Adeptus Ridiculous - ADEPTUS ARBITES: I AM THE LAW! | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Adeptus Arbites are the police force of the Adeptus Terra, devoted to enforcing Imperial law throughout the entire Imperium. Utterly dedicated and without mercy, the Arbites are feared throughout the galaxy, for they are the agents of a harsh law, where failure and incompetence are crimes, and the only punishment is death. Arbites are empowered to act as judge, jury and executioner – citizens have no rights, and only members of the Priesthood of Terra or the Inquisition could claim anything so elaborate as a trial.Support the show

another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky, and it's just us today. But before we get into that, if you enjoy today's episode and maybe you want to support the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, bluepers if they happen, a $15 tier, get you access to all of our posters in crispy HD digital form, and you can follow for a free trial. You will need a credit card number for that. And also, you can follow on, what is it? It's Google, it's Facebook. It's a bunch of different platforms. You should check it out. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous. And speaking of that poster tier, I heard rumor shy that maybe we have a new poster to terrorize Bricky with.

See, the last one wasn't very terrorizing. So I'm not sure of this one will be more terrorizing, like the scales need to be balanced, which is topical for today's episode. episode we can get from there soonish. Hmm, I think terrorizing is the right word. Because it's the season, right? We're in October and, you know. Well, okay. If shy has any, is there an, oh.

Well, that's not bad. That's not bad at all. It's a good poster. Necron supremacy, and it is very Halloween vibes. I figured you probably liked this just because it was necrone themed, but you know. I do. You know, I won't lie in our first year, or maybe it was the second year of doing all this stuff. The, the Necron poster way back when was the highest selling one. So a little, a little, a little bit of skin. Never hurt anybody, except for the people whose skin it was.

Yeah, well, yeah, it definitely hurt somebody, but somebody definitely got hurt. But yeah, that's besides the point. That's besides the point. It's Necron supremacy. It doesn't matter how you feel. It matters how they feel. Hell yeah. They feel nothing, but that's besides the point, too. Well, hey, patrons, if you are a part, go ahead and snag your free poster. You know, get to yourself your download now. But if you like a physical version, you can go down to the description and go to Orchidate.com.

Check out the Adeptus Ridiculous section under content creators. And bada bing, bada boom, you can snag yourself a brand new flayed poster. Finger looking good. And also, don't forget to read Flipped. False gods. That book club will be this month. We will make sure it is this month. We promise you it will be this month.

So we will make sure it is done this month. October shall be the false gods month. And not the false promise on book club month. Indeed. Though maybe we'll even double it up. Maybe we'll have two book clubs. Sort of kind of. Ooh, I know what you're talking about.

Ah, ha, ha, ha. Secrets. Ooh. Speaking of secrets, DK, you cannot hide them. Oh. No, I mean, I'm not, it's true. I'm not great about hiding secrets because I get too excited and I need to tell someone about it and I get really antsy about it. That's true.

But I feel like I haven't revealed anything too crazy ever. Have I? Ever? Ever? Well, maybe not ever. What are you getting at with this? So, well, naturally here, here is your quote and we can get at it as we go. Oh, no.

Part of me was hoping it was like, oh, this is a Keeper of Secrets episode because you can't keep a secret, but Incarne can. Incarne? Wasn't that like the Keeper of Secrets in the fantasy episodes or something? Oh, because there's the Incarne, which is like the Yanari god of death. And I was like, what? Oh, yeah, I think I'm getting names mixed up again. I'm sorry, I've derailed it. Go ahead and hit me with the quote that I'm going to miss.

It's all right. Fantasy names and 40K names have never intersected. No, never. No, no. You have been judged guilty of violating the Lex Imperialis. This is the law of the Emperor's realm. It is his law. If, as you so loudly claim, I have erred in my judgment, he would strike me down where I stand.

If you were innocent, he would have interceded to shield your flesh from my shotgun shell, but then you would stand guilty of wasting my ammunition. Be thankful I have saved you from committing such a crime. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. This seems like some inquisition stuff. This seems like some, you know, I don't know, it seems like some inquisition lawbreaking nonsense to me. Ah, yes, that was my other quote that I had in mind. shy, it goes, of course I know who you are. You were the governor here until you turned your

back on your rightful ruler. Now you are dead. Oh. So is it? I, like I want to say inquisition, but like we've covered the inquisition ad nauseum. You're very close. Is it a specific

inquisitor? It is not. Is it an inquisition like law, rule, thing? you're saying words that are somewhat correct, but it's just words. You know, I'm just going to take the L on this one and just, what are we doing? So you're not like, like, you got your head in the right place. I'm tiptoeing a little too much.

You think about law, law. Law. I am the law. I am the law. The clash. I fought the law. law and I won? No, Sylvester Stallone. Oh.

Sounds like whenever, man, see that. Judge Dread! Oh, so we're doing the, um, what are they called? They're the obvious Judge Dread rip-offs. There was an episode where it was like, oh, watch the movies because they're like, uh, uh, 40K and we watched Judge Dread. What the hell are they called? Okay, I'll save you if I, if you can tell me this. What Legion number is the Iron Warriors?

Five? Holy. We've lost him, chat. We've lost him. Man. We lost them viewers. So, okay, a couple of things. One, they're four. And two, the... It doesn't mean anything. And two, the adeptus R.Betis. No, it's even the RBEat.

The RBEat. That's the one. That's the one. Oh, no. So I knew you had your mindset when we'd did the Judge Dredd, but I knew you lost the name. I did. I completely lost the name. I knew that they were Judge Dredd ripoffs. I knew we had talked about them because there was an Arbides that followed around.

