“The Brotherhood is failing. I've always known that. If we don't change course, we're going to fall apart or... fade away.”— Veronica Santangelo
I Could Make You Care is a companion quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
Quick walkthrough[]
| Side Quest: I Could Make You Care | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Get the quest to begin by recruiting Veronica and activating three of the nine triggers listed below. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Veronica will ask the player to go to Hidden Valley, as she has something she needs to do. Agree to go. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Visit the Elder in charge, either McNamara or Hardin, depending on whether the player has finished Still in the Dark and the outcome of that quest. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Veronica will try to convince the Elder that the Brotherhood needs to grow and change. The Elder will not be interested. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Veronica will ask the player to help her find some data or technology that will help her convince the Elder. She will suggest going to one of her old mentor Elijah's data terminals. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The terminal is in Gibson's shack, near the Gibson scrap yard. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The player and Veronica will find data on three interesting technologies, only one of which is necessary to continue the quest. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Euclid's C-Finder & Archimedes II: | New farming technology: | Pulse gun: | |||||||||||||||||||
| Complete That Lucky Old Sun and divert the power to Archimedes II. Note that it is not necessary to activate Archimedes I, the base-protection technology that will kill the NCR soldiers. | Complete There Stands the Grass and do not allow Keely to delete the data. Make sure to leave with a copy of the data in the player's Pip-Boy. | (Optional) The player can obtain the key to the box containing the pulse gun from a filing cabinet in Pearl's barracks at Nellis Air Force Base. The key must be stolen, which results in a Karma loss. This removes the requirement of picking a Very Hard (100) lock. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Obtain Euclid's C-Finder from Max in Freeside. It can be taken while he sleeps, bought for 1,000 caps (or at 20 caps with 45 Barter), or pickpocketed. | If you've already collected the data prior to starting this portion of the quest and haven't returned it to Dr. Hildern; then the quest will update and tell you to go to Elder McNamara. | The player needs to go to Vault 34 and eventually open the overseer's office, and unlock the armory door. In the armory is the very hard locked box with the pulse gun. | |||||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough[]
Initiating the quest[]
This quest is triggered by Veronica seeing things around the Mojave that cause her to question the wisdom of the Brotherhood of Steel remaining hidden underground and not interacting with the world. There are nine triggered conversations throughout the Mojave Wasteland that Veronica will initiate in response to nine different situations she and the Courier may encounter together. Note that one will only need to complete three of the conversations to activate this quest. Some of them can only be triggered by lines of dialogue that only happen once, so if the player character has already heard that line before recruiting Veronica, the trigger will not occur. Note that there are three triggers that can never go away—the main doors at Camp McCarran terminal building, the entrance ramp of Vault 3, and traveling near Nelson or Cottonwood Cove. The Boomer museum trigger can be activated even if the player character has already heard the tour, but not if Pete and the Boomers are hostile.
Note: If she does not initiate the listed conversation, it may initiate if the player character talks to her via companion wheel or waits 30 seconds or so. There is a delay in the conversation trigger, and it will not trigger if the player character is in conversation with someone else. Along with other companion quests, a recent patch has made activating the quest easier—in this instance two activations are required. One may also try to sit in a chair one or two times and that could trigger the conversation. If she does not talk to the player character in the trigger zone, sitting and standing up in any other zone will result in her talking to them about what she was last triggered by.
Here are the nine triggers, and the things Veronica says:
- Casa Madrid Apartments – The trigger is some of Tom Anderson's lines. Specifically, the line "I'm with the Followers of the Apocalypse...," (responding to the question "What do you do here?"), and all of his lines confessing to the murder of Corporal White (part of the quest The White Wash). All of these lines are only given once. Veronica contrasts his good cause and lack of resources with the Brotherhood of Steel's incredible resources but lack of a good cause. This can also be triggered outside of the quest.
- Vault 3 – The trigger area is on the outside, about a third of the way down the ramp to the door. Veronica talks about how the Fiends are giving the NCR more trouble than the Brotherhood ever did.
