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I have ordered myself the latest kill Team box soulshackle, with the Adepts Arbiters fighting dark eldar. This made me look up some lore about the different branches of imperial law enforcement. And I would like to discuss some thoughts about it.

So, it appears that law enforcement in the imperium is tiered:
At the bottom, the enforcers (represented in Necromunda with the palatine enforcers) ensure civilian compliance and deal to a certain extent with petty crime, keeping the peace, and so on.
On a more interplanetary scale, the Adeptus Arbites seem to deal with corrupt individuals like planetary governors withholding parts of the tithe, illegal arms dealers, and so on. The inquisition focuses less on crime and more on heresy concerning chaos and xeno influences.
Crimes in the military are dealt with by the commissars.

So what would interest me is the specifics on how the different branches of law enforcement interact. Are there any good story hooks in the recent Warhammer crime novels? How would the imperium deal with an ex-military arms dealer, supplying gangs funded by a governor who wants to use the resulting civil unrest to consolidate personal power?

Any anecdotes that come to mind would be highly appreciated!

Brickfix wrote:
I have ordered myself the latest kill Team box soulshackle, with the Adepts Arbiters fighting dark eldar. This made me look up some lore about the different branches of imperial law enforcement. And I would like to discuss some thoughts about it.

So, it appears that law enforcement in the imperium is tiered:
At the bottom, the enforcers (represented in Necromunda with the palatine enforcers) ensure civilian compliance and deal to a certain extent with petty crime, keeping the peace, and so on.
On a more interplanetary scale, the Adeptus Arbites seem to deal with corrupt individuals like planetary governors withholding parts of the tithe, illegal arms dealers, and so on. The inquisition focuses less on crime and more on heresy concerning chaos and xeno influences.
Crimes in the military are dealt with by the commissars.

So what would interest me is the specifics on how the different branches of law enforcement interact. Are there any good story hooks in the recent Warhammer crime novels? How would the imperium deal with an ex-military arms dealer, supplying gangs funded by a governor who wants to use the resulting civil unrest to consolidate personal power?

Any anecdotes that come to mind would be highly appreciated!

Your first part is not entirely correct: it's not so much a matter of 'big' versus 'small' crime as it's a matter of local law vs. Imperial Law. The Arbites are the Imperial Law branch, while local law is left up to local lawmakers and enforcers, provided they stay in the corridor defined by Imperial Law. Think federal vs. state laws in the US, for example. Imperial Law mostly concerns the big stuff like Heresy, Sedition, aiding and abetting Xenos, Mutants and Heretics, tithe-evasion and such, while local law regulates your bog-standard stuff like theft, murder, prohibited substances, labour regulations and things like that. Note that in practice the line between the two can not so easily be drawn, because in many cases the fields overlap (e.g. criminal organizations may also be heretics, cults, or trading with xenos etc.) or the truth is only revealed during a joint investigation. The Arbites are however strictly superior to local authorities, and can and do assume complete control in cases of sedition, when the Governor totally fails at their job, or when the general order is threatened to a degree that they deem it necessary to step in and declare martial law. The Inquisition acts as a free agent and as a check on other institutions authorities in all of this: they are one of the few organizations that can investigate the Arbites if they become suspect, and are generally operating outside the chain of command or completely undercover if the need arises.

Your example would probably involve a local investigation that escalated to the Arbites pretty quickly, and in the case that the Governors were advanced enough that the Arbites could no longer arrest them and restore imperial order the Inquisition would likely get involved, declare the Governor and his cronies Hereticus, and call upon the forces necessary to dethrone them, up to and including elements like Space Marines, Assassins or even whole crusades.

Two notes on this:

Arbites are a paramilitary force that is geared up, trained and prepared to hold out for long times under a state of siege if the planetary government should rebel - their precinct-fortresses are exceedingly well-armed, supplied and furnished with long-range communication systems, their own Astropaths and other precautions that should allow them to withstand assaults almost indefinitely, while also giving valuable intelligence to other imperial forces once help arrives. Thus, they act as a thorn in the side of any would-be usurpator that does not manage to sack them in the opening moves of a rebellion.