What it was it? Eisenhorn? Oh. What a time. Oh. Hit me with some lore knowledge so I can, like, cope and see you for a minute. Yes, sir. the Adeptus Arbetes often accidentally call the Rbytes, which is not how they are pronounced,

at least not that I'm aware of, unless Games Workshop is lying to me. They might be. The Adeptus Arbetes are the law of the Imperium. However, their law type thing is a bit different depending on who you talk to and who you ask. because there's a lot of versions of the law in Warhammer. So, like, when you were like, hey, the Inquisitor, it's like, well, that's not entirely, like, too far off. Because they are sort of the law, but not quite the same way the Arbides are. Right.

And the, because Inquisitor, when you think the Inquisitor, I mean, it's in the name, right? It's like, it's more of like the secret police, the KGB, you know, the, the, um, the, um, the SS, all the sign of the kind of like the, the, the underhand of the things going out and seeking, you know, they're, yeah, you think of like FBI spies that are just doing undercover work and they've got the criminal in their sights, but they just need to see them in the act. And then they'll strike and strangle you and just, you know, uh, put a silencer to the back of your head and do the deed that needs to be done.

Whereas like, I always thought of the arbitral. is just sort of like sort of the military police type of thing, right? Some, somewhat, but a little bit more credit is due. Should I put a pretty good scale here? So if you had like the enforcers, aka a local, not PDF, but a local law, you know, you'd have the local enforcers on planet Sigma Balls Prime, right? Whatever. Those are the enforcers there, the, the Sigma police, whatever the hell.

The Inquisition is the Gestapo. They are the sanctioned terror galaxy Y. The Adeptus Arbides are like the FBI. Okay. So they are still a rarity. But, you know, you think about currently in, let's say modern day, let's say like modern day America, right? When you have your thing, you've got the local sheriff who's like ahead of the town. and he's the enforcer

and then the FBI come in and it's like, oh, the feds are here to handle it themselves. Yeah. You need a little extra help. You need the big guns. And the Inquisition is some

like CIA spy who was there the whole time. Okay. You know, it was kind of all around. So, yeah, the Arbides, they are basically just the F, not basically the FBI. They're better than the FBI

in a lot of ways, but they are that level. Yeah, they're a strong. like arbitrator. They are a main, not military police, but they are detectives. They are police. They handle things at a higher level than the local

law does. Right. But not quite an inquisitor. No. An inquisitor has unrelenting power. Yeah. It is the highest like form of basically any power in the, you know, the imperium.

Okay. Even they could bust around space. Marines sometimes. It depends on the space marine and depends how willing to listen they are. Like, it's cool to note that when you have the Arbides and stuff like that, they often have a precinct. It's called a precinct fortress on most worlds. You know, it's like, it's the precinct, you know? Yeah, yeah, it's the police precinct. Well, not police.

It's the FBI precinct, but yeah. And what's hilarious about it is it's almost always placed directly in a spot that is, visible by the planetary governor. To always remind them, hey, you are right there. Yep, you report to us at all times. We are always watching you. So I'm sure you're going to mention this, but is there like specific Arbides factions for like each planet, or is it just like the wider adeptus Arbides and they all have

sort of the same jurisdiction no matter what planet they go to? because I know Inquisitors just kind of have, like we said, they have like galactic jurisdiction, right? Yeah. So they have one office per sector, which is like a main office per sector, which is about, as shy I said, about 80 worlds. Oh, sorry, Shire, I didn't see that. My bad. Sorry, we always ignore Shai when she's mean to us. No, we don't always ignore her. Come on. You're right. We try to. No, but unironically, they obviously. have precincts in the various worlds and stuff, but they have one main office per sector.

Okay. This, of course, now, you might think, like, okay, sure, they have, like, the office there, but there's, like, the planetary governor. There's, like, those kinds of folks. Mm-hmm. None of them are above the Arbides, much like how the mayor or the governor or the president is not above the FBI's jurisdiction. Like the FBI, well, to an extent, but like at some point the FBI is like, well, if there's a problem here, we're investigating.

Okay. You know? And, well, I guess we're going to talk about this when we talk about, like, how they recruit and stuff and what they're all about. But how upstanding are the Arbides usually? Like, inquisitors are not beyond corruption for their own, like, material gain. I am, are the Arbides like that? Or are they a little more on the, no, we're upstanding. You can't buy us.

You can't corrupt us with like the promise of more power. I think it's hard to describe. So I would argue that they're very upstanding, very, very upstanding. The difference, though, is that inquisitors have no real rules in place for them outside of other higher level inquisitors and the, like the lords on Terra. Whereas the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, is specifically, like, part of the law under Inquisitors. Right. Okay.

So they are much more... Inquisitors don't really answer to anyone, so they're more susceptible to it, where the Arbides have to answer to a higher law. And they're like, well, you know, we... It's harder for them. I think susceptible to it might be the wrong phrase. Like, inquisitors can be a bit more radical in their ways of doing things, you know? Mm-hmm.

But being more radical is just, like, that just depends on the kind of... Inquisitor you are. Whereas the Arbides, no, they are hardcore, unbroken, I am the law. Yeah,

Judge Dredd-looking acting guys. Yeah. They are literally judge jury and executioner. Like, that's, they are every branch. Let's go.

I have always really like the Arbides aesthetic and the design and just that, I mean, I love the Judge Dread movies. Of course, I'm going to love everything

I'm hearing. about the Arbides, of course, of course. I do love that they change their aesthetic up a little bit, and in my opinion, for the better. Yeah. They still have the open mouth thing. They still have the exposed jaw. They still have the single red idle slit. But like, you could see the new, those are that's new art right there.

You know, the Imperial Aquila is over them. They got the one gold shoulder pad. They have like the top knot or kind of like that Roman crest or whatever. Yeah. I like it because you can see that it is inspired. by Judge Dredd, but it's not just like a carbon copy. Because the old ones kind of felt a little carbon copy-ish. And I know like there's like some history between like the developers of like Warhammer and Judge Dredd. And it kind of sort of was technically their asset anyway.

