor, then thats pretty much like saying that NYPD cant investigate the mayor of New Yourk, becouse they answer to him.

And the part about inquisitorial remit, says that it has no formal and few practical limits.

Just a minor point:

Face Eater said:

AFAIK the Custodes are part of the Adeptus Terra but answer only to the dead man on the throne. The 4th Edition of the W40K book is pretty clear on that. In the Imperial Palace it is the Custodes who decide who sees the Emperor and they don't take any orders from the High Lords.