Old World Blues (quest)

Old World Blues is a main quest in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Old World Blues. During this quest, you'll earn the Make up Your Mind achievement/trophy. You'll be rewarded with the Outsmarted achievement/trophy upon completion of the quest.

Quick walkthrough

 * 1) Talk to Dr. Klein.
 * 2) Enter the Forbidden Zone Dome Entrance.
 * 3) Defeat or disable the X-42 Giant robo-scorpion.
 * 4) Enter Mobius' lair and reason with or kill him.
 * 5) Reclaim your brain.
 * 6) Reason with or defeat the Think Tanks.

Detailed walkthrough
You'll start this quest by speaking to Dr. Klein. He'll tell you that it's time you went to the Forbidden Zone Dome entrance and got your brain back. He also asks you to deal with Doctor Mobius. Optional speech checks are available, Science 65, Repair 75, Sneak 45, or Lockpick 75. Then either Science 85, or Medicine 85.

You'll start by traveling to the Forbidden Zone. There you'll encounter a few Robo-Scorpions. After dealing with them and entering the zone itself, Dr. Mobius will release his latest experiment, X-42 Giant Robo-scorpion. You can either fight it, or enter the room to the right and use the terminal to access turret controls (Average lock) to turn it upon the Giant Scorpion. Farther to the right, there are stairs that lead to a terminal, which gives the option of activating the scorpions backup generator, overloading it, and causing some damage. There is also a balcony room, in the far left side of the zone from the entrance, that contains a Very Hard computer terminal. If hacked, it gives the option to permanently disable the X-42 Giant Robo-scorpion. Access to this room is via the stairs in the far left side of the room. This may make accessing it without taking much damage difficult without a stealth boy or sneaking, as the X-42 Giant Robo-scorpion is between the entrance and it. However, activating the Protectron test drones in the room to your immediate right upon entering will distract it long enough to get to the shutdown terminal. Alternatively if you have the Robotics Expert perk, you can just sneak up on it and disable it.

After defeating it, you must confront Dr. Mobius and recover your brain. Simply take the stairs to the left of the entrance and make your way to the door on the right. There you'll meet Dr. Mobius, he's not hostile, and here you have two choices: reason with him or kill him. If you choose the former, he'll direct you to your brain and ask you to convince it to join back with you. Optional speech checks are available with Mobius, a Repair 75, then Science 50, then Speech 65, then Intelligence 7, another Intelligence 7. Then either a Perception 7, a Medicine 65, or a Guns 75, then a final Intelligence 7.

You must then speak to your brain, and you have to convince it to join you again. Having high medicine/science will give you a slight advantage and make your dialogue much easier. Use of the unique dialogue provided by Confirmed Bachelor will result in a somewhat humorous, if mortified response from your brain that doesn't help the player's case. Two of the optional checks are both Speech 75. Talking to your brain and convincing it to help in the final quest stage will grant the "Make up Your Mind" achievement/trophy.

After acquiring your brain, you have to talk to Dr. Mobius again. He'll tell you more about what the Think tank is all about and suggests you deal with them, instead of him. The choice is yours, of course.

After making your choice, simply travel to the Think-Tank. First the player has the option of using the Sink's Auto-Doc to retrieve their original heart and spine. Then the player will have to either Fight or reason. In order to reason, you must have either a 75 in Speech skill (lie), 85 Medicine and/or 100 Science.

Alternatively, if you completed the side quests What's In A Name?, On The Same Wavelength, A Brain's Best Friend and Coming Out of Her Shell, you can tell Klein to confer with his colleagues, which allows you to reason with the Think Tank without using the high skill checks. After completing the quest, and watching the ending slide show, the player is given Big Mountain Transportalponder!. This will allow you to return to the Big MT when selected and "fired" as you would any other weapon. Upon completion, all active personalities in The Sink will cheer for the Courier's victory, with a particularly drawn-out and rambling congratulations from Blind Diode Jefferson. After the slide show ends (and you convinced your brain to come back with you) your brain will be located in the far left room (where your heart and spine have been stored). You will then be able to re-attach your brain or simply leave it in the storage facility. Also, every active personality in The Sink will - for one time only - feature a new greeting text when initiating dialogue after finishing the main quest.

Journal entries

 * Optional depending on speech paths taken during initial confrontation.

Bugs

 * Watch out what you say to your brain. When you ask it if it wants to be reunited, and then choose the compromise option, do not choose the second choice if you have completed Come Fly With Me and That Lucky Old Sun; you can get caught in a never ending loop of him talking about the quests. You cannot get out of this loop unless you reload a previously saved game.
 * Before entering the Forbidden Zone Dome, it is advisable to make a new separate save as when entering through the main entrance into the arena with the Giant Robo-Scorpion, it is possible to load under the catwalk and become stuck there. * Be mindful before completing the quest and make a save somewhere outside the Think Tank. When the quest is completed and you are asked to leave Big Mt, the moment the slide show starts the game crashes. This forces you to reload an earlier save. If last save is inside the dome, you will be trapped.
 * After finishing this quest by either killing or talking to the Think Tank, your game may crash as you try to leave (this seems to be caused by hunger sickness turning off hardcore mode or eating food solves the problem).