40K - THE INQUISITION OF MANKIND - Ideologies [2] Part Two | Warhammer 40,000 Lore/History

[Music] so we returned today to explore more about the highly fragmented factions that constitute the large organization known as the inquisition of the imperium we'll shortly learn about the origin of the inquisition and the specific factions associated to this but it's worth this also considering that as humanity has developed over the many millennia since the heresy coupled with the ever deepening spread of religious faith-based worship the inquisition which began its life as a group with a comparatively focused mission has now in the modern age of the imperium become a sprawling organization whose core viewpoints are usually designated as being what's referred to as either puritan or radical these designations are fairly straightforward and at a surface level self-explanatory one leans toward the more pure ideals in pursuit of protecting the imperium the other more radical side leans more toward the highly questionable activities in all regards but importantly they still believe they are working in the best interests of humanity puritans are viewed as essentially being more conservative in the sense that they believe inquisitorial doctrines should be strictly upheld usually adamant that inquisitional rule of law be followed to the absolute letter although some interpret this more strictly than others both in terms of suspicion judgment and actions puritan inquisitors believe that all the enemies and evils of humanity should be kept at a distance and obviously purged at all opportunities puritans are more likely to be but not exclusively also younger inquisitors and this is because they're still in some respects naive and yet to experience much of the galaxy that is to say still to become broken and jaded by its horrors puritans might be considered to be also somewhat idealistic to the true nature of the galaxy you might say that they will not willingly scale their expectations as to what is reasonably possible for achieving within the constraints placed upon themselves and the limitations of humanity's place itself within the wider galaxy inquisitorial radicals are what you might consider to be more like the realists in one sense and that's not really my personal perspective it's just objectively one way of looking at them they will see things much more from a very ruthless ends justifying the means perspective and while that is undoubtedly a point of view that many inquisitors have radicals will tend to take it through to an extreme level many are still part of the imperium and will follow its doctrines but others are just outright declared enemies of mankind and will be actively hunted radical inquisitors themselves walk a thin line of gradation between being seen to engage in what would be considered tolerable rule bending and breaking through into outright heresy an inquisitor understanding that they have become radical often only emerges having spent significant time in the service of the imperium and have subsequently become either just frustrated with their inability to achieve their goals or have just become numb to the unrelenting darkness of the galaxy alternatively they may simply have become unwittingly twisted and used by warp entities believing themselves to formally have held total domination over unfortunately by the time they finally realize this is not the case and the reality of their predicament they are left with no choice other than to accept their condemned fate as outcasts forced then to live on the periphery of authorized inquisitional members for most if not all radicals it is likely that they will need to live thereafter in the shadows constantly moving around the galaxy in order to escape puritanical inquisitional judgment within their two core ideological schools of thought there are of course many further overlapping sub-factions in addition there will also be many small cells of inquisitors who operate on a sliding scale of extremity most likely deliberately out of sight so as to evade the detection suspicion and investigation of the wider inquisition because of the overlapping and myriad nature of the inquisition's factions there may be some that i omit here and some that i summarize in brief but that's usually because those are very small factions or that they simply do not have a goal that is especially interesting some inquisitors outlooks can in fact be fairly plain tedious or just irrelevant to wider ongoing events mostly though as you will see the overlap can become confusing where one perspective sits within what is considered to be a puritan view overall but they seek to achieve it by radical means it's a very blurry part of the imperium but perhaps that is very much part of its nature and origin and when you're dealing with a very fractured powerful organization it tends to operate on a constantly evolving philosophical outlook this is perhaps to be expected within the puritans the most recent to appear are the amalathians or the amalethians their basic outlook is very uncomplicated and it simply states that the emperor has a grand vision of a plan and that therefore all is well and good that things are unfolding precisely as they should do because the emperor knows all and sees all and it is by his will alone that we find ourselves where we are now essentially everything is working just as intended it may be fair but also harsh to say that the amalathians are fairly boring comparative to the more involved perspectives of others within the inquisition and this is because they are more interested with the internal divisions and petty recriminations that occur as those who wield power within the imperium fight of course always for more the amalathians believe that too much of this disruption is actually counterproductive to the agenda of the emperor and so maintaining what could be seen as the establishment within the societal unity of the imperium coupled with a strict adherence and enforcement to law and order they aim to create stability their focus is upon this because they see that it was the emperor's original design that through unity and discipline the imperium could overcome all obstacles or threats that it may face it is only by maintaining a relative and i emphasize the word relative harmony within society coupled with mercilessly crushing disorder where and when it arises do they hope to await the future for mankind as determined by the emperor the amalethines are along with the thorians one of the most numerous factions within the inquisition in this desire to create relative harmony malathians will impose strict edicts where necessary and that will be backed up by proactive action if necessary however if given a choice they will prefer to work with localized authorities to delegate responsibility and deal with any problems themselves in a more local way instead of stepping in and directly bringing down the hammer of justice against any dissidents potentially grating then on a local population in the process so they understand the need to kind of have a hands-off approach step back but of course if necessary they have absolute authority to escalate matters but amalethians understand that hearts and minds are important in not only resolving one matter but preventing it from triggering another potential act of recrimination that will then have to be addressed and this also coupled with their intention to create unity within the worlds of humanity is best achieved if they're able to resolve their own problems and not create basically like a cascade effect in essence amalethians seek to carefully and with some attempt attacked stamp out small fires where they're found and importantly before they can catch hold and turn into burning infernos of disorder and anarchy however while the amalathians may seem like the quintessential inquisitors they are by relative measures fairly new and even considered by some to be weak upstarts there are those who consider them to hold wholly intransigent attitudes and their ideas are not worth any measure of serious consideration is very simplistic outlook this view of the amalethians is usually held by those with far more grandiose objectives like for example resurrectionists who unlike the amalethians have long been a core part of the inquisition so this contempt by opposing factions coupled with them espousing what are usually considered to be extreme views and goals mean that most conflicts tend to be initiated by amalethians in something of a contradiction to their core principles however their abhorrence to those who seek to undermine all the amalethians believe mean that it is hardly surprising that they often respond with a violent reaction to those who would jeopardize their very identity and all that they believe in basically anyone who seeks to compromise their worldview and factions that would diminish them like this for example the thorians [Laughter] now i'll firstly say that there is a lot more detail in terms of connected cross-referenced events relative to the thorians than most other inquisitional factions this is namely because the thoriums are such a major part of the inquisition but obviously if i integrated all of those references this would be prohibitively long to discuss but saying that i sometimes do get the feeling that thorian inquisitional views are not well enough represented in what you might call the general view of the inquisition what i mean is that despite their overarching perspective being a major faction within the inquisition we usually see inquisitors represented as either some form of as i said previously merciless galactic police force very much owning the attitude of cross me and i'll kill you and we'll come to those specific inquisitors soon enough or they're portrayed as the crazed zenos hunters who would go to any lengths to destroy their enemy primarily looking at inquisitor kryptman then of course you're left with the classic everybody's a heretic that the emperor sought them out stereotype so this inquisitor portrayal does give a crossover impression that makes you think of a certain mega city law enforcement officer who might say something along the lines of guilt and innocence being just a matter of timing but these general stereotypical inquisitors but why most people seem to commonly hold the perception that inquisitors are merely extreme heresy hunters which when you look at the far more fleshed out nuanced characters who serve the inquisition like gregor eisenhorn probably the best example it's then that you realize how these more extreme caricatures do actually a great disservice to the real background of the inquisition and that brings us to talking about the background of the faction known as the thorians now i think personally the lack of discussion around thorian's overarching views has everything to do with the fact that at its simplest the thorian's core ideology is heavily centered around bringing about the resurrection of the emperor aka that topic that shall not be discussed by any core narrative under any circumstance lest it dangerously move a wider story incrementally forward in some dramatic way but while it can be rightfully said that what is defined as the thorian ideology was born out of the 36 millennium it's also true to say that thorians have existed in one form or another since the very beginning of the inquisition so it might be instead more accurate to say that as a faction they have merely grown in prominence and definition since the 36 millennium but these are some unnecessary semantics that really will become clear soon the thorian ideology originates from the period at the end of the heresy when of course the inquisition was being first established except of course it was not then known as thorianism at the time however we know that resurrectionist cults have been a thing for as long as the inquisition has existed and it's not hard to understand why those new members of the emerging inquisition were those who were committed to most loyally serving the emperor to carry out his will and who would hold a deep belief in his having a far-reaching plan for mankind so it's very easy to understand why these individuals would certainly also want to believe that he was not truly dead and begin to muse philosophically about the possibility of his coming resurrection in fact they actively wanted to see this as we know the history of the imperium and humanity is very clouded and very hazy but it is said that there were originally four mortal individuals trusted servants of the emperor during the building of his galactic empire who in the catastrophic aftermath of the heresy and the emperor's incarceration to a state of living death gathered together to discuss what should now happen these four were selected by the regent of terra malcador the sigilite to head up a new organization the other eight were astartes who formed the grey knights but the four mortals were divided in opinion as to how they should now proceed with malcador having been disintegrated and the emperor was interred upon the golden throne two of them believed that the fledgling imperium could not survive without the emperor to directly lead humanity well the other two were adamant that the emperor had ascended to a higher plane and that it would