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This is probably all written down in the Deathwatch RPG book, but I don't have it so maybe someone wold be kind enough to explain it to me

Basically I don't get the point of the Ordo Xenos. Or rather, why would they be one of the big 3 branches of the Inquisition.

Malleus and Hereticus I get. You need specialist knowledge for dealing with unseen, insidious, malevolent enemies with other-wordly powers. You can't send Arbites after these guys cause they'll get slaughtered, driven insane or converted to chaos / heresy. You need dedicated, investigative warbands to hunt down the corrupt nobles and cults lurking in the spires and underbellies of the Imperium.

But aliens aren't like that, they've got their own planets and empires and craftworlds, so its not like you don't know where they are or where to find them. And when you DO find them (and try to kill them, lets assume) you don't need a highly trained band of specialists, you need the Imperial Guard to drown them in bodies.

What about alien infiltrators, or corrupt humans trafficking in xenos artifacts you might say? Well for the first I don't really hear about that going on much, though I may be wrong. For the second, that's a legit concern, but I don't think it warrants the Ordo Xenos being a major branch of the Inquisition, on par with the Malleus and Hereticus, with its own chamber militant of xenos hunting Astartes. If all they did was bust up illegal trafficking operations then they should be a minor branch only, like the Ordo Sepulturum or something. I suppose the recovery and study of alien artifacts takes up alot of their time, but again they wouldn't be as militant as the fluff makes them out to be.

Eisenhorn was Ordo Xenos but from the beginning he didn't seem to be doing much xeno hunting, or rather it evolved verrrrry quickly into heretic hunting for the next 3 books. The Inquisitor in Scourge the heretic was Xenos also, but I thought the stuff he was doing rather boring, chasing after illegal alien artifacts. Which led me to create this thread actually.

Anyway, anyone who's read the Deathwatch book care to enlighten me?

All the parts of 40k are from a different viewpoint.

Space marines, guard and other fighting forces are pretty much all about killing and being killed.

The Inquisition has more in common with a police force, investigating, following leads and arresting criminals or apparent criminials, just on a galactic scale.

The Inquisition is split up in to many factions and groups. Hereticus, Xenos and Malleus are the largest.

Hereticus investigate the heretic, either religious or otherwise.

Malleus investigate the heretic also, but those who make pacts with deamons or with the dark gods, they also investigate deamonic possesion, deamon incursions and the like.

Xenos investigate the heretic that makes deals with Xenos, traffic Xenos artifacts, help Xenos take over planets, etc.

Out of all of them Malleus and Hereticus are more likely to take part in large battles due to the nature of there chamber militants (Adeptus Sororitas and Grey Knights)

Xenos (with the Death Watch) are about small elite unit actions to deal with the threat once the Ordo Xenos have identified it.

Most of the things the Inquisition deals with is hidden from the majority of people in the galaxy, whereas the wars that involve guard and to a smaller degree space marines are in the face of the average person.

Hope that makes sense.

Andarus

It's not detailed in the fluff much because the fluff mostly concerns itself with things that interact with the tabletop game.

Governments being overthrown by xenos infiltrators and humans trafficking xenos or xenos artefacts would be a huge thing in the Imperium. Remember, for all the exaggerated maps they show, the Imperium is a big place.

There's countless Imperial colonies all over the galaxy that go unnoticed because they are far from war zones and warp storms, so are free from notice by the Ordo hereticus and Ordo Malleus.

However, these places tend to breed bored individuals. These bored individuals would probably like to use that virtual anonymity to contact rogue traders and do some black market dealing of xenos artefacts. These relatively isolated colonies make perfect targets for things like Genestealer cult incusions, since it's an easy way to take the small Imperial force out of power for the Hive Fleet to strike a very easy target.

There's lots of things for the Ordo Xenos to do - they just don't usually concern themselves with the bigger picture of war, so they get pushed to the background. They are still important enough in the fluff to be a major branch of the Inquisition though.