But it's just like it, they melded a little too close. And these are like, oh, the inspiration is there. But hey, that is like, it's a cool GW thing. It's definitely been 40K-fied. Yes, exactly. But anywho So the Arbides were around Minimum Great Crusade

Various compliant worlds They kind of went up and down Through the time They lost quite a few of them During the War of the Beast Which is when the orcs attacked Terra Which is pretty crazy Yeah

During the age of apostasy The Arbis were under the control Of Doge Van Dyer Which Not great I'm not gonna lie I just naturally said Doge Van Dyer

Because I'm just so used to it I heard it and I was just like, yep, that's what we call him. And it didn't even, it didn't even register with me as a mistake that you made. And then after that, you know, Gilliman came back and he did something called the Primark Scourge, which is when Gilliman basically had a giant brutal purge on Tara, killing all of the horrible, corrupt lords. Good for him.

And as well as hundreds and hundreds of Zenos and chaos cults, among other things. Based, based. Yep, pretty based. In fact, four of the High Lords of Terra were removed. Master of the Manistratum, Patronoval, Envoy, Speaker of the Chartist Captains in the Ecclesiark. And also one of the Master of the Astronomicon was killed as well. Gilliman really kind of cleaned house.

It was pretty cool. Yeah. When you say removed, you mean removed or like 40K removed? Removed. Like removed from this mortal coil? I'll leave that to you. to determine. Okay.

But so the Arbides were, are now, they are a military branch, hence the name Adeptus Arbides. They're the top adepts. Those are because there's Adeptus Astardis, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus custodies. They weren't originally the Adeptus custodies back in the day, but now they are since the arrival of Gilman and putting them into a more militant branch. Okay. I forgot. They were called before. I think they were just the custodies.

Yeah, I've heard them called just the custodies. So, yeah, I'll go with that. Shai says, hilarious fun fact. Arbides technically started even before the First Crusade left Tara, and Grand Marshal of the Arbides tried to arrest Constantine Valdor, headed the custodys, for murder of the Thunder Warriors. Oh. It did not go well.

Yeah, uh, ha ha, ha. Who, yeah, good, good luck trying to, trying to cuff that guy. I'm pretty sure Valdoer kind of towed to toe to some of the Primark, so yeah. It was a bit tough. But the one major and important factor that goes

with the R-B-Ds is that they may sometimes act like inquisitors, as in they will go to a planet, they will use their detective work, they will find the people responsible for X, Y, and Z, and then after doing so, they will enact whatever judgment

is required. I think maybe sometimes the Inquisitor might find this and instead basically call someone else to enact the judgment because he's like, I have confirmed my suspicions, send in the guard or the Arbides or whoever to deal with this. Yeah. But what's the most important thing is that the Arbides does not meddle with the affairs generally of Xenos. And also very rarely of the demonic. Now, sometimes they do. Okay. But like, they care about imperial law.

That's the main thing. So, you know, there's, I mean, well, in granted, the war, the beast definitely had a lot of orcs and stuff like that going on. Sure. But for the most part, it's, is this planetary governor a corrupt piece of shit? Yes or no. Yeah. You know, did X or Y happen? And like, is this the fault of the governor?

Is this the fault of people under the governor? Is there a gang going around in this hive city? It's really causing issues. Now, it can occasionally go in between, such as, like, you know, a chaos cult. Yeah, I was about to say sometimes there's got to be a little gray area because we have seen and read several governors that have been maybe corrupted by chaos. They have a little cult. They're doing a little. side Xenos artifact business. So yeah, I'm sure sometimes there's a bit of a overlap, a little in

between, but by and large, they deal in the affairs of the Imperium. You want to read what I posted? They might help a lot. Oh, sure. Murder, theft, abuse, or slavery and nonviolent interaction with Zenos are considered inconsequential unless they affect the interest of the wider Imperium directly and are perpetrated against imperial officials or somehow fundamentally threaten a world security or safety and thus its ability to pay its imperial tithe. Okay. So I guess you could also say that much like the Imperium, you can never escape taxes. I love this. Murder, theft, abuse, slavery, nonviolent interactions with the Zenos are not important enough for any of the Arbides to take into consideration unless it

affects the world's security against all, you know, aliens or whatever. Or their ability to pay taxes. Murder, theft, abuse, slavery, and nonviolent interactions with Zenos. And consequential. Sorry, honey. I can't do anything about this. You may have been sold as a slave. But like, as far as I'm concerned, the governor sent in 20% more guardsmen in the last tithe.

So as far as I'm concerned, he should do it more. Yeah. Oh, damn, I hate it when my wife gets sold to slavery and there's nothing I can do about it because our tithe is doing really well. Shoot. It's like, I mean, obviously if they found some of these things, it would go, it would be a problem depending. But it's, yeah, genuinely, it's like, oh, we're being evaded by orcs. Can you still pay the tithe? Yes. Not my business. Not my department. Sorry, that's above my pay grid. Yep, sorry, go ask the Ordo Zinos. That's not my deal. And then, of course, like, go ask the Inquisition. And they're like, no, thanks. Yep.

Send a letter to the administratum. I'm sure it'll get through in a timely manner that could totally be useful to you. It's a fantastic, fantastic little bit of humor there because it is basically just like what is their department and that is it. Now, there are the occasional overlaps. A chaos cult will affect the tithe and other weird things like that, heresy. Because there's always a chaos cult in the lower deck to the hive city. Oh, yeah.

