As a reminder: you have retrieved the prototype weapons that Tanno Vik was trying to "recover", and have three coices:

1) Hand them over to the Republic (for R&D)

2) Hand them over to the Balmorran Resistance

3) Keep them, to use/sell on the black market (Tanno Vik's plan)

My intended choice (which is not an option) would be to keep what is useful for me, then hand the rest over to the Republic, and be completely open about it. "We found these cool weapons. I decided to take what was useful for my mission (as I do with all over stuff I find), and give you the rest for distribution and/or research".

Handing them all over to the Republic seems like the safe, by-the-book, (boring) option. RP-wise, my trooper is mostly a lightside, does-what's-right type, so could accept giving them to the Republic, but at the same time, would (as M1-4x would suggest) want to take the best weapons for himself/his team, to ensure Havok Squad is at its most effective.

Giving them to the Balmorrans wasn't something that would have occured to me without being given the option. It's a potentially risky choice - I don't know how well they will use them, or how much they will be willing to share them with the Republic later. On the other hand, the Resistance aren't too fond of the Republic, especially as I'm taking their best explosives expert from them, so giving them the weapons might help restore some trust. Plus, they will probably get used to help kick the Imps of Balmoral, which will be a clear, immediate benefit (as opposed to a mere potential benefit in the future from givign them to the Republic). And one the Imps are off Balmoral, and the Balmorans friendly with the Republic, they should get the factories going again and will be able to make and sell them to us.

The keep/sell them option is the trickiest for me. Keeping them to use against the Imps is perfectly within character for my trooper. Selling them on the black market is completely out of character for him. If I'm going to be taking Tanno on my ship with me, then I don't want him to have a grudge against me, but at the same time, I need him to know I'm the one in charge, and that he can't manipulate me into helping his scams.

Of course, metagaming, I'm way over-leveled for this area, so all these advanced prototypes (and the money I can get from selling them) are going to be inferior to the stuff I can get from running flashpoints and battlegrounds. And as a tank-spec vanguard, Tanno Vik is going to be spening most of his time running errands for me rather than watching my back or hanging around on my ship potentially causing trouble, so I don't really care if he resents me ruining his scam.

I personally didn't care less if Vik had a grudge against my trooper. What's he going to do, quit? I never wanted him around in the first place, and if he's going to stick around, he better learn to damn well do what he's told. I wasn't interested in pandering to his mercenary whims. He's in the special forces now, he can suck it up.

That said, I get your point about keeping them to use, but sadly the choice isn't set up to reflect that. I handed them over to the Republic anyway, as I'd much, much rather have millions of Republic troops using reverse engineered, mass produced versions of whatever guns we found than a six man special forces team. Havoc squad can't be everywhere at once. In terms of reward, I don't believe it makes a difference anyway.

I asume the choice of handing them over to the Balmorrans is in keeping with some notion of helping the place because it's morally right and just and blah blah so on and so forth, not just because of how it can benefit the Republic. I suppose you could argue taking the weapons is akin to plundering. Not that I personally would, since as far as I'm concerned the wider military gain outstrips that principle and it's not as if the Republic hasn't shed it's share of blood trying to liberate the place, but hey.