Don't Tread on the Bear! is an NCR side quest in Fallout: New Vegas. This quest serves as the NCR counterpart to Beware the Wrath of Caesar! for Caesar's Legion and The House Has Gone Bust! for Mr. House: failing it indicates that the associated faction's questline is permanently locked out and their ending no longer possible to achieve (Yes Man has no such quest and is always available as a faction).
Quick walkthrough[]
| Side Quest: Don't Tread on the Bear! | |||||
| Gain negative reputation with the NCR or side with its enemies. | |||||
| Gain negative reputation with the NCR or continue supporting its enemies. | |||||
| Reward: NCR permanently hostile NCR Ranger hit squads appear in the world NCR questline lock-out | |||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
The quest can only be triggered after receiving Ambassador Crocker's note from an NCR trooper messenger (which resets any negative NCR reputation to Neutral) outside either the Tops or the Lucky 38 on the Strip, depending on which was entered and exited first; the former after completing Ring-a-Ding-Ding!, the latter during The House Always Wins I. The quest itself will only appear in the quest log either at the same time it fails, or based on main quest arc progress; for this reason, the specific triggers are all listed below under the next section.
Failure conditions[]
Receiving and/or failing the quest can occur in the following ways:
- Progressing the main quest arc of any non-NCR major faction (Caesar's Legion, Mr. House, Independent/Yes Man).
- Decreasing NCR reputation to Vilified after receiving Ambassador Crocker's note.
- Starting combat with any major NCR character in the NCR main quest arc (the NCR trooper messenger, Ambassador Crocker, Colonel Moore, Ranger Grant, or President Kimball).
- For Ranger Grant and President Kimball, this will also happen on death, but only if the player killed them.
- For the NCR trooper messenger, Ambassador Crocker, and Colonel Moore, this will also happen if they die for any reason, even ones not due to player actions.
- During You'll Know It When It Happens, having a weapon unholstered within radius of the speaker stage and visitor center at Hoover Dam while President Kimball arrives but before he starts his speech.
- Binoculars and the Codac R9000, which are technically implemented as weapons, do not trigger this. Unarmed weapons also do not trigger this.
- This can also be avoided by using a Stealth Boy (even if detected) or by having the highest level of NCR Fame (Idolized or Good-Natured Rascal).
If triggered by questline progression, the quest will first trigger to act as a warning about going further against the NCR; completing one more non-NCR faction quest afterwards will fail this quest and permanently lock out the NCR main quest. The trigger and failure points are as follows:
| Faction | Trigger | Failure |
|---|---|---|
| Caesar's Legion | Dealing with the Boomers and reporting back to Caesar during Render Unto Caesar | Dealing with the White Glove Society and reporting back to Caesar during Render Unto Caesar |
| Mr. House | Completing The House Always Wins III | Completing The House Always Wins IV |
| Independent | Complete either of Wild Card: Change in Management or Wild Card: Side Bets | Complete both of the aforementioned quests |
If triggered by Vilified reputation, NCR main quest character combat/death, or weapon violations during President Kimball's speech, the quest will activate and fail on the spot.
Consequences[]
In any case, once failed, Things That Go Boom, Kings' Gambit, and/or For the Republic, Part 2 will fail if any of them are active. Any further consequences will depend on how the quest was failed. If it failed due to Mr. House or Yes Man quest arc progress, there will be no effect on the Courier's hostility status and Fame with the NCR. However, the other cases will lead to the following effects:
- 9999 points of NCR Infamy will be received, changing the Courier's NCR reputation to the highest Infamy level (Vilified through Wild Child).
- All NCR members will permanently become hostile to the Courier if they were not already.
As a side effect of low NCR reputation, NCR Ranger hit squads may also begin to appear throughout the game world. This is guaranteed to happen if the Courier is working with the Legion or Vilified with the NCR, but may not necessarily happen if on the Mr. House or Yes Man questlines. The NCR Ranger hit squads can also appear before this quest if negative NCR reputation was gained; their overall behavior is described in the unmarked quest Most Wanted.
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- Failing the quest will cause Ambassador Crocker and Colonel Moore to be removed from the game world if they are still alive.
- As with Beware the Wrath of Caesar!, almost anything can be done against the faction before receiving Crocker's note. As long as the NCR trooper messenger delivering the note is not harmed, faction reputation should be reset to neutral; if reputation is higher than neutral, it will not be reset. However, as mentioned above, killing the messenger at any point (even before he gives the message) will fail Don't Tread on the Bear!.
- If the Lucky 38 is exited for the first time and the unnamed trooper messenger approaches, it is possible to fast travel before the conversation starts. The trooper will follow the Courier until he is able to deliver his message. This can lead to problems if trooper follows the player character into areas such as Legion territory, hostile wilderness, or even Nellis Air Force Base, as he may then die to enemies or environmental damage (in the case of Nellis, the artillery barrage). This will fail Don't Tread on the Bear!.
- On the "hostile NCR" failure path, it is possible to prevent the appearance of NCR Ranger hit squads when failing this quest by becoming Idolized with the NCR beforehand. This way, failing Don't Tread on the Bear! will result in a Wild Child reputation, higher than the threshold for NCR Ranger hit squads to spawn in the game world.
- As noted in the summary, NCR Infamy will not be given if this quest is failed via House or Yes Man (unlike the Legion, the NCR does not consider them hostile). In fact, so long as nothing else to antagonize the NCR is done, it is possible to breach the El Dorado substation and get them to agree to a truce with the Brotherhood of Steel during Wild Card: Side Bets without dropping reputation below Idolized. They will even still accept help in preventing President Kimball's assassination during You'll Know It When It Happens.
- Don't Tread on the Bear! is also scripted to fail once President Kimball arrives at Hoover Dam during Arizona Killer. However, by this point in the Legion questline, the quest should have already failed, so the script should not make an impact.
Behind the scenes[]
- References
- The quest name is a reference to the Gadsden flag, a historical flag dating back to the American Revolution that depicts a coiled rattlesnake over the phrase "Don't Tread on Me." The flag was made to serve as a symbol of unity among the Thirteen Colonies against the British during the Revolutionary War and famously replicated by Benjamin Franklin for his political cartoon Join, or Die.
- Technical
- The script that controls the appearance of the NCR trooper messenger during Things That Go Boom, VMS23StartTrigSCRIPT, includes a condition that would block the quest from starting if Don't Tread on the Bear! has been failed. However, this cannot happen until after the messenger appears, so the condition does not have any effect.
- See VMQNCRFailSCRIPT, VStreetFluffNPCScript, VStreetDennisCrockerSCRIPT, VHDColonelMooreSCRIPT, VHDCaptainGrahamSCRIPT, VHDKimballScript, and VHDKimballSpeechSCRIPT for the scripting that controls the failure states of this quest.
