Meaningful choices are the building blocks of a good RPG, and Rogue Trader allows you to make many decisions. At the end of Chapter 1 you’ll deal with the fallout from the events on Rykad Minoris, and depending on your convictions and priorities you can make various responses to both the sun-stealing xenos and the Chaos cultists who collectively doomed the Rykad system. This page will cover the choices you can make at the end of Chapter 1, including who - if anybody - you should save, what you get for salvaging the Miraculous Fusion Reactor and what happens if you destroy Rykad Minoris.
While there’s a lot of chatter at the end of Chapter 1, as far as consequences go there are three decisions of note.
All End of Chapter 1 Rykad Minoris Choices, Explained¶
Defeat Aurora at the end of Chapter 1 and board the shuttle. As soon as you’re back on the bridge of your voidship you’ll have a group meeting to discuss the events that transpired. Read the fluff or move things along by saying “Do we have any hope of retaking the planet?”, and after a good bit of chatter you’ll get to the choices. There are really five consequences of any choices you make at the end of Chapter 1, which will be summarized for your convenience. If you want more details on these choices, read the headers below.
| Choice | Effect |
|---|---|
| Rescue any Civilians or the Miraculous Fusion Reactor | Your protagonist will get the permanent Malediction of Rykad Minoris debuff (-5  Willpower) |
| Rescue any Civilians or the Miraculous Fusion Reactor | Iconoclast +15 |
| Rescue the Miraculous Fusion Reactor | You will be updated on the reactor’s fate at the end of the game. |
| Destroy the Miraculous Fusion Reactor | Dogmatic +15 |
| Leave Rykad Minoris - no rescue, no destruction | Heretical +15 |
Note that you can rescue civilians, you can rescue the reactor, or you can rescue both. Dawdling to take anything off Rykad Minoris will inflict the Malediction of Rykad Minoris debuff and you must pick an [Iconoclast] dialog response.
(1 of 3) Attempting to rescue any civilians or salvage the reactor will get you iconoclast and dogmatic choices.
Should You Evacuate the Inhabitants of Rykad Minoris?¶
Pick the option “Which of the planet’s inhabitants can we evacuate?” and you’ll be given a choice to save the nobles (“Nobles deserve to be saved above all others.”) and the commoners (“Have the pilots extract all of the commoners who have not yet been converted to the Cult of the Final Dawn.”). You can save one, both, or neither, but as Heinrix will warn you, there are consequences for lingering around the doomed world. This gives you the opportunity to make one of two [Iconoclast] choices that both reward you with Iconoclast +15.
As for the long-term impacts of rescuing the Rykad refugees, there’s really only one, and it applies to dawdling for any length of time near the fallen Rykad Minoris. If you rescue anybody or salvage the Miraculous Fusion Reactor your protagonist will forevermore suffer the Malediction of Rykad Minoris debuff marks you as having borne witness to the taint of Chaos and imposes a permanent -5 Willpower penalty. As for the survivors, they’ll bring a plague of madness onto your ship that also doesn’t have any gameplay consequences, but does indicate that your humanitarian impulses may have been misplaced and Heinrix was correct - such a close call with Chaos is not something one can easily recover from, spiritually, even if the body endures.
Both of these effects will manifest early in Chapter 2, after your first voidship battle but before you reach Footfall. Aside from the aforementioned debuff and some options to respond to the effects of Chaos-taint on your ship, nothing of consequence comes from saving anybody on Rykad Minoris. If you want the Iconoclast +15 boost and don’t mind the fluff debuff on your protagonist, feel free to roleplay, but if you want to actually achieve a good deed, don’t bother.
Despite how important the Miraculous Fusion Reactor supposedly is, there’s little benefit in saving it until the end of the game. Overhearing some Tech-Priests talk about it is the best you’ll get until the epilogue.
Save the Miraculous Fusion Reactor or Not?¶
More tempting, perhaps, than the fallible citizens of Rykad Minoris is the irreplaceable Fusion Reactor, which is both irreplaceable and blameless - unlike the citizenry of Rykad Minoris. Saving this reactor used to reward you with Profit Factor, but it no longer seems to do so. Instead, it counts like rescuing citizens from Rykad Minoris - presumably the tech-priests that necessarily accompany it are tainted just like the nobles and commoners were. Whatever the case, delaying to salvage the Miraculous Fusion Reactor will inflict you with the same Malediction of Rykad Minoris debuff, give you an opportunity to score Iconoclast +15 by ignoring Heinrix and spread madness throughout your ship.
Unlike rescuing civilians from Rykad Minoris, however, there are some minor benefits to salvaging the Miraculous Fusion Reactor. You’ll… overhear some Tech-Priests talking about it on Footfall’s Atrium when you visit near the start of Chapter 2, and it does impact the game’s ending in a minor way inasmuch as you get an update explaining what has become of the Miraculous Fusion Reactor. As far as substantial gameplay ramifications, however, there doesn’t seem to be any.
If you opt to leave Rykad Minoris to its fate, you’ll get the opportunity to make a heretical response to Heinrix.
Should You Destroy or Abandon Rykad Minoris?¶
Finally, you have the option to destroy or simply flee Rykad Minoris. Rescuing anybody or anything from Rykad Minoris gives you the opportunity to make an [Iconoclast] decision, while destroying the Miraculous Fusion Reactor - and hence, Rykad Minoris - is the [Dogmatic] option. You cannot destroy Rykad Minoris if you rescue either civilians or the reactor itself (obviously), although there’s no obvious reason in-game why you shouldn’t be able to rescue civilians then destroy the reactor… but we digress. If you destroy Rykad Minoris you will gain Dogmatic +15. There are no other apparent consequences to this decision.
The consequence for leaving Rykad Minoris to its fate is somewhat less apparent, in that it gives you your only [Heretical] option. Again, like most other choices at the end of Chapter 1, there’s not a lot in the way of gameplay consequences - only the Malediction of Rykad Minoris debuff does that - but you will get Heretical +15 if you choose the [Heretical] option when Heinrix interrupts you after you pick the option “We will not waste any time on this world. Pull back and begin preparations for translation to the warp.”
After you’ve made your choices and have survived the fall of the Rykad system, check out these pages to help you get started in Chapter 2:
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