The Serrated Query is a clandestine criminal organisation that exists across the galaxy, but particularly in the Calixis Sector and Koronus Expanse, and often runs afoul of the Inquisition. Its sole purpose is to make profit without thought to morality, conscience or the Imperial Creed.
The group actively promotes conflicts throughout the Imperium of Man, making proceeds by selling information and resources to all sides involved in any given war. The Serrated Query also engages in smuggling, drug trafficking, slavery, extortion and the forbidden movement of xenos goods and technology that is called the "Cold Trade."
In short, if there is Throne Gelt (the currency used in the Calixis Sector and some other regions of the Imperium) to be had, the Serrated Query is interested.
History
Origins
Those that search after the Serrated Query's history do not find a lack of information, but rather an overabundance of conflicting stories ranging from the plausible to the completely outlandish. All stories agree that the group is very, very old with a history that stretches back further than most are prepared to believe. The Inquisition regards three different versions of the Serrated Query's history as being the most plausible:
The first account holds that the Serrated Query was founded not long after the Horus Heresy, in the turbulent times of the Great Scouring that followed the internment of the Emperor into the Golden Throne. Supposedly, the success of the Great Crusade grossly cut into the profits of a considerable number of criminal cartels throughout the galaxy. Realising that universal peace was not in their best interests, the various organisations formed an alliance in order to perpetuate uncertain times and steady revenue.
The second version states that the Serrated Query was already in existence during the Great Crusade, composed in the main of Human rebels that had ties with various xenos species and were opposed to the new order that the Emperor was imposing on the galaxy. Those that believe this version of the Serrated Query's history consider the fact that the group maintains connections with a wide variety of aliens as proof that this theory is correct, especially considering how reluctant the majority of xenos are to deal with Human groups.
The last story is the one that most Inquisitors, to their regret, find to be the most plausible of all. This version holds that an Istvaanian Inquisitor, whose name has been lost, created the Serrated Query as a tool to foment rebellion throughout the Segmentum Solar in order to strengthen the Imperium as part of his Radical philosophy. The Serrated Query then took on a life of its own, growing far beyond the Isstvanian Inquisitor's ability to control. Or perhaps, that was the intention all along. Regardless, those that believe the third story regard the Serrated Query as the misbegotten child of the Inquisition itself.
Purgation of the Serrated Query
Oblationism is a rare and relatively new creed of the Radical Inquisition which holds that its members will use the means of the Archenemy and xenos to destroy any threats to the Imperium and any other Radical Inquisitors they encounter even at the cost of their own damnation. Its adherents did not appear within the bounds of the Calixis Sector until many standard centuries after the final battles of the Angevin Crusade. One of its first acts (once it had gained some measure of stability) was to begin a secret war of annihilation with one of the oldest and most intransigent recidivist organisations within the sector -- the Serrated Query.
The Inquisitors Ixon and Cordul had dedicated their careers to the complete destruction of the Serrated Query. Having hunted the criminal syndicate across the stars, the pair came to the Calixis Sector and found a royal nest of their prey. Upon arrival, they joined the fledgling Oblationist sect to seek the extreme means to do what they had never been able to do before -- meet and vanquish the cult on its own terms. With the help of their Radical new allies, the two Inquisitors worked in silence and shadows. They unleashed a flock of their most trusted and deadly servants and charged them with the destruction of every last member or associate of the Serrated Query.
This shadow reaping occurred at the turning of the 801st year of the 41st Millennium, and for several solar months, none within the Serrated Query would have realised that a murderous force was bearing down on them like the silent fall of a headsman's axe. The oathed Acolytes of Ixon and Cordul needed knowledge, the kind of knowledge that takes solar months or standard years to gather.
Rather than waste time, they went to work obtaining it from those most likely to have it -- the Inquisitors and Acolytes of the Calixian Conclave. Kidnapping, torture, theft, and the psychic flaying of truth from minds, were the primary tools employed in this pursuit. The Oblationist Acolytes were so efficient that they obtained all the necessary information for the real operation whilst the Calixian Conclave struggled to respond.
The servants of Inquisitors Ixon and Cordul had all they needed and moved like murderous ghosts through the Serrated Query's membership and allies. Nobles, merchants, and crime bosses vanished. Merchant voidcraft and warships alike were destroyed. The corrupt pawns and secret allies of the Serrated Query went into hiding against the onslaught, only to be assassinated and hunted down in seemingly impossible circumstances.
So grave was the damage to every level of the Serrated Query in the Calixis Sector that their complete extinction seemed inevitable. Then, just before the final death blow could be struck, the onslaught stopped. Overnight, the two Inquisitors and all their secret Acolytes had vanished as if consumed by some great predatory beast disturbed from its slumber by their activities.
Organisation
The Serrated Query typically operates in an extended cell fashion, with each group knowing only minimal amounts of knowledge about the others. A cell generally has between three dozen members that are actually a part of the Serrated Query. Any others found within such a cell are hired muscle, unaware of their employer's true affiliations.