You know, there will always be one. Or Gene Steeler Colt. Exactly. Gene Steeler Colts, another 100% thing that would fall under their jurisdiction. Even though at Zenos, it is heavily affecting the city and heavily affecting the tithes. Yeah. Especially if the tithes are purple. It's like, you know, the ties suddenly sprouted, all of the ties we were going to send you suddenly turned purple and grew an extra arm.

Hmm. Hmm. I think we better send in the Arbidius or this one. This one might be a little suss. Yeah, something happened. Don't like it. So for the most part, that's where their jurisdiction kind of falls under. And they are, I mean, I shouldn't have to even say this.

They are ruthless at their options. Oh, yeah. Absolutely ruthless. They pass the judgment however they need. The thing is, and this is the part that I think is hilarious, they have something called the Book of Judgment. Is this a great book of grudges? Not, no, not quite

Actually, I got to show something real quick while we're here Okay Show the Adeptus RBT's logo Let me find it There it is, found it It is the, it is It goes so hard

Oh, I haven't seen this before Oh, that, that, okay That's a great logo for For the Arbides and what they're all about with like, okay, the fist holding the scales of justice, that's, it's, that's, okay, that's, okay, that does go really hard. Yep. Okay. But the, so obviously they act as, as all the kinds of like judge your execution or so on, but the book of judgment is the main legal code of the Imperium enforced by the Arbides. It is collected over centuries and has actually centuries ago spread beyond

the confines of a single volume of book. In fact, because it embodies every decree ever passed by the high lords of terror. Some decrees are so ancient that they were written upon parchments of human skin inscribed in a tongue. No one knows anymore. Oh. So the first pages of the book of judgment are just on human skin and nobody can even read them. and it's just kind of an ancient artifact because, well, it's, it's in the book. So, you know, you know how, I mean, it's been, well, that part is pretty nightlordy.

Yeah. You know how, for the most part, 40K has a ton of satire, but one of the biggest ones that I think is, is not talked about enough is the satirical nature of like a nation that's become too big for its britches. And it's, it's basically been crumbled and crushed under. massive weights of bureaucracy and administration. It's everyone kind of talks about a lot of the other things like thatcherism and fascism,

etc. But one thing I just love is that like half of the Imperium's problems, if not more, is because literally a book of parchment paper stating that a planet is under attack by orcs got lost in the file because a servitor, aka a lobotomized human slave malfunctioned. And no one knows where it is in the halls of books. you know? Yeah, the amount of problems that spew because the administratum cannot properly do their job,

they've lost a thing in the papers, they have too many incoming messages, and they can't properly, like, prioritize them is crazy. It's like half of their problems are just because, like, their administratum and the paper pushers and their library of, like, papers is just too always. encompassing. I mean, I love the, I mean, it's just so constant. It's so consistently, like, insanely inefficient, which is good, but ironically, Rbe is one of the few people who do hunt down corrupt administrativeum officials. Oh, yeah, that would be in their jurisdiction, wouldn't it? If you may remember, the lovely audio novel we listened to, The Watcher in the Rain was entirely

about a crazed administrative work. Yeah, yep. And I'm pretty sure it was Eisenhorn that we read where the Arbides was accompanying him, right? Yeah, yeah, you could see him in the cover. He's huge. He's a huge guy. It's a big boy. Yeah, he's got all the stuff put on him.

But regardless, though, the book of judgment, because of, well, to go along with what I was saying, the book of judgment has every day hundreds of new volumes added and encoded upon holoscrip into it that fill up the shelves of the hall of judgment because some new law is made or adjusted in some area, in somewhere in the one million worlds of the Imperium. And so some judges do carry a smaller field version called the book of law with them, mainly to read passages and make people scared. But because of this, the interpretation, the understanding, the understanding, of the entire book of judgment takes centuries to figure out.

Oh, yeah. Because it's nothing but consistent backwards bureaucracy and figuring out loopholes and adjustments and changes in law to specifically say allow an incarcerated person to stand trial, should they ever even have a goddamn trial,

will most likely take too long to figure it out before the death of the person. Oh, wow. Yeah, I was going to say, if you have a literal hall of judgment, yeah, it's going to get rough to figure out what goes and what they're allowed to do and what their crime was and to actually punish them. And, yeah.

Also, is their book of law, even though it is a condensed version, is it still like a massive tome? I'm pretty sure it is. Hold on. Let me favor it. Because they have a whole hall of judgment, like, whatever. Like, they have a whole, probably like several giant rooms dedicated to all these laws. Like, even if you condense it down as much as you can, they're probably still carrying war and peace around on their belt.

Do they carry it around on their belt? Oh, yeah, there it is. Oh, yeah, there it is. You can see it on her hip. Wait, are you sure that's not a holster shy? I mean, it looks like the spine of a book, to be fair. It does. On her right side, your left?

Well, my left, I think it's a holster. It's a holster for a pistol. Oh, is it? kind of look like the spine of a book to me, but that could just be a big-ass pistol true. I think it's just like a similar leather thing. But there is a book of judgment in 40K. And it is a big-ass book covered in God knows what. Yeah. So yes, it is. Okay. But the book of law is the small one they carry around. Right. But is that one still equally like big because it's still. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. The book of judgment is technically reserved in the halls of judgment. It is the soft of like a library, if not significantly larger.

Because it has been added, there's new pages added every day. Every day. Yeah. Okay. But like, imagine this. You are wrongly accused by the Arbenis and sentenced to prison for whatever it is, right? And you are trying your absolute best to, like, undo your punishment, whatever it is. Yeah.