On the other hand, the imperial system openly allows, and in fact encourages, absolute cut-throat competition between noble houses, dynasties and so on for the office of planetary governer. The theory behind that is that this competition, coupled with the fact that penalties for sedition or rebellion are extremely strict, up to the eradication of whole bloodlines or houses, while the rewards for resisting or even destroying would-be rebels are also high and often include the inheritance of the office, leads to a self-correcting system where loyal nobles often take care of any problem long before it advances to the point that authorities need to be concerned. For entirely selfish reasons, of course, but that is usually much better than the alternative.

Pretty much the above.

Whilst Arbites is often used as shorthand for any Imperial Law Enforcement, a given planet, as with many things so long as its tithe is met, is free to manage its own affairs.

Local Police type forces come in a number of guises, names and types, depending on what the Governor desires.

The Arbites typically sit apart from all this. There’s can also be an advisory role, ensuring the planet’s own laws at include at least the core tenets of Imperial Law, and that those are suitably enforced. But they don’t tend to get involved in the day to day affairs.

Their Fortress Precincts are indeed holdfasts and strong points in case of insurrection or invasion. Somewhere the Governor can be taken into to help preserve the existing ruling order, in theory for as long as it takes for the trouble to be dealt with locally, or for reinforcements to arrive.

Local law enforcement can be pretty much anything, depending on need. Necromunda of course is a Hive World and thus densely populated. To some extent the House system and sanctioned gang warfare keeps things in line, especially in the Underhive where a permanent let alone effective law enforcement presence just isn’t suited. By giving the Clan Houses the right and indeed means to defend their own turf, you keep mutants and heretics at bay - because it’s in the Clan Houses interest to do so. Palanite Enforcers are there for when things get a bit out of hand, which can include altering the balance of power in a given area to keep everyone on their toes.

But not every law enforcement is going to be Jack Booted Thugs. Depending on the planet, they can be just Bobbies on the Beat, wandering Marshalls, elected Sheriffs etc etc.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also?

Adeptus Arbites - Beholden to the Imperium directly. Like Sisters of Battle, Commissars and Storm Troopers, they’re drawn from the Schola Progenium. No family, and may not even know their planet of origin depending when they entered the Schola. Indeed their highest rank, the Grand Provost Marshall is typically a High Lord of Terra, giving them an uninterrupted chain of command entirely to themselves.

Thank you both for the detailed replies!
I really appreciate it.

I'm looking for a good reason for the Arbites to rummage through a space hulk, and I believe the dark eldar in the set are only a chance encounter. So I wonder what kind of criminal offending imperial law might be holed up there, who is not important enough to receive the ire of the inquisition?

It could be they were just the best equipped local force.

They’re disciplined, unflinchingly loyal, and pretty well equipped for Search and Destroy type missions in claustrophobic environs.

It’s possible, being in the relative upper echelons of Imperial Intelligence they had intel a known heretic may have boarded the Space Hulk elsewhere, and they’re aboard to hunt them down and arrest them.

It could just be relatively standard practice, or a unique circumstance.

Brickfix wrote:
Thank you both for the detailed replies!
I really appreciate it.

I'm looking for a good reason for the Arbites to rummage through a space hulk, and I believe the dark eldar in the set are only a chance encounter. So I wonder what kind of criminal offending imperial law might be holed up there, who is not important enough to receive the ire of the inquisition?