Each cell makes profit in various illicit ways, passing information and a regular tithe to their unseen masters in another, older cell. In the way it conducts itself, the Serrated Query resembles a mercantile version of the Inquisition, an irony not lost on its more knowledgeable members and one of the reasons why many informed Inquisitors suspect the involvement of one of their own in its foundation.
The cells of the Serrated Query are far-flung, stretching from the Segmentum Solar all the way to the edge of the Astronomican's reach within the Segmentum Obscurus. While the cell organisation prevents the group as a whole from being compromised, it also makes each individual faction vulnerable once exposed. This is acceptable to the higher echelons of the group for it acts as a sort of natural selection for the whole: clever cells subtlety expand and thrive; foolish ones overextend, exposing themselves to Imperial scrutiny and swift destruction.
The Serrated Query is not a cult, nor affiliated with the Ruinous Powers, though individual cells may have members who believe it to be such, or who venerate the forces of Chaos. The upper levels of the Serrated Query seem to regard Chaos worship as bad for business as it almost always attracts the wrong sort of attention to their activities.
Faith in the Chaos Gods is thus allowed, but somewhat discouraged. Their superiors swiftly scourge individual cells that have become "corrupted" and thrown their lot in with the Ruinous Powers. Their former brethren often destroy such well-hidden corrupted cells in quick, brutal assaults. Others are eliminated by the Imperium as the Serrated Query tips off the Adeptus Arbites or the Inquisition to their existence, allowing their foes to do their dirty work for them.
Beliefs
The Serrated Query tends to engender a great deal of loyalty within its ranks in much the same way that various Chaos Cults and the Inquisition do: by telling them certain "truths" that the Imperium has hidden from them. Serrated Query members are given access to a wide variety of data-storage units and exposed to a great deal of knowledge about the galaxy around them, though much of it is slanted by the Serrated Query's point of view.
The Serrated Query starts by telling its newest recruits that the Emperor is merely a powerful psyker, not a god. After showing the new member various proofs of that revelation, the superstitions that the Imperium works so hard to instill become stripped away one at a time.
Serrated Query members are allowed and encouraged to experiment with various technological devices, while specifically being told that they are not to in any way "appease the Machine Spirit" of the device as there is no such thing. They are told of the existence of Chaos and Daemons, but such are described as "powerful extra dimensional xenos" or by various other scientific rather than religious monikers.
Eventually, they will be introduced to a xenos ally and shown that not all aliens are immediately bloodthirsty. Successfully indoctrinated members of the Serrated Query are thus cosmopolitan and somewhat condescending in their outlook to those outside their ranks, believing those loyal to the Imperium and the Imperial Creed to be deluded fools. They tend to be cynical Heretics, believing that profit to be made in the here and now are far more useful than any spurious hope of future salvation after death.
Members of the Serrated Query are thus knowledgeable and dangerous opponents with access to a great deal of proscribed information, capable of jury-rigging technology without qualms, and willing to employ xenos devices with little hesitation. They count mutants, psykers, xenos and even Chaos Cultists among their ranks, yet none of these groups actually define who they are.
They are a dangerously amorphous group with an uncertain agenda. In short, they are a perfect foe for Acolytes of the Inquisition.
Calixis Sector Operations
The Calixian Conclave of the Inquisition has long been aware of the existence of the Serrated Query within the Calixis Sector, though there is little they can do about it other than root out one cell at a time as they come to light. Many believe that various cells of the Serrated Query in fact serve members of the Inquisition in one capacity or another.
Several members of the Tyrantine Cabal, however, have far darker suspicions about the activities of the Serrated Query within Calixis. They believe that the shadowy being and Chaos sorcerer known as Eloeholth the Faceless either created or suborned the Serrated Query within the Calixis Sector as an extended information-gathering tool in order to further its agenda -- an agenda somehow tied to the Tyrant Star. None knows Eloeholth's whole history, though there are a few who suspect parts of it -- then again, like the Query itself, the Faceless seems to have a long history shrouded with lies.
The Inquisition deduced the connection, though, because the Serrated Query within the Calixis Sector almost exclusively uses the symbol of the "question mark that cuts" as their own -- a symbol also associated with the Faceless One.
Koronus Expanse Operations
While they do not have a fixed base in the frontier region of the Koronus Expanse that borders the Calixis Sector, the Serrated Query are widely respected for the breadth of their activities and operatives, as well as the extensive network of spies feeding information to their controlling cells.
If there is illegal Throne Gelt to be made, the Serrated Query are probably already aware of it and demanding their slice of the action. They are also known for the extreme loyalty and ruthlessness of their agents, with their organisation acting more like a religious cult than a criminal syndicate.
The Serrated Query is involved in the Cold Trade in xenos artefacts that is highly active in the Expanse and is part of the so-called "Quintet" of criminal organisations that controls the trade in that frontier region. They work together, driving out the irritants of lesser traders, and carving up the lucrative business of xenos artefacts and goods.
Sources
- Dark Heresy - Purge the Unclean (RPG), pp. 134-135
- Dark Heresy - The Radicals' Handbook (RPG), pg. 114
- Rogue Trader - Hostile Aquisitions (RPG), pp. 132-133