Inquisitorial recruitment

[Vermis]

"When I grow up I want to burn the witch and purge the unclean."

I was just reading through Alta's 'Inquisitor's parents' topic, and it's occured to me that I have little idea how new acolytes and interrogators are recruited and trained for inclusion in the Inquisition's ranks. 

There are the black ships, of course: filtering out the pick of the bunch of psyker kids on their way to feed the Emperor.  And also, looking at the Inquisition page on the Lexicanum:

Recruitment within the Inquisition is not centralized, and an Inquisitor is free to recruit whoever he so chooses as an acolyte.

That's fair enough for special circumstances: stumbling across young or latent, untrained psykers (or untouchables), or promoting long-term members of your entourage who already have or had talents, specialist training, and/or 'the right stuff'.  But as the only policy besides scouring the black ships (itself possibly a hit-and-miss affair), it seems unneccessarily haphazard and unreliable.  How many young psykers would have to be put down for one reason or another, and how many Uber Aemoses and Harlon Nayls (competent as they might be) would be suitable as an Inquisitor?
And what about all the young men and women without psyker powers or unrelated training, but have good intelligence, possibly an education, and a burning zeal to serve the God-Emperor?  For that type I'd guess the Inquisition might screen pupils at various scholams, even (or especially) the Schola Progenium.

... Aaand I just looked at the Schola Progenium's page on the Lexicanum, which states that some graduates are sent on to the Inquisition.  Bah.  They could've put that on the Inquisition page too, save me the bother of banging on.
Still, begs the questions: how many orphans of dead Imperial officers are there?  And are other (theoretical) scholams suitable recruiting grounds?  Would the Inquisition even think of looking anywhere else?  And individual Inquisitors?  A member of the holy Ordos could have quite a crowd trailing behind if they decided to take on every sassy, smart-mouthed street punk they encountered...

And lastly: how old is too old?

[DapperAnarchist]

Read the Thorian Sourcebook - its one of the few official sources on Inquisitorial recruitment in the abstract, rather than particular cases.

In my own background, in the Keltani sub-sector there are many ways. Some groups, mostly Imperial cults, will put forward promising young members in exchange for Inquisitorial support. Notable families and the Schola send the most promising children to specialist training centres where they are prepared for life as an Interrogator. A network of spies and contacts will send word of anyone who seems to have potential. The Scholastica Psykana of course send on the promising. And, of course, those who stand out are either beaten down or recruited, depending on circumstance. The Imperium is big enough that it can afford to waste some of its potential...

Also read Dark Magenta's two part article 'Oh To Be An Inquisitor', by Ben Hulston.

[N01H3r3]

Recruitment within the Inquisition is not centralized, and an Inquisitor is free to recruit whoever he so chooses as an acolyte.

One thing worth noting is that the term "Acolyte" isn't inherently synonymous with "Inquisitor-in-training". That's what the Interrogator concept is for.

An Inquisitor may recruit (or have recruited on his behalf by his most trusted servants) hundreds or thousands of individuals to his service throughout his career, each of them serving as investigators, informants, undercover agents, and so forth (this is, in fact, the premise behind Dark Heresy - the players are a group of Acolytes serving an Inquisitor). Only the smallest minority will ever be considered for more than that, and only the best of them will find themselves in their Inquisitor's inner circle.

Ideally, an Acolyte will distinguish himself from his former peers by demonstrating a particular talent for unconventional thought - those who serve the Inquisition as Acolytes (as opposed to Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, for example) are typically of enquiring and sceptical mind, a trait which may not serve them well in their old lives (nobody wants an Administratum Scribe or Imperial Guardsman who keeps asking questions... but if they're asking the right questions, then an Inquisitor may have use for them).

The best of these - the ones who endure the horrors of the galaxy more-or-less intact, really - may end up being considered for leadership roles and additional training, with the best of those possibly becoming Interrogators or the like.

In many cases, to be selected to serve an Inquisitor is to be one amongst hundreds, few of whom will ever amount to more than pawns in an Inquisitor's plans.

[Morcus]

The imperium is Huge and has many servants in Dangerous jobs, so there would be alot of candidates for the Schola Progenum. I've always thought there'd be a large percentage of students whose parents were alive but active as imperial servants (Guard Officers, Inquisitorial agents, any other kind of field work) as well as those who were actually Orphans.

I was also under the impression that there were Inquisitors who's main occupation would be tracking down potential new members and that they'd send these people to active Inquisitors to learn on the Job.

What an Iquisitor is looking for in a recruit would vary alot. They might decide to sponser someone to be an inquisitor based entirely on the candidates Loyalty to them, or maybe even based on intuition.

[Flinty]

I have nothing new to add to recruitment, but

how old is too old?

Interesting. One assumes that relative youngsters are recruited to be groomed for Inquisitorial rank at the junior/entry level - they are (or can easily be made) physically fit, they are (probably) mentally malable or at least receptive to thier mentor's philosophy and so forth. 

The problem with older people joining at the bottom of the Inquisitorial ladder is that even if they are the most gifted, a thread a couple of posts down suggested at least a 20-25 year apprenticeship. Granted, thier existing experience and skills could cut that significantly, but probably still require something like 10-15 years before gaining the skill set and connections required to earn a rosette. This might put them into thier 60s and up.