The fact that you aren't dead is already shocking. But let's just say you are. If you have anyone who has the ability to properly find the. correct legal loophole in order to get you out of your sentencing. That person has to comb through hundreds of new pages every single day, added to whatever the book of judgment is, going through all of the other books of judgment and things in the hall of judgment to find the loophole needed in order to allow you to overturn any kind of sentencing, which, mind you, is already excessively inefficient because the people going back

and forth on that jurisdiction probably are different departments that may, who knows, be lost in a warp storm at any point in time, be killed by Zenos or anything in between, which will then require new people, which then, by the time they maybe find a loophole that actually works for you to get out of your sentencing, you are dead nine times over. Yeah. Or new pages got added to directly like contradict that loophole. Like, because if new pages are being added every day, there could be a new thing that was just added that supersedes the loophole that you just found, right?

If there was ever a better irony on the prison systems of the world, this is the one. It's so, it's so, like, blatantly on its nose and I love it to death. Shai said rogue traders actually employ giant teams of law specialists specifically for this reason.

Yep, because rogue traders are supposed to have unlimited freedom, not unlimited unlimited, a lot of freedom in a lot of ways. And they, the last thing they want is the Arbides sniffing around. So in reality, often the Arbides, I'm pretty sure Rogue Traitors often like they have an Arbides around. You can speak to my law specialists here is the team.

And it's like 400 Mechanicus. Right. And I was going to say like if you, if you wanted someone to comb through, uh, all of these laws, you would want a Mechanicus, right? Because they'd be the most efficient at it. They would be very, very efficient at it. Also, you know, at some point, I imagine that the Arbides are just kind of like, fuck this, man, whatever.

I got better things to do. Oh, yeah, we got to, like, we got to be clear to show that, like, we, everyone hates Mechanicus. I love that part of the Space Marine, too, where every single time a Mechanicus person is around, all those Space Marines are like, oh, not again. Oh, get out of here, Mechanic. It's like, oh, what do you know? The Mechanicas are poking around in Zenos nonsense that they're not supposed to touch. What a surprise, typical Mechanicus bullshit.

Yep. It is a constant. Also, would you like to read what Shai just posted? Sure. And Bricky also got into how brutal Arbides are. Yes, Imperial law or Lex Imperials is insanely complex and obscure. But to break it is not only to disorder a secular law of humanity's galactic government, it is to violate the immaculate and divine moral order those laws set out as the express desire of the God of humanity.

For Arbides, it is a violation of a divine order, and there is no way to punish crime against God lightly. Ooh. Like, it's kind of, you know, what was it how, like the king? What was that phrase? It was divine rule or something, whether the king is appointed by God? The divine right. There it is. But yeah, when, you know, at the point, like the Arbides are not on, are not like some of the other branches of the Imperium who don't necessarily fully see the primark.

Not the primark. The emperor as a god, like the space marines and stuff, they very often do. But, you know, you go think back in like the days of the Great Crusade and sure. Sometimes it gets muddled. The Arbides are very fully like, yes, this is the divine god emperor of mankind. And the book of judgment, the Lex Imperialis, is, isn't, Shai, isn't the Lex Imperialis the same name as the book that Lorgar had? Oh. Also, since you say that, but before we, I don't know if this is.

Oh, no, sorry. It was the Lex, the Fidelitus Lex. That was his capital ship. Mm-hmm. I was curious. So you said the Arbidi see the emperor as like, he is God. is the God. He is the divine God. If you break the law,

you are committing crimes against God, and I must punish you because essentially heresy. Is Gileman a fan of the Arbides? Gilman, like many Primarchs and those folks, is a fan of the

what are the Arbides want to do and may not necessarily be a fan of the belief system. I'm pretty sure 90% of Gilliman's thought process right now is oh my God, I hate these people, but I need, I need them to keep operating because if I disband them, we're, like, that's a huge problem. Yeah, that's his big problem, right? Is he, he sees everything is wrong, but if he dismantles everything he needs to dismantle, it's like, well, congratulations,

you've crippled the Imperium. And now any Zenos or Chaos faction is going to swoop in and absolutely crush you. Yeah, that's kind of one of those interesting things to figure out about the Imperium. One of the big topics of discussion is that, yes, the Imperium survives despite its horrible inefficiencies and terrible totalitarian nature. But at the current moment, dismantling all of those systems is extremely hard. And if in doing so, might cripple the Imperium at the time. So Gilliman's trying, he's trying to fix the awfulness that this horrible, horrible

places become, but he's also, the galaxy is also in half. So like, crap. He's doing the best he can, but I wasn't sure if like maybe he just kind of side-eyes them a little bit and he's always kind of like a little demeaning towards them because they keep like, you know, my dad didn't want that.

I think he's side-eyeing literally everything currently. But as, as shy said, Gilamon is the son of God to the Arbides. And so he used the Arbides. And so he used the Arbibis.

to clean up all of those people in the primark scourge. So like there's still a use case for them clearly. Okay. So it makes sense. It's all, you know, it helps them out a lot, even despite their issues. But yeah, yeah, yeah, when, when the book of judgment is to them seen as the, the laws of the imperium, the divine right of the God emperor himself, like if you disobey the laws of God, if disobeying the Bible is punishable by death,

well, here we are. You're blaspheming and blasphemy is not taken lightly. What a time. What a time. What a time. What a time. It is good stuff.

But they are excessively brutal. As you've seen from many of the quotes. Sure. We determine the guilty. We decide the punishment is a common one. You have been accused in the emperor's name of the crime of piracy. You have the right to confess to your crime and seek absolution for your sins. Please free leniency will not be heard.

All right. Yeah. They, I mean, again, I hate to keep bringing this up because, like, you know, whatever. Everybody knows the connection between Judge Dred and the Arpides, but it really is just like they are 40K Judge Dread. And it's great because I fucking love Judge Dred. So yeah, they're as brutal as you think they are. Like, what you see is kind of what you get with them, isn't it? It kind of is.

