I think Rannick’s inclusion in missions is a nice breath of fresh air. Morrow’s cheeky banter with him also helped turn Morrow from a B tier character to an S.
With that being said, I’m surprised that more people aren’t suspicious of Rannick after the twins mission. His insistence on killing the twins once encountered comes off as really sketchy. It felt like he had something to hide, maybe a something that could be illuminated if a twin was captured : )
Below are some random ramblings that I find suspicious but are also super speculative so don’t come at me bro’s:
Rinda: “Meat for the cauldron. Right where he said you’d be”. I’m reaching here, but “he” could be multiple people. It is likely Wolfer, but is there a reason why the subject is vague? Rannick quickly implicates Wolfer to make sure we don’t misunderstand who the “he” is: “You heard her. Wolfer knows.”
Rannick cuts off Zola pretty quickly after he asks what she “needs to know”. He was probably just done with her crap, but it could also be interpreted as stopping her before she says something compromising.
Rannick mentions that a wyrmwood agent was compromised and yet Zola wasn’t informed? Who else would even be aware of this if his second in command isn’t? Rannick can’t be everywhere, and surely has more important things to do than greenlight every mission. Plus, if Zola is in regular contact with wyrmwood agents, why wouldn’t she be notified to help prevent a mishap like this from happening in the first place?
During the Mercantile mission, Rannick went out of his way to cast doubt on the location of the objective. In fact, he does so in three randomly selected voice lines. You’d think a higher ranking individual would want to instill confidence in his subordinates, not arbitrarily whittle them down without reason. Is he being a bad leader in this situation, or is he making a weak last ditch effort to throw Morrow off the trail?
Anyway, I’m glad we are getting some Rannick time because he seems like a multilayered individual. I look forward to seeing more from him (hopefully with Morrow in tow).
I enjoyed the list of other incidents that may coincide with that line of thought. However, one can find exonerating interpretations with fewer assumptions on all of these.
As pointed out, very speculative but also very entertaining.
IF Rannick pulled of a double cross from within the inquisition, that would actually underline his capability even more - though it would leave quite a stain on his character, to say the least.
Interrogators are under a massive amount of scrutiny, he would have had to work under Grendyl for years if not decades and be observed, incidentally mind scanned and go through all sorts of processes and rituals climbing through the Inquisitorial ranks. It’s rare for an interrogator to turn, usually when things go ploin-shaped they just die.
Ironically, it’s when people get their rosette and become full fledged inquisitors that they start going a bit nuts due to the freedom of action granted to a inquisitor and a relative lack of oversight, although most of the time that also takes years to decades to wear down someone that was deemed suitable to become an inquisitor in the first place.
“how dare you put our operatives in such a blatantly obvious death trap?”
five minutes later
“well since you’re already here, you might as well fall into this obvious death trap.”
Masozi doesn’t so much have authority (no moreso really than any other lieutenant) as she is a pilot and those are hard to replace, unlike us. If it is between extracting us and making sure Masozi returns safely, they will order her to leave us.
Commodore Hallowette, as far as I’m aware, is a Rogue Trader under Shipmistress Brahms (the owner of the Morningstar, also obviously a Rogue Trader) and so yes, is technically removed from the typical command structure of the Imperium and the Inquisition and why so many show her so much deference and give her a lot of leeway. It is also why she is “allowed” to send us lower agents off on missions. (pending our handler, Zola, approving it)
Hadron is just a tech-priest with the Inquisition but is the HEAD tech-priest for Grendyl.
Fairly certain Melk is actually part of Grendyl’s retinue, he is effectively the spymaster, though he is a scion of a noble house.
Yes but after telling us effectively “good luck, I’ll send someone to get you if you survive” he doesn’t talk to us again until the end of the mission. He also said from the outset we were walking into a trap. Rannick is probably running off the (probably safe) assumption that there is still at least one person onboard the ship leaking information.
“Well we’ve thrown you at other impossible tasks and you miraculously have made it out… Extraction’s over there, it’s obviously going to be a trap so good luck.”
From the less evil one.
Which means, of course, from the side of Cha- BLAM!
By the way, I think we’re forgetting one thing: what reason would Rannick have to affiliate with Nurgle, of all the Chaos gods?
I mean, maybe he’s just an opportunist and isn’t actually interested in serving one god rather than another, but his character doesn’t seem to me to fit the profile of the typical Nurglite servant.
Even if this seems like a semi regulare thing to have a corrupted inquisition member turn against the hero in narrative, I have never been a fan of this. Should rannick be a traitor that would be one hell of a stain on grendyll reputation for missjudging his willpower and letting him stray so far from the emperor while standing so close to him.
I don’t think any of the pnj we have is a traitor. This is a face down between cold logic and emotion between zola and rannick and we are in the middle, but both are serving the imperium. For now
im beginning to suspect grendyl isnt even on the ship and this is all rannick’s show, the hive city/planet his test to see if he’s worthy ofbeing promoted to full inquisitor