And of course you have so strong alien foes that require someone special to deal with it. They are sent only to deal with Necrons, Tyranids or Eldar.
They even have a treaty with the Eldar, they help them fight hard foes and they give them relics they find on their journeys.
Either way, when you look at it: you have specialist for daemons and heretics - you need specialist for aliens also. But not ordinary aliens like Orks, but much more dangerous - like the Necrons.

Well actually you need them for Orks to, it isn't as simple as "oh look there are Orks so let's send the IG and they'll kill them". To beat your enemy you have to understand their technology, anatomy and the way they think. It's the ordos Xenos who are the ones that study the xenos so that the Imperial forces can understand and beat them. They're the ones who have created the guides on where to best shoot an Ork or on which tyranid beasts should be killed first to dissorganise the rest of the horde. They're the ones who study and inform the Imperial Navy on how to best fight Eldar and Tau ships. They're the ones who study (and even sometimes use) alien technology so that the Imperium can counter it.

If the Ordos Xenos didn't exist then Ultramar and the Ultrmarines would probably be destroyed since it was Inquisitor Kryptmen (the most well known OX Inquisitor) who warned Calgar of the Tyranids coming and so the chapter was able to prepare for it. Heck without Kryptmen and his know how on Nids the Imperium would probably be in very deep water.

Now yes the OX Inquisitors go after those who traffic in alien tech like those worlds re-taken during the Damocles crusade and probably would have played a big part in the re-establishment of those planets as Imperial worlds. Now I don't mean to call him out but what Loki said about Rogue Traders isn't 100% correct, OX inquisitors woulden't go after Rogue Traders just for trading in Xenos tech. Rogue Traders are another independant faction of the Imperium just like the Inquisition, Space Marines, Navigators etc and usually have documents that not only place them above standard Imperial law but also allow them to trade and interact with anyone (including xenos but not including traitors) outside of the Imperium as they see fit as long as it's done in the service of the Emperor. Some of these documents where even signed by the Emperor or the Primarchs and having one essentially gives the owner the power to do whatever they want.

Anyway the bottom line is that without the Ordos Xenos the Imperium would know next to nothing about their alien enemies and probably would have been destroyed a long time ago.

Well look at it this way.

Ordo Xeno's is so exclusive that 3 squads were sent too the Third War for Armegeddon.
In a war as big as Armeggedon that is an extremely small amount.

Take a situation like the human worlds that have fallen under the control of the Tau, it would be the Ordo Xenos who would gather the intelligence needed to launch an invasion to take those worlds back.
The guard and maybe marines would do the fighting, but it would be the ordo who goes in first to tell them where to fight, who is still loyal amongst the human population and other relevant data.

I don't know about the fluff, but my guess is that the Ordo Xeno either works together with other branches of the Imperium to help fight aliens (maybe suppoprt a group of space marines who have not fought tyranids yet so they know what they're about?) or to take care of smaller special operations (evacuate someone or something precious from a planet under xeno attack).
They know what they're doing it wouldn't be surprising if they are sent on missions to alien controles plantes to do some research or blow up some stuff
just my two cents
FFE

Ever heard of a little thing called a Genestealer infestation? this is precisely the remit of the Ordo Xenos. a cult of alien controlled humans and Hybrids subconsciously paving the way for Tyranid invasion, operating years in advance of the Hive fleets.

The inquisition is like interpol, imagine local police forces trying to deal with international crime all the time (in this instance xenos weapons smuggling) put this on a galactic scale and you're never gonna catch a crook. You need an organisation that have authority over all these individual planets and systems to weed out traitors be they heretics, xenotech smugglers or daemon lovers. sure sometimes ordo xenos find themselves battling cults of chaos worshippers if they happen to come across one, just like a policeman on traffic duty would arrest a murderer if he saw one whilst issuing a speeding ticket.

rabidaskal wrote:But aliens aren't like that, they've got their own planets and empires and craftworlds, so its not like you don't know where they are or where to find them. And when you DO find them (and try to kill them, lets assume) you don't need a highly trained band of specialists, you need the Imperial Guard to drown them in bodies.