be sheer folly to interfere with the course of events as they had unfolded so far however it was also said that when the senatorial imperialist was convened on the first anniversary of the emperor's ascension a grim-faced man joined the council and identified himself as a representative of the holy order of the emperor's inquisition this suggests that the early inquisition was an amalgamation of several organizations and that they were established from the outset but regardless of this from what we know two of the original four mortals the founding members of the inquisition developed views known as resurrectionist they are known only now to us as promise and moriana they left terror together so as to begin their quest of returning life to the emperor and the two who remained on terror acted with haste to establish themselves within the newly formed senatorum imperialis the two who remained were known to the primarks as very loyal servants and collectively they began to lay the plans for the formation of an organization that would combat the efforts of the two dissidents who had sped off into the galaxy these were some of the very first seeds that would be sown soon enough to develop into what we understand now as the inquisition but that would not officially happen until m32 premius and moriana were far from idol during this time and they soon gathered together a following of their own particularly drawn from cults and sects that were appearing on many worlds with an ever increasing pace and after the end of the heresy and the growth of the religious cult centered around the emperor and his deification somewhere along the line in this early period moriana and promise split their overall goals were still the same but mariana had evidently become determined to use whatever means when necessary to achieve her aim of resurrecting the emperor so mariana is perhaps the first vague concept of what would later become known as a radical inquisitor fearful that moriana would unleash unspeakable powers of chaos to achieve her goal promise created a small army of dedicated followers to combat the menace he believed that she posed these two factions would clash many times until promises disciples finally prevailed and moriana disappeared probably into the eye of terror as the official inquisition grew in its presence was felt further and further from terror it eventually came into contact with what were now known as the promians the original intent was to prevent the reincarnation of the emperor but this had been diluted over the centuries when the promise were discovered fighting against an ill-specified chaos threat they were brought into the fold of the inquisition because by now so much time had passed that neither the inquisitors that contacted the sect nor the promise themselves were really aware of the ironic nature of this cooperation and so the organization of the inquisitors from terror amalgamated a force that they had actually been designed to destroy and consequently the first resurrectionist inquisitional faction was then created for nearly a millennia the promise continued on their quest combating threats to the emperor whilst also subtly seeking a means by which he may be brought back to a mortal body the research of the premiers rivaled the greatest libraries of the imperium but unlike a library it laid dispersed across the galaxy like pieces of a puzzle scattered throughout a wilderness as the imperium entered m33 the inquisition boasted several thousand inquisitors and hundreds of thousands of inquisitorial agents but in truth this amounted to little more than individual bands of dedicated men and women pursuing what amounted to their own goals and initiatives with littles and no centralized organizational focus unsurprisingly this led to the seeds of heresy germinating once again the premiums began to pursue a new philosophy the great number of attacks that had been compiled over the millennia by their predecessors was a growing body of information and contained concerning musings about the nature of horus and his possession by chaos the promise had begun to take greater note of these works in their goals and subsequently a splinter philosophy began to form known as fairly plainly the horizons in a textbook example of how blanket inquisitors can become unwittingly radicalized they were now again in another ironic twist continuing the original work of mariana who had once been their nemesis they unashamedly explored the possibility of using the power of chaos to restore the emperor to a mortal form fit for his psychic presence the nature of their works took them to some of the most uncharted areas of the galaxy but unsurprisingly especially around the eye of terror and they would then grow in both number and influence a few of what could still now be called a true promise remained horrified by these developments but this was because only a handful of permians had ever read the first teachings of promise or had been recruited by inquisitors who had seen his works but for those who had they immediately recognized the hand of moriana in the beliefs of the horisons the few promise that remained did what they could to thwart the efforts of the horizons but by the end of m34 the horizons had become a dominant part of the inquisition's agenda this is where a figure known as stalia von dressen would lead something of a crusade against these horizons throughout the imperium she had spent significant time on terror digging through the archives and upon finding the broker promise discovered the truth of the matter that any concept of the resurrection of the emperor was a lost cause and an endeavor that was only considered achievable by either fools or heretics she then engaged in a brutal crusade and despite being aged at reportedly 120 years old she all but destroyed the resurrectionist faction of the inquisition and there you may think would be the end of what could have been a major faction but here things become somewhat more complicated and connect to what is known as the age of apostasy and another event here known as the reign of blood through the actions of one lord van dyke however trust me when i say that i elected to save these for further discussion as they could easily spiral out of control should i broach them at any length right now but suffice to say things became destabilized in the imperium especially segmentum solar and this was related in part to the rise of the ecclesiarchy now some may question how it could be that the inquisition could allow any major destructive events to occur as by design they were very much meant to prevent such things from happening well in essence it boils down to an oversight in the importance of the ministerium and the power it wielded coupled also with a resurgence in pro-resurrectionism and these were led by one sebastian thor now thor then enacted a crusade to crush this van dyer and after successfully doing so with the assistance of astartes and mechanicus restored order to the imperium sebastian thor was requested by the high lords of terror to take the position as head of the ministerum however thor had no desire to take any such role and his refusal was taken as being highly disrespectful and enraged the lords of terror as a result he was dragged back to terror itself to face charges of being of course a traitor to the imperium however ultimately the captain general of the custodies himself after a long trial declared thor to be acquitted on all charges which was both a cause for mass celebration and simultaneously deeply humiliating for the high lords of terror he was then offered the position by the lords yet again but his continued refusal only deepened their rage seeing these fracturing problems this was causing the captain general the custodies to actually speak up to thor well known for their unrivaled negotiating skills and expert use of words the custodies convinced thor to take up the position as head of the ecclesiarchy for the greater good of the imperium but thor had specific conditions being that he essentially would rule the minister as he saw fit and be allowed unrestricted travel one of his major changes would be in dismantling the militant wing the ecclesiakis is stood then and replacing it with the sororitas just an incidental aside for you it's believed that the necron trezen the infinite now owns the head of thor i guess because trezen heaven knows he's obsessed with collecting his curious trophies and weird collections of mortal entities anyway the thorians the result of all this disruption was the emergence of a faction of resurrectionists who took careful note of thor's purity up to this point they had been seeking any number of ways and vessels that the emperor's spirit might inhabit but upon seeing the nature and impact of thought and that his faith in the emperor could even create or quell warp storms the resurrectionists concluded that they would focus their quest from here on in the saintly human vessels they basically perceived thor and any other saintly individuals as being imbued with the emperor's spirit and to them this was evidence that their beliefs were confirmed but they would require a truly unique vessel for the emperor himself to be reincarnated so this then obviously leads us to the development of the thor reinfection of the inquisition to develop what are known as the principles of the god incarnate sometime around the middle period of m40 one inquisitor halston whose musings were based around compiled dissertations of several thorian inquisitors from the tiberius conclave though not widely known amongst even the inquisition these principles are said to be part of the very foundation of the inquisition and its true overarching mission from beyond the visible and the obvious however the principles of the god incarnate make the thorians simultaneously some of the most puritan yet also heretical members of the inquisition and this is why i say the kind of strange overlapping contradictions that exist as part of the inquisition are very very strange the reason being that their philosophy states that the emperor is a god that after the battle against horus the emperor in fact does not live sitting atop a golden throne he exists in the warp in spiritual essence and that he has risen to become the god of humanity this is what they perceived by the emperor's ability to reach out and imbue humans with some of his powers and seemingly affect events and situations across the imperium the thorians understand that for chaos to be effective in the material world it needs its worshipers and it needs those who will carry out actions to enable it to be effective they believe that the ecclesia in the imperium are essentially this but for the god emperor so the logic is that if the emperor is a god and was once a man but is now transcended into the warp he theoretically should be able to transition from being a godlike spirit into a man once again hence they believe they only need to find a vessel that can carry him to enable his reincarnation to become the god incarnate more disturbingly if the thorian's beliefs are in fact correct and this would mean that other spiritual entities can also take physical form they believe this is already the case for the eldar who are actively trying to enable this to happen so they can defeat slaanesh and in fact the eldar already seemingly do this through the form of their avatars although from what we understand about avatars it's questionable if there is really any god taking physical form it may simply be that the eldar are in fact allowing their true internal powers themselves to burn through them but most worrying though is if this were the case it raises the prospect that the chaos gods themselves who most believe are confined to the warp could theoretically take physical form if they were able to find a vessel to carry them that is but it's often said that when the emperor fought horus he was unsure how much of horus he was fighting and how much he was simply fighting the chaos gods in the physical form of horus there are big problems with this concept though not least that many within the inquisition are concerned that if there are ever some form of resurrectionist event what would happen to say the astronomican what would humanity's reaction to having their god walking among them be would the imperium indeed accept this or would it tear itself apart yet again by civil war as believers and unbelievers in the second coming turn upon each other it's also unknown if the emperor were in physical form could he be killed again if so would he then be destroyed forever exposing humanity nakedly to the great perils of the galaxy what if simply in the action of resurrection itself the emperor were destroyed if things went say badly wrong in that actual process if somehow the divine avatar was unsuitable or became damaged the problems and possibilities were limitless and none could be easily answered at all as a result the significant body within the inquisition would rather see things remain stable and as they are in the belief that this is all part of the emperor's grand plan and that things remain best left alone that's when we come back to the emalathians so this has led to a situation where now in inquisition little has changed since promise