Beyond the Beef

Beyond the Beef is a quest in Fallout: New Vegas in which a well-known rancher named Heck Gunderson asks the Courier to track down his son Ted Gunderson, who disappeared in the Ultra-Luxe Casino Hotel. Ted was kidnapped by Mortimer of the White Glove Society, who is attempting to return the White Glove Society to cannibalism.

Depending on the out come the courier choose, it could fail another quest Pheeble Will when this quest is finished. See "option 3" in detailed walk through. It is possible to finish both quests as well.

Quick walkthrough
This quest can be done with two major ways:

Help Mortimer
This requires the player to have Cannibal perk OR Speech 62
 * The player must get rid of Ted Gunderson by either:
 * Releasing and convincing him that it was all an accident.
 * Killing him and framing Heck Gunderson as a cannibal.
 * The player will need to find a substitute if Ted was released. This can be done by either:
 * Kidnapping Carlyle St. Clair III, the person originally wanted by Mortimer.
 * Sacrificing one of your companions.

Investigate the White Glove Society's secret
Follow the storyline, there are options for the Courier to either:
 * Prepare a non-human meal and reveal Mortimer's secret at the end of the banquet.
 * Drug a bottle of wine so that everyone will fall asleep, allowing Ted to sneak right through to his dad.
 * Heading straight to Ted and sneaking him out.
 * Once finished, you can return to Heck Gunderson and collect the 500 caps for returning his son safely or you can choose the  option and frame Mortimer for Ted's murder.

Once Ted is safe, the player has the option to reveal White Glove Society's secret or not, this will affect fame/infamy gained among The Strip and the White Glove Society.

Detailed walkthrough
This quest can be done in different ways and combinations to yield different results.
 * Once you have received the quest, talk to Marjorie in the restaurant as indicated by the quest marker.
 * If you fail the speech check while telling her you're a cannibal, too, she'll become angry with you and you'll gain infamy with the White Glove Society. BUG: It seems that you gain infamy if you choose this dialogue regardless.
 * Talk to Mortimer, as indicated by the marker. You can finish this quest in two ways starting from here:

Work with Mortimer
If the player has a speech skill of 62 or has the Cannibal perk, they can agree to help Mortimer, either by:
 * Talking Ted into believing it was a misunderstanding. Then just walk back up to his dad at the bar and he will follow and tell his dad off.
 * Killing Ted and using his blood around Heck's suite, thus framing him. After you have done that you must talk to a Securitron and tell it you have heard some going ons in the casino. The Securitron will attempt to arrest Heck, who decides to go down fighting and is instantly killed by the robot

The next part of the mission is to find an acceptable replacement. If you choose to do this, the next replacement will be Carlyle St. Clair, who lives north of The Strip.
 * You can also convince Mortimer to allow you to replace Ted with your human companion (either Boone, Veronica, Arcade Gannon, or Cass). Mortimer will be very thankful for your tremendous sacrifice, and you will permanently lose that companion. You will gain a lot of reputation with the White Glove Society and some reputation on The Strip, as well as bad Karma. You can still convince Marjorie to convert back to cannibalism after this.
 * You'll need to do this if you want to complete Render Unto Caesar, and get the White Glove Society to join forces with Caesar. You need to complete the whole Beyond the Beef mission to help get the White Glove Society's favor, so that eventually they will choose to accept Caesar's offer for them to join forces with the Legion. If you do not, then you'll never be able to get past that part with Caesar, because the White Glove Society says they do not want to be associated with "savages". You'll have to get on their side to convince them that joining with Caesar is the right thing to do.
 * This part of Render Unto Caesar can be averted altogether if you have foiled Mortimers plan and rescued Ted Gunderson. You can tell Caesar that the society will not revert back to cannabilism, so the plan to blackmail them into an alliance will not work.

Investigate

 * Ask about the investigator and Mortimer will give you a key to the investigator's room in the hotel. It is also possible to convince Mortimer that you're going to help him and get keys to the kitchen and the freezer.
 * Once you're there you'll find the investigator is dead and you will be ambushed by 2 White Glove Society personnel.
 * Pick up the note from the investigator's body and follow the hint
 * Wait until 4pm at steam room. Chauncey, one of the employees who is not very fond of what Mortimer's been doing will show up. After the conversation with Chauncey, he'll be killed by an assassin. You can get a silenced pistol from the assassin's body and a Formal wear from Chauncey's body.
 * This step is not strictly necessary, though it does point you in the right direction.
 * The next target will be the kitchen and there two doorways to get there:
 * Join the White Glove Society and there will be an unlocked door in the members only section that leads to the kitchen. Being "accepted" by The Strip will let you join into the White Glove Society right away. Talk to Marjorie.
 * Pick an easy lock at The Gourmand, or retrieve the key from Mortimer. It is obtainable with a speech check.