What about alien infiltrators, or corrupt humans trafficking in xenos artifacts you might say? Well for the first I don't really hear about that going on much, though I may be wrong. For the second, that's a legit concern, but I don't think it warrants the Ordo Xenos being a major branch of the Inquisition, on par with the Malleus and Hereticus, with its own chamber militant of xenos hunting Astartes.

Remember that all knowledge in the Imperium is protected and controlled. This includes much of the information about xenos as well. For example knowledge of the Tau's "Greater good" philosophy ( despite it of course being a lie) is suppressed and in certain circumstances discussion of it can lead to execution. The people must be kept in their place after all.

Things like xenos technology must be controlled -- for the sake of safety -- the halo devices for example -- and also to maintain the position of the Ad. Mech and the "myth" of Imperium technological supremacy.

There's threats like The Slaughth which can't be directly confronted, and the ordos xenos are also responsible for much of the info known/discovered about the Tyranids, and it's also worth bearing in mind that certain knowledge about some xenos -- think Necrons, C'tan and Ad. mech links for example -- are so delicate or important that they must be handled with great care.

Hmmm ok, thanks for the replies guys! Makes more sense to me know. Yeah I guess you need a dedicated branch of the =I= to deal with 'heresy by association with filthy xenos.' Noted on the genestealer infestations, completely forgot about that doh.

reds8n that got me wondering then, to how the IoM portrays the xenos threat to the average hiver. I agree they probably keep the truth from them, but from the PoV of an oppressive regime you want your populace to focus and hate on an external enemy. I'm guessing '1984' style or something.

I think what reds8n was saying is that the Imperium keeps some information about xenos secret from the general populous not all of them, and then again if the population dosen't have to know about them then why tell them. And it probably varies from world to world with the Imperiums stance most likely being Xenos are bad, fear and hate the xenos because that's all the citizens need to know.

In the Warriors of Ultramar book there are hivers and grox ranchers who have absolutly no clue what a Tyranid is. All they know is that their planet is under attack by xenos, now the guard and space marines know more because they need to since they're the ones defending the planet (for the most part anyway). So I imagine alot of it is just spinning the xenos races into a bad light. I mean Imperial propaganda says that the Orks are stupid and incompitent, but the truth is their instincts make them a very dangerous threat and any Imperial commander whose worth his backside knows this.

So pretty much the basic Imperial citizen no matter what they do for a living probably knows that xenos are bad because that's what they're told and that's all that they need to know.

I'd imagine them like an entire order of badass space xenobiologists. Think Jane Goodall crossed with Indiana Jones, and the things they deal with are Nazi Communist Gorillas.

rabidaskal wrote:
reds8n that got me wondering then, to how the IoM portrays the xenos threat to the average hiver. I agree they probably keep the truth from them, but from the PoV of an oppressive regime you want your populace to focus and hate on an external enemy. I'm guessing '1984' style or something.

To an extent I'd agree. I would also suggest it's a mix of that and a OTT/parody of the "Red menace" style fear and propaganda in the Cold war.

Most Imperial citizens will never meet or even see an alien, some of the FFG books seem to suggest that there are sections of the Imperium's population that don't really believe in the actual existence of aliens, and see them as a "bogeyman" used by aspects of the Imperium to keep them in line.

Of course there are many,many, many Imperial citizens, especially on frontier worlds, who have seen or even had dealings with Xenos, but often there's not really a great deal of understanding of them.

... that often doesn't end well.

You also have to think that there are xenos out there that do exist and don't have their own codex. Some populations that live between the voids or in entire systems between the scattered outposts of humanity. When you look at the Imperium, you like to see it as a big whole with quantified boarders but you would be wrong. There are places between the stars, even in the Segmentum Solar, where the Alien threat exist and even thrive and launch their raids on the bloated form of the Imperium of Man.

It is the job of the Ordo Xenos, Rogue Traders and Mechanicum Exploratory fleets to log and document these scattered colonies, check for their usefulness and threat to humanity and eventually purge the planet of hostile and corrupting life to make it safe for the habitation of it's pure human colonists.