Arbites do not only operate on planets, they are also enforcing imperial customs law in space, and operate customs vessels for this purpose. It's not inconceivable that they're after e.g. xeno-/archeotech smugglers that set out to plunder the hulk, endangering the general populace in addition to breaking like, all the laws in the process. Other convenient story hooks are probably more in the 'we were the nearest ship when the hulk arrived and chose to investigate' vein - Arbites can be present as passengers on ships, doing -possibly related- routine checks of PDF personnel, ships or outposts, or could have been called to outlying space stations etc. to investigate something, or just for regular work. If you want to bring genestealers or cults into the mix these investigations or random crimes can of course be related to the main plot at your convenience.

It could even be part of a centuries long attempt to map the Space Hulk as and when it drops out the Warp and its identity confirmed.

Perhaps the Space Hulk “Satan’s Throbbing Red Gristle” is known to have a Gloriana Class as part of its accretions. That’s…..that’s a tasty prize. And the more The Imperium can learn about the other ships and the potential hazards, they can start considering whether retrieving such a prize is feasible - and if so, what sort of effort might be needed.

With their training, loyalty and competence beyond reproach, not to mention likely being privy to more secrets about Xenos, Heretic and Witches etc than average, you could do a lot worse than put some Arbites aboard when opportunity presents. Even if they all get horribly murdered by Genestealers, they’ll at least know enough to accurately report what’s just about to tear them into fleshy confetti.

Plus they’ll have Genuine Investigatory Skills. Not just how to spot clues and signs, but quite possibly the knowledge, or a more direct line to those with the relevant knowledge, to accurately identify potential threats long before they’re encountered.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It could even be part of a centuries long attempt to map the Space Hulk as and when it drops out the Warp and its identity confirmed.

Perhaps the Space Hulk “Satan’s Throbbing Red Gristle” is known to have a Gloriana Class as part of its accretions. That’s…..that’s a tasty prize. And the more The Imperium can learn about the other ships and the potential hazards, they can start considering whether retrieving such a prize is feasible - and if so, what sort of effort might be needed.

With their training, loyalty and competence beyond reproach, not to mention likely being privy to more secrets about Xenos, Heretic and Witches etc than average, you could do a lot worse than put some Arbites aboard when opportunity presents. Even if they all get horribly murdered by Genestealers, they’ll at least know enough to accurately report what’s just about to tear them into fleshy confetti.

Plus they’ll have Genuine Investigatory Skills. Not just how to spot clues and signs, but quite possibly the knowledge, or a more direct line to those with the relevant knowledge, to accurately identify potential threats long before they’re encountered.

If you want to tie the Dark Eldar into it directly, maybe the Governor is willing, or already in the process, to hire them as mercenaries for his little coup - perhaps he's even paying them in slaves and victims. The Arbites could be going after a string of seemingly random dissappearances that lead them to suspect something like this, and the hulk that is drifting somewhere outside the system is the pirate base from which the Raiders operate.

Going back to the OP's point about different branches coming into contact, one of the short stories around Cain has him coming into contact with either an Arbites Precinct House or a local law enforcement establishment - can't remember the title off the top of my head.

Eisenhorn bounces off local law enforcement fairly often, and there was a BL series around either an Arbites officer or an Enforcer - again, my memory isn't giving me the name right now, unfortunately.

Brickfix wrote:
Thank you both for the detailed replies!
I really appreciate it.

I'm looking for a good reason for the Arbites to rummage through a space hulk, and I believe the dark eldar in the set are only a chance encounter. So I wonder what kind of criminal offending imperial law might be holed up there, who is not important enough to receive the ire of the inquisition?

There isn't one. They were shoehorned in to allow for Arbites to get released.

 Dysartes wrote:
Going back to the OP's point about different branches coming into contact, one of the short stories around Cain has him coming into contact with either an Arbites Precinct House or a local law enforcement establishment - can't remember the title off the top of my head.

Eisenhorn bounces off local law enforcement fairly often, and there was a BL series around either an Arbites officer or an Enforcer - again, my memory isn't giving me the name right now, unfortunately.

