Best Freestar Collective NPCs, Ranked

Highlights

• NPCs in
  Starfield
  , like Keoni Alpin, offer players fun side quests and unique interactions, adding depth to the game world.
• Characters like Lillian Hart and Jaylen Pryce showcase the complex family and career dynamics within the Freestar Collective.
• Powerful figures like Benjamin Bayu wield their influence in Neon city, highlighting the politics and power struggles within the Freestar faction.

Bethesda’s Starfield, an expansive sci-fi RPG set in a different kind of post-apocalyptic future to its Fallout franchise, has an equally expansive cast of characters populating its many and varied factions. From its dastardly space pirates to its high-falutin politicians, Starfield delivers with its NPCs.

One of the game’s three major factions, the Freestar Collective has its share of interesting NPCs, some offering the player some very nice bonuses and others which merely add to the richness of the world.

10 Keoni Alpin

No Good Deed…

Keoni Alpin is the very definition of someone whose heart is in the right place but who might have gone about things in the wrong way. Convinced that she has the solution to Akila City’s ashta problem, after a very public argument with the city security chief, Keoni asks the player character for some help. What follows is a neat little side quest chain taking the player out into the wilderness around Akila City, involving robots and killer alien monsters.

Keoni is a fun character with a little bit of technical wizardry, a good example of the kind of independent spirit prized by the people of the Freestar Collective.

9 Ahnjong Sinclair

Anything But Dickens

In a universe where Earth is destroyed, and humanity has to flee for its survival, stuff gets left behind. A major casualty in Starfield was in the world of literature and entertainment, with many classic works being totally lost forever. Ahnjong Sinclair, though, did not like that. She owns and operates a bookstore in Akila City and provides the player with an open mission to find and retrieve classic pieces of literature from Earth’s past – although notably not Charles Dickens, because apparently everyone brought those with them to space.

8 Daniel Blake

He’s This Close To Retirement

Head of the Freestar Rangers, Daniel Blake is a decorated military veteran with tons of experience wrangling the disparate interests which form the Freestar Collective Council of Governors. Blake is a key part of the Freestar Collective faction quests, and is even there to greet players upon their first visit to Akila City during the main story quest.

Blake is a great pick for Marshal of the Freestar Rangers because he understands how things really work on the ground – or out in space – and is willing to back the player and their decisions totally, even when it comes to some pretty big events.

7 Lillian Hart

The Cool Mom

Mother to Cora Coe, and ex-lover of Constellation companion Sam Coe, Lillian Hart is a Freestar Ranger with a messy and complicated relationship with her daughter and former lover. Disapproving of how Sam chooses to raise their daughter, Lillian still prefers her high-risk job as a Freestar peacekeeper.

A deep-cover operative, Lillian Hart is an intriguing look at family and career dynamics in Starfield‘s space-age setting, proving that although times may change, people are just people.

6 Jaylen Pryce

He’s Willing To Look The Other Way

Jaylen Pryce is a Freestar Ranger, one of the Freestar Collective’s most trusted and most skilled operatives sent out to operate in Freestar space. Jaylen Pryce is also the son of Alexis Pryce, Head of Legal at the shady Ryujin Industries. This relationship gives him a foot in two worlds, one of law and order and another which is almost comically unethical and secretive.

Jaylen’s assignment to the pleasure city of Neon means he has to pick his battles wisely, giving him a bit more depth than some other Rangers. Pryce has to navigate the cut-throat world of Neon with its gangs, organized crime, and at times lawless inhabitants. To do that Pryce has to be flexible, and that flexibility is what’s kept him alive on Neon.

5 Paxton Hull

First To Fight, First To Die

Paxton Hull is a fascinating character, a man who fought for the Freestar Collective during the Colony War with the United Colonies and who refused to stop fighting even after the ceasefire. Hull felt like giving in would render his troops’ deaths useless, and kept on fighting even after the war had ended.

Court martialed, stripped of his rank, and with his company dissolved, Paxton Hull became the leader of a mercenary group known as the First. Hull is a big part of the Freestar Collective faction quest line. He also drops a really cool hat perfect for pairing with one of Starfield‘s best pieces of apparel.

4 Ron Hope

Hope Is A Four Letter Word

Ron Hope is an inspiration. A family man, a successful businessman, and a member of the Freestar Collective Council of Governors. NPCs in HopeTown, the company town built by Hope, sing his praises, and even elsewhere in Starfield’s galaxy players get to hear positive things about Ron Hope.

Unfortunately, they’re all lies, and Hope is deeply embroiled in a criminal plot with far-reaching implications for the people of the Freestar Collective. Ron Hope is an interesting character whose actions have led to both good and bad outcomes for different groups of people, making him a mixed bag.

But his ships are pretty cool, and HopeTech has some awesome pieces for shipbuilding.

3 Benjamin Bayu

Money, Money, Money

The CEO and majority stakeholder of Xenofresh Industries, the administrator of Neon city, and a member of the Freestar Collective Council of Governors, Benjamin Bayu is one of the most powerful people in the Freestar Collective, which is great news for Benjamin Bayu, who revels in power and uses it to enrich himself at every opportunity.

Nothing that happens in Neon happens without Bayu’s say-so, from the machinations of megacorps to seemingly irrelevant street gangs. Bayu understands just how to keep the fine balance of Neon, and uses it to keep himself in the top spot. Seemingly bereft of anything resembling morality, Bayu does at least have a cool jacket.

2 Veena Kalra

What’s An Ethics Panel, Anyway?

Veena Kalra is an interesting character. Part of the shady megacorp of Ryujin Industries, Veena Kalra is a scientist without peer, poised to make advances at the very cutting edge of science and technology in Starfield’s futuristic society. She’s also completely indifferent to the questions of morality surrounding her discoveries, preferring instead to let the higher ups and what passes for an ethics board at Ryujin Industries to make those decisions for her.

But she does give the player character a pretty useful power, so maybe she’s onto something.

1 Sam Coe

Single Space Dad

One of the four main companion characters, Sam Coe is descended from the very man who founded Akila City. His family is big in the Freestar Collective, although he’s joined up with Constellation instead. But his personality and perspective on life has clearly come from his Freestar past, and he offers players an interesting look into how the Freestar Collective really works.

As one of the four main companions, Sam Coe has an extensive personal quest and is even marriageable should players want to marry him, making him one of the most fully realized Freestar characters.