Like, they're one of the more on the face type characters out there, which is always good. You need like the baseline. Sure. And so we talked about the lute in like the ultramarines. There's power in being the standard, right? Yeah, they're the measuring stick by which all other space marines are measured, sure. But it's also taken to like 11 because it's. an imperial version of Judge Dredd,

which is hilariously worse. Yeah, somehow, just being an on-the-nose Judge Dredd is brutal enough, but then it's like, oh, yeah, take that, crank it up 11 times past what it was, and it's like, oh, extreme. I love this quote here. I can also correct you on a point of formal law.

We are the adeptus Arbides, the vessel by which the emperor's laws have traveled down the eight. We light and keep the beacon of the emperor's law so that all his imperium can guide their lives by it. And we see to it that those who turn away from that beacon and cause themselves and others to stumble are made to pay. We determine the guilty. We decide the punishment. I have witnessed judgments of officers of the Navy and of the Imperial Guard and of planetarian system governors. I have twice helped to pass sentence on men and women of both the. those organizations. Some of them

more highly ranked than you, gate captain. Ooh, that's, uh, that's, um, it's a good threat. Yeah, he's, he's, he's swinging those balls, man, like, geez, he is just throwing them around, isn't he? Like,

you want to, you want to step to me? I have, I have dealt with people that are way more significant than you. I have no problem shelving your ass. Damn. It's good. It's good. stuff. Yeah. It also adds even more when you look at their general gear.

So the Arbides, from their actual point in 40K is more FBI, but from their appearance, they're a lot more like SWAT or maybe like the French, the GIGN folks. So for example, their main armaments are, one, a shotgun. They love their combat shotgun. Because when you think about it, the Arbides handle like planetary district crimes. They're almost always in a hive city. Oh, yeah. Or at least damn often.

Yeah, probably not a lot of like long range sniping needed when you are a judge. I'm going to stop. I swear I'll stop saying judge red at some point this episode. I swear. But yeah, when you're like doing what they do, like you're probably not going to have too many situations where you're looking to snipe. someone from far away, you're probably just in the thick of it. So you probably like shotgun more than anything, riot shields, big clubbing melee weapons and stuff like that. Yeah. You know, what the hell am I supposed to do with this inside a covenant ship? Yeah. Yeah. Very specific reference. I'm sure

some people will get it. Um, so shotgun definitely the big one. The other two, of course, is a giant riot shield. Uh, I believe it is called the hydrophore pattern suppression shield. Wow, that is a lot of pomp and circumstances for Riot Shield. It is a heavy slab of saramite that you put behind your... Oh, oh, it's actually seramite, huh? Mm-hmm. Oh, that's a good shield then. Yep, there's also the Crusader suppression shield,

which allows them to combat the powers of the warp, because it's inscribed with hexagrammic wards, so it's like anti-psycher bullshit. Okay, cool, cool. What's their armor made out of his... Like they got the seramite shield. I'm assuming they don't also get seramite armor because that's kind of sort of reserved for space marines. Yeah, that ain't happening.

They get carapace armor. Carapace armor is pretty darn good. It is a step above the standard guardsman flack armor. So, you know, if we want to go with... So dark tight armor scaling? Yeah, I may... If we're going to go with like, if we're going to go with like a tabletop method here, guardsmen have a five-up save with their armor.

Tempestus Sions and Kasserkin. And also therefore the Arbides will have a four-up save. It's slightly better. Okay. Okay. Are Arbidi's pretty good on the tabletop real quick? We'll talk about that in a little bit. They're better than I think people give them credit for.

They also just look cool. Yeah. And then, of course, they have – but yeah, they can have that. They have riot armor, judge armor, different kinds of carapace armor. There's something called Varepex armor, which is actually a loan from the Inquisition, which is very, very cool. Oh, it sounds cool. Cool name Verapax.

Verapax. Veres specs. V-E-R-I-S-P-E-X. Oh. Sounds super cool. So there's a lot of that kind of stuff. Their number one most, besides their shotgun, their most primary looking weapon is their shock mall. That thing that mini has right there?

Yep. It is exactly what you think it is. It is a mall that is supposed to be non-lethal. you smash them hard enough that it releases electrical shocks and stuns them. It always makes me think of, well, this is obviously Judge Dredd, but I think sometimes of like Minority Report, though they have like a puking stick, a sickness stick or whatever it's called. Oh, man, I haven't seen that movie in so long.

I don't know. When you said stun mall, I don't know, I think it's because I was just watching Demolition Man the other day. I was thinking about their little glow batons, their little stun batons like the thing that goes, weo, and... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those things. But the shock ball, yeah, it's a big electrical feel that you have and then you smash on them.

And sometimes, other than like some electrical burns, it won't really, like, hurt you much. And it's also used for, like, good crowd control and, you know, encouragement. Sure, sure. If need be. They also have, like, power malls, which are much more... It's a power weapon. Therefore, it's less involving non-lethal. Yeah, more about murder.

Yeah, it's crazy. I'm looking at that many, and that's the shock mall, right? And I'm just like, that's non-lethal. I mean, hey, there's a, there's a time for non-lethal, there's a time for lethal. And the emperor decides which is which, not you. As an Arbides, you can decide if that shock mall is going to be lethal or non-lethal. Like, that guy's got some big arms. He was like, yes, this shock mall is now in lethal mode.

What do you mean? Huh? Yeah, I mean, every, every, uh, every mall is, has lethal mode, depending on how hard you swing it. Exactly. I thought you said, I thought you said that was a non-lethal weapon. And it's like, well, a non-lethal weapon traveling at 400 miles an hour, turns out it can be quite lethal. Turns out, that's lethal mode on our non-lethal weapon. Yep.

