Veronica

"Thanks for taking a chance on a naive young girl from California with stars in her eyes and a pneumatic gauntlet on her hand."

- Veronica

Veronica Renata Santangelo (born 2254) is a Mojave Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel Scribe found at the 188 Trading Post in 2281.

Background
"With regret comes a girl... smiling sad, brown robe, name Veronica, half here. Wraps her and her heart up like a pack, in the pack, a key, some say. Forecast: Cloudy, with a chance of friendship."

- The Forecaster

Veronica is a Brotherhood of Steel journeyman scribe who has been indefinitely assigned to the role of "procurement specialist", responsible for venturing out of the Brotherhood bunker to find and acquire resources that the Brotherhood cannot create on its own such as food. Irritated by what she sees as the Brotherhood’s unrealistic and uninformed views of themselves and the world, Veronica is a perpetual outsider caught between her loyalty to the Brotherhood and troubling doubts about the validity of their current course.

She was born and raised in the Brotherhood, her father was a paladin, her mother a scribe. In her youth she fell in love with a woman (who is implied to be Christine Royce), but Father Elijah split them up. Because the Brotherhood was not open to outsiders, many of its members felt that it was their duty to procreate and frowned upon same-sex relationships. Later in dialogue, she laments that both of her parents were killed in the assault on HELIOS One.

After following the Brotherhood to the Mojave Wasteland from California, Veronica became disillusioned with their goals. The Mojave Chapter's Elder and her personal mentor, Elder Elijah, had changed the direction of the Brotherhood somewhat by dispatching Scribes to recover beneficial technology instead of just weaponry, but after he abandoned the Brotherhood after their defeat at HELIOS One, his successor, Nolan McNamara, upped stakes and holed up in the Hidden Valley bunker, dispatching scouts only to assess the threat posed by the NCR. She felt that McNamara was far too isolationist, and by hiding away and hoarding technology instead of using it to win favor with the people of the Wasteland and attract new recruits, he was just going to "wait in a hole for everyone else to die".

Veronica felt that if the Brotherhood was to survive, things were going to have to change. She began to speak up about her beliefs, questioning the direction the Brotherhood were taking. In order to keep her out of the Brotherhood's hair and to stop her dissent from spreading, the Head Scribe sent her on longer and longer excursions out into the wasteland, allegedly to collect resources. It is on such an excursion that she meets the Courier.

Quests

 * Beyond the Beef: The player can offer Veronica, or any other human companion, as a substitute to Mortimer for the banquet.
 * I Could Make You Care: Veronica will ask the player to take her to Hidden Valley where she will talk to the elder about the brotherhood's collapse and how it will need to grow and change to stay alive. The player is then asked by Veronica to find some technology to convince the Elder.
 * If Veronica is convinced to leave, the player will have to go to the Follower's outpost and talk to Alvarez in getting her to join the Followers of the Apocalypse, but the doctor who decides who joins the Followers of the Apocalypse is out for the day and the player will then have to wait a day. After waiting a day a few rogue Paladins have destroyed the outpost killing everyone. She then blames herself for what happens. She will then get the Causeless Rebel perk giving here a increase of attack rate by 30%.
 * If she decides to stay the quest is completed and she will gain the Bonds of Steel perk, giving her +4DT.
 * You Make Me Feel Like a Woman: Veronica has a long-held dream of wearing a dress. Giving her a dress will make her very happy, and in return she will teach the player the special unarmed move, Scribe Counter.

Effects of player actions

 * If you have destroyed the Brotherhood Bunker in Hidden Valley before recruiting her, she will come up to you and ask you what you know about the Brotherhood at 188 trading post. If you tell her what you did, she will say "Well in that case: This is for them." and attack the player.
 * Veronica will leave you if your reputation with the Brotherhood of Steel drops to Vilified. However, it seems that with a reputation even as low as Merciful Thug, she will continue to happily accompany you on your travels.
 * Veronica will enable the player to access Hidden Valley on much friendlier terms without being stripped of gear, having an Explosive collar put on and having to get rid of Ranger Dobson from one of the bunkers. Without her, the player will have everything mentioned before done to them and and to get rid of Dobson from Hidden Valley to prove that the player is trustworthy.

Endings

 * Hoping to lead the Mojave Brotherhood down a new path, Veronica sought to learn from the thriving cultures of the desert. If she is absent a firm solution, Veronica's expression of frustration with Brotherhood leadership leads to her banishment. She ends her days a wandering tinker.
 * Even if she departs from the group, the Brotherhood's peace treaty with NCR comes as some relief to Veronica. Though she remains friendly with surface patrols, she is never again permitted to enter the bunker she once called home. Fearing for the safety of anyone she associates with, she continues her solitary life as a scavenger. But reports occasionally emerge from Mojave scientists and social workers of old equipment miraculously repaired and research notes mysteriously completed.
 * Though she'd seen the writing on the wall, the destruction of the Mojave Brotherhood comes far more suddenly than Veronica had expected. The news devastates her, and despite her best efforts to leave her past behind, she finds herself compelled to make one final journey to Hidden Valley. There, she pays her last respects to the only family she had ever known.
 * If the Brotherhood become openly aggressive along the New Vegas highways, Veronica is troubled greatly. Nevertheless, it removes all doubt from her mind that in leaving them she had made the right choice. Eventually she takes to the road, less in hopes of finding a new home than of leaving memories of the old one behind her.
 * The peace with NCR serves to ease Veronica's worries about the Brotherhood's immediate future. Still, a distance had arisen between her and her fellow members that would never be bridged. She begins secluding herself in crumbling libraries of the Old World, learning of promising technologies she knows the Brotherhood would never adopt.
 * The death of the Mojave Brotherhood comes much too soon for Veronica, and in their absence, she feels truly lost. Yet in its wake, she takes small comfort in her decision to remain by their side through their few remaining days.
 * Veronica puts her moral sensibilities aside and supports the Brotherhood's new campaign of aggression as best she can. Yet deep down, she understands that it means their end will surely be soon to follow.
 * At odds with leadership over the Brotherhood's future, Veronica looked to the Mojave Wasteland for an answer both she and they could live with. But the answer would never come, and the dangers of the world that had left the Brotherhood of Steel behind would eventually claim her life.

Dead Money
After completion of Dead Money, the player can retrieve Elijah's holomessage from his console in the Abandoned Brotherhood of Steel Bunker and give it to Veronica, but only after exhausting all of Veronica's dialogue options regarding Father Elijah. In the same conversation, the player can choose to keep the holotape's knowledge for themselves, gaining the Elijah's Rambling perk. If