Inquisition

Inquisitor (governmental inquisitor)&mdash;in this case the word has nothing to do with the church. Inquisitors are people of a restricted group of specialists for whom the Powers That Be would assign tasks of extraordinary nature. The thing is that inquisitors had a mysterious gift&mdash;they could solve a problem that appeared to have no solution. Unique knowledge, techniques and skills, as well as most profound erudition were accompanied by temporary autocracy that was granted to them by the Powers That Be. When on a mission, the inquisitor was never restricted by any laws except for the ones he made himself.

Of Herman Orff's Methods of Investigation
"...This Herman Orff has a simple appearance. Quite small, baldish, lean&mdash;forty years of age, looks sixty. He has none of that arrogance that is usually a recognizable feature of all governmental inquisitors. They say he is not a man of great physical strength and that is quite a rarity for universal emissaries that are our inquisitors..."

"...Despite the tradition, Orff never used any methods of direct influence. He never hides and never pretends to be someone else. Always goes straight to the point. He restored the ancient methods, such as interrogation and preliminary investigation. No secret techniques, no tricks. It seems that he is purposefully breaking the rumors about inquisitors' inexplicable powers, which usually spread around a city and get in the way of investigation, no matter how right those rumors might be..."

"...Please pay special attention to Herman Orff’s methods. We are not speaking of a mission of delicate nature; we have a global crisis, which has included impressive masses of the population. Such crisis cannot be resolved by means of diversion, spying, psychological influence and diplomacy. To prevent a revolt before it even starts, so that the rebels find that the reasons for the uprise are no longer present before they can even make any steps – that is a political matter. Here we have to solve an equation with dozens of functions..."

As an opposition to Phylin or Mark Karminskiy, whose methods of handling massive crises were also effective, Orff never took to useless cruelty. An inquisitor always causes fear. Obviously Orff was feared as well, but when playing a game Orff always set all his cards on the table and always won. He was the teacher of such radical inquisitors as Sagatka, Kurin and Aglaya Lilich. It is interesting to note that all of them were executed on the Committee's command, the reason for that being their inclination for display of initiative. Behind the directness of their methods they hid some game of their own, for their personal profit, which they had been playing without the knowledge of the Powers That Be.