All right. All right. Some good stuff with that. And then, of course, they also have all kinds of other neat weapons. They have different kinds of automatic pistols. They have that awesome revolver. They have the heavy stubber. There's a special kind of...

Stubber. There's a special kind of execution or shotgun shells that, like, travel towards the enemy. Okay. And, of course, we can never forget about this. They also like to employ the use of cybermastiffs. Oh, yes, please. Talk about the cybermastiff. Well, as a...

Have you ever actually seen in real life a real mastiff? You know, I don't think I've seen one in real life. Like, obviously you see him in movies, uh, TV shows, cop shows, cop dramas like that. I don't think I've ever seen like an actual mastiff. Like, I've never been like face to face with one. I can, I had a buddy who had two. I can confirm they're small horses. They're insanely large.

Okay. It's actually wide. But yeah, very often a Mastiff is sometimes reprogrammed or something to be an attack dog. And while they are often utilized for non-lethal combat, much like their shock malls, lethal is a, you know, a term with a little bit of leeway. Yeah, a little bit. Yes, the cybermastiff is there for non-lethal combat. Just look at those shearing metallic claws. on that mini clearly is there specifically for

not leave. Oh my god, that is a huge, wow. Yeah, that's obviously a big version, but they are very big dogs. Wow. And there was a Cybermastiff in the, what game was that? The Under Armanda Hired Gun. Hired Gun, that's right. I never played that, but I remember thinking the Cybermastiff looked so cool in that. Same. I didn't get a chance to play it either. But, yeah, I think it's mixed. on Steam so it's like yeah I heard it was like good action but like the overall game and the pacing and everything were a little left something to be desired but very fun to play apparently I'm told the story is really bad too and I'm I'm clearly itching for like a really good Warhammer story in a game that I haven't quite gotten yet so I'm like probably not not for me but anyway yeah cybermastiff giant dog there's a mini for it you can see it says K9 on it which I love little on the nose but love it still love it love it love it love

it. Love it still. Other kinds of servitors they'll use as well. They'll have like servo skulls and the classic options. Sure. It's also not the only animal. Cybermassives are the most common one, but they utilize like you see the hawk back there. Laser beak.

Laser beak. Laser beak. Let's go. They also have a couple other fun weapons. Grenade launchers, of course. They have a thing like a Weber, which is like a, you know, they're like nets. all kinds of the usual like fun tools of the trade.

Okay, okay. Is there, they have like a 40K version of tear gas? Because I, I don't know why that just popped in to my head, but I was like,

man, in the, in Warhammer 40K, like they probably have some messed up versions of tear gas. I would be shocked if they didn't.

In fact, I'm pretty sure in the rogue trader game, there is an item called the Tiers of Repentance, which is, yep, I was right.

These are items been to be thrown by hand, inflicting damage on a group of enemies, inducing blindness, poisoning, and other advantage applicable in combat scenarios. Let's go. Tears of repentance is also known as tear gas. Yep, pretty much. Let's go. And yeah, I mean, for the most part, everything else you can understand from these kinds of Judge, Judge Dred-esque classic, you know, FBI cop type folks is what you would imagine. They go out there. They have their detectives.

They have their various folks. They find the guilty. And then they arrive. They judge them. And then they sentence them. Yeah. Oh, shy. I was literally just about to ask that.

Like, is there a special, like, recruitment process for the Arbides? Or is it just, like, people that want to do better go through, like, sort of a police training thing and then become Arbides? Oh, I guess I should read this. Or do you want to read it? I mean, I know they're from the Skola Progenium, but go ahead and do the rest. You need to be pretty brutal to survive Skola Progenium, where Arbides are recruited and trained. They actually choose bullies and or kids who force others to follow their orders with their will, and they need to be generally top form, mind and body to join.

They are trained to dedicate their lives to the Emperor's Service for Life. Imperium makes sure that arbitrators have no ties whatsoever to the world on which they are to be stationed. So there's no weakness for blackmail or coercion to exploit. Arbitrators are basically incorruptible. At low ranks, they are trained by dumping them into the most dangerous and most crime-ridden streets of hive cities, and when they survive that, they are named investigators and trained further by next trying to intimidate imperial nobles. Those who have deep knowledge of the law may be promoted to preside over show trials and passing judgment upon those great individuals who have failed in their duties to the emperor. Most brutal and dedicated ones reach the rank of judge.

Judge are iron-willed lords of imperial justice who have far-reaching powers, an extraordinary mandate, and influence not far below that of an inquisitor. Wow. So they literally look for bullies to become the arbitrators? They find the most bullying kids and then they make them the police, you know? Yeah. I mean, they do brainwash or train them to dedicate their lives of the emperor, though. So, you know, they might be bullies, but after their training, I think they're a little more, you know, less bullying, I guess. So you may remember way, way, way back in the day, there was this very famous photo of the High Lords of Terra.

I know there's a lot of folks that like the old like John Blanche style stuff. And I love the old John Blanche. It's amazing. But I got to be honest, I really, really enjoy the new disgustingly grimy art style of this stuff. It's the worst. But these are the new High Lords of Terra images, of course. and if I had to guess, I would imagine it might be

the gentleman beneath Lord Solar to the bottom left. Oh, yeah, yeah, the one that has the gray hair and yeah, yeah, yeah. I assume he's most likely the Lord Provost, the Lord Provost Marshall, is that is that how it goes?

Sure. It's the Adeptus Arbideus is the High Lord of, they have a High Lord of Tara, grand provost Marshall. Yeah, and he's, is, oh, no, no, But Shai said it was someone else that has essentially the reach of an inquisite. That's just a judge.

It's not like the grand provost, whatever. Well, the grand provost marshal is a high lord of terra. Yeah. So he has a lot of sway. Yeah. But I mean, no one has. I mean, there's also the inquisitorial high lord, which is, you know, much higher. Because it's the inquisitor.

