Inquisitorius (Star Wars)

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The Inquisitorius was a secret division of Imperial Intelligence instituted after the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire which consisted of dark side Force-sensitive agents known as Inquisitors. These Inquisitors were considered the highest ranking of the Emperor's dark side adepts, outranking the Emperor's Hands, Emperor's Mages, Emperor's Royal Guard, and lesser Dark Jedi. They reported directly to Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader.

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[edit] Role

"An Imperial Inquisitor has little time for subtlety. He is a hammer designed to pound the galaxy into a shape the Emperor finds pleasing." — The Dark Side Sourcebook

The Inquisitors' primary purpose was dealing with Jedi or particularly strong Force-sensitives. Subjects were attained for the Inquisitors by authorization of Legal Authorization for Advanced Containment Documents. When usual methods of interrogation such as torture and Bavo Six (a drug which induces visual hallucinations and extreme terror and paranoia) injections failed to break a subject, Imperial Intelligence would call upon an Inquisitor, who would use Force skills in conjunction with traditional but effective methods of manipulation to obtain success. However, since Imperial Intelligence was quite effective in interrogating the average subject, they rarely needed services of an Inquisitor. Thus, Inquisitors spent much or all of their time looking for potential Jedi candidates and Force activity in the backwater parts of the Empire, most often the Outer Rim Territories, at the discretion of the leader of the Inquisitorius, who held the rank of Grand Inquisitor. Laddinare Torbin, the last Grand Inquisitor (Tremayne was able to block the appointment of any new Grand Inquisitor, leaving him the de facto head), was killed prior to the Battle of Yavin by an assassin droid who crashed a shuttle into the Imperial palace on Weerden.

The Inquisitors would search for any rumor of a Jedi who had survived the Great Jedi Purge, or any enclave of such, or any burgeoning Force-sensitives. The Inquisitor, with seemingly boundless patience and resources, would ruthlessly ferret out the cause of the rumours— and either crush the source or convert it, after transporting them in Imperial Dungeon ships to the Deep Core, and often Byss itself. One of the most tragic examples of the workings of the Inquisitorius was Jedi Master Jerec, the prize pupil of Master Jocasta Nu. Jerec was stationed in the Unknown Regions, searching for Jedi relics, during the Jedi Purge, and returned to find the galaxy nearly devoid of the Knighthood to which he had once belonged. Once his presence became known to the Empire, he was hunted down and captured by Tremayne, who was perhaps the most famous of the Emperor's High Inquisitors. Succumbing to torture and his own cowardice, Jerec forsook his Jedi vows and became one of the most powerful Dark Jedi ever to terrorize the galaxy.

The Inquisitorius was based in the foreboding Citadel Inquisitorius on the planet Prakith, in the Deep Core. Here, the High Inquisitors were given their assignments and conferred with their colleagues. The position of an Inquisitor was a deeply precarious one; he had to contend with his prey (more than one Inquisitor was taken to the grave by his cornered foe), with his colleagues (each one of which sought to undermine the other's accomplishments, seeking to steal their successes and cast aspersions on their loyalty, or outright attack each other), and with the Emperor himself, with whom an Inquisitor had to walk the very fine line of appearing to be strong in the Force, but not strong enough that he might rebel or join forces with his prey, and whom an Inquisitor had to convince that his loyalty was firm and unshakeable. Even after elevation to being an Inquisitor, the scrutiny did not cease—the Grand Inquisitor always monitored his agents closely, and there were periodic face-to-face examinations by none other than Lord Vader himself. An Inquisitor who was doubted in the slightest might find himself called to an audience with the Emperor from which he would never return.

[edit] After Endor

Following the death of Palpatine, the bureaucracy of the Inquisitorius engaged in infighting with other branches of the Imperial government to determine a successor to the throne, but some of Palpatine's darksiders kept silent, knowing that the Dark Lord of the Sith would return. Some Inquisitors joined the Pentastar Alignment and were given the title of Great InQuestors of Judgment. One of these was Jerec, who attempted to gain control of the Valley of the Jedi, but was foiled by Kyle Katarn.

After the death of the Emperor Reborn, a few surviving Inquisitors sent one of their failed apprentices, Brakiss, to infiltrate Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. Luke realized what Brakiss was all along, but hoped to redeem him. When Brakiss eventually fled Yavin 4, he did not return to the Inquisitorius, but joined forces with another of Luke's failed students: Dolph, aka Kueller.

After this last gasp at interfering in galactic affairs, the Inquisitorius gradually faded away. Without the full support of the Imperial Starfleet, an Inquisitor could not hunt his prey, and the Inquisitorius was now out of favor with the Remnant- they had made many enemies with their arrogance and diminishing utility, and had survived only because Palpatine supported them; with Palpatine's final death, that support faded away. Further, the Jedi Praxeum made recruitment nigh impossible, and their prey too well-trained to safely hunt without the resources now denied them.

[edit] Known Inquisitors

[edit] Grand Inquisitors

  • Laddinare Torbin

[edit] High Inquisitors

[edit] Inquisitors

[edit] Apprentice Inquisitors

[edit] References

[edit] External link

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