Two Arbiters!
Posted May 26th 2008
Oh dear, I've really gone and done it now. I'm at the start of the light-bridge to the Citadel and I've got two Arbiters with me! As if one wasn't bad enough! Read on for how to do it. It's easy.
Squid-face times two
Exit the third tower with a fuel rod gun and destroy Arby's Phantom before it flies off. As few as four blasts to the tail fins can do the job. You could run up to deliver them at relatively close range, in which case Arby may be aboard when it blows. Death by cataclysmic explosion is no great shakes for this guy though; he'll soon reappear with his buddies on the ground. Or you could do things in a less hectic manner as follows. Near the bottom of the ramp that leads down to where the central Wraith was, there's a loading point (just over halfway past the structure projecting up out of the ramp). If you avoid reaching that, the ship won't be triggered to leave yet, so you can destroy it at leisure.
It's surprising that you can destroy it at all because it makes a nonsense of the scripting, the voicing of which can occur even after the ship has been destroyed. "To the top of these hills Oracle, no higher." Bungie clearly wanted Arby to fly off. It's also possible to destroy the Phantom with the Scorpion or the hog's Gauss gun, but usually the ship flies off before you can do it, so it's not very reliable. Actually there are ways of stopping it departing (which I'm still looking into) so you can then use the Scorpion or Gauss gun at leisure, but it's easiest to just use the fuel rod gun as described.
With Arby stranded, get the hog or Mongoose and he'll board it. You're now able to battle through to the Citadel with him, which is a novelty in itself, though not really very different from having one of his buddies aboard. He's pretty hot stuff on the Gauss gun and it's great to see Brutes get knocked off their feet by a shot. For the Scarab battle you can ditch your vehicle for a Hornet if you like; Arby seems to stay where he is and you'll be able to go back to him later.
Now here's the funny bit. Once you've destroyed the Scarabs, in comes the scripted Phantom which you so considerately blew up a while back, and it deposits the scripted Arbiter - so now you've got two of the squid-faced blighters! The triangular Arby-indicator remains over the head of the one you brought along though; we'll call him Arby 1. The newly arrived Arby 2 has a plasma sword.
Both inside the Citadel
From there you can get both Arbiters into the Citadel if you like. Arby 1 seems to have little or no desire to enter, but here's a recipe. As soon as the light-bridge activates, drive him to the door and dismount. Wait for Arby 2 to pass through. Once he's a good way inside (far enough that he won't return to board the hog), back the hog through the door as far as you can - which is just far enough to get the rear end through. Get out and make Arby 1 dismount. He's now inside but is liable to start heading back outside, so quickly back away from the door to trigger its closure. That should trap him inside, and quite often the door destroys the hog with a satisfying crunch, an added bonus. Voila! Both Arbys inside. You can do something similar if you had a Mongoose rather than a hog.
Another way to get Arby 1 inside is to bash the hog through the door, but it's quirky. On one of my runs it was easy, but on another it seemed impossible. There were actually also times when I was able to just drive the hog through, but I don't have a recipe for that at present. If you get the hog inside by whatever method, it'll disappear when you get the first cutscene; and if you haven't made Arby 1 dismount before that, he'll disappear with it. Another way I got Arby 1 inside was to blast him in with a fuel rod gun, though it probably helped that I had the Cowbell skull on.
A short way inside, there's a cutscene then a checkpoint, but for the moment that's as far as things go. Arby 1 doesn't want to advance any further, and after the next cutscene you'll be with just the scripted Arby 2 as usual. Well, not quite as usual. The Arby-indicator is apparently still over the head of Arby 1; you can look back and down through the floor to see it.
However, we're not quite done yet. If you get to the end of the seven rings far enough ahead of Arby 2 that he has to teleport to join you, Arby 1 seems to turn up as well! This seems to happen even if you never brought Arby 1 into the Citadel at all; you could have left him outside in the snow. After the cutscene though, Arby 1 has gone and things are finally back to normal.
Both in the hog
Incidentally, you can get Arby 2 to join Arby 1 in the hog if you want. He initially shows no interest in boarding, but that seems to change once he's got near the Citadel door. If you want him aboard, just drive straight up to the door and wait for him to get across the light-bridge. He should get straight in.
Once aboard, there are a few fun things you might try. For starters, drive up the steepest snowy ramp and fly off. Everyone dies on impact, and in the death scene you'll see both Arbys reanimate and leap up together. Synchronized reanimation! You can also try driving off into the reddish void past the Citadel. There's a sort of step to get up before you can reach the ramp section, but if you take it at an angle you can get up where it's lowest. But when you head off into the void, usually something very quirky happens: the hog ends up stationary in mid-air! See what happens when you dismount though. Things don't always go like that however (probably depends on your trajectory - you have to avoid a certain zone or something). One time we flew off and died in mid-air in the conventional way, departing from the vehicle. I saw the Arbys reanimate in mid-air as they fell, jumping to their feet in the usual manner as if on solid ground. Flippin' show-offs.
Earlier mentions
As it turns out, I'm certainly not the first to have rustled up two Arbiters on The Covenant. I now see that thund3r5t0rm reported basically the same method in December 2007 for example (minus the use of the fuel rod gun). Maybe there were earlier mentions, I don't know. Also, a post by Babamthegrunt in March 2008 described a way of getting two Arbys at the end of the seven rings, which is what alerted me to the fact that I can do likewise with my own set-up.
Stop press (August 2010): I now think the earliest mention may be the October 2007 post from Dark_Archon57 in the High Impact Halo forum, where it was greeted as a new find.