- Nelson/Cottonwood Cove/The Fort – The trigger is the player traveling to one of the locations and staying for 30 seconds or so. The trigger areas are large squares larger than each location, so it may trigger before the player character actually sees the place, or while passing through a corner while on the way to another location. The three locations share a single trigger, so going to all of them does not count more than once. Veronica comments on 'ordinary guys with knives and bullets, and they're taking over Nevada'.
- Camp McCarran terminal building, trigger 1 – The trigger area is just inside the terminal building, at the center set of main triple doors or the eastern set of triple doors closest to Colonel Hsu's office. The third set of triple doors on the west side will not trigger the conversation, as there is no trigger zone there. It is not necessary to pass through the doors; just walk very near them on the inside of the terminal. Veronica talks about her surprise at how many NCR troops there are.
- Camp McCarran terminal building, trigger 2 – The trigger is the line "A pleasure to meet you! I'm Dr. Thomas Hildern..." This line only happens when the player character first meets Hildern. Veronica talks about the NCR investing in new research, unlike the Brotherhood. Alternatively, walking around the first floor and walking near the location of Dr Hildern can also cause a trigger.
- Nellis Air Force Base, the Nellis Boomer museum – The player character just needs to listen to Pete's lecture in front of the mural. The trigger is the last line of his speech. Veronica remarks on the similarities between the Boomers and the Brotherhood of Steel.
- Old Mormon Fort – The trigger is Julie Farkas' line "Are you here to drop off medical supplies? ..." which only happens the first time the player character meets her. Veronica is impressed with the work they're doing. Some people have been able to trigger Veronica's dialogue in the Old Mormon Fort even after the player has already met Farkas. Try talking with doctors around the camp.
- REPCONN test site – The trigger is Jason Bright's line "We wish to escape the barbarity of the wasteland..." which is his response to the first question about the "Great Journey." This line is only given once. Veronica compares Jason Bright to her old mentor, Elijah.
- Silver Rush – The triggers are Gloria Van Graff's greeting "Welcome to the Silver Rush..." and her line "Please let me know if anything catches your eye." which is the response to the player character saying, "I'm just browsing." Some of these lines will not happen during certain stages of Birds of a Feather. Veronica comments on all the energy weapons.
Some events may force the quest to start at a later stage, even if three of the above triggers have not happened.
- Hidden Valley – Have Veronica open the bunker door after having armed Archimedes II during That Lucky Old Sun and having separately obtained Euclid's C-Finder. (Confirmed Xbox, PS3,& PC: The quest will start with "Bring the rangefinder to the elder" but you can do the quest normally.)
- The quest can sometimes be activated without having Veronica in the party, by picking up the rangefinder after meeting Veronica, and knowing about the Hidden Valley. However, the quest will not continue further without Veronica.
Acquiring the technology[]
- The player character and Veronica will find data on three interesting technologies, only one of which is necessary to continue the quest.
- Option 1: Euclid's C-Finder & Archimedes II:
Note: If the player character has already completed That Lucky Old Sun without diverting power to Archimedes II, this option cannot be completed. It also appears that if That Lucky Old Sun has been completed at all and/or one has obtained Euclid's C-Finder, choosing this option during this quest may lead to glitches. Also, if the player character obtains the Euclid's C-Finder but the quest has not yet been initiated, this can provide a quick shortcut to the end of the quest.- Obtain Euclid's C-Finder from Max in Freeside. It can be stolen from him while he is sleeping , bought for 1,000 caps (or at 20 caps with 45 Barter), or pickpocketed.
- Option 2: New farming technology:
- If There Stands the Grass has been completed at all, choosing this option may lead to glitches. A workaround exists, see Fixes section (PC only).
- If not already done, complete There Stands the Grass and do not allow Keely to delete the data. Make sure to leave with a copy of the data in one's Pip-boy.
- If one has already collected the data prior to starting this portion of the quest and have not returned it to Dr. Hildern; then the quest will update and tell the player character to go to Elder McNamara.
- Option 3: pulse gun:
- (Optional) The player character can obtain the key to the box containing the pulse gun from a filing cabinet in Pearl's barracks at Nellis Air Force Base. The cabinet is the rightmost of a pair standing to the left of her desk. The key to it must be stolen, which results in a Karma loss. This removes the requirement of picking a Very Hard (100) lock.