It's the high lord of inquiry. Sure. Yeah, yeah. The inquisitorial representative is one of the high lords of Tara. And they're, I think it's the lady on the right. The one with the giant powdered wig, not that that really narrows it down. Yeah. Well, the one with like, doesn't she have the Inquisition logo literally just around her chest too?

So there's the gal on the left, but I don't think that's, you can also see the floor delay, which I think she is the stand-in for Morven Vall, the. high abys synchon. Ah, that would, okay, yeah, actually that would make sense. You're right. I think it's the lady on the far right. She also has two cannons on her shoulder pads, which is hilarious. Yeah, I, man, I'm just racking up the Ls today after that quote.

Sheesh. Holy shit. This is, dude, we are in such, like, gig a nerd. This is the, this is the most, like, gig a nerd you can get. We are currently, by image alone, naming the high. High Lords of Terra. Well, Lord Solar is easy to find. I mean, he's, you know, he's, look at him.

Right there. We know that one. Nah, it's not that nerdy at all. We're fine. We're fine. We're totally normal, well-adjusted individuals in society. You know, we live in a society, Bricky. We do live in a society.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, where's that custodies guy? Where's the custodies guy, Ricky? Where is he? You mean Ron Perlman? Yeah. Well, yep. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. He does look like there it is. I imagine the guy in the bottom left is probably like the Imperial Naval High Lord or something. Yeah, I could see that. That's a sick hat. I mean, that's why he has to be it, you know? Yeah, he has to be.

I go with that. That's a sick hat. I do like what Shai says. In the top left corner, there is the, I think this is, she says, I think this is the Mechanicus guy because he is, quote, due to his extensive cyber internet. augmentation. He is more building than man and is thus the most difficult high lord to speak to directly. Well, that's fair. I like that idea, actually, that he's just like that mess of wires and screens up there. And yeah. Yeah. Cool. That's pretty good.

Anyway, yes, the Grand Provost Marshall is one of the high lords of Terra. It makes sense. You know, he's like the director of the FBI. You know, it's a huge title. Makes sense to me. Yeah. It's like the main overseer. He needs to be a, big part of it. But yeah, I mean, this is Adeptus Arbides, you know? It's for the most part an interesting thing to note because they're often around in the books and stuff, but they're normally side characters for the occasional, you know. Yeah, you don't get too many, like, this is a book focused on an Adeptus Arbides, what they go through, trying to deal with, like, figuring out the law. Yeah, they're mostly side characters, aren't they? Yeah, they're like in the background

of an Inquisition or something like that. I mean, Eisenhorn is the big one that we all know of. But other than that, yeah, no, it's solid stuff. I really like them. I think we're a bit overdue for, well, you know what? Let me check. Adeptus Arbides, there is the Shiro Calpurnia novel series, which appears to be an Arbides one.

This was one of the covers that Shai posted. That is an old piece of artwork. Oh, my goodness. 2003, 2004, 2006. Oh. But then there's the cover illustration of this line called Enforcer, which is the one that Shai posted here. And that was the omnibus of the three books.

So I guess it doesn't really count. Oh, I love that cover of Enforcer. It's a good cover. I am a little surprised there has a... I mean, you know, I've said it a million times. I'll say it again. The best 40K books, much like the best Star Wars stuff, is when you take a well-established concept and you 40-K-fai it. Sure.

Put it the paint. And, you know, buddy cop is a great option, you know? Yeah. Or like, it doesn't even need to be buddy cop. You could just do like die hard with an Arbides in a 40K setting. You could just do just. die hard, yeah. Just a John McLean-ass Arbides that's just going, looking for the corruption and fighting

his way through a corrupt under-hive city corrupt governor's tower. I mean, yeah, you could literally just make it a six-hour book entirely about the tower section. Yep. And just keep it from there. Yeah. I don't know. There's, I feel like the Arbides is, it's a fun thing because they're, they're certainly very, very, very. very unmoving.

And that's always the biggest problem when it comes with, when it comes with any kind of 40K thing is that it's hard to have any character nuance because all of the characters are all religious zealots. Yeah. And so it makes it really difficult. It's actually why I think some of the best books are the ones where that's not quite the case, you know, like Infinite and Divine, for example. It's why Inquisitors are so often used because they have the jurisdiction to do stuff.

It's why Rogue Trader was the perfect thing for a game like that because they have the ability. Yep. Arbides are pretty unflinching, so it might be a little tough. But also, what's the shy, a buddy cop story called Flesh and Steel. It's about an enforcer cop and an Admec cop forced to work together. That's just a Troy become human. How many stab wounds? 28.

Yep, 28. 28 stab wounds Flesh and stare Oh wait a minute Is this Is this one of the Like Somewhat same series

As like bloodlines and stuff Where it's like in the same planet But not the same Oh Well I gotta read this now Because I love bloodlines I was gonna say If it's bloodlines

Relive that is your cup of tea I was expecting Brickie to just be like Guys false gods Off the table for now We are now going to be reading Flesh and Steel Because it is a bloodlines book and that is my favorite.

I love these. Oh, goodness gracious. All right, all right, this is good stuff. Just another thing for you to read. Nothing for me to read. Well, that's all I got for you today. You know, the general concept and care

of the Adeptus Arbides. Okay, cool. They are, they're a little different than what I expected. I guess for some reason I didn't expect them to be so like, oh, the emperor's, God, his divine light, you're, but it makes sense. for like a 40k FBI group to be like that.

So yeah, I dig it. I like them. I still like them. Still love their aesthetic, love what they do. The Hall of Judgment is ridiculous and stupid in just the most perfect 40K way. But yeah, I dig it. Hell yeah.

The governor demands. He demands, the demands of the law come first.