and mariana set out into the galaxy in their quest to resurrect the emperor except that now some factions are trying to locate a suitably divine vessel for the emperor to be resurrected the parameters for that we have no way of knowing and the others are actively hunting down such individuals and executing them as quickly as possible to prevent the other faction from even attempting such a thing now i also want to note that some sub-factions of thorians align with as i said a radical outlook because of their use of involvement with xenos or the war but i decided it's best to include all the thorium factions in one set including the radical and puritan together so first up within the thorian's sub-factions are those like the radical horizons who have fairly existed since the earliest days of resurrectionist beliefs in the present time they are very few in number and believe that the power gained by horus is proof there is the possibility for the creation of a divine avatar and that moreover the power horus gained could serve itself as a process in transferring the emperor to a physical body so they conduct experiments often using astartes as a means to try and draw the power of chaos and the warp to better understand how this can happen as it did with horus some among them consider that if a body is possessed it could be exercised and then leave a pure vessel able to be used despite their quite obviously dangerous beliefs it is said that they usually walk this path quite wisely yet in saying this there are those who become so caught up in their experiments in investigations of the war they end up captured and twisted into doing the biddings of the dark powers themselves another faction within thorianism are the animalian beholders these are a puritan faction and said to be among the most conservative of all the resurrectionist factions this is because their goal is not to enable the second coming of the emperor but simply to observe humanity and await his arrival which seems a little lackluster they see it as their job to prepare for this momentous event and to stand ready to offer whatever assistance may be needed at this great time but as a result the primary focus of the animalian beholders is locating potential divine avatars and then thoroughly just observing them only if they are convinced that the vessel is tainted would they destroy it much like the original thorians they are content to just examine and research remarkable individuals for signs of potential or corruption they are more zealous than most in following up any signs of omens or existing possible divine avatars and are amongst some of the most travelled inquisitors in the galaxy but animalian beholders tend to be very pragmatic down-to-earth individuals after a lifetime of seeking wisdom and enlightenment only to have their hopes thwarted time and time again tend to take a longer view of matters and despite numerous setbacks to achieving their goals always very optimistic that the future may hold the answers and this has garnered them a reputation for being very level-headed and reliable other inquisitors will happily overlook their foy balls in return for these better qualities the ardentites are another puritan sub-faction of the thorians and although not truly being resurrectionists they are probably still best placed to sit within that framework of understanding and the reason for this is while they do not hold a solid belief in the basic principles of the emperor incarnate they do not envision this as being something akin to a single divine avatar instead the ardentites feel it is more likely that the power of the god emperor will manifest through a group of individuals or more likely permeate through the entirety of mankind the rationale for this is that given humanity's evolution towards being a psychic race evidenced by a gradual but very perceptible increase in mutation and psychic ability it is the belief of the identity that it was the ultimate plan of the emperor to protect mankind during this very vulnerable stage of psychic development that it was his aim to disseminate his powers throughout humanity because of this belief the identities spend the majority of their time attempting to locate any human expressing psychic ability this is a very vague unsure process none can say what defines evidence of the emperor's presence though certainly there is no accounts of miraculous events that might be accounted for by intervention of the emperor the identities have become the focus of ridicule and derision by most of the inquisition this is largely because their beliefs and related actions have seemingly little constructive benefit they've often been accused of direction of duty and wasting resources because they spend all their time wandering around and not really doing much of anything however it is this entrenched belief despite all lack of evidence that actually defines the identity and means that inquisitors belonging to their faction tend to have an attitude more along the lines of hey we're just asking questions here this attitude in defiance is almost a willful resistance to any logical arguments put toward them by other inquisitors and as a consequence they're widely regarded as basically kooks who just see the work of the emperor being everywhere other than where it is actually needed and needed to be seen with that said their one other true virtue is their skills in investigation as they dig into rumor and conspiracy far deeper and far longer than others regularly unwilling to make highly obvious conclusions from their discoveries instead they will dig further to seek out inner meaning and hidden motives in what they encounter and sometimes that can in and of itself be a highly beneficial thing for not just themselves but the wider inquisition and of course the imperium next we have the case of filians and these align with the radicals and their core view is based around the idea of a missionary saint during the early period of m41 a minister member by the name of caseyphili had been preaching to feral worlds but upon encountering some minions of chaos he was forced to try and counter these incursions and laid down the foundations for an ecclesiarchy taskforce to follow on however as he moved from settlement to settlement preaching the word of the god emperor his foes began to take notice unable to bear such a threat to their power the council of priests that ruled the world moved against him and had him captured and tortured to recant his errant beliefs the chronicles of casey phili tell of his arduous ordeal at the hands of the twisted priests to the point at which he died from his wounds but five days after his death the body of the missionary was to be burned upon a sacrificial pyre to the dark gods and as the flames took hold of the tired wood quesophila aroused himself and jumped from the fires miracle of this nature would ordinarily attract the attention of resurrectionist inquisitors like the thorians but the faction that have dedicated themselves to the study of case of eli's story focus on one particular aspect of the saints tale that being the part where he relates his experiences over those five days where he lay dead during this period the saint tells of a bodyless floating sensation in a gulf of sound and color he writes a clamor of myriad voices some whispering others bellowing swirled all around him he speaks of a great light that suffused everything which he believed was the emperor his resurrection to the thorians is no amazing feat because they believe this already to be an established fact what intrigued specifically those who would become known as the case of filians was his description of a place within the warp where souls reside the caseophilians are specifically focused on learning and mastering the process of transitioning from the warp to the materium they're experts in demonology and ritualistic summoning but specifically doing this in a manner where they are the ones controlling the situation not allowing whatever it is that they may summon to take control this means that no accidents or malicious possessions should take place because it is their hope and belief that by mastering the process of transition they can successfully enable the emperor's soul to be resurrected into a mortal form once again the quesophilians are also far more open to new ideas and information than some others within the thorian faction and will listen and even work closely with inquisitors who hold different views to their own [Music] lastly within the thorian subfaction we come to what are known as the revivificators which i don't want to say again and they focus on the opposite perspective to the case of phridians they focus on the transition of the soul from the body in death to the warp they study this in the goal of slowing this process hoping even to halt it and then to return the soul to a living body because of their nature of their studies this unfortunately brings what i will now call the revs into areas such as plague cities or worlds the post-ruined horrors of battlefields tombs mausoleums not to mention they're holding a level of disrespect towards the ecclesiarchy interestingly as i mentioned earlier resurrectionists views align quite strongly with the nature to which we understand the elder souls and spirits to operate and i've talked at length in several videos now about how we understand the eldar's soul and their relationship with it and the warp and how it's critical to understanding not only events like the war in heaven the current rise of the inari and in naid but also potentially the birth of the new eldar god and destruction of slash and what this could mean for the elder in the wider galaxy but much of this has to do with the way by which eldar's souls seem different to human souls they appear to retain more individual integrity instead of human souls which seem to just bleed into the sea of the warp and are lost this is why it is interesting to consider the eldar soul not just in relation to their own culture's history and development but what understanding of it could mean for humanity and the wider galaxy so within the faction of the thorns known as the revs the revival factors they tend to agree with this in fact it is said that they have learned much from the capture of various eldar over the centuries in particular they find the principle of the eldar spirit stone very intriguing and have on numerous occasions attempted to in fact replicate the practice of capturing a departing soul so far such attempts have proved wholly unsuccessful for mankind's psychic technology is far inferior to the psychic engineering properties of eldar racebone although i will bother to mention obviously eldar spirit stones are not made of wraith bone they're entirely different and they can in fact only be found now on eldar chrome worlds which are very very dangerous for them to visit because they're usually within chaos territory but they have also taken note in relation to the drakkari the dark eldar's practice of soul leeching and soul theft which have been noted by various data files compiled by inquisitors so some within this sub-faction have gone so far as to try and even replicate the practices of the dark eldar albeit on heretics or those of criminal persuasion it would be fair to say that obviously these activities in the darkest dungeons of inquisitorial cruisers or the depths of hive cities are not exactly widely discussed or well documented the ultimate goal of the revs though is to be authorized to study the golden throne itself which seems wildly unlikely to ever happen while the custodies still draw breath and this is not to mention that their next aspiration is to perhaps alter the very working of the golden throne so that the emperor's body might be restored again the revs study not only the passage of the soul from the deceased or dying to the warp but also they have learned extensively about the process by which a corpse may be maintained in a state ready for reinfusion of the soul access to this knowledge and technology means that revs often will live far far longer than other inquisitors the oldest being inquisitor lord varanath who was shot and killed whilst strong and hearty at the fair age of 763. so it seems like there were some serious questions to be asked in that regard there's suddenly visions of the jakari and their homunculi come flashing vividly to mind for some reason and one may begin to wonder just how is it that a human was able to live for nearly a millennia and just how were they drawing a life force to survive questions questions questions so then we come to what you might say are the last of the core puritan factions these are of course the satirically extreme monodominant inquisitors and these are inquisitors who would most likely exhibit the traits deemed most characteristic when people think of a stereotypical inquisitor that is to say quick to judge if in doubt assume heresy exterminators and remaining at all times absolutely merciless and uncompromising as i have alluded to for a while it is the monodominants who are very much the shoot you in the face first ask questions or not later form of inquisitor and entertaining any thoughts that they may feel any guilt empathy or conscience about their actions would be