Inquisition - Inquisition War: The most devastating outcome for factionalism within a sector is a full-blown Inquisition War. An Inquisition War erupts when opposing factions and rivals within a particular sector conclave declare one another excommunicatus, or refuse to submit to the authority of their peers. Such disagreements are normally defused by careful diplomacy, a discrete assassination, or a swift execution.But on rare occasions when the conclave either fails to act swiftly enough to quell such dissent or the disagreement strikes a fault line within the Inquisition, it can escalate quickly. When it does so, it drags Inquisitors into the conflict from the whole conclave, forcing them to choose sides.An Inquisitorial conclave is never a voice of unity or quorum at the best of times, and such arguments can fracture an already tenuous consensus along factional lines, breaking the Inquisition in the sector into a whole mess of smaller organisations, each with their own agendas.Most such fractures halt there, the Inquisitorial conclave engaging in a tit for tat diplomatic squabble between a dozen or more small factions for an indefinable amount of time.During this period a sector often slides further towards the yawning abyss of Chaos, for whilst the Inquisition fights amongst itself, the individual Inquisitors do not fight the enemies of the Imperium. Such civil wars can last solar decades but rarely escalate beyond minor infighting or skirmishes on fringe worlds.Sometimes, however, a conflict can escalate further, especially when the factions are divided along fundamental ideological fault lines, or where two or more factions wield a great deal of power and support -- and therefore have all the more to lose by backing down or conceding. Such an escalation leads to one inexorable conclusion: a full-blown Inquisition War.Inquisition Wars are, thankfully, very rare, only a handful having occurred in the past 10,000 standard years. They are terrifying events, far more devastating than any alien invasion or heretical uprising, for they see Inquisitor turn on Inquisitor, each bringing their full might and authority to bear.Shadow missions assassinate planetary governors. Entire regiments of the  Astra Militarum are commandeered and turned on one another. Whole star systems burn via Exterminatus as the doomsday weapons of the Inquisitors are unleashed against the strongholds of one another.An Inquisition War rarely rumbles on for longer than a solar decade, a Terran century at most, for they are so devastating that the wider Imperium is forced to act swiftly. Entire Chapters of Space Marines are deployed to the sector with orders to terminate any and all Inquisitors with extreme prejudice.If one or another faction does not hold the upper hand when fighting ceases, the Imperium is not averse to wiping the slate clean in the most bloody way possible and establishing a fresh Inquisitorial conclave with Inquisitors drawn from other parts of the galaxy.Yet the end of an Inquisition War does not herald the end for the turbulent times in the sector, for the devastation and dissent caused by the fighting can have longer lasting repercussions and consequences that reverberate for millennia.