PDV
Revelation That Uncertainty Is Itself An Answer
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I fail to see how this is relevant either.The Imperial Creed.
For example, take the Arch Zealot of the Redemption, the theoretical head of the Redemptionists of Hive Primus on Necromunda. He is a religious authority. What is his position in the Ecclesiarchy? Well, he wanders around rilling people up, which makes him a confessor. Except it doesn't, because he's not a member of the Ecclesiarchy. He is claiming divine authority without being a member of the state church.
No, they do. That Warrant of Trade supercedes everything except practical reality. Something authorised by the High Lord of Terra is the highest Imperial law.
No, the books provide repeated examples that it doesn't. Rogue Traders have independence much like Unseen University - the Warrant gives them a free hand provided they never try to use it to disrupt anything the High Lords actually care about. When a Rogue Trader tries to claim the Warrant allows them to go through a military blockade (as by literal interpretation it does), the Admiral doesn't immediately blow them out of the sky but he does immediately match speed with all guns targeted and ask once more before the Trader concedes. Even though it's not a threat to the blockade.
Because they nominate the speaker? He literally works for them and would be replaced if a majority thought that he wasn't doing his job? He's a representative like the Inquisitorial Representative, not a department head like the Master of the Administratum.
99% of chartist captains are on short routes so far from Terra that they'll never in their life meet someone who has met their ostensible speaker. 90% probably haven't even met someone who was two steps away. They have no ability to know what the speaker is saying, let alone vote to remove them. The speaker belongs to the Terran political class, not the captains.
It does, because it's a response to reality rather than an ideological decision.
It is very clearly an ideological decision. They treat it as an ideological decision. They combat it ideologically, with secret police and thoughtcrime. It doesn't matter that it's based in reality; they could choose a response based in reality and they didn't. They built up the threat of mutants when before the Genestealers showed up (in M37 or so?) mutants who were not heretics were both common and harmless. They treated everything as absolute and a matter of religious faith.
Again, not relevant. The Imperium is ossified enough that no one has power to change the system, but the system itself remains fascist. It's probably not really plausible to have the figurehead become a pure figurehead and not have it fall apart, but that's hardly one of the setting's larger breaks from reality.Put it this way: who is the ruler of the Imperium?
That's right, no one is.
The Emperor is the head of state but isn't capable of making decisions. The High Lords cooperate as heads/representatives of their organisations and don't have the authority to give direct orders to each others followers. The next biggest locus of legitimate powers is... Marneus Calgar as nominal ruler of the 100 worlds?