- The player character needs to go to Vault 34 and eventually open the overseer's office, and unlock the armory door. In the armory is the very hard locked box with the pulse gun.
- On an unpatched game, the pulse gun may sometimes be purchased from the Silver Rush, or may be carried by higher-level Fiends. This was fixed in the first patch.
- Should the player character already have gone through Vault 34, they may have picked up the pulse gun from the Armory there already. Even if they have done so, the quest will not update for this until it is in one's inventory.
- Note that at any time while doing Options 1 or 2, the player character can go get the key from Nellis Air Force Base or the pulse gun from Vault 34 and switch to Option 3; it is not necessary to talk to Veronica and explicitly switch paths.
- Note: Switching is always possible by going back to the comm station and re-downloading the information as this will prompt a dialogue with Veronica enabling you to choose a different path.
The Brotherhood is not pleased[]
- Return to the Elder McNamara. Veronica will show him the technology. He will remain unconvinced.
- Veronica will ask the player character's opinion about whether she should stay in the Brotherhood or leave. They can choose for her, or can tell her it is her choice, in which case she will stay.
- Veronica will want to go outside to get some air. Outside will be a team of Brotherhood of Steel paladins who are angry at Veronica and the player character for spreading subversive ideas. One must deal with them in one of the following ways:
- If Veronica decided to leave the Brotherhood:
- The player character tells them so, and they let Veronica leave, but tell Veronica never to come back. (There is an optional 95 Speech check here [rewards no XP for passing it], but it has essentially the same outcome.)
- Note that attacking the paladins at this point will fail the quest and make Veronica leave.
- If Veronica decided to stay in the Brotherhood, the paladins are not so easily dissuaded. The only solutions are:
- Pass a 95 Speech check to get them to leave peacefully (this rewards no XP). As above, killing the paladins after succeeding the check will fail the quest and make Veronica permanently leave the player character. This aggressive 'option' has been fixed in v140525 by forcing one to wait for them to disappear before moving.
- Scare them off with Terrifying Presence, which is only a temporary solution. They will be there every time one returns to the Hidden Valley bunker until one of the permanent solutions is taken.
- Fast travel before they have a chance to engage in conversation as soon as one exits the bunker. This method is also temporary, but will give the player character enough time to get a 95 Speech level or gather supplies for defending against them. After fast traveling away, one can ask Veronica about finding the other options.
- Talk to them until they turn hostile and attack, then kill them all. One will not gain infamy with the Brotherhood or lose Veronica's trust by killing them, at least if the paladins shoot first.
- While the load screen is up when exiting the bunker, if one has a weapon out and holds the trigger button, the paladins will not engage in conversation upon exit, but can be heard asking the player character to calm down. It is important to pull and hold the trigger during the load screen to avoid firing on them. One can quickly sidestep them at this point then fast travel from a distance. They will not be hostile, as they have not engaged in conversation to threaten the player character. If one stays within a few feet of them, however, they may begin dialogue, so it is important to sidestep them. The player character can also re-enter the bunker using this strategy, allowing them to dispatch them at their leisure (tested on 360, August 2012).
- Use a Stealth Boy directly after the speech ends with the orders to execute the player character.
- Approach the speaker paladin close enough to trigger speech, but far enough to require him to walk to the player character. Enter the bunker and he will follow alone, and if he attacks first, the rest of the Brotherhood will help the player character fight him. The rest of the team will remain outside, but will not turn hostile.
- If Veronica decided to leave the Brotherhood:
Conclusion[]
- Once the paladins are dealt with, the next actions depend on whether Veronica decided to leave the Brotherhood or remain a member.
- Option 1: Veronica remains a member:
- Veronica comments about her decision, and the difficulties of staying with such a dogmatic group.
- The quest concludes. The player character gets 1000XP and Veronica gets the Bonds of Steel perk.
- Option 2: Veronica decides to leave:
- Veronica expresses an interest in joining the Followers of the Apocalypse. She suggests going to the Follower's outpost.