absurdly ignorant no matter how appalling their actions they feel no doubt no hesitation no regret after all their actions are duly the emperor's will in many ways the monodominants are one of the purest distillations of the spirit that encompasses the 41st millennium that is absolute horror unconscionable brutality and not forgetting of course a soul-consuming xenophobia turned up to 11. monodominants are the nightmare inquisitors who all across the empire of humanity senior figures or indeed any in a position of authority pray they never have to answer to likely because nine times out of ten becoming the subject of their attentions will result in a speedy or traumatic death sentence the monodominant belief system and i use that term fairly loosely as it hardly really qualifies as a deep intellectual ideology is essentially that humanity and broadly the imperium are the only ones who should be allowed to exist in the galaxy and that's pretty much the sum total of their perspective and ultimate goals this very simplistic perspective of course means that subsequently any and all who are not human in the purest sense should be wholly exterminated wherever they're found and obviously in as efficient a merciless fashion as possible there's very little confusion when it comes to the outlook of monodominance as there is little room for interpretation it's quite a clear-cut ideology this is why i feel it should only be a matter of time before a fleet of ships descend upon the world of the so-called tau spheres and exterminators their worlds back to the hadian era but i should not get sidetracked by wild fantasies the origin story of the modern dominance begins around m33 when one inquisitor goldo described his theory of mono domination this describes the nature of mankind just as it sounds that humanity holds an inalienable right to only rule but dominate the galaxy and of course it goes without saying that this is all in the emperor's holy name definitely not because some aging inquisitor just decided it seemed like the best thing to do inquisitor goldo compiled many experiences and commentaries from his nearly 400 years of service to the imperium and this time of service had brought him to declare a highly carefully studied well analyzed intricate and precise conclusion which was of course that the only way the emperor's loyal servants would survive would be if every other sentient life form were to be just exterminated because the golder appears was certainly not a man you would describe as one to do things by half measures but as i said before it's also just about as clear-cut as you can get unlike some of the other more convoluted philosophies in the imperium when it comes to monodomination there's very little room for subtle interpretation not when your final conclusion is basically kill anything that isn't human it's very probable this is why later it would become so appealing within the inquisition but initially when goldo first put forward these views it was not popular at all in fact on finally completing his carefully considered piece of work his overtly pessimistic views found few sympathizers and were instead actually dismissed and attributed to goldo being a very devout but aging inquisitor who surely must have suffered something akin to a complete mental breakdown clearly having lost all of his faith and this is the critical part in humanity's ability and power to prevail over its enemies at its own discretion that's the important part because essentially those who had a little more belief in the strength of humanity understood that it should not be necessary to wage these gigantic galactic genocides against the xenos because humanity was the most powerful force in the galaxy and therefore would always prevail what they were saying in effect was that the view of the monodominant were far from being an ideology of strength they were in fact one of fear of weakness and they did not align with those who were the true faithful servants of the imperium who knew that humanity could and would always be the dominant force in the galaxy so inquisitor goldo's views seem to suggest otherwise goldo feared and espoused the view that without truly extreme measures humanity would likely at some point in the future fall into a deep chasm of darkness that it could never drag itself out of and be at the mercy of the zenos except for the fact that that kind of contradicts the actual history of the imperium in humanity because it's already been demonstrated that humanity is able to drag itself out of that darkness several times over but golda considered it was therefore necessary to ensure that those non-humans should be obliterated to as close to extinction as possible so that this situation would never come to pass now of course we know ourselves that there is at least some truth to goldo's vision of there being a potential catastrophe on the horizon with the potential to forever do mankind i won't bother to list them in any detail you can take your pick at this point but tyranids necron etc but for those within the imperium his views were at best poorly received many found them to be quite frankly deeply insulting and counter to everything that they believed and so it would seem that the last rambling conclusions of a wizard inquisitor would simply be archived forever lost amid billions trillions of dusty tomes in an archive somewhere on some imperial administrative world most likely never to be read by anyone for millennia if ever and that likely would have been the case were it not for the fact that several centuries later one inquisited jeremias would rediscover and subsequently feel invigorated by the views of goldo he would revive the outlook of monodominance becoming in fact so taken with the ideals described that he swore to enact goldo's vision since then the monodominant viewpoint has grown ever more prevalent within the inquisition and of course accordingly within the citizenry of many worlds of the imperium and the followers of this ideology not necessarily because they just agree with it but because when an inquisitor tells you what it is you should be doing and preaching it's fairly normal for people to want to fall in line as the consequences for not doing so are likely fairly severe so these worlds and indeed the empire of humanity throughout its history have certainly held no great love for the zenos most humans have seemed to be fairly satisfied simply to maintain though a more defensive posture pushing back the enemy where it was found to resist the incursions of the alien but beyond that they saw no true need to say wage a war of complete and uncompromising extermination this is due largely as i said to their overarching belief that humanity can always destroy their enemies but perhaps it is also due to the fact that despite all the abject horrors that exist in the galaxy despite the harrowing lives led by so many humans there still somehow remained in the human spirit for the longest time still a sense that there was something entirely inhuman about waging a war of total genocidal annihilation even against the zenos the enemy humanity had already learned to hate the xenos over millennia of their incursions into their territory but they knew that they could always repel them the monodominants have pushed that hatred to a whole new level where nothing other than absolute annihilation will satisfy their desire for total domination and even then it is likely that they would turn their eyes toward humanity itself monodominant inquisitors live purely to destroy all perceived enemies of the emperor but as noted this perspective also extends of course beyond the xenos and it is seen most aggressively toward any who dare or question to take action against their views monodominants have almost zero tolerance for any kind of wayward behavior small or large that is in their eyes absolutely no argument or answer that will excuse whatever they qualify as heresy or even for that matter contemplating heresy most certainly not any action that is attributed to enabling or harboring heretics and that's even if you are entirely ignorant of it or ignorant to your assistance there they just deem that again to be an unacceptable excuse now it should be fairly obvious but i will note that for monodominance heresy is not limited to those who are just tainted by chaos in the war it also broadly includes mutations religious deviance the high crime of being an alien psychos and essentially really any beings sentient or otherwise who do not really conform to their views of what qualifies as an acceptable imperial subject there is only one punishment for what amounts to heresy in the monodominant ideology unsurprisingly it is death in the view of the monodominant mankind is fighting a war not just to maintain territory or protect critical worlds it fights for its very survival as a species at an absolutely fundamental level it remains the monodominant hope that if they're able to just kill enough aliens psyches mutants and heretics eventually then natural selection will prevail and doom what little remains of the enemies of mankind two being a substandard genetic pool creating a situation of slow inevitable extinction leaving humanity to retain its position of being the dominant galactic power which is quite a bleak and harrowing worldview monodominants are if it were not abundantly clear extremely militant and will more readily resort to actions like exterminatus far more than other inquisitors where other factions might engage in careful investigation and subterviews trying to understand what is happening why has an incident taken place and what might it mean for the wider sector or perhaps have far deeper consequences monodominants are just far more blunt and simplistic in their approach usually they'll operate in plain sight and in doing so they rely upon a greatly feared reputation to stir up panic in a local citizenry they will most often descend into then widespread xenophobia hatred just a very panicked and blaming citizenry perhaps resulting in some kind of hive purge thereby doing the inquisitor's work for them without them even having to lift a finger frenzied citizenry begin to just purge through their own ranks of the filthy unclean heretics who may quite literally threaten their own future because if an inquisitor were not satisfied with the status of a hive it will be soon torn through by heretics seeking execution squads or in a worst case scenario maybe even exterminatus while they're more likely to do this than other inquisitors you shouldn't get the wrong idea and think that they're just obliterating planets left right and center calling exterminatus is still an absolutely horrendous extreme action and it's hard to call such an action without others noticing that although there are many many worlds throughout the imperium exterminators in many planets is not the same as going into a hive city and purging sectors people are going to notice those planets have become ashen wastes and so engaging on a campaign of unwarranted exterminatus is surely going to lead to that inquisitor certainly being called before their peers although it is fairly arguable could any punishment really be enough for overstepping the mark and obliterating even one planet of billions generally speaking monodominants are among the younger and more venomous members of the inquisition they travel very widely across the imperium often leaving paths of harrowing devastation in their wake arguably being perhaps drunk on power yet it is also said that monodominants also appear with older inquisitors who are very embittered having seen years of unbearable suffering and horror this can lead them to perceive that their other alternatives are wholly inadequate solutions toward the problem question of the enemies of mankind and so instead resort to last ditch blunt traumas which align best with the monodominant ideology for monodominance like many in inquisition the confidence in their so-called philosophy is almost unshakable this is likely a very vicious cycle of validation as any who dare to question their viewpoint this is only seen as a means and indeed mandate to commit more acts of want and brutality toward the enemies of humanity in truth this is really little more than an excuse which then digs their ideological whole a little deeper but for many monodominant inquisitors it seems likely that they're not able to really perceive this their views are so generally entrenched that they're unable to see anything else and are doomed into a cycle of abhorrent action and self-validation any challenge to the contrary will be automatically dismissed and only further deepen their views making it harder to objectively see any other perspective or argument so it is unfortunately because of this to no surprise that monodominants have become considerably problematic for the inquisition and imperium at all levels not least of all because of their entrenched unshakable views they're also the most likely faction of inquisitors to actively engage other inquisitors who demonstrate even a slightly less hardline view to their own so essentially unless you're visibly supporting them you automatically must be their enemy somewhat unusually as well monodominants often will not belong to any of the standard ordos