Janus Spoilers: Very confused about something. Spoilers inside.

[Vim]

Last chance to look away if you did not complete Janus.



Okay, so I just finished Janus. It was the first planet I went to after Footfall, and in my time there, I hunted down the rebels, killed Yrliet and when I got back to the palace, Lady Vyatt was killed by her handmaiden as we were questioning her about the Slanesh cult. After hunting down the cultists, we returned to the antechamber, and here are my questions:

1. Heinrix pulled me aside and scolded me for what I had done. So clearly he disapproved of either A) Killing the rebels who were influenced by Xenos, or B) The fact we destroyed a cult of Slanesh.... What would have made him happy in this situation?

2. When I went back into orbit, I have only 2 choices.
Iconoclast: Give supplies to footfall, those poor dears.
Dogmatic: Screw footfall, let Chorda deal with it.

These options make no sense to me... I already agreed to give Footfall food in exchange for an Insanely high price, and influence over Footfall. Basically, to try to weaken Chorda's position there. So why is it an iconoclast action that sounds like I'm giving them resources for nothing? And why is it Dogmatic to refuse to keep that ruthless deal I made earlier?

[Taifun_Vash]

2.Because Bastian Chorda approached you when you left the liege residence the first time and wanted for you to hand over footfall to the dogmatic fanatic Chorda, so that is the dogmatic choice. The Iconoclast choice is helping footfall with the food, you get something out of it, but you still helped the people in the end.
You could visit Vladym after the battle outside of the residence and could speak with him to guess, that he is the most likely culprit behind the assassination of Bastian Chorda, or the only one who profits from it. He won't admit to it, but that isn't really needed at that point.
1. That happens only in the romance with him and is one of his events. Don't know if he disapprove that generally, or you did some Iconoclast/heretic choice before.

[Vim]

Originally posted by Taifun_Vash:

2.Because Bastian Chorda approached you when you left the liege residence the first time and wanted for you to hand over footfall to the dogmatic fanatic Chorda, so that is the dogmatic choice. The Iconoclast choice is helping footfall with the food, you get something out of it, but you still helped the people in the end.
You could visit Vladym after the battle outside of the residence and could speak with him to guess, that he is the most likely culprit behind the assassination of Bastian Chorda, or the only one who profits from it. He won't admit to it, but that isn't really needed at that point.
1. That happens only in the romance with him and is one of his events. Don't know if he disapprove that generally, or you did some Iconoclast/heretic choice before.

I played fully Dogmatic. I beat the Xenos, then came back to the palace to get rid of the governor and her cult... He was upset that I killed the planets only government, but it is so out of character. Unless they are claiming an inquisitor cares more about a burgeoning love interests well being, than purging a Slaneesh cult... very strange event...

[Taifun_Vash]

Originally posted by Vim:

Originally posted by Taifun_Vash:

2.Because Bastian Chorda approached you when you left the liege residence the first time and wanted for you to hand over footfall to the dogmatic fanatic Chorda, so that is the dogmatic choice. The Iconoclast choice is helping footfall with the food, you get something out of it, but you still helped the people in the end.
You could visit Vladym after the battle outside of the residence and could speak with him to guess, that he is the most likely culprit behind the assassination of Bastian Chorda, or the only one who profits from it. He won't admit to it, but that isn't really needed at that point.
1. That happens only in the romance with him and is one of his events. Don't know if he disapprove that generally, or you did some Iconoclast/heretic choice before.

I played fully Dogmatic. I beat the Xenos, then came back to the palace to get rid of the governor and her cult... He was upset that I killed the planets only government, but it is so out of character. Unless they are claiming an inquisitor cares more about a burgeoning love interests well being, than purging a Slaneesh cult... very strange event...

I don't want to spoiler you, there are things you will learn later on in act 2.
Previous choices in act one play a role too.

[armbarchris]

"Dogmatic" here means following the Imperial Creed (fear the mutant, the alien, the heretic, worship the Emperor, all that jazz) and also- and this is the one that players seem to have trouble with for some reason- *unquestioning* obedience and deference to authority and hierarchy without regard for things like "human rights" or "common sense". Chorda is a religious zealot who (not entirely incorrectly) considers Footfall to be a den of criminals and heretics in desperate need of a righteous leader to guide them back to the correct path. Ergo, the "dogmatic" option is to allow her to gain control of Footfall (by starving them into submission)- the fact that you made a promise to the leader of Footfall is irrelevant since he's a) a criminal and b) below both you and Chorda in the hierarchy. The fact that thousands of more-or-less innocent people will starve to death is also irrelevant because a) they're poor and don't matter and b) if they were REALLY innocent they would have risen up against the heretics and traitors running the station and restored proper Imperial authority already. ("but if they rose against their rightfully appointed master, no matter how good the reason, they'd be executed as traitors themselves!" Yup, that's kind of the point of the setting, that the Imperium *sucks*. Almost like there's a point in there somewhere about authoritarianism...)

