Hello!

How "rigid," as organizations, are the different Ordos of the Inquisition?

My main doubt is this:

If it's all-right for an Inquisitor/acolyte of an Ordo to investigate what is clearly another, different Ordo's purview (sic?)

for instance, if a Malleus Inquisitor/acolyte discovers a Xenos threat, would the typical response be to:

a)- call the Xenos Ordo to take care of it, it's their purview/problem now!

or

b)- for the Inquisitor/acolyte to be expected to improvise & face the threat him/herself?

How "interlinked" are the Ordos? Do they share info, as suppossedly the (suppossed) intelligence community does?

Could an Inquisitor/acolyte belong to several Ordos without much fuss?

Thanks!

L

LETE said:

The Ordos aren't so much departments within the Inquisition who are supposed to do X job. They are more like social clubs for individuals who have a vested interest or specialty relating to X job. It's up to the individual Inquisitor to decide how to handle any situation that may come up. If an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor stumbles upon a Xenos threat, he could deal with it as he sees fit or leave it be, though leaving it to fester might be a bad idea. A threat to the Imperium is a threat to the Imperium no matter its shape of color. A good default assumption for how generic Inquisitors would handle something outside their Ordo is this: They will take care of any threat they find, but if it's particularly problematic or if it really stumps them, they may call upon a colleague of the ordo that deals with such a thing for assistance and their expertise... if they can respond in time that is. Once anouther Inquisitor is called in, the original could defer to them or not, depending on personalities, ambitions, current goals, etc.

Also, don't forget that rarely are threats clear cut and easily separated out into the ordo. After all, if Ordo's only handled their specialty and didn't touch what was outside of it, who would handle the return of the Y'vath or bale Childer (warp worshiping daemon summoning xenos and their mutated and corrupted human followers/slaves)) or a pack of renegade psykers who run an underground railroad for psykers who, during one of their pow-wows with the Inquisition, call forth a daemon, or an Imperial Cult that has been subverted by Cyptos Xenoforms who are actually being manipulated by a Lord of Change?

So, in summery, the Ordos are social clubs or task forces, not burocratic divisions and, as such, one could theoreticaly belong to multiple Ordos, though some may frown upon such and ostracise them for not being a team player. Ordo Malleus is real bad about doing that what with all their secrits that think are being leaked by those who aren't Ordo Malleus all the way and what-not.

As to belonging to several Ordos simultaniously? Never heard of such a situation. But switching Ordos certainly is possible. In "Eisenhorn" trilogy there was a character that started his career as Inquisitor in Ordo Xenos ( if I recall correctly ) but switched to Malleus.

Graver covered it pretty much, an Inquisitor's first duty is to the Emperium, then to their Ordos. That said, if there is a member of the appropriate Ordo in the area the Inquisitor would probably give them first crack at the situation, since they are typically more prepared to deal with the specific threat. And overlap is quite common ... consider that Eisenhorn is a member of Ordo Xenos, but many of his adventures actually took him into conflict with demonic entities and their servants. (in fact, I've often wondered why Eisenhorn wasn't Ordo Malleus)

As to serving more than one Ordo at a time, I'd say absolutely not. The Ordos are gentleman's clubs with their own secrets and deep traditions, and each of them have something of a superiority complex when it comes to who is serving the best interest of the Emperium. Even the act of transferring from one Ordo to another should be a rare occurrence only done for plot specific reasons. (and unless actively sought by the Ordo they are switching to, the new member would suffer under some suspicion and discrimination until they proved themselves)

It should be noted that an Inquisitor could be non-aligned with any one ordos; rather, they are aligned with the entire Inquisition as a whole. Such Inquisitors seem to be the exception rather than the rule, but nonetheless, they do exist.

-Kirov

With regards to cross faction comunication it does happen often just not in the way you are asking.

An example would be an inquisitor of ordo hereticus is rooting out corruption only to discover that part of the taint these traitors possess is coming from choas tainted weapons being sold by Xenos to the heretics. The inquisitor would continue on his mission of finding the heretics and trying to find and kill the xeno suppliers. However; while doing this he would also alert th order Xenos of his findings and delegate many of his findings to them. An example of that is the inquisitor discovers that the Xenos are also dealing in another planet or are using multiple ships. While the hereticus inquisitor would hunt down and destroy the ship selling to the hereitics he was hunting, the other vessils and areas would become some other inquisitors problem as they would have expierence locating and killing xenos.

There is one thing that you should also consider and thats inter faction fighting. A great example comes from the Eisenhorn trilogy. Eisenhorn is hunting down a Xenos of some kind unfortunetly there is another inquisitor that is hunting Eisenhorn. The inquisitor in question is very purtian based and considers all psychers abominations and as such once he discovered Eisenhorn he was determined to kill him. The idea of an inquisitor trying to kill another inquisitor in the pressence of aliens might seem wrong, but the puritan I believe was quite insane and would rather see an alien escape than allow a psycher to live. After all one of the imperial creeds states suffer not the psycher to live.