Colin Moriarty

Colin Moriarty is Megaton's crime boss and the owner of Moriarty's Saloon, and speaks with a slight Irish accent. He seems to be the only Irishman in the Capital Wasteland, except, perhaps, Reilly.

Biography
Colin Moriarty was born in 2227 and has lived in Megaton almost his entire life. Moriarty's father came to the former United States from Ireland with his young son, and amassed his wealth using the nearby trade routes, which helped secure Megaton as a trading hub in the area. Colin's father died during a raider attack in 2241 and his son inherited his wealth, including the saloon.

Following in His Footsteps
Moriarty has a computer which contains valuable information on the game's main quest. To access the information, you can either pay/speech Moriarty for it, get the info from Nova, the local prostitute working for Moriarty, or convince Gob, the ghoul bartender, to tell you how to access his boss' computer. The player can also go into sneak mode, pickpocket Moriarty's key from him, use it to open a cabinet in the back that contains his computer's password and gain the information that way. If you pay Jericho 20 caps for information, he will tell you that Moriarty keeps the payroll for Nova and Gob locked by his bed. Moriarty's bed is located upstairs in his saloon. Jericho informs you that Moriarty keeps the key around his neck.

If you are planning on blowing up Megaton and thus are not worried about bad Karma and can catch Moriarty in the back room at his computer, you can close the door and kill him (after talking to him about your father) and loot him and everything back there.

In the unpatched release version of Fallout 3, for some users playing the PC version this key is missing and thus cannot be pick-pocketed.

300 Pieces of Silver
If you tell Moriarty you don't have 100 caps to buy information on your father, he will give you a cap raising task. He wants you to find a woman called Silver and get his money back. You can find Silver north-west of Megaton at Springvale, inside a ranch house.

You can keep all 400 caps Silver drops, assuming you didn't tell Moriarty that Silver is gone, if you acquire the information an alternative way; otherwise, she drops only 100 caps (which you can still keep).

Appearances
Moriarty appears only in Fallout 3.

Behind the scenes
Colin Moriarty is also a writer for the gaming news site, IGN.com and in one of his own Podcasts (Three Red Lights Ep. 44a) he says the character in Fallout 3 is named after him due to his status in the gaming community. He is a writer of many gaming FAQs for the website. He has said that writing the FAQ for Fallout 3 will be very difficult for him. For more information on IGN's Colin Moriarty, see http://faqs.ign.com/articles/378/378384p1.html. Moriarty being the town crime boss may also reference the famous "crime boss" enemy of Sherlock Holmes, professor Moriarty, who was Scottish. or indeed the Goon show's Moriarty, who speaks with a false (French?) accent and is obsessed with money, turning up with a 'Whoosh!' sound when money is mentioned.

Moriarty may also be a reference to famous saloon owner (and crime boss) Al Swearengen of Deadwood. In the Wild West TV series Deadwood, Swearengen is pictured as unofficial town mayor, ruling the town through criminal actions and being in constant antagonism to the town's sheriff, but also showing some "heart" at times. Swearengen owns several prostitutes for his saloon, of which the most popular is Trixie, who may be a role model for Nova; he also "owns" a somehow dumb barkeeper who may have been an inspiration for Gob.

Known bugs and solutions
Moriarty has been reported to disappear into the wasteland making it difficult to complete the main quest. To determine if this has happened, select a quest involving Moriarty as the target (generally Following in His Footsteps), then bring up the World Map. If the marker for Moriarty appears north-east of Springvale School, then you can safely assume he has wandered away. Alternate solutions for this phase of the quest line involve stealing or hacking Moriarty's computer, resulting in Bad Karma. This small amount of negative Karma can easily be mitigated by other good deeds throughout the wasteland. Also, the player can simply skip this phase of Following in His Footsteps by mentioning to either of next two contacts in the quest line that you are looking for your father.

After vanishing from Megaton, Moriarty can sometimes be found standing in the blank void outside of the city's walls. Players can only access this area through the console, or by climbing on top of Lucas Simms' house and jumping over the outer walls of the city. How the Moriarty NPC winds up here is unknown; it may be a spawning problem. If found, he can be spoken with normally and can even trade items. After using this method to finish any required business with the character, players can return to the map by fast traveling via their Pip-Boy.

While playing PC version you can also bring him back by following Recovering missing NPC in Fallout 3 guide.

Using the Mesmetron on him will have the same effect on all non aggressive npcs. However even though he dies, the other npcs in the town will all act as if he is alive and you will still get the objective to talk to him about Dad.

It is possible to kill Colin (when he's out taking a smoke in front of the bar is probably the best time if you want to avoid the angry mob that forms afterward) and for things to change slightly in Megaton after. Killing him results in Bad Karma, even though nothing bad seems to happen because of his death. In fact, Nova will stop selling herself and take over running the saloon, charging the same rate for rooms - without her companionship, of course. Gob will start greeting you by begging you not to shoot and end conversations begging not to be hit. Despite this, he will still sell items and sound quite friendly and agreeable when he does so ("Anything for you, friend.") if you were nice to him before. Manya, as well as Leo Stahl also refer to Colin's death, saying that nobody's really in charge of the town anymore with Colin and Lucas Simms dead.

If he is killed, Gob does not change his dialog, and Manya does mention Lucas being dead.