Saving Ted

 * 1) Drug the wine. You can "walk" Ted out without a fight this way. Drug the wine with Med-X and at least 25 medicine. The wine is marked by quest marker, located on a table in a room at the middle of the main corridor.
 * 2) Preparing fake human meat. Doing so will allow you to confront Mortimer after his confession of cannibalism at the end of the banquet. You'll need to get Philippe out of the way first:
 * Speech 55: Activate the pantry door and trap him in. BUG: Do not lock him in the freezer or kill him before you get the recipe. It may cause a glitch that makes this objective un-completable.
 * Medicine 55: Make him leave by asking about his past, leaving you with the recipe and the job to cook for the banquet.

There are two ways to prepare the meal yourself:
 * 75 survival
 * 6 intelligence for Philippe's recipes. There are ways to get the recipes:
 * Barter 55: the recipe for 100 caps
 * Barter 55 + speech 55: the recipe for free
 * Medicine 55: the recipe for free
 * There is a recipe sheet for Brahmin Wellington on the counter in the kitchen that you can steal for yourself.

Now activate the oven and prepare the fake human meat.


 * Once the meal OR the wine is prepared, wait till 7pm and through intercom, ask the head waiter to serve the meal. If you have saved Ted already or if you are not a White Glove Society member, stay hidden or the head waiter will spot and attack you.

Make Sure The head waiter has left the kitchen and you stay hidden when you're with Ted, or he will turn hostile and the food will not be served and the quest will fail.

Report to Heck

 * As you return to Heck, you have options to tell Heck the true face of White Glove Society or hide it from him. There will be three options for conversation with Heck :
 * Lie to him you that don't know who took Ted. Gain reputation with The Strip and the White Glove Society.
 * Reveal White Glove Society was behind this:
 * You can tell him that it was Mortimer and his cannibal group's doing.
 * You can tell Heck that it was the entire White Glove Society's doing.
 * "Ted is dead." This option is available only if you killed Ted. However you can not confess that you were the killer. He'll still ask you who did this and you'll have the three dialog options above.

If you reveal White Glove Society was behind all this:
 * Attempt a speech check of 35 to convince him to only punish the man responsible will boost both Strip and White Glove Society fame.
 * Tell him not to punish the whole strip. He however will not listen to you and blockade the food anyways. No fame/infamy gain.
 * Agree with him, stop all the food supply to New Vegas. Gain infamy with the White Glove Society and The Strip.

Reward
If Ted is returned alive, you'll get 500 caps and 500XP; if not, you'll get 250 caps and 100XP.

Bugs

 * If you go into the Penthouse Suite upon completion of the quest, two identical 'Gundersons Hired Hand' NPC's will be inside. They will follow you around the suite with their guns drawn, but will not attack. They will not be there with you when you leave the suite, but will when you re-enter. (They spawn further into the suite, and will not be with you as soon as you come out of the elevator) You can attack both NPC's and they wont retaliate, and you will not gain negative karma for doing so. Both NPC's carry caravan shotguns and some ammo, which can be looted from their bodies once dead.


 * There is a possible bug on PS3 where if the player completes the courier that broke the bank trophy, and becomes hostile to the white gloves, upon entering the ultra-luxe casino floor the game will freeze every time.


 * If Mortimer begins to walk away in the middle of his speech, only standing in front of him and getting wailed on until he is done will prevent failing the quest.


 * You may enter the Dining Room with Ted (Mortimer will be in the middle of speech), leave the Room right away, enter the Room again (no speech heard) and start talking to Mortimer immediately.


 * There is a chance that after revealing Mortimer, Ted becomes stuck in a fighting pose. In this case, he might not follow you all the way back through the kitchen. If this happens, wait for 1 hour and he continues to follow you again.


 * It is recommended to leave ED-E somewhere safe when releasing Ted due to a bug causing the White Glove Society members attacking your companions instead of Mortimer if you chose the Attack path after his speech.


 * If you experience a lot of crashes on the PC version within the Ultra-Luxe, try sending all of your companions back to the Lucky 38.


 * Choosing to pistol whip Carlyle St. Clair [Guns 45] can cause him to die and the quest to be marked as a failure. In my case, I had Veronica and could have given her to the Omertas but all quest dialog was gone when I returned from the shack.


 * If the character gets the recipe from Phillipe, pickpockets him for it, or even kills him, the mission arrow will always to him and never the stove which is used to cook the recipe.


 * Ted Gunderson won't follow the player through area doors -- after rescuing him from the kitchen he will be unable to leave the Gourmand. To fix this, leave the casino, then quick travel to the North Vegas Entrance. He will appear there with you. You can then travel back to the Ultra-Luxe to turn in the quest.