It's a recurring plot point that Cain can't be arsed to keep his nomenclature straight, much like most of the better-travelled citizens of the Imperium, and just calls all sorts of local law enforcement 'Arbites' for his convenience, only taking care to get the distinction straight when actual Adeptus Arbites are present. He cooperates with them, and with local enforcers, on several occasions - from his point of view, the Arbites are very competent and well-equipped, while the local small-a arbites range from comically incompetent to almost equal to guardsmen.

 Dysartes wrote:
there was a BL series around either an Arbites officer or an Enforcer - again, my memory isn't giving me the name right now, unfortunately.

It's the Enforcer trilogy, and she's an Arbites.

Wow, a lot of input to consider.
Thank you everyone! I'll be off rereading Eisenhorn, Ravenor, and the recommended enforcer trilogy while coming up with some story for a narrative campaign

The Warhammer Crime anthology ‘The Vorbis Conspiracy’ also has interactions between the different branches.

It’s a set of linked stories mostly from local Enforcers’ perspectives reacting to the fallout of a spaceship hitting the city because someone killed the space traffic controller.

There’s a recurring character who is an Arbitrator who frequently pulls rank on them for his own purposes.

Brickfix wrote:

I'm looking for a good reason for the Arbites to rummage through a space hulk, and I believe the dark eldar in the set are only a chance encounter. So I wonder what kind of criminal offending imperial law might be holed up there, who is not important enough to receive the ire of the inquisition?

Here's the rough plot from the box:

Brickfix wrote:
Thank you both for the detailed replies!
I really appreciate it.

I'm looking for a good reason for the Arbites to rummage through a space hulk, and I believe the dark eldar in the set are only a chance encounter. So I wonder what kind of criminal offending imperial law might be holed up there, who is not important enough to receive the ire of the inquisition?

Perhaps the arbites are responsible for keeping the space hulk under quarantine. Some overly brave smugglers have slipped through the picket line and now the arbites need to embark onto the space hulk to hunt down would be criminals. And in xenos army of your choosing for a deal gone bad.

Some plot hooks off the top of my head:

* They have reason to believe a criminal/escaped prisoner is hiding out on the hulk.
* The hulk pops up near this planet relatively often, and there's a legal ban on unauthorized salvage operations due to the mess the local factions make when they fight over the hulk. The arbites are there to keep an eye on things and ensure no one is sneakily trying to launch unauthorized operations. If xenos or heretics show up, they're obligated to destroy them.
* One of the ships mixed into the hulk is a crime scene from a high profile cold case. The arbites are trying to collect evidence so they can close the millenia old case that no one even cares about any more.
* The local governor or an inquisitor have decided to explore the hulk, and the arbites are the best trained/equipped force on the planet. Arbites seem to be somewhere in the ballpark of guardsmen/sisters in terms of gear.

I strongly suspect Arbites are not above the occasional forays into lower-level crime, if only to keep their combat skills up in live-fire scenarios.

Arbites wouldn't particularly care about taking out a troublesome gang, but the raid is probably good combat experience to keep the troopers sharp. I wouldn't be surprised if local enforcers occasionally petition their Arbites precinct to assist with putting down especially violent but largely petty (from an Imperial law perspective) criminals, with the Arbites accompanying the raid for their own benefit.

Otherwise, their skills would atrophy holed up in their fortresses.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Brickfix wrote:
Thank you both for the detailed replies!
I really appreciate it.

I'm looking for a good reason for the Arbites to rummage through a space hulk, and I believe the dark eldar in the set are only a chance encounter. So I wonder what kind of criminal offending imperial law might be holed up there, who is not important enough to receive the ire of the inquisition?

There isn't one. They were shoehorned in to allow for Arbites to get released.

What a lack of imagination, especially when considering Arbites have their own warp-capable vessels. They have at least as much reason to be on a space hulk as Kasrkin.

There’s also the risk of corruption, real or perceived.

