Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just reading Relentless.

Interesting point that Captain Beckett makes on an internal monologue. All the branches of the Imperium have turn traitor except for the Arbites.

The Astartes, Navy, Guard, Mechanicum, Titan Colleges, Inquisition everyone has had a unit turn their back on the Emperor.

I am also pondering if an Assassin has ever gone rogue? But I cannot think of an example when an Arbite or Assassin has turned traitor?

The high lord of the assassins executed most of the other high lords at one point in the IoMs history.

Assassins have and i think an Arbite turns traitor (sort of) in the Dark Apostles book...
I could be wrong though...

Arbites might at the very least be corrupt. They aren't like the IG or Astartes, they just sit on one world killing criminals, they don't seek out the enemies of man on other world and actively hunt down daemons or anything so them falling to Chaos is about as likely as any random PDF or Imperial Citizen. As for the corruption bit, I can easily see some Arbites deciding not to punish someone if they got a little cash to look the other way.

Nah Arbites don't work like that...
They are fanatical in the extreme...
Not to say that one wouldn't turn but i'd say it's all or nothing...

Yeah. I've always though of Arbites as Judge Dread with the leniency gene removed.

Arbites are amazing, when you hear of Planetary Invasions they are always the last Bastions fighting the neverending hordes and go down swinging fighting to the bitter end. They are mega tough and uncompromising. Ultramarines are more likely to break from the Codex than the Arbites to break from Imperial law.

mwnciboo wrote:Yeah. I've always though of Arbites as Judge Dread with the leniency gene removed.

Arbites are amazing, when you hear of Planetary Invasions they are always the last Bastions fighting the neverending hordes and go down swinging fighting to the bitter end. They are mega tough and uncompromising. Ultramarines are more likely to break from the Codex than the Arbites to break from Imperial law.

Agreed...
Arbites are pretty damn awesome really..

purplefood wrote:Assassins have and i think an Arbite turns traitor (sort of) in the Dark Apostles book...
I could be wrong though...

Nah that was just a local law enforcer, the only Arbite on the planet was killed in the beginning

Huffy wrote:

purplefood wrote:Assassins have and i think an Arbite turns traitor (sort of) in the Dark Apostles book...
I could be wrong though...

Nah that was just a local law enforcer, the only Arbite on the planet was killed in the beginning

Ahh right goodo then...

Yeah, I have read problably read 30+ Black Library books by now and I've never read about a Arbites Judge turning traitor. Everyone else though, yeah, but in the end, the Imperium is still defended by just men. Men with ambitions and passions who are susceptible to the whisperings of greater power, usually from Chaos.

Thats why I prefer Necrons. Loyalty is programmed in

TheCrazyCryptek wrote:Yeah, I have read problably read 30+ Black Library books by now and I've never read about a Arbites Judge turning traitor. Everyone else though, yeah, but in the end, the Imperium is still defended by just men. Men with ambitions and passions who are susceptible to the whisperings of greater power, usually from Chaos.

Thats why I prefer Necrons. Loyalty is programmed in

Like a futuristic version of DRM really...

d-usa wrote:

TheCrazyCryptek wrote:Yeah, I have read problably read 30+ Black Library books by now and I've never read about a Arbites Judge turning traitor. Everyone else though, yeah, but in the end, the Imperium is still defended by just men. Men with ambitions and passions who are susceptible to the whisperings of greater power, usually from Chaos.

Thats why I prefer Necrons. Loyalty is programmed in

Like a futuristic version of DRM really...

DRM?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

Touche D-usa, Touche sir.

Arbites (whether you mean actual Adeptus Arbites or their local police force equivalent) don't really get much attention with regards to fiction and the like. If there's no presentable case of an Arbite falling to chaos, it's more likely to be because there aren't many instances of Arbites in the 40k background at all, rather than the possibility that no Arbite has ever fallen.

I know, I think you've hit it on the head. But it's nice to think of them as the Incorruptable Law men, the Wyatt Earp's of the 41st Millenium.

mwnciboo wrote:I know, I think you've hit it on the head. But it's nice to think of them as the Incorruptable Law men, the Wyatt Earp's of the 41st Millenium.