this is because they see the broad threat of the xenos and general heresy in its most simplistic sense as being the highest threatening issue to hand and again it may also have something to do with the fact that a fairly vague cause determined by themselves is more favorable to enable their chosen action and continue to validate their perspectives than the more nuanced factional elements of the ordos so while the monodominant philosophy has now become well established within the inquisition for like the obvious reasons that it's rampantly open to abuse greatly is appealing to those with a desire to maximize and use their unquestionable authority and power there's a very high number of inquisitors who viewed monodominance to be incredibly narrow-minded and unconstructively rigid and who will gladly describe that those with such views often actually cause a lot more harm than good for the imperium with their excessive fear purges it should of course go without saying as well that for those inquisitors who believe humanity's future actually necessitates the incorporation and exploitation of alien technology warp artifacts and supposedly heretical notions they also consider monodominance to be at best a wasted resource who waged never-ending pointless crusades when they in fact should be doing much more like the majority of the other inquisitors carrying out investigation to uncover secretive ancient technology objects powers that could best aid the wider goals for the inquisition and humanity these individuals of course the radical section of the inquisition radical inquisitors hold philosophical views that are really an end point for inquisitors it'd be very unusual for an inquisitor to gravitate initially to radical views and then return to those of the puritan almost unheard of in fact in almost all instances inquisitors become radical either unwittingly through manipulation of external forces coupled with their own poor judgment by necessity or because their long-serving experience has led them to conclude that it is the only viable path forward as with any view it is all a matter of subjective perception to a degree some inquisitors will be labeled radical by their peers and may perceive themselves still to be realists relativists or simply having revealed truths that others refuse to see whatever their perspective all inquisitors will believe that their actions are still in the best interests of the imperium and humanity and to that end they know that it is their sworn duty to use whatever resources they can in the endless battle against the enemies of humanity some inquisitors like the puritans the monodominants for example choose to see things relatively simplistically in a very stark undeniable way loyalist or heretic but for other inquisitors who are perhaps more seasoned and realize that in actuality few things like this are very clear-cut they tend to see their task in their aims as being much more achievable through moral and ethical shades of grey those inquisitors who find their views altering may not see this as an instant polarizing snap shift but more like a slow move away that is more readily manifested by slight disagreements in opinion between an inquisitor and their acolytes or if they were say cooperating with another inquisitor they may disagree on the most effective way to achieve resolution of their mission when this kind of situation begins to deteriorate into say then bribery of a heretic instead of turning them over to authorities to face appropriate punishment then it begins to become more likely that an inquisitor or at least some of their entourage have slipped from the puritan path toward the radical the usual trigger for the downward spiral into radicalism is a problem which has few options but is absolutely critical to resolve inquisitors generally already have a bigger picture perspective than most we know this and so when you add in and ends justifying the means attitude which again many inquisitors have it's not hard to see when facing a dire threat and option a has a high chance of failure but option b presents a high chance of success except it means that you have to use some xenos tech or reading a forbidden text you can see how dependent on what stage of the service an inquisitor is at they may well think that it's not such a big deal and that the end result far more outweighs this small indiscretion than staying more subjectively pure except that of course this is the first step on the staircase to damnation the next thing you know you're walking around with a richly bound demon of the war offering you counsel and your retinue is mainly criminals or mutants who just happen to be experts in their field as with puritans there are many sub-factions of radicals and we'll look through some of these today i will note as i mentioned earlier that some factions that could be considered puritan like thorians will also contain radical sub-factions like the horizons and it can be the same also with the radical but not quite so much and within the inquisition sometimes these sub-factions or splinter cells are so small and fragmented from the normal order of things that it's difficult to know what if anything their actual agenda and ongoing objectives are the ancienty fit into this category they're barely documented but are known to align more with the radical and are focused on discovering information patterns and events within the past so as to be able to better predict the future this may not sound that radical but it's the means and sources of that information that becomes problematic one inquisitor of the entirety ideology was recorded as saying knowledge endures it awaits only the light of wisdom to craft it into the vessel of our very survival it is the ultimate weapon the ocularians also fall into a similar vein as the antiquarity in fact obsessed with securing knowledge of the future predictions omens and finding patterns of events a belief in destiny and above all in keeping hold of their own secrets the faction's detractors range in accusations that the ocularians waste their attentions on meaningless and futile attempts to predict future threats to the imperium while blithely ignoring present dangers two attempted witch hunts raised by hardline puritans against ocularians who believe that they have courted damnation in their desire to know the unknowable ocularians are a sect whose provenance exact origins and age are shrouded in a tangle of myth apocryphal data and outright contradiction those few that know of the ocularians in any detail consider them to be a paranoid faction of diviners and scholar inquisitors whose obsession with prophecy has long skirted outright heresy most curiously though it is often the ocularians who will emerge as the victor when drawn into conflict with their detractors and this is very much to the shock of those fanatical hunters who have challenged them and considering this it seems that despite appearing very blinkered and tedious and scholarly and engaging in objectives that are just worthless in the grand scheme of things the true nature of the ocularian's power their history and goals are far more subtle and terrible than even the most rabid witch hunter would have you otherwise dare to believe it leaves them as something of an enigma a worrying and very interesting faction within the radical inquisition ist vanism by its name alone should at least hint towards its perspective based on historical events not entirely dissimilarly in some respect to monodominance but they believe that mankind must be strong to survive and to do this by dominating the galaxy strength to the ist varniendo comes from conflict and suffering basically war it's that old adage that it's during the darkest hour that mankind shows its true and most powerful potential essentially that we develop the most and increase the strength the most during periods of war so in keeping with events of their name it is believed by those within the isvanian ideology that only passing through near destruction can the weaknesses of mankind be shed and then the strong prosper this is obviously quite an extreme perspective but these are the convictions of the estevanians beliefs for which its followers will willingly spend with no hesitation the lies of the imperium citizenry and soldiers that means wars misery bloodshed all in the name of furthering a distillation of mankind's strength because without this we must inevitably fail that without such a sense of strength and sacrifice humanity will eventually be beaten down by its enemies until finally it is again rendered extinct or reduced to the point that it is effectively much the same the radical contradiction comes from the fact that while this faction do not seek the destruction of humanity its inquisitors will regularly sow the seeds of discord and conflict to ensure that they maintain this sense of unending adversity and strength through transformative conflict the eastvanians believe that for humanity this is not anything unusual in fact they believe that it is the natural state of mankind to be in and so there is nothing morally or ethically questionable about their actions essentially it is that those within isthavanism have convinced themselves of their need to continually manifest confrontation and as a faction are a very strange contradiction in terms wanting to both protect humanity yet continually subjecting it to artificial conflict and disaster which cost thousands if not millions of lives mountains of resources all in the effort of solving situations that need never have occurred in the first place and so just to make things absolutely clear the estovanian inquisitors will actually create devastating conflicts that were not happening they'll create artificial combat to ensure that a permanent state of war is existing within the imperium for this reason alone they're considered extremely radical and very problematic now then we come to the poly psychana now they're a very interesting faction of radical inquisitor because there is a strong reason to believe that there is some considerable accuracy and merit in their beliefs while they are only a minor faction it is their belief that mankind is destined to evolve into a purely psychic race and that the inquisition's time would best be spent preparing for this transformation planning as to how it can be facilitated and guided the beliefs of the polysaccharide inquisitors are not unique such theories constantly boil beneath the surface of the inquisition as a whole like most factions obsessed with the psychic ascension of mankind they see this final evolution of humanity as being inevitable so long as it is not directly prevented from occurring so why are they seen as being radical because on the whole this seems something that could be very much a puritan perspective well that comes from how they view the current status of the inquisition poli-saikana have decided that those that are most likely to prevent the spread and rise of psychic powers are those who see the emergent undisciplined psyche as being an abomination to be cleansed and who are those most dangerous to these psyches well it is of course their fellow inquisitors polysaican inquisitors are primarily concerned with protecting psyches from their colleagues and they will spend considerable resources watching for nascent psychos within a sector's population and then extracting fledgling cycles to safety before others can burn them at the stake for what they are polysecond operatives also have poured energy into hastening the awakening of mankind to its psychic future by using eugenic techniques and developing powerful psy active drugs something not strictly outlawed but certainly frowned upon depending on where you might find yourself so the polysaccharide as i say are certainly not strictly radical they're more of a gray area walking a line between puritan and radical but it is their willingness to engage other inquisitors usually puritan that marks them out as leaning toward the radical but as it goes in the grand scheme of things when it comes to the radical factions this is the most likely you would see in terms of that overlap and the kind of overlap between the factions of puritan and radical it doesn't happen very often and in this situation this is really the only time you're going to see that kind of blurring of the lines here libertarianism inquisitors grew from the amalethine puritan ideology for the libercar it is not enough to preserve the institutions of the imperium but also necessary to ensure that those who rule and maintain them are ceaselessly watched mercilessly judged and made pure by bloodshed to a follower of the librika doctrine the sacred pattern of the imperium as divinely ordained by the mind of the god emperor has become weakened from within by petty political corruption factional strife and beset by arrogant ideology not least of all within the holy ordos itself above all they despise those proponents of change who presumed to second guess the will of the divine or betray their emperor given power and privilege for petty personal vice for the libercar true order must be restored and tradition venerated and the path to the sacred goal be made clear and if they must take it into their own hands and become judge durian executioner