- At the outpost talk to Doctor Alvarez about Veronica joining. She says that Dr. Schiller makes the decisions, and he is gone for the day.
- Go away from the outpost and wait at least 24 hours.
- Upon returning to the outpost, the player character will find the rogue paladins, who have slaughtered all the Followers of the Apocalypse and patients. They will accuse the player character and Veronica of sharing forbidden knowledge with outsiders. The paladins all need to be killed, though with the Terrifying Presence perk one can frighten the them into submission, giving the player character an advantage. Killing them will not gain Brotherhood infamy and will not make Veronica leave.
- The player character negatively refers to the Brotherhood's Codex if they use Terrifying Presence against the paladins, and Veronica will have something to say about it.
- Veronica will blame herself, but the incident just reinforces that she made the right decision.
- If the player character attacks the paladins first, after they are dead, Veronica will scold the player character for killing them and refuse to continue being a companion. This may also cause the quest to fail.
- The quest concludes. The player character gets 1000XP and Veronica gets the Causeless Rebel perk.
- From here on out, one can still return to the Hidden Valley bunker with Veronica; however, she will refuse to go inside and will instead wait outside.
- Option 1: Veronica remains a member:
Quest stages[]
Notes[]
- During the search for the Euclid's C-Finder, Sarah Weintraub in Vault 21 tells the player character that a man with a 'strange metal collar' already purchased it. Veronica may make a comment about Father Elijah. When one finds the man in Freeside, his head has been blown off. Veronica does not comment near the body.
- Veronica's final conversation with the elder is based on which technology item is currently in the one's inventory when they step into the elder's office, not which technology the player character selected to pursue in dialogue with Veronica. If Veronica is told to pursue the pulse gun, but the one enters the elder's office with Euclid's C-Finder instead, then the quest completion dialogue for the rangefinder will play.
- If one has already completed That Lucky Old Sun and chosen not to power Archimedes II, but the player character has Euclid's C-Finder in their inventory already; they can ask Veronica about it, but the route will ultimately be discarded.
- When triggering the quest via Vault 3, Veronica states that the Fiends are giving the NCR more trouble than the Brotherhood.
- The Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide erroneously lists traveling to Nipton as one of the triggers needed to begin this quest.
- This quest may appear to interact poorly with That Lucky Old Sun, if one wishes to complete that quest by sending power to anywhere other than Archimedes II. However, this is not the case. When pursuing the quest stage to divert the power from HELIOS One to Archimedes II, the Courier is free to change where the power is diverted at any point before realigning the reflectors. Simply selecting the Archimedes II option from the list is enough to complete this quest stage, and the player can then divert the power elsewhere.
- In case that both That Lucky Old Sun and There Stands the Grass have been completed, getting the pulse gun will advance the quest.
Behind the scenes[]
The title is a reference to the Frank Sinatra song "I Could Make You Care".
Bugs[]
Sometimes Veronica might refuse to accept any triggers required to start the quest, due to the game forgetting to give her scripts required for her to respond to them. This can be fixed by targeting her in the console and entering the addscriptpackage 0014779f. Note this is not permanent, and has to be done every time one wants to activate a trigger. [已驗證]- Should one complete the entirety of the quest before accessing the Comm Terminal in Gibson's shack, accessing said terminal, exiting, then speaking with Veronica may cause an infinite dialogue loop. [已驗證]
- In some cases, especially after a long playtime or getting to a certain point in the game, Veronica will not enter any of the dialogue triggers at all. [已驗證] **FIX**( enter vault 11 with Veronica, but make her wait before going into the sacrificial chamber. After the battle, she will walk up and initiate a trigger conversation.)