Arbites, coming from the same Schola Progenium as Commissars, some Inquisitors, Sisters of Battle, Stormtroopers et al are about as reliably incorruptible via serious indoctrination as a base line human can get.

You want to investigate an incoming hulk for wider intelligence etc, but not risk anyone getting Odd Ideas or snaffling Naughty Xenos tech? You can do an awful lot worse than sending in the Arbites. At the very least, if told not to touch, they don’t touch. They’re less likely to gawp at their first actual sighting of a Xenos than baseline humans. The same of the witch and the mutant and the traitor.

And as I mentioned earlier, there’s a decent chance they’d be able to identify exactly what it is tearing through their team with a decent level of accuracy, allowing a better response to the threat to be formulated.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There’s also the risk of corruption, real or perceived.

Arbites, coming from the same Schola Progenium as Commissars, some Inquisitors, Sisters of Battle, Stormtroopers et al are about as reliably incorruptible via serious indoctrination as a base line human can get.

You want to investigate an incoming hulk for wider intelligence etc, but not risk anyone getting Odd Ideas or snaffling Naughty Xenos tech? You can do an awful lot worse than sending in the Arbites. At the very least, if told not to touch, they don’t touch. They’re less likely to gawp at their first actual sighting of a Xenos than baseline humans. The same of the witch and the mutant and the traitor.

And as I mentioned earlier, there’s a decent chance they’d be able to identify exactly what it is tearing through their team with a decent level of accuracy, allowing a better response to the threat to be formulated.

To add to this: Although the level of how secret some things are varies greatly in the background material, there's still a general gist of the normal populace of the Imperium being held in the dark about the realities of the setting. Things like the nature of the Warp and the Chaos Gods, Witchcraft, or how Genestealers function is all explicitly mentioned as stuff that normal people have no idea about - schola-trained people, in contrast, at least get the 101 primer on it to prepare them for their future jobs, as many careers involve seeking out exactly that kind of corruption. So Arbites might be among the comparatively few readily-available groups that have a general idea about what to look out for and how to spot specific dangers. Other forces like the Guard, Commissars, Space Marines or Inquisitorial forces may have that knowledge as well, but especially on backwater worlds these are either extremely rare or even months away.

Yup.

They’re informed just enough to know when say, a sigil is dangerous and not to go touching, sniffing or licking it. They don’t need to know why, only that you don’t. Kind of an informed, carefully cultured level of ignorance.

 Haighus wrote:
I strongly suspect Arbites are not above the occasional forays into lower-level crime, if only to keep their combat skills up in live-fire scenarios.

From memory the Arbites have regulators that go into the hives and put down troublesome gangs.

Though typically the Arbites are more like FBI/CIA/Secret Police than regular cops.

Tsagualsa wrote:

Brickfix wrote:
Thank you both for the detailed replies!
I really appreciate it.

I'm looking for a good reason for the Arbites to rummage through a space hulk, and I believe the dark eldar in the set are only a chance encounter. So I wonder what kind of criminal offending imperial law might be holed up there, who is not important enough to receive the ire of the inquisition?

Arbites do not only operate on planets, they are also enforcing imperial customs law in space, and operate customs vessels for this purpose. It's not inconceivable that they're after e.g. xeno-/archeotech smugglers that set out to plunder the hulk, endangering the general populace in addition to breaking like, all the laws in the process. Other convenient story hooks are probably more in the 'we were the nearest ship when the hulk arrived and chose to investigate' vein - Arbites can be present as passengers on ships, doing -possibly related- routine checks of PDF personnel, ships or outposts, or could have been called to outlying space stations etc. to investigate something, or just for regular work. If you want to bring genestealers or cults into the mix these investigations or random crimes can of course be related to the main plot at your convenience.

This is a good summary.

The Arbites are primarily concerned with enforcing Imperial laws on Imperial citizens. So really the only reason they would have to go to a space hulk would be in reference to someone breaking the law. Likely trafficking in Alien artifacts, but also possibly cult activity.