in order to show the way then so be it as we discussed earlier many think that it is the monodominants who are the truly destructive inquisitors but this is not objectively accurate it is known that some libricar inquisitors may engage in sector purges encompassing hundreds of thousands of just plain executions and they may even revisit wilds to then carry out secondary purges often committing again hundreds if not thousands of brutal executions on the most flimsy of pretexts even mild insults aimed at the imperium inquisition or those representing these institutions worst of all within the libra car when some of their inquisitors inevitably end up dead they are likely to become a martyr only furthering their unending cycle of objectively pointless slaughter recongregators believe that imperial society has reached a dead end of stagnation and decay which has robbed mankind of the means and the will to survive in a predatory universe which sounds pretty accurate really doesn't it they believe that there is only one solution to such a danger and that is to tear down the calcified monoliths of imperial power and remake them anew so that mankind can survive i think you can immediately start to see how a lot of inquisitional factions are somewhat of a variation on a theme recongregators consider that it is the ancient bureaucracies the forms of rules and governance and thinning bloodlines of the ruling elite that are at this point irretrievable and so must be replaced so as to make mankind's future anew the price for such change is terrible but for an inquisitor of the recongregator philosophy it is a price that must be paid lest all fall into darkness and slow ruin their principal aim is to save the imperium not from what threatens today but from the oblivion into which it is blindly stumbling itself as a society to recongregators the threats that their fellow inquisitors see as most dangerous and lesser when compared to the greater danger of being crippled by stagnation and choked by mouth to tradition because stagnation of the imperium is the paramount threat to mankind recongregators must adopt methods that have vile heresies to their puritan peers if the imperium will not heal itself of its wasting sickness then those with the vision strength and power must provide the medicine no matter how bitter it may be the philosophy and methodology of recongregators aligns with and simultaneously conflicts with those of many other factions within the inquisition most obviously the group's opposition to stagnation and the belief that the imperium is being strangled by blind tradition this conflicts in every point with the puritan and malathion view but if you consider the warmongering activities of the estevanians their creed of strength through conflict can somewhat align with the tenets of a recongregator but beyond the use of anti-imperial organizations violence destabilization to achieve their ends the two factions have a very fundamental difference the congregators want to change the current order and see it replaced by something new whilst isvanians wish to unleash mayhem with little thoughts of what is to come as long as it's stronger than what came before so as a result many recongregators see the estranians as dangerous loose cannons and are just as likely to confront them as to make a common cause but it should be obvious that fanatics who cleave to the monodominant or oblationist creeds see the red congregators as irredeemable heretics traitors whose only fitting reward can be an all-consuming pain and then death so then we come to the zanthites now for the xanthe inquisitor the warp and its inhabitants are things that should be constrained and controlled rather than denied for the xanthe chaos is not an enemy that must be fought and defeated but one that should be bound to humanity's will and to go even further put to use in the imperium service this ideology was born out of the core belief that is the inquisitor's sacrosanct freedom to understand and even wield that which is forbidden in order to better combat it so zanthism remains perhaps the most insidious and most ominous of all doctrines and the xanthine movement itself arguably is the most ancient powerful and above all most dangerous of the inquisition's radical factions indeed to some the words radical and zanthit are in fact synonymous when a puritan inquisitor ponders the zanthite with their dark lore and darker secrets they see an enemy a thousand times more dangerous than any twisted mutant debased heretic or crazed psychic witch many other inquisitors puritan or radical consider the zanthites to be walking along the edge of a precipice arrogantly tampering with powers no mortal mind is actually capable of fully comprehending and with that ignorance carries a potentially catastrophic consequence should they slip but for a moment however despite the appalling dangers that xanthelas caught they remain one of the oldest and entrenched philosophies of the inquisition they include within their ranks a great many influential inquisitors as well as some of the most personally powerful individuals whose true strengths and mastery of the dark arts are seldom gastat until they are angered or directly challenged it is indeed a courageous or foolhardy inquisitor that dares to challenge a true zanthite directly and unaided let alone a cabal of their number operating together with purpose any would consider to challenge the xanthe creed must do so with caution and it is far more often the case that several inquisitors must make common cause to expose the xanthe than they believe guilty of crossing the line into outright heresy they must bring irrefutable proof before a full conclave in order to gain any relative and appropriate justice and even then the outcome can never be certain at the core of the zantide ideology is the belief that chaos cannot be defeated in any absolute sense this does hold some reasonable logic and demonstrates their understanding of just what the warp is because as we understand it to be it is a reflection of humanity itself and therefore must remain for as long as humanity does in its current state anyway however they also believe that those energies and powers created by its existence should be used in the benefit of humanity rather than left as an untamed hazard that prays seemingly at will upon the imperium's lives and the souls of its people so it is their perspective that rather than surrender to chaos or hide away in fear xanthism states that it must be marshaled and controlled much in the same way that the mute energies of the warp are already harnessed by the imperium to allow for interstellar travel navigation astro telepathy and in the manner that psyches are sanctioned and served in order to benefit the human race essentially their perspective is a very human one whatever exists that threatens us must be dominated and made to bend to our will it must be crowd and constrained so as to be used however we see fit for humanity is the rightful master of the galaxy but some zanthites will even go so far as to highly controversially speculate that this was perhaps the emperor's plan all along it's somewhat difficult to really make the case for this argument though considering what has happened over the past 10 millennia the xanthe path is defined by three core concerns when it comes to all aspects of the warp its manipulation and the power of chaos firstly investigation secondly understanding and third its best application individual xanthes can differ immensely in how they put these concerns into practice also the lengths to which they will go to in service of their ultimate goal harnessing the power of chaos and the seething energies of the war before mankind the first step of the xanthed ethos investigation is a natural consequence of the inquisitor's role and is given license by the power and authority of the inquisitorial rosette this power and the fundamental strength of character are factors without which xanthism would not be possible the investigation of the malefic is also perhaps the most obvious reason that xanthelites are drawn to involvement with the ordo malleus even if it was not their first or lasting affiliation as the combatting of demonic incursions and the rooting out of chaos cults offers the xanthe first-hand interaction with the forces of the war it is then in the second step of understanding where many subtle dangers lie when as anti-inquisitor or their acolytes encounter malign forces they prefer not to simply purge its presence but also to learn and capture what they can from it chaos cults and warp incursions their nature powers and weapons are studied with a view to investing this knowledge into the zanthites themselves where possible destroying knowledge and artifacts only when completely necessary once these dark materials and law are gathered and often paid for in blood they must then be studied and measured a project that can be as treacherous and as lethal as the fight to acquire them in the first place and so to aid them in this task many zanthites value building a strong and tightly knit organization of trusted acolytes and agents who share their vision and possess skills to use both on the battlefield and in the librarian but some zantite inquisitors will go much further than this skirting the edge of true heresy by creating sects of their own or manipulating existing cults to aid them in the unravelling of ancient mysteries and the deciphering of arcane law it is in the final concern of application where the zanthite's true power and the risk of destruction by fellow inquisitors lies the wielding of the warps power is the final goal of the zanthite doctrine and it is not a risk to be shirked away from when the zantite inquisitor and his forces are able to do so as a result many members of the xanthe faction will use warp tainted artifacts demon weapons books of chaos law and other heretical works as tools employing where possible the powers and abilities that many facets of chaos can be controlled and tamed to the emperor's will by the spiritually pure and strong of mind employing where possible the powers and abilities of these occult sources to combat the incursions of chaos purge the heretic and lay waste to the xenos it is the belief of the zanthites that many facets of chaos can be controlled and tamed to the emperor's will by the spiritually pure and strong of mind following this logic some zanthites will go so far as to practice the dark art of sorcery within their own self-imposed strictures and limitations even instructing favored acolytes into its use this is perhaps the most dangerous extent of xanthism not only because of its practical risks but because sorcery in any form is viewed by most inquisitors particularly outside the malayas as inherently corrupt and the mark of a chaos taint of all such sorceries most potent and infamous is the binding of demons and the creation of demon hosts to then serve the zanthite but because sorcery in any form is viewed by most inquisitors particularly outside the malleus as inherently corrupt in the mark of chaos taint this is perhaps the most dangerous extent of zanthism not only because of its practical risks but because sorcery in any form is viewed by most inquisitors but particularly outside the malleus as inherently corrupt and being the mark of the chaos taint of all such sorceries though the most potent and infamous is the binding of demons and the creation of demon hosts to serve the zanthite such activities no matter how powerful a weapon it may place at the inquisition's disposal are those which the vast majority of inquisitors including the ordo mallius see it as an entirely blasphemous and cardinal sin that only leads zantites down a path leading to the absolute depths of the darkest heresy within the ordo mallius it is often said that to truly slay a zanthite you must first become one phenonites are a zanthite splinter faction and are it is said reviled even by their fellow radicals they have long been declared ex-communicate trade tourists by the ordo malius once thought utterly destroyed in more recent years unlike some radical factions whose existence is at least tacitly tolerated within the bounds by their peers in the holy ordos the phenomenites stand out as a declared enemy of mankind to harbor one of their number even for an inquisitor is an inevitable death sentence cast out and persecuted for their unthinkable blasphemies and their unprincipled callousness toward the imperium citizenry the renegade sector has been charged with breaking the commandments laid down during the imperium's earliest days and worst of all they stand accused of turning their faces from the god emperor's divinity the fact of this faction's survival despite the might of both the holy ordos and the adeptus mechanicus being turned against them is a testament to their completely insidious nature and the crucible of dark power at their core but just what governing force or intelligence first founded and perhaps is still guiding the phenomena's actions remains unknown even to the high councils of the inquisition so they are no mere group of shadowed conspirators and outlaws fenanism is an ideological doctrine its followers are truly fanatical inquisitors radical or otherwise and by their very