- If one goes to the elder to deliver technology with more than one of the required items, the dialogue with Veronica and the Elder will not start. If this happens, just go out of the bunker and discard one of the items then return. If Veronica walks to the elder and the dialogue still does not start, open the console, select the elder and type sayto e2f88 vms49elderdiscussion2intro (for Hardin) or sayto e2f87 vms49elderdiscussion2intro (for McNamara). [已驗證]
- While trying to complete the Go with Veronica to talk to the Brotherhood of Steel elder at Hidden Valley section of the quest, Veronica enters the Hidden Valley bunker and instantly runs to the intercom. She then proceeds to do nothing other than say "See you around" on a continual loop and refuses to engage in conversation. Upon fast traveling to Gibson's shack Veronica just walks off to the intercom at Hidden Valley and does the same thing. [已驗證]
- After obtaining the pulse gun, the Pip-Boy may still show the objective "find the pulse gun in Vault 34". [已驗證]
- If one has completed There Stands the Grass prior to starting this quest, it's impossible to finish the quest with the "farming technology" even if the data was not destroyed by Keely. The quest directs the player character to the terminal in Vault 22, which no longer has the data. [已驗證]
- Activating the Archimedes II weapon system and gaining the rangefinder before initiating this quest will automatically flag the journal to tell the player character to return to the elder after activating the terminal in Gibson's shack. If one retrieves a second technology, the quest is seemingly broken. Neither Veronica or the elder will have conversation options to continue further, and neither will initiate their dialogue scripts between the two, despite there being periods where one cannot talk to either one after coming close to the elder. [已驗證]
- The encounter with the paladins outside the bunker may not spawn, stopping the quest from progressing. This can be fixed by re-entering and exiting the bunker until they turn up. It may take four or five attempts before they appear. [已驗證]
- When the paladins initially deliver their ultimatum, sometimes only one will become hostile and three will run away, still friendly. The quest completes normally after killing the one hostile, but upon returning to the bunker the three have come back, deliver their ultimatum again, and attack. After this fight, Veronica refuses to follow the player character, and will sometimes start an unprovoked dialogue with you but only give the standard "what's up?". This appears to be caused by her attempting to deliver the quest-ending dialogue but, already having delivered it, getting stuck and refusing to budge until it is delivered. [已驗證]
- Nellis Air Force Base trigger may fail, and Veronica fails to comment after hearing the speech. It may take several attempts for this dialogue to initiate. The same can happen with the Silver Rush trigger. [已驗證]
- If one kills the Brotherhood paladins in the Follower's outpost and then equips their armor later while Veronica is still a companion, she may interrupt whatever the player character are doing to say that she will not stand for them killing members of the Brotherhood of Steel. Veronica will then go back to regular dialogue options. [已驗證]
- If one re-enters the bunker after encountering the hostile paladins, sometimes not all of them will enter to follow the player character. [已驗證]
- When asking Veronica about the technologies in Gibson's shack, one may get stuck in a conversation loop with her. [已驗證]
- The player character may get this quest when they first get the Euclid's C- Finder even if they do not have Veronica as a companion. This in turn triggers a glitch where the only option when talking to Veronica is "I have to go now", as if the player character insulted the Brotherhood of Steel on their first visit. This then means Veronica is unobtainable as a companion. This glitch happens regardless of whether or not one has already talked to her.[已驗證]
- Completing the quest Still in the Dark by having the Courier help Head Paladin Hardin replace Elder McNamara before Veronica can return to McNamara with a piece of technology, will cause McNamara to be absent from his chair. When entering the room where McNamara normally sits, the quest will trigger Veronica to approach the chair and engage in conversation. Though he will not be present in the room, his voice can still be heard responding to Veronica. [已驗證]
- If the player character had previously found the pulse gun and lost it or sold it to a merchant, the quest objective will still point to the case it was found in in Vault 34. Using console commands to spawn a second copy of the weapon, or tracking down the original weapon and re-acquiring it, will cause the quest to proceed normally.[已驗證]
- When the player exits the bunker while finishing the quest, the dialogue with the Paladins might not trigger. Manually interacting with one of them will start the conversation. If they are talked into leaving, the conversation will trigger again during the fade to black. If they are allowed to attack in this way, they will despawn as normal, but the game will act as if they had been killed instead.
Fixes[]
- An automatic fix for the quest bug is by opening up the console commands and typing set "145f85".ngreetingpending to 1. This has been known to cause issues with achievements but it automatically triggers Veronica opening up a dialogue with the player character which activates the quest.