If you think that has a lot of overlap with the Inquisition, you are of course correct. But the Inquisition is few in number, the Arbitrators are far more numerous.

 Haighus wrote:
I strongly suspect Arbites are not above the occasional forays into lower-level crime, if only to keep their combat skills up in live-fire scenarios.

Arbites wouldn't particularly care about taking out a troublesome gang, but the raid is probably good combat experience to keep the troopers sharp. I wouldn't be surprised if local enforcers occasionally petition their Arbites precinct to assist with putting down especially violent but largely petty (from an Imperial law perspective) criminals, with the Arbites accompanying the raid for their own benefit.

That is how I see it. The locals will always be asking for help, and the Arbitrators will assist unless they have something more important.

Afterall, the Lex might not specifically prohibit gangs and smuggling, but the Lex gives the Governor and local government authority to write laws as well. So breaking local laws is tangentially breaking the Lex Imperialis as well. The Governor is the Emperor's chosen ruler of this world, and his word is law!

 Grey Templar wrote:

That is how I see it. The locals will always be asking for help, and the Arbitrators will assist unless they have something more important.

Afterall, the Lex might not specifically prohibit gangs and smuggling, but the Lex gives the Governor and local government authority to write laws as well. So breaking local laws is tangentially breaking the Lex Imperialis as well. The Governor is the Emperor's chosen ruler of this world, and his word is law!

A wise Arbites would know when to turn a blind eye to minor crimes.

Sure you could go execute that entire gang of workers in the factory that has been indulging in some drugs or other minor embezzling, but then you may be left with an idle factory (or a damaged factory if they are armed gangers like on Necromunda), disrupting the flow of production to the rest of the Imperium far more than turning a blind eye to the minor losses and inefficiencies from their petty corruption. That could arguably be the greater crime to the Imperium.

Oh of course. An Arbitrator will look at the big picture. But then again the Enforcers probably wouldn't ask for help regarding minor drugs or corruption, they're probably in on it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Oh of course. An Arbitrator will look at the big picture. But then again the Enforcers probably wouldn't ask for help regarding minor drugs or corruption, they're probably in on it.

Or if they're not in on it, someone else might be. And that someone might take offense to you breaking up one of his sources of supplemental income. And who needs that headache?

The Commisar Cain novels mention the Arbites often, usually in footnotes where Inquisitor Vail clarified Cain's terminology (as he referred to all law enforcement as 'arbites', when most of them he interacted with were just planetary or city cops)
vail points out that most worlds have very few actual members of the adeptus arbites, who tend to fill organizational oversight roles. (In fact the relationship as described in the footnotes, and the occasional actual adeptus members he meets, implies the role of the Adeptus Arbites is to law enforcement rather similar to what the Commissariat is to the Imperial Guard and PDF.)

The broad strokes are that, on most worlds the Arbites deal with capital-I capital-L Imperial Law, the Lex Imperialis, things that threaten the wider integrity of the Imperium, and Planetary Enforcers deal with Planetary laws.

Steal something? Enforcer problem
Murder someone? Enforcer problem (unless they're sufficiently important that their death has consequences beyond the one planet)

Part of a Chaos Cult? Probably starts off as an Enforcer problem, but if the cult is established enough or far enough in their goals, it's an Arbite problem

Mess with the Tithe? The Tithe is how a planet contributes its part to the wider Imperium, so that's an Arbite issue.

Some planets are sufficiently important that crimes that would have only Enforcer involvement will have ramifications that justify the Arbites stepping in. Some worlds have enforcers explicitly modelled on the Arbites, and sometimes Arbites will step in to assist or train local forces. In those situations the line gets fuzzy.

As with almost anything in 40k, the answer is "it depends"

The old Warhammer Monthly had 2(?) comics called Pax Imperialis about the Arbites - one vs. GSC and the other against forbidden Dark Age tech.