 * When waiting to meet the investigator's contact, Chauncey, in the bath house, the game crashes. Use wait and quick save frequently to work around it. Hint: Try going to talk to Chauncey without companions - this led to less crashing for me.


 * Field Report (PC) during the quest "Beyond the Beef": It crashed every time I tried to talk to Chauncey having the dog companion Rex at my side due to the King's quest to get the dog a new brain. (In my case, this crash had nothing to do with the proximity to Chauncey or with is scripted waypoints [walking or sitting] as described below). Because it was mentioned somewhere, that companions could play a role, I tried the following: When I ordered Rex to stay outside the steam bath at the pool in the bathing house, the games crashed, too. So I went through the next door entering the Casino area. There, I was able to order Rex to stay. Re-entering the steam bath, I could talk to Chauncy. When I killed the upcoming assassin with bare fists, game crashed in VATS mode (maybe randomly) (I read a mag to increase weaponless battle before). So I killed him being not in VATS mode, which worked. Back at the pool, game crashed (randomly) when the mag buff expired. After quick-loading it didn't crash. This area in combination with the mentioned quest seems to crash at all (time) points. quick-save after every successful action.


 * Completing the conversation with Chauncey and attempting to leave the Bathhouse through the north-eastern door to the Casino Floor locks the game en route. Loading an older save (prior to entering the Ultra-Luxe) and going through the quest again from the beginning did not resolved the issue.  Somehow circumvented by either constantly quick-saving or not looting either Chauncey or the Assassin, or both.


 * If you sneak into the kitchen of the White Glove Society prior to starting Heck's quest, it still allows you to drug the wine and call the head waiter down. If you do this, and then start the quest, you are now unable to do a few of the optional objectives that involve drugging the wine and calling the head waiter down.  However, the quest is still able to be completed.


 * If you don't pick the dialog option when speaking to Chauncey asking about "other suggestions for freeing Ted" you will NOT get the additional option to prepare the fake meal to oust Mortimer. The oven will not be accessible to make the fake strange meat pies and you will not be able to call down the Head Waiter to pick up the fake strange meat pies.  The only options left will be to kill everyone on your way out or drug the wine to sneak past.


 * If you left your NPC's in the kitchen area and attempt to go back to retrieve them without taking Ted to his father first, Ted's AI might bug out and he'll go retrieve a weapon in the basement. Then stand still in an attack pose refusing to follow you. And if you bring your NPC's up to the White Glove Society room without being a member (after dealing with Mortimer) they will be hostile to your NPC's and begin attacking.
 * A fix is to simply "Wait" (T) for one hour before you try to bring him through a door, as he will then temporarily holster his weapon and proceed through doors normally.


 * If Ted cannot follow you (you enter a different room and he does not follow) simply go to the room where his father is and type the following into the console:  and hit enter. Then type  and Ted will appear.
 * Or type the following into the console: and hit enter.


 * Talking to Heck and completing the quest "Beyond the Beef" may fail the quest "Pheeble Will", regardless as to whether or not you have started it.
 * The same problem occurs if you have both quests turn in "Pheeble Will" before you talk to Heck to complete "Beyond the Beef", I killed Ted after I ousted Mortimer to be able to complete both quests.


 * If you enter the kitchen early in the game and lock Phillipe in the pantry he may disappear leaving you with no way to get his recipe to make dinner. The recipe for Brahmin Wellington in the kitchen doesn't count. The quest marker will still point to the pantry but he isn't there. You will be forced to take a different route unless you have a Survival skill of 75.


 * If you kill everyone and find Ted in the kitchen, when you bring him back to his father, you'll get the same dialogue as if you were starting the quest.


 * After framing Heck Gunderson, when the securitron confronts him, if you leave the area during their conversation and come back they will not finish it and just stand together from then on.


 * Steam bug *Alternate solution*:The game crashes constantly in this place, apparently the bug is related with the steam himself (render problem?) rather with a script bug. The solution is to make it quick and to save often, enter to the steam room and save, if crash the recover the last saved game, then wait (use T for wait) until the hour, and save, then approach to the informant then save (and load if it crash), then talk (no crash reported during the conversation), then save and get out of here and save again.

Behind the scenes

 * If the Courier has the Wild Wasteland trait, then after framing Heck Gunderson, the Securitron sent to arrest him is quoted just before shooting him "Dead or alive you're coming with me." Quote from the movie Robocop (1987). Voice and inflection sound similar to that of Robocop as well.
 * The name of the quest may be a reference to the song "Beyond the Reef", which was performed by Bing Crosby.