The Devils You Know is a Starfield mission that takes place in the UC Vanguard questline. During the mission, you will have to report to a highly classified holding facility, make some deals with war criminals who are thought dead by the entire world, and then do some morally grey bounty hunting to ultimately help protect humanity. Has anybody else noticed that Starfield’s faction storylines are awesome?
The Devils You Know isn’t a hard mission per se, but it does leave some choices to be made, so naturally people can get worried about making a decision they’ll regret later. Don’t worry, we’ve got you. Read on for a full walkthrough of The Devils You Know as well as an explanation of different possible choices.
How to start The Devils You Know in Starfield
The mission The Devils You Know begins automatically upon completing Friends Like These—the Vanguard mission that has you assuming the role of a diplomat so that you can access classified Terrormorph data (seriously, we love the faction missions in Starfield). If you need help with completing Friends Like These, check out our guide on how to get Ambassador Radcliff’s Archive Code.
Starfield The Devils You Know step-by-step guide
In The Devils You Know, your mission is to track down and apprehend a war criminal named Reginald Orlase. This request comes from Vae Victis, another war criminal of all things. Vae Victis was supposed to be executed for his war crimes, but the UC deemed him too valuable to die, and as such he has been held in a highly classified maximum security facility.
Vae Victis has requested the player by name as the only person he is willing to give vital information to—for a price. That price is hunting down Reginald Orlase.
Go to Subsection Seven
At the beginning of the Devils You Know, Deputy Macintyre of the United Colonies will explain that you have been requested to meet a certain someone, but that you must swear to absolutely secrecy before she can tell you anymore.
This someone is Vae Victis, the brilliant strategist/war criminal/clone father of Dr. Hadrian who the whole world thinks is dead. You must agree to keep your mouth shut to advance the mission.
After agreeing, you will need to go to Subsection Seven within the MAST, which is easily reached via the elevator and will be marked with a mission objective tracker. Take the elevator down, and continue following your trackers until you reach Vae Victis. Activate the intercom to speak with him, and he will make the offer of trading information for the death of Reginald Orlase.
You have the option to question Vae Victis, which will result in him telling you to feel free to corroborate his story with Deputy Macintyre. This adds an optional objective of speaking with the Deputy—but we can tell you now that Vae Victis is telling the truth, and speaking with Macintyre doesn’t affect the mission in any way.
Speak to Captain Marquez
Vae Victis will tell you to head to the Den and speak with Captain Marquez, who might be able to offer you information on Dr. Orlase’s location. Fast travel to The Den, located within the Wolf Star System. Inside, you’ll find Captain Marquez, a member of the UC Vanguard.
Initially, Marquez will say she has no idea what you’re talking about. However, after saying that he might be living near Etherea, she will recount that there is indeed a mysterious ship orbiting the gas giant that doesn’t respond to any hails and that every ship that approaches it goes missing. Apparently, that wasn’t worth mentioning until you specifically asked about it…
Marquez explains that this ship has been nicknamed The Warlock, and it is indeed where you’ll find Reginald Orlase.
Find the Warlock
Fast travel to Etherea, and you’ll find the Warlock straight ahead among the field of asteroids. The ship will attack you on sight, so be ready for a fight. This is a good place to Quicksave if your ship isn’t up to par—however, any decent ship shouldn’t have any trouble defeating the Warlock.
At this point, you will receive two optional objectives: you can either destroy the Warlock or disable the ship’s engines so that you can board it.
Destroy or disable the Warlock
You’ll have to fight the Warlock in ship combat no matter what, but it’s your decision to either destroy it or disable and board it. Neither option will affect the overall outcome of the mission, but we recommend boarding it as there is some decent loot on board the Warlock—an outfit that gives a chance to craft weapon mods without consuming resources.
Disable the Warlock
To disable the Warlock, you must have a skill point in Targeting Control Systems or an EM weapon equipped to your ship so that you can target and disable the ship’s engines without destroying it outright. After you have disabled the engines, you can approach the Warlock to dock and board the ship.
Once inside, you will be locked out of the cockpit until…Dr. Orlase has finished taking his own life. No matter what decision you make, Reginald Orlase cannot be saved. After he is dead, the cockpit will unlock and you can loot Orlase’s Lab Coat from him, which grants a possibility to not consume resources when crafting weapon mods.
You will also need to pick up Reginald’s ID card from his body, which must be brought back to Vae Victis to prove that Dr. Orlase is dead.
Destroy the Warlock
This is the straightforward path—shoot the Warlock, and don’t stop until it blows up. Hooray! All you have to do is make sure that you loot the wreckage of the Warlock, as you’ll need to retrieve the ID card as proof that Dr. Orlase is dead.
After destroying the Warlock and retrieving the proof from the wreckage, you’re ready to return to Vae Victis.
Return to Vae Victis
After you’ve gathered the ID card from Orlase’s body or the wreckage of the Warlock, return to Vae Victis by fast traveling to the MAST on New Atlantis. Take the elevator down to subsection seven and activate the intercom.
You’ll have a few different dialogue options, but all of them are just different ways of telling Vae Victis that Reginald Orlase is dead. Present him with the ID card as proof, and The Devils You Know will be completed.
Starfield The Devils You Know mission reward
Upon completing the mission The Devils You Know by returning Dr. Orlase’s ID to Vae Victis, you will receive 150 XP and 4,000 Credits. Vae Victis will also tell you that the next step is recruiting Kaiser on the planet Niira, which will automatically begin the next mission in the UC Vanguard questline.
