The Arbiters of Hexis are Sentients. Potentially. Maybe. Possibly?

Out of all the Syndicates we know nothing about, we know by far the least about the Arbiters of Hexis. While we have gained tidbits and even quests for other Syndicates over the years, the Arbiters of Hexis just sort of sit in their corner, being grumpy and justice-y. There’s almost no insight about them what so ever. So, because we have no Arbiters of Hexis lore, I have to make up my own theories as to what they are!

I’ve come to the conclusion that they are Sentient spies. Or at least Sentient-related.

Now, this seems like a very weird thing to say, but there is genuinely something alien about the Arbiters. They all stand in mute circles, silently judging the Tenno and claiming that they are symbols of justice and potential. But there are also a lot of hidden similarities between the Arbiters of Hexis and what little we know of the Sentients.

This will take a while to unpack.

Firstly, we have the cosmetic looks between the two.

Weirdly, the Sentients and the Arbiters of Hexis don’t look much alike at first glance. But there’s more to it than first glances. Look at the helmets the Arbiters use. They are weird and bumpy. The colour scheme isn’t the same, but you have the same strange, horned, bladed looks that the Sentients have, just in black and silver rather than the Sentient flesh tones.

Arbitration drones, which are made and controlled by the Arbiters of Hexis, take this further. They’re basically Vomvalysts, the small, ghostly beings which follow Eidolons around. Okay, sure, they’re actually made of Itzal Fighter Escort Drones with an Arbiters of Hexis helmet on them, but they look and work similarly to Sentients.

Even their emblems, which are based on swords and helmets, also happen to look weirdly Sentient. Not as weirdly bumpy as the Sentient style, but it’s close enough, and closer than other Syndicates.

It’s like the Arbiters are a much cleaner, much more refined version of the Sentient theme. They even sit in weird circles and silently judge you, just like Sentients do.

Their themes also intertwine.

What is the main goal of the Arbiters of Hexis? According to the two paragraphs of text that we have, they seek “truth through discipline and practice”. They are also stout defenders of honour and justice and hate the fact that the Tenno were made to be basic warriors by the Orokin. Their main themes are truth and justice.

At first glance, that doesn’t sound like the Sentients at all. But the Sentients also believe themselves to be fighting for truth and justice, for their own people. They hate the Tenno and the fact that these monsters were used against them.

But both factions also have a weird habit of adapting to situations and being capable of blocking the powers of the Tenno and their Warframes. While the Arbiters claim to be testing the Tenno, it’s clear as day that they’re gathering data and are far more powerful than you’d expect. After all, these guys have drones that are completely immune to Warframe powers.

You know who else is like that? The Sentient-sponsored Stalker. And Sentients themselves will quickly adapt to Warframe powers as well.

Their end goals are also weirdly similar!

At the end of the day, both the Arbiters and the Sentients want one thing: the death of the Tenno as warriors. The Sentients want the Tenno dead and gone completely. But the Arbiters also seem to want to neuter the Tenno as the mercenaries, guards and fighters that they currently act as. They claim there’s more potential for the Tenno, but that potential might be sealing the Tenno away as batteries, or simply taking what they can from the Tenno and leaving them behind.

And they will do this, regardless of what happens to the rest of the solar system. The Arbiters actively hate that the Tenno are helping the Perrin Sequence fund their debt-buying and forgiveness. They don’t seem to care that much about Steel Meridian, who seek to protect the weak and enslaved. And they also seem at odds with the retconned Red Veil lore (with Chains of Harrow) that make them the sword to Steel Meridian’s shield.

Taking away the Tenno as warriors though is potentially dangerous and detrimental to the solar system. Take away the Tenno and you leave everyone open to attack. And guess who’s attacking now? The Sentients.

Are they working with us or against us?

Well, as of right now, the Arbiters of Hexis are working against me. They’re pissed off that I wanted to help Perrin Sequence, probably the tamest Syndicate by far. But overall, if they’re Sentient spies, they seem like an offshoot that got left behind, or a group that studied Sentients and got a little too involved. It’s possible that the Arbiters aren’t even aware that they’re being used by the Sentients.

Although it would be a massive twist that the Arbiters were helping the Sentients all along, I think they’re mainly just doing their own thing, fueled by the technology they have harvested from their long-dead Sentient kin, looking for their own truths. After all, the Arbiters are seekers of truth and justice, and the Sentients have a lot of that to offer, whether they’re dead or alive.

Unfortunately, this is probably all coincidence and it’s probably not true.

Really, it’s more grasping at straws than anything else. But there is so little information about the Arbiters of Hexis that you kinda HAVE to make up your own lore. The only information we have is what we can gather from Arbitrations and small tidbits of text. Everything else, until we get a quest or something, is nothing more than guesswork.