A further issue is that (assuming they meet the physical demands) and survive to become an Inquisitor, then gain access to the expensive and exclusive rejuve and augmentation treatments and processes, they could still retain some of the frailties of thier natural age. They could spend the next 150 years looking 68, but have equally persistent tendency to require an afternoon nap.

I think it is more likely that the older applicants will have a specific specialist skill or knowledge that is required by the Inqusition, and may not involve any field work (and so not appear on the table top). Possibly these Inquisitors are more effective as desk based investigators or providers of specialist assistance or training to the field operatives.

Some older Inquisitors may be ''drafted'' from other departments within the Imperium - they would have the experience and authority and may already have been given rejuve treatments or given suitable augmentation. A few years to develop the Inquisitorial mind-set and they would be good to go. Someone like a senior military/naval figure, a particularly militant senior Bishop, a memeber of the board of one of the Trading Houses would be an ideal candidate and already posses a network of connections, have access to staff and everything else denied a young 30 year old Interrogator.

However, one would assume that such individuals may be well versed in the development and use of power and influence, and ignoring thier sponsors wishes, decide to set an agenda of thier own. Sounds like I need to write up a new character!


 

[Shannow]

A further issue is that (assuming they meet the physical demands) and survive to become an Inquisitor, then gain access to the expensive and exclusive rejuve and augmentation treatments and processes, they could still retain some of the frailties of thier natural age. They could spend the next 150 years looking 68, but have equally persistent tendency to require an afternoon nap.

I think this raises an interesting issue of when does someone become viable for rejuve treatment? I mean even if recruited young, I would have an interrogator in their late forties to fifties before assuming the position of inquisitor, and even here you could still viably say they would have many frailties of culminating DNA damage and subsequent mutations of the germline.

So how young is to young to have rejuve? In terms of recruitment, would this be available at a certain stage of progression or perhaps only if you had become a favourite? Or indeed had been wealthy before recruitment?

Rob

[Jamas Orian]

Perhaps, interrogators are given something like a 'half' rejuve treatment, that will not freeze their aging so much, but drastically slow it down.

I'd say they'd most likely get this (going from the dates that everyone has put up so far) at about 30 - 40 years of age.

[MarcoSkoll]

My reckoning, as I posted fairly recently, is that effective rejuve is dependent on genetic sampling early in life.

As I said elsewhere, someone like Lyra Rhodes (nearly 100) had gene samples taken about 35. As such, due to a certain amount of technomagic, she can look late twenties/early thirties - after the rejuve, her (repaired) genetics are still good enough that when her cells divide of their own accord, they do so pretty well.

Cathal Brennan (over 150), whose samples were taken around 70, can't really look much younger than 50, because it doesn't take long for the cell divisions to undo the hard work of the rejuve surgeons. He consequently also needs rejuve more regularly, as he "resets" to his real age faster. He'll probably also reach his "ultimate old age" sooner.

How early for the first treatment? Well, that wouldn't have to be at the same time as the genetic samples. It really comes down to a) avoiding having to repair too much ageing damage and b) how old the person in question becomes before their age becomes too great a hindrance.

The latter point can be explored in real world terms. People can certainly still be doing tasks of exceptional physical demand at around 40. For example, Sir Steve Redgrave won his 5th Olympic Gold at 38.
That's certainly past a physical peak (which is really reached in the early twenties), but equally that still demonstrates that huge levels of fitness can be maintained at that age.

In general, I'd say that Inquisitors/Interrogators/other Inquisition personnel need to be thinking about it sometime between their mid-forties and mid-fifties, depending on their particular level of physical activity.
I'll say as much as Marco hasn't yet received any rejuve at the age of 42. (But as and when he does, he'll do reasonably well, as his gene samples were taken in his mid/late twenties.)

Of course, you only get rejuve if you're either very wealthy, or someone very wealthy likes you enough to keep around. But for the most part, I'd say most Interrogators were liked enough - by that point, you're already earmarked as an Inquisitor's favourite...

[Shannow]

I like that idea very much Marco, but I would say that even taking a sample at 35 (obviously by todays standards) is a little late for a very stable sample, accumulation of mutations begins quite early but the key time for development of serious conditions is the 30-50 range.

All said and done I don't think that too major a problem, and your idea is a very good way of getting round the rejuve problem.

Rob

[MarcoSkoll]

I like that idea very much Marco, but I would say that even taking a sample at 35 (obviously by todays standards) is a little late for a very stable sample

We can probably assume that the Imperium has the technology to "fix" genetic errors - within certain limits.

For an analogy, think of it as a bit like using Photoshop to repair an old photograph. You'll never recover exactly what was there before, but you can sort of make a guess at the damaged bits, and make it so that it doesn't look too bad.

For example, here's one I made earlier - earlier being about two years ago. Now that was a pretty basic clean-up, without any big problems in important areas. However, if the photograph is a total mess, then any repair will get further and further from the original - and ultimately so far that there really isn't enough left to even guess what should have been there.

So, I imagine the same thing happens with rejuve - they can fix some DNA errors from a sample, but the more and the larger they are, the less well they can do so. Ultimately, the only option may be to "splice in" bits of other people's DNA to plug really major holes (akin to using bits of another photograph to fix the original) - but given the way DNA works, I think that wouldn't necessarily work too well.

On the note of nobility, descendents of Inquisitors and other such fortunates, I would imagine that they probably get samples taken very young in life, so they probably get to enjoy very long and healthy lives by virtue of having nearly perfect records of their DNA for rejuvenat to work from.