The Surgeon



The Surgeon is a hostile mad scientist found at the Red Racer factory

Background
The Surgeon is experimenting with embedding chips into the brains of Super Mutants and Feral Ghouls in order to mind-control them. They are trying to understand their brain patterns, with the intent of selling the information "to the highest bidder". They embedded explosives in each chip to safeguard against their experiments in case of an emergency. The Surgeon's earlier prototype Ghoul chips, the C6-A and C6-L, had started to malfunction and overheat, detonating the explosives planted inside. They altered their P7 series chips to counter this malfunction, as well as Y2 series for Super Mutants, writing that Ghouls "are easily replaceable" and "mutants are not".

The Surgeon altered the Super Mutant chips to account for their increased size and notes that they possess higher intellect and are much easier to control. The Super Mutants mentioned "legends of even larger mutants", with The Surgeon expressing "if only I could get my hands on one of those".

The Surgeon has been experimenting with a Glowing One named “Stefan”, which they describe as their "masterpiece". While they mention Glowing Ones being difficult to capture, they were able to install the latest chip into him, granting full control over Stefan. Due to his "limited intellect", they chose to keep him downstairs with the rest of the Surgeon's ghouls. Stefan is used to protect the Surgeon from threats and to deal with test subjects that are otherwise "unruly" or fail to react to the chips.

Other interactions

 * The Surgeon is hostile towards the player character unless they are wearing the Ghoul Mask. If the mask is equipped, the Surgeon becomes friendly and can even be spoken to, only saying "I'm not in the mood for you, asshole."
 * There is a fail-safe built into the chips which will cause all the devices to explode if a signal is sent from a computer terminal in the office. If the player's Science skill is high enough, they can initiate this control and consequently kill all the creatures in the Red Racer Factory (except for the caged Glowing One Stefan).

Appearances
The Surgeon appears only in Fallout 3.