nature they're usually of high conviction the phenomena like creed is centered on the mastery of the warp via technology for a reason beyond the power that it may grant for a reason beyond the power that it may grant instead it is for the future fate of all humanity for those who find their way to it the faina knight path offers the only viable way that mankind can survive the horrors and growing threats that assail the imperium on all sides for them the weapons and tools of the past and the comparative ideologies that would offer no more than a retreat into superstition and fear are antiquated and useless they believe that this means we must harness the power of the warp and relative enslavement of the demon by use of arcane technological processes whose nature has been long forbidden to the imperium their doctrine which as an outgrowth of the xanthide ethos which focused on a technological method rather than an entirely occult one to achieve their goals has mutated into something far worse for they have also adopted some of the most extreme doctrines of monodomination the feyna knights quickly cast aside the creed of both the god emperor and the worship of chaos and instead came to the conviction that mankind's destiny lay as a fusion of man and machine united made immortal by the limitless and protein energies of the warp if the phananites can be said to have any god at all it is ambition for they do not bend their knees to worship but crave instead to be worshipped to crush the cosmos beneath their heel and become lords of all that is or will be the faina knights see the imperium reborn not guarded by the emperor of man but under their leadership and see humanity shaped in their hands to become the ultimate masters of machine flesh matter and spirit in order for any of this to come to pass the phenotypes know that the body politic of the imperium must be decapitated and replaced and the deluded slaves of the ruinous powers must be destroyed entirely to make way for their new order their extreme objectives have led them to gather the darkest of her attacks and renegades to their hidden forces and pursue knowledge and malevolent invention unfettered by the stagnant and suffocating dictates of both imperium and the ancient traditions of the adaptus mechanicus nor do they subscribe to any restraints of morality and very likely sanity in doing all of this they have quickly built for themselves tools and weapons of incomprehensible power and have unfortunately become so wild in their aspirations that many of these creations pose a great risk even to themselves these weapons are made all the more dangerous by the fainter knight's beliefs and willpower who would seek to use them without any sensible control or any of the subtlety that one might reasonably expect from other members of the inquisition which is really saying something there is a great deal more to learn about the faina knights but this short overview should highlight why they are so rightfully declared absolute enemies of humanity and they are one of the absolutely most terrifying factions of the inquisition that is to say if you could even with any sincerity call them an actual part of the inquisition at this point because ultimately the very simplest way to express their belief is that they seek the destruction of the imperium and to place themselves as the new force to lead mankind into the future [Music] so then we come to what are known as the ablationists and these are a fairly major radical faction they are also perhaps the most stereotypical radical in terms of what most people understand to be a radical inquisitor that is to say they believe in the use of heretical and xenos tech the annihilation of the self and the subordination of relative free will that is to say they have accepted their fate as something more akin to being vessels necessary to defend humanity and they have accepted the fact that they will be eternally damned by both friend and foe alike they're a strange contradiction also as in many respects they could be considered still to be pure in their goals yet they also exist very much as a damned and irredeemable individual ablationist inquisitors are consumed with vengeful wrath and fanatical certainty they gather mysterious often dangerous alien or warp tainted artifacts and seek the most forbidden knowledge and wield the power of the warp yet simultaneously and hypocritically have zero tolerance for any others to use such methods indeed it is this intolerance of all other radicals that bears a considerable resemblance with several puritanical factions ablationists unsurprisingly consider that only they themselves may wield the weapons and knowledge of the enemy and still remain true in the service of the mighty god emperor like most inquisitorial factions this astronomic arrogance rarely allows for any level of criticism or objective rationalization because those who have found themselves consumed by ablationist ideology believe it to the core and cannot allow for any possibility of that being questioned or proven otherwise because then they themselves would be essentially completely lost ablationists are to no surprise entirely uncompromising and will offer heretics no second chance no redemption only judgment and death this is obviously because their primary goals are to seek out the heretic the witch the demon and to efficiently destroy such threats and given that even knowing of the heretical methods the ablationists use could in itself cause corruption their operations are carried out usually in secret the heresy is consumed as if by an invisible inferno that leaves no trace of its passing except the total destruction of an enemy of the imperium while they will have many physical tools technology and knowledge at their disposal first and foremost ablationists are masters of sorcery this means binding demons and wielding warp-forged weapons against their enemies these weapons and knowledge have been secured over many millennia taken from the hands or minds of heretics and are passed from one inquisitor to another ablationists of course will use more than just demon swords and times of dark lore to achieve their ends many will actually use heretics as their pawns or even unwitting servants to the inquisitor these individuals are simply another form of blasphemous tool and will use them however they deem appropriate so as to most effectively perform their duty ultimately they will still be judged and almost inevitably executed successful as their living tool or not i've often seen it said or questioned how can the imperium exist as it has done surely on the worlds of mankind citizens would not tolerate such a dominant and brutal regime like that of the imperium and it's reasonable to ask after decades or generations of subjugation surely some worlds would fight back or find a leader who could attempt to do so and the answer is very simply they do and this is one reason why the inquisition exists which leads us to an interesting tale regarding the origin of the ablationists which was such a rebellion occurring so in 738 m41 occurred the so-called war of brass it was to engulf the majority of the calyxis sector many hive worlds of the jail mirror cluster fell into sedition following the charismatic leadership of a figure calling himself the emperor of brass and thus debased themselves into worship of the ruinous powers heavily militarized these renegades quickly sponsored and armed rebel groups on worlds throughout the sector this is also a good example of why the imperial guard exists because they're not always fighting the worst xenos they're often fighting against rebelling worlds of mankind as well and maintaining order throughout the galaxy and of course this may often be the result of an inquisitional requisition and so as they were counter-attacked these renegade groups revealed the hand of the dark forces drawn from the eye of terror in their number so it was that over a period of some five years the entire sector was dragged down into bloody warfare and the callixian inquisition itself suffered heavy losses but it was in the aftermath of this that the calyxian conclaving inquisitors became riven by schism and division within its own ranks the chief advocates of puritanism in the calixion conclave were shaken to their core by the excommunication and execution of inquisitor lord godella mourn now mourn was a noted monodominant who had based every endeavor of her long and distinguished career on unbending puritanism and intolerance of any deviation or heresy wherever she found it the event that was to trigger this crisis of belief was the discovery that mourn had been practicing sorcery and the malefic arts for centuries as a secret zanthite of fearsome ability [Music] it was revealed that she had made pacts with dark forces to grant her ever-increasing power and her denunciation before a gathered conclave of inquisitor lords drawn from across the segmentum was extraordinary far from denying the accusations mourn actually confessed that she had embraced the corruption of the warp and used the tools of chaos xenos and the heretics as her own she also fiercely professed her belief in the tenets of mono domination she was she said an ablationist rather than a fallen xanthe as she had been accused she had willingly damned herself so that she could act on her beliefs in truth rather than in wishful dreaming she said so inquisitor lord mourn faced her excommunication and subsequent immediate execution by being immersed while still alive in molten brass [Music] but it is said by witnesses she did so without displaying any sign of discomfort the appalling heresy and death of godella mourn sent a shockwave through the calyxian conclave of inquisitors and all ranks could not comprehend how such a stalwart puritan could countenance such a heretical doctrine as she had professed but worse than this many after considerable reflection came to the conclusion that chaos is infinitely subtle and its arts can claim the brightest and the most pure they saw mourns four as an object lesson but those radicals who observed the entire drama play out would secretly laugh and consider the inevitability that all inquisitors would ultimately find themselves facing their radical philosophies in good time moreover the puritanism can only be indulged by those blind to the true war the inquisition wages so the story of mourn's fate and her professed beliefs would have a very profound effect on the remnant core of puritans in the conclave and was both very traumatic and transformative inquisitor lord mourn had been of such complete dedication to her task that her words and actions could only be the product of madness yet mourn had also shown no sign of any madness quite the contrary in fact she had seemed very rational very clear throughout her excommunication and then went to the pyre willingly for her crimes these inquisitors argued that if she was not mad then her arguments and final testament must be rationally considered and as they saw her consumed in molten fire many faced the grim realization that she might be right the choice they faced was between willful damnation and ineffectual idealism in that moment in the death of inquisitor lord mourn and her challenge to the paradox of puritanism the oblationist faction was born in fire death and sorrow though many will eventually embrace radicalism few will ultimately prevail truly it is said that the wages of sin are death and this is never truer than in the case of one who takes such a path to its extreme in the short term many radicals find themselves handling great powers they would never otherwise have come into the possession of and this often leads to a belief that such knowledge should never have been declared forbidden if it can imbue one with such immense power to use it against an enemy then how can this be a bad thing soon enough they'll come to regard their peers as deluded fools and such hubris can only lead to open wars between inquisitors something that's regularly misunderstood is the meaning of the inquisitorial excommunication this process is not exclusively focused on expelling other inquisitors it is a far more severe and fundamental judgment than that all inquisitors hold the power to declare any individual organization or even a whole planet as excuminicate traitorous this declaration excommunicates the accused not simply from the inquisition but it actually marks them as having been disconnected from the human race the judgment stands as an indication to other inquisitors and adapter that the ex-communicate party should be hunted down and killed for the better security and well-being of the imperium inquisitorial gatherings will often be the venue for declaring such excommunications in extreme circumstances inquisitors as we will know can be excommunicated but such a harsh and usually permanent judgment is never declared lightly but it remains a principle weapon of the inquisition a powerful tool that they can wield to protect the imperium most inquisitors will be excommunicated because of radical activity forcing them to live then an entirely different life from that point onward it is long since observed that radicals will almost universally spiral out of control once they have undergone their dark awakening and therefore