"Iconoclast" in this context means rejecting Imperial values in favor of rationality and humanity (in the modern romantic sense, not the human-supremacist sense): that includes a rejection of automatic deference to authority, rejection of inherent Imperial prejudices, a minimum level of valuing life, and embracing what we in the 21st century would call basic morality egalitarianism. An Iconoclast would not allow thousands of people to starve to death or be burned as heretics if there was something within their power they could do about it, and they would be more likely to keep their promises even to the criminals and the poors (within reason). Ergo, sending food to Footfall in defiance of Chorda's wishes (especially without fleecing them for every cent you could get) is an Iconoclast action.

Can't really help with the Janus situation if you can't tell us WHAT Henrix was mad about. I can pretty much guarantee he told you and you just missed it.

[Vim]

Hey Armbarchris,

I'm fully on board with the options being iconoclast and heretical, but I was missing an option that was the "ferengi" way. Profiteering and expanding my domain. Call it heretical if you wish, just give me the option. I didn't like that my only "let's give food to footfall" had such a humanitarian twist, when it was about profiteering for my rogue trader.

As for Heinrix, he was quite literally upset with me that I had destabilized Janus by executing it's Slaneesh-worshipping governor. Which struck me as a very non-inquisition stance. Though as the last person said, this has to do with the ongoing romance with the character, and it was more of a personal concern. I dunno, it definitely felt out of character for him.

[Taifun_Vash]

End of Act 2 short version
Xavier Calcazar, the boss of Heinrix, informs you that the inquisition had their eyes on Janus and knew everything that was going on with Vistenza Vyatt and had it under control.

[armbarchris]

Originally posted by Vim:

Hey Armbarchris,

I'm fully on board with the options being iconoclast and heretical, but I was missing an option that was the "ferengi" way. Profiteering and expanding my domain. Call it heretical if you wish, just give me the option. I didn't like that my only "let's give food to footfall" had such a humanitarian twist, when it was about profiteering for my rogue trader.

As for Heinrix, he was quite literally upset with me that I had destabilized Janus by executing it's Slaneesh-worshipping governor. Which struck me as a very non-inquisition stance. Though as the last person said, this has to do with the ongoing romance with the character, and it was more of a personal concern. I dunno, it definitely felt out of character for him.

There's definitely a "I will give you food but the price will be highway robbery" option that you missed- I think it literally uses those exact words. It doesn't have a Conviction tag so you probably ignored it. All the "literally all I care about is money and personal glory" options are the secret 4th conviction (called "glorious") and don't have tags.

Did you actually get proof that the governor was part of the cult, or just that the cult existed?

[Red Phantom]

Originally posted by Vim:

Hey Armbarchris,

I'm fully on board with the options being iconoclast and heretical, but I was missing an option that was the "ferengi" way. Profiteering and expanding my domain. Call it heretical if you wish, just give me the option. I didn't like that my only "let's give food to footfall" had such a humanitarian twist, when it was about profiteering for my rogue trader.

As for Heinrix, he was quite literally upset with me that I had destabilized Janus by executing it's Slaneesh-worshipping governor. Which struck me as a very non-inquisition stance. Though as the last person said, this has to do with the ongoing romance with the character, and it was more of a personal concern. I dunno, it definitely felt out of character for him.

I agree with you to some extent that some of the choices you can make are forced along an alignment that doesn't make sense, even in the setting, given the motivations you're allowed to profess in pursuing them. In regards to a choice made purely out of self-interest and selfishness, that would be akin to a heretical choice, since the pursuit of personal power and profit above all else would bring one closer to the Dark Gods. Within the setting, "humanistic" choices would also often be among the most misguided and naive given the risk that they entail to everyone, and Dogmatic choices wouldn't necessarily be the most irrationally prejudiced (even if the motivations behind them and the person's understanding of them ostensibly are). When allowing people a degree of individualistic freedom could actually doom them to a fate of corruption by Chaos or extermination by Xenos, the pursuit of such outcomes for the satisfaction of one's own moral sensibilities would often be among the most selfish and ignorant choices one could make (again, even if the understanding and motivations behind them would superficially lead one to believe the opposite).

To further add to the confusion, those with the privilege of making such decisions from a position of real knowledge and understanding about the implications behind them, such as Inquisitorial agents, would often be tempted toward some kind of compromise in order to balance out the outcomes between the most extreme possibilities. So a more "radical" Inquisitorial agent might decide that it's more dangerous to destabilize a planet such as Janus than it is to allow the aristocracy there to continue to exercise heretical power for the time being, at least until a plan was set in place to make a transition of power as seamless as possible. Since Heinrix can swing from "Dogmatic" to "Radical" according to your influence, I would imagine his concerns in this instance reflect his potential for more radical proclivities.

One of the more interesting things about 40k in terms of narrative is that there's almost never a morally clear circumstance, since almost everything poses a dilemma akin to a trolley problem on the scale of entire worlds. The problem is that, if one is to take that premise seriously, it would be very difficult to portray in a way that does justice to the level of philosophical and ethical dilemma posed by the circumstances present. So while I agree that it's not always handled perfectly in this game, it would be a very high expectation to place on a developer such as Owlcat to have gotten it perfectly consistent in an RPG of this scope. The mere fact that they made an attempt is admirable, as far as I'm concerned.