Starfield The Hammer Falls quest guide – Spare or kill Ron Hope

At last, you have made it to the end of the Freestar Collective questline. And now, you know who has been behind everything related to the attacked farmers and The First. Your last action as a Freestar deputy in The Hammer Falls quest is a tough one — you must choose to spare or kill Ron Hope, removing him from the universe of Starfield.

With the previous mission finished, you learned the shocking truth from The First’s leader, Paxton Hull. His soldiers were hired as mercenaries by Ron Hope, who used them to muscle farmers off their land. At this point, you know the who but not the why. Paxton doesn’t help much on the latter, but he provides hard evidence to his claims. Now, you must head to the Valo system and meet up with the man himself.

Should you kill or spare Ron Hope in Starfield?

After landing in HopeTown, head into the HopeTech corporation and enter the factory floor. Ron Hope can be found near a vessel in production, having a conversation with Birgit McDougall. Chat him and deliver the good news. He’s eager to hear about what you learned from Paxton, and doesn’t yet suspect he’s been betrayed.

Choose any conversation option you like; it all leads to the Scooby-Doo mask getting torn off. Once he realizes he’s cornered, he spills the beans. Apparently, HopeTech is in the red. The company experimented with a new type of fertilizer and it failed, but there was an interesting side effect. It killed crops, but it transformed the soil in a way to produce minerals on the cheap. Ron used the farmers to “enrich” the soil and The First would come in and swoop the land away. With his scheme in the open, Ron tries to bribe you to look the other way.

You now have two paths: Kill Ron Hope or spare his life and continue on your Starfield journey.

If you kill him

No matter what narrative options you choose, you eventually must push him to the point where he’ll try and fight or pay you off. There is no way to spare his life and take him to prison. Once he realizes you can’t be bought, he fights you alongside his nearby security team. It’s not a tough fight. Ol’ Ron is only level 1 and rocking a Rattler. His body guards are much tougher, with one around level 30 for me. After he’s dead, track down Birgit to have a chat. If you ask her about having a second-in-command at HopeTech, she’ll mention Elana Nwanko.

After the talk, head back to Akila City and brief Marshall Daniel Blake. Let him know what happened, and he’ll show remorse. However, the job is done and all the loose ends are tied up. You get promoted to Ranger and receive all the perks: Money, equipment, and the Star Eagle spaceship.

If you spare his life

Sparing Ron Hope means betraying the oath you took to become a Freestar Collective deputy. He bribes you with 20,000 credits to keep his secret. If you take it, Ron will live and Sam Coe will absolutely hate your guts. I had him by my side at the time, and he was pissed. Your chat with Daniel Blake is different. You’ll tell him that Paxton Hull died before he could tell you who hired him. Blake is frustrated, but there’s not much more he could do. You’ll still get all the Freestar Collective rewards, including the promotion, along with the extra 20,000 credits. You monster.