- If the player character has already completed There Stands the Grass and they are unable to download the Vault 22 data: it is possible to reset the mainframe terminal by using the console command set e6a6a.DataState to 0; one can then re-download the data to complete the objective. This should even work if the data was deleted.
- Solution to the dialogue between Veronica and the elder freezing or not starting at all during the first phase I Could Make You Care: upon arrival, stand beside the elder's table and raise and lower (twice if necessary) the Pip-boy any time the conversation freezes. One might lose some sentences, but the first step of the given quest (Bring Veronica to the elder) will be completed, and Veronica gives the player character the next step of the quest as soon as they leave the elder's room.
- Solution to Veronica not following after I Could Make You Care: During the battle with the paladins, Knock out Veronica before killing the last paladin. When she wakes up, one can manually talk to her twice for her standard dialogue. *Note* will not work on hardcore mode.
- If Veronica will not follow the player character anymore (she simply stands in place and does not move, despite being able to interact with her) after fighting the paladins outside the Hidden Valley bunker (After suggesting she stay with the Brotherhood to gain her Bonds of Steel Perk), simply travel to Gibson's shack, re-download the data from the computer, talk to her so she brings up the conversation about what technology to pursue, choose the technology that was initially picked in order to complete the quest, exit the conversation, talk to her again, enter her workbench and craft ANY item (1 ammunition conversion works just fine), after the item is crafted and added to one's inventory she should now follow the player character again. Test by simply entering into sneak mode, if she crouches with the player character she is now following them again. Solution works for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
- If Veronica will not follow the player character anymore, they will have to go back to before the part of the mission where she speaks to the elder after they retrieve the notes, and directly tell her they want her to leave (do not suggest for her to stay, and do not allow her to choose for herself).
- Numerous fixes exist for Veronica not saying her quest related lines:
- Simply send her back to the 188 trading post and then speak to her, where she will then recognize the quest triggers, and even possibly the dress (if given to her previously without effect) for You Make Me Feel Like a Woman.
- Since there are always three triggers available (McCarran, Vault 3, Nelson/Cottonwood Cove), it is generally going to be better to trigger the quest "normally"–use the console only if the regular triggers will not work.
- If the dialogue options do not open automatically give Veronica some formal wear for the unmarked quest You Make Me Feel Like a Woman and she will most likely not respond. However, sit down, and when standing back up, open the companion wheel, go to the talk to option, and then talk to her about trading equipment, take the dress back and put it back in, and when you leave the triggers should work.
- Along with the above fix for the formal wear trigger, sitting down in a seat in a trigger area then standing up will activate the trigger. (Ex. Sitting in Colonel Hsu's office will trigger comment by eastern doors of Camp McCarran)
- Simply send her back to the 188 trading post and then speak to her, where she will then recognize the quest triggers, and even possibly the dress (if given to her previously without effect) for You Make Me Feel Like a Woman.
- If Veronica gets stuck and will not follow the player character anymore, and then they get the infinite loop upon getting to the comm terminal at Gibson's shack, one will have to restart the mission (from a previous save) and work back to the part where she speaks to the elder after the player character retrieves the notes, and directly tell her they want her to leave (do not suggest for her to stay, and do not allow her to choose for herself). Then go to Gibson's shack and access the comm terminal, and upon doing so, it will say (in the upper left side of the screen) "COMPLETED: Access Father Elijah's notes for the comm terminal", and upon exiting the terminal, Veronica will automatically start talking. After choosing one, it will give the player cahracter the option to exit the dialogue, and Veronica says, "I like the way you think...".
- If one has chosen to pursue the pulse gun and, after recovering it from Vault 34, your Pip-boy does not show the objective completed–place the item in Veronica's inventory via the companion wheel. Close her inventory and then reopen via the companion wheel and remove the item. This should trigger the completion of the objective.
- For some reason, Veronica will sometime not talk to the intercom when entering the Hidden Valley. A possible fix is to enter set "000E327C".HowPlayerEntered to 0 in the console and re-entering the bunker.
- If the player character has Euclid's E-Finder before they had Veronica talk to the elder, simply drop drop and pick it up.
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