For the most part they are (if grimmer and more dour about it than Judge Dredd with a case of constipation). It's just not reasonable to assume that, in the wide Imperium, not a single one has ever been corrupted.

I don't really get how Arbites are trained to such standards though. They're stationed on nearly all of the 1 million worlds of the Imperium, there must be billions upon billions of them.

Harriticus wrote:I don't really get how Arbites are trained to such standards though. They're stationed on nearly all of the 1 million worlds of the Imperium, there must be billions upon billions of them.

IIRC they don't generally act as a full police force though, granted there's going to be loads of them over the size of the galaxy, but they usually just have one courthouse within the capital (maybe a few more dotted around large cities, probably varies between worlds) but not very many. Each planet would have their own police force for internal matters, with the Arbites only being brought in for the big stuff. Lexicanum has a good description, (Can't link ATM, in work).

mwnciboo wrote:I know, I think you've hit it on the head. But it's nice to think of them as the Incorruptable Law men, the Wyatt Earp's of the 41st Millenium.

So you mean entirely corruptible and only in it for money?

Okay bad example, but you know what I am inferring a Bad Ass who won't back down, never gives up and fights for the law at all times.

I see Arbites as being scholam recruits. No family, no ties, nothing but the Imperium and the Rule of the Emperors sacred laws.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Arbites#.T3IKGGGm_5s

See what I mean what a bunch of Badasses.

Tibbsy's right here, there's a massive difference between actual Adeptus Arbites and the local Arbite/Police-force.

The common misconception is even pointed out in the Caiphas Cain novels.

There was a traitor Marshal in one the Dark Heresy RPG books. But if I remember correctly it was a case of daemonic possession, so maybe it doesn't count?!

The Adeptus Arbites are responsible for enforcing the Lex Imperialis, i.e., the law of the broader Imperium. They are not a local police force. Their role on every planet is therefore twofold: (1) to coordinate against large-scale criminal activity and (2) to keep the local government in line. My opinion is that Ordo Hereticus is very deeply involved with the Adeptus Arbites.

JaqTaar wrote:There was a traitor Marshal in one the Dark Heresy RPG books. But if I remember correctly it was a case of daemonic possession, so maybe it doesn't count?!

I don't think it does really...

It depends on how he became possessed. But anyway, we need an actual source before it even matters.

They're human, right?

Then I'm sure at least one of them has fallen. Perhaps several. The BL is not exactly brimming with books where the Arbites take center stage.

The arbites are on a much smaller scale than the other branches and I consider them to be more like regular people than even guardsmen. I can guarantee that arbites have gone traitor, every time a planet falls to chaos, you can bet your last dollar that some of the arbites stationed there went with it.

Manchu wrote:The Adeptus Arbites are responsible for enforcing the Lex Imperialis, i.e., the law of the broader Imperium. They are not a local police force. Their role on every planet is therefore twofold: (1) to coordinate against large-scale criminal activity and (2) to keep the local government in line. My opinion is that Ordo Hereticus is very deeply involved with the Adeptus Arbites.

God I hope GW never sets them up to be tied together.
The Ordo Hereticus is--at best useless.

At worst, they do more damage to the Imperium than its enemies do. The Ordo Hereticus as we've had it presented to us is full of zealous, self-aggrandizing goons.

While I'm not a big huge fan of the Adeptus Arbites on the tabletop, I don't want to see them being part of that ridiculous bunch of heavy-handed incompetents.
That said, IA12 may or may not feature something relating to the Enforcers of the Lex Imperialis...

I don't want them on the tabletop but the Arbites are somewhat awesome...

do you hear the voices to wrote:The arbites are on a much smaller scale than the other branches and I consider them to be more like regular people than even guardsmen. I can guarantee that arbites have gone traitor, every time a planet falls to chaos, you can bet your last dollar that some of the arbites stationed there went with it.

No you can't. Every time a planet has fallen to Chaos, GW has made it fairly clear that the members of the Adeptus Arbites went out like champs rather than chumps. Their fortresses are the last bastions of Imperial loyalty, and they do not die easy.

The planet's "local police force"? Yeah, maybe they went over to Chaos. But not the Arbites.