it is usually only a matter of time before they become an unsalvageable abhorrent parody of everything they once stood for puritans observe this to be much like a terminal illness from which none can really recover and for which no known cure will exist they have become tainted corrupted and are just consequently lost this is the stage at which an inquisitor will often then be denounced by their peers and it need not be a fully independent inquisitor either acolytes may be cast drift by their masters but often not necessarily through fault of their own but maybe ignorance naivety but these are not excuses for heresy for any and all who stray from the path of the righteous only one fate awaits them excommunication and yes obviously death i mean that just goes without saying at this point for those radicals who are lucky enough not to be captured during investigations they who were once the hunters now become the hunted few safe harbors would want to welcome them many more would actively engage them they will lose significant access to resources and need to watch their backs ever more cautiously than before for now they face not only the enemies of humanity but much of humanity itself because of this many inquisitors of a radical belief will stray quite literally from the light and are left to inhabit the shadowy depths of worlds to remain out of sight they will continue their quests of course but will at every opportunity deceive and evade authorities who seek their extermination some of course are not so lucky and when their corrupting actions are revealed they may be in no position to resist their fellow inquisitors after severe interrogations that can span weeks then utilize multiple experienced inquisitors to drain every last drop of knowledge from the radical excommunication will inevitably follow if it has not done so already the subject inquisitor or their followers will of course be summarily executed in some instances if an inquisitor were deemed to have not strayed far from the path or done significant damage they may be granted a small reprieve in being processed for archeoflagellation which you may argue is not much of a reprieve but at least you will still serve the emperor and have some chance at redemption still some inquisitors never know opportunity for any of this inquisitors like sabbath are just simply executed on the spot by say astartes or grey knights who upon discovering a heretical inquisitor that has allowed themselves to be manipulated will rarely hesitate in just carrying out an immediate execution unlike the inquisitors they have no great desire or patience for any kind of drawn out interrogation the space means know that although they will have to answer for such an action it is very unlikely that any negative recriminations will fall back upon them especially if no one saw it happen in the chaotic and often harrowing midst of a battle now as i noted previously in part one when you begin to understand how the inquisition operates overall you start to understand the reason as to why a great many things will remain hazy and clear actively clouded and subject to interpretation it all starts to make a lot more sense the inquisition through its expansive ideological beliefs and fractional differences bring into focus one of the major problems facing the imperium which is on the one hand an individually strong belief in what is right and what must be done and simultaneously a highly fractured almost permanent state of civil war it's often asked will the imperium ever face another civil war i would argue that ever since the horus heresy the imperium has existed in some sense in a permanent state of a cold civil war with periodic outbreaks of espionage assassinations and large diplomatic incidents when the definitions are often as simple as one's heretic is another savior and that even those terms are poorly defined it is inevitable that factional disagreements will spill out into wider problems however despite the inquisition pulling the imperium in different directions it also remains by contradiction the thing which has also helped hold it together through its constant investigation eradication of problems and suppression of dangerous material it has kept the imperium along with its institutions and bureaucracy in an ever permanent state of stagnation for ten 000 years however those days are ending events and individuals are beginning to tug at the threads of the inquisitional ideology and that is a very dangerous thing indeed until the modern age of the imperium the inquisition has been able to be a part of the system which kept the fog of knowledge smothering humanity at times are changing and quickly threats are becoming more deadly technological developments are being made the question is if a light is finally shown on those darker corners of the inquisition or those conclaves flee into the darkness or feeling cornered turn and fight of course in many ways this has always been the case when it comes to those darker elements of the inquisition it's simply now that the pressures from those like gilman and core could become ever more difficult to resist but still the galaxy is a big place and there will always be places for inquisitional factions to re-establish themselves one thing seems sure at this point in time many inquisitional factions are so embedded and entrenched in their beliefs that to remove them from the equation would require nothing short of complete eradication no amount of evidence or rational argument is going to be able to change their opinions short of perhaps the emperor standing literally in front of them speaking for himself and for some perhaps not even them this absolute devotion is in fact likely true of most inquisitional factions while they will share information and discuss with other inquisitors periodically most of their beliefs are not purely based on logic and reason and tangible evidence they can't because by the very nature of the lives they live a lot of faith is placed in assumptions and speculation the inquisition remains a very strange hybrid of what you might consider to be near fanatical religious ideology combined with ever more extreme fractional validation of their own deciphered philosophical outlooks except that in saying all of this the inquisition remains a fascinating contradiction in many ways it poses one of the most severe threats to the imperium in fact sometimes this is quite actively the case with inquisitors creating literal devastation far worse than even the supposed enemies of humanity but on the other hand they are some of the most committed investigators in revealing the heretics the xenos threat to mankind and exterminating them wherever they're found it's this curious duality that makes the inquisition one of the most interesting but also one of the most terrifying factions within the imperium of man to conclude this overview of the inquisition i'll venture one possibility the prospect that the thawing faction of the inquisition may be shown to be correct in their ideological assumptions that is to say their devout belief in the by now mythical prophecies speaking to the emperor's resurrection now as is often the case when it comes to human spiritualistic predictions it is said within these thorium beliefs that before the emperor shall be resurrected the galaxy shall enter into a prolonged period of great upheaval strife and war predicting humanity will enter such time seems not really much of a revelation though given our history but thorian beliefs say that the emperor's second coming will not only be during this period of upheaval but also to be preceded by momentous events this is again quite vague obviously however many inquisitors have unsurprisingly believed this to already be taking place throughout the final years of the 41st and now most certainly upon entering the 42nd millennium they have witnessed the reawakening of the necron the ever-increasing danger the tyranid threat presents to the entire galaxy orcs are often readily written off when stacked against those more spectacular threats facing mankind but it's worth remembering that the orcs have wrought terrible damage to the imperium before now they're almost at their most dangerous when humanity is in fact facing other distractions on all sides because if the orcs see a weakness make no mistake they will most certainly exploit it and allowing the orc menace to gain momentum through unaddressed victories is an extremely unwise thing to allow at any time then add to this humanity still has to contend with the ever ongoing cavalier activities of the eldar who are obsessed with restoring themselves as the dominant force in the galaxy humanity sometimes mistakes again the eldar as being something like an ally of convenience but this is primarily because the eldar have been slightly humbled by their crushing fall from grace they've clung on to their existence by their fingernails and now they look to turn their fate regardless of the consequences mankind would do well to remember that the adari are very arrogant and they think only of their own glory even if it comes at the expense of all others then of course there is the devastating terror in reality that now spans the entire galaxy a gaping wound inflicted upon the materium dividing humanity's imperium and allowing chaos to freely envelop worlds stood close to the tear in real space just as happened to those near the vicinity of the eye of terror what was once described as a gated eye of terror patrolled by both humanity and the eldar is now a shattered memory and for those who know the stories and details of this time there are those who might question just how well humanity held off against those heretics that is to say while it may be true that in their darkest hour they screamed into the void cadia stands but was this entire debacle in fact simply a case of the imperium's stagnant bureaucracy culminating in a highly visible devastating failure for mankind if only we were able to pour over the records of that time who signed which orders which reports were missed how many patrols were reassigned or cancelled it seems certain that the most relevant of which are by now undoubtedly destroyed lost during the planet's catastrophic destruction and then you have the ever-growing necron threat which we reveal new information about all the time the activities of the necron seem to align something to do with their previous actions during the war in heaven and their current re-awakening the return of the silent king more disturbingly it's beginning to become clear that the actions of the necron in terms of their wider plan for the galaxy as they have perceived the huge threats out of their awakening period have a significant possibility of dooming not just mankind but the emperor's vision for humanity and you may think to yourself well if the necron want to focus on destroying chaos how can that be a bad thing for humanity well as we have recently learned their ability to use the necron pylons the blackstone pylons actually have an effect even on ordinary humans because what you need to remember is that the necrons use of black stone is a means to nullify psychic power and you remember that humans even down to your standard guardsmen all retain some level of psychic activity and the effect of a powerful nullification force is enough to affect even your standard human the ongoing long-term consequences for humanity could be truly devastating and this is something already that the inquisition is hurriedly looking into as we recently learned in the experiences of the pariah nexus but until such events come to pass the thorians and many other inquisitors continue to battle either to prepare for or proactively enable the second coming of the emperor and they're of course threatened by those who espouse opposite opinions and who simultaneously fight with every breath they can muster each day to prevent any such situation from ever coming to pass believing such views to be extreme dangerous and highly flawed outlooks the inquisition collectively encompassing their multitude of factions continues unabated in their persistent quest to learn all they can about those dark hidden fragments of humanities and wear specifically applicable xenos knowledge unforeseen revelations main views a cell of inquisitors to make preparations for whatever newly speculated ideology they somehow adapt find or rationalize but perhaps a means will be discovered to enable an inquisition or faction to finally understand with definite clarity what awaits humanity in what is now seemingly its ever darkening future one constant remains of course which all inquisitors can dutifully rely upon that in the 42nd millennium for both humanity and the wider imperial of mankind there still remains only war [Music] so [Music] [Music] you

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Keywords: Gaming, Discuss, Channel, Future, 40K, Warhammer 40K, Imperium, Humanity, Mankind, Doom, Fall, Space Marines, Heretic, Heresy, The Emperor of Man, Lore, History, Guide, Warhammer 40000, Warp, Immaterium, Rift, War, Slaughter, Horror, Nightmare, Tabletop, Inquisition, Indomitus, Inquisitors, Radical, Puritan

Id: rnHED1BuXvI

Length: 103min 33sec (6213 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020