Fallout New Vegas Day#11: Everyone’s Friend

Day 11 is more subplot goodness as I fast travel across the map helping people. The subplots remain interesting to me even though many of them are conversation style fetch quests. Still, the narrative is quite nice, and as always in Fallout, the open selection of kinds of resolution make it fun just to see what I can do. Not much combat at all this session, but some nice conversation choices. Spoilers within.

I begin with a fast travel to Freeside North Gate as a quick way to head to the Crimson Caravan place. After a brief walk, I find Crimson Caravan. I go in the garage door like entrance and load into a internal courtyard with buildings. Inside, I see Ringo. He’s going to New Canaan to start a Crimson service there, and he pays me the other 150 caps he owes me. As thanks, I beat him in a game of Caravan for the rest of his money. I talk to a guy named Blake and he tells me about the caravan, but it’s nothing that interesting. I go into the barracks, and there see the red haired woman Jack from Nellis was talking about. I tell her about Jack and she wants to see him after I Lady Killer her in the conversation. She asks if she can go to Nellis right away. I can lie to her and tell her yes, but I am VERY worried they would blow her up so instead I say I’ll ask Pearl. I then meet McLafferty, the head of this branch of the Caravan. She gives me message for Camp McCarren as a first job.

I go there right away as it’s not a long walk. I go inside the fort and it’s strangely empty in the courtyard, making me suspicious. I go inside the building and it’s dark. Now I’m very suspicious. However, I eventually find soldiers and then make my way to the base lab. There, I talk to Angela Williams, an important scientist there. They optimize the power from the dam from here, and she’s the researcher in charge of that process. I go into another room to talk to the head of the lab, Dr. Hildern. As soon as I enter, he asks if I’m here about Vault 22. I lie and say yes.  He waxes about the special crops that are there, and he tells me that he wants me to download the data from their servers and bring back and any samples and notes I can find. Damn it, game froze again. I continue the conversation when I reload to find out the NCR are funding the sharecroppers (who complain that they don’t get enough water, he adds) because the NCR predicts a food shortage in 10 years that they are now trying to head off. He’s hoping the notes from Vault 22 when show him a way to increase output.

I walk out of the chief’s office, and suddenly Veronica stops me and tells me the Brotherhood is failing. She wants to go back to try to fix things. I’m worried she wants to leave my group, but I promise I’ll take her back — that’s the good guy that I am. Williams then stops me and tells me I’m not the first who was sent to the Vault. Keely was the last scientist the chief sent and she hasn’t returned.  Williams wants me to look into Keely. She also reveals that she thinks Keely is 200 years old. I Speech Williams and find out that Hildern takes credit for other people’s work. Quest in hand, I leave. Back in the courtyard, I talk to a bunch of the NCR soldiers.In particular, I talk to one sniper Betsy who’s a tough woman. Her boss in a subsequent conversation tells me that she was raped and is getting inappropriate with others. I agree to talk to her about getting help. I Speech her and she agrees she needs help. I tell her boss and he asks me to talk to the doctor for him, to prepare her for Betsy’s arrival. I immediately go do that.  On the way, I stop at the Crimson Caravan to tell McLafferty that I delivered the package. She has more jobs, but they are WAY more involved, including to get Cass back at the Mojave Outpost to sell her caravan and to kick a good-for-nothing member of he company out of the organization. When that in mind, I leave and find the clinic. I talk to the doctor and prepare her for Betsy’s arrival. The doctor further explains she can enhance my abilities. I WANT VERY BADLY, but I do not have enough caps, so I leave.

In keeping with my promise to Veronica, I go back to the Hidden Valley and into the base. She confronts the elder about the need to open up the base. She gets nowhere with him — he’s adamant about the need to stay hidden — and then she wants to leave. I then tell the elder I found two of the patrols dead and he wants me to find the third. Veronica talks to me and she wants to find evidence that can prove to the elder that he’s wrong. She says that tech could do it and she has an old comm port with the old elder Elijah she wants to go to. I sleep for a few in-game hours and then as I’m leaving the base, I  run into some paladin who tell me that Veronica is always twisting the elder’s thoughts. After a couple of loose threats,  they leave and she calls them assholes even though she loves them. We leave and head towards the comm.On the way, we climb through a Scorpion Canyon and, shock, have to kill lots of scorpions. Also in the canyon, I see a grave (which I could dig it up if a had a shovel) near dead prospector. Passing through the canyon, I find Gibson’s shack, and in it the terminal Veronica referenced earlier. It allows me to download notes about a pulse gun (at Nellis base), a rangefinder (sold on the Strip and having something to do with a weapon of mass destruction at Helios One), and farming technology (at Vault 22). Since I already have a mission to go to that vault, I choose the farming as the first quest.

I stop back to Helios One (because it’s right next to the Shack) to pick up the solar panels needed at Nellis. As I’m wandering around the factory, I find the other password to the one computer I couldn’t hack before. SCORE.  I need go outside and salvage broken panels around the yard. I also go and unlock the other computer after killing the dogs guarding it. Once that’s down, the next step of the quest that appears tells me that I can apparently route power where I choose or even wipe out the NCR here if I want now that the solar panels are active. But all of that involves going back to that tower of crazy security, so no thanks on that for now. I fast travel back to Nellis instead and go to the array. It takes me reading a repair magazine to boost my skill, but I fix them up. I’m now idolized by the Boomers – a status I have never had before with another group. I have to go to Pearl and do. She tells me that now I have to do something else for Loyal (sigh). As long as I’m here, I Speech Pearl into letting Janet come here. I have to tell Jack and when I do, he gives me a Boomer uniform for Janet so she won’t get blown up trying to enter Nellis. I talk to Loyal and he tells me about Lady, the bomber in Lake Meade. He gives me detonator to lift the bomber off of the lake floor. I have to ask Jack for a rebreather; he wants a pressure cooker to finish it, but I Science him and he finishes it right away. I’m ready for a lot of quests, but I’m done for the night so I save and shut down. Until later.