Some threats are to vast to be dealt with by the great, yet still humble, Fleets of the charter barring Rogue Traders or the powerful ships of the Mechanicus; Then the Ordo Xenos step in, evaluating and studying the threat for decades or even centuries to see how it acts, progresses and how it's decadence can be exploited for both the betterment of mankind and for the destruction of the flawed form of the Alien.

Without this Holy Ordo, mankind would have been swept away by the Tyranids upon their first meeting. Of course the countless Guardsmen gave their lives to stop it, and the Noble blood of several Chapters of the Emperor's Finest was spilt in a torrent, but the tide was halted by both the courage of the Space Marines, and the knowledge and cunning of the Inquisitors and Tech Adepts studying this foe, to point out their many flaws and to produce potent weapondry to exploit the inherent weakness of everything not of the Human form.

(Decided that this topic deserved a little RP answer )

Not up to date on the fluff, but i'd argue that the ordos xenos is the most iportant branch of the =I= simply because humans are in constant contact with xenos. moreso that daemons or cultists.

Xenos may not be the most dangerous of threats but they are the most persistant(sp?).

And now, I can't stop from imagining a kind of 40k James Bond guy, trying to infiltrate Ork or Tyranid ships, dressed as a nob or a genestealer ^^

James bonds always dressed like a nob anyway...

Mikalichou wrote:And now, I can't stop from imagining a kind of 40k James Bond guy, trying to infiltrate Ork or Tyranid ships, dressed as a nob or a genestealer ^^

Ever seen a callidus assassin?

Well... you might have

davij wrote:James bonds always dressed like a nob anyway...

I always thought he was a pretty snappy dresser... though you would be if you hung out in casinos all the time i suppose

Bow ties don't do it for me, I guess...[]

Just imagine the guy, in a suit, with a bowtie, with big red orky shoulderpads, some green facial paint (but not too much, of course), and a big ork jaw plate

totally unseen! :p

Mikalichou wrote:Just imagine the guy, in a suit, with a bowtie, with big red orky shoulderpads, some green facial paint (but not too much, of course), and a big ork jaw plate

totally unseen! :p

He could pull it off and get a few one liners in...
OT (for once anyway) the Ordo Xenos is probably the most... sensible... well they are the least mad at any rate.

They can be quite mad too, lke that inq with the ork fangs in LotN...

-Loki- wrote:It's not detailed in the fluff much because the fluff mostly concerns itself with things that interact with the tabletop game.

Governments being overthrown by xenos infiltrators and humans trafficking xenos or xenos artefacts would be a huge thing in the Imperium. Remember, for all the exaggerated maps they show, the Imperium is a big place.

There's countless Imperial colonies all over the galaxy that go unnoticed because they are far from war zones and warp storms, so are free from notice by the Ordo hereticus and Ordo Malleus.

However, these places tend to breed bored individuals. These bored individuals would probably like to use that virtual anonymity to contact rogue traders and do some black market dealing of xenos artefacts. These relatively isolated colonies make perfect targets for things like Genestealer cult incusions, since it's an easy way to take the small Imperial force out of power for the Hive Fleet to strike a very easy target.

There's lots of things for the Ordo Xenos to do - they just don't usually concern themselves with the bigger picture of war, so they get pushed to the background. They are still important enough in the fluff to be a major branch of the Inquisition though.

As above...

][ is all about invetigative forces... afterall, to understand one's enemy is to learn how to best destroy them.

The best way to understand it, is to think of all the intelligence agencies around the world. Now think about their snatch squads, espionage or information gatherer or "Wet" units, the ones who do the state sponsored killing etc incontravention of international, law on foreign soil yada yada yada....

They are usually recruited from SF units or home grown within the Intelligence Agency. The Ordos Xenos isn't about killing Aliens, thats what the SM, IG and everything else is for. They are there to gather intelligence, nip specific things in the bud before they get to big, to find the weaknesses in the XENO's and exploit them. To work out their next move, and to use their own strengths against them. In other words, how to get the enemy to fight it self or turn its own technology against it other Xeno's rather than you. Thats how I see them. To do this you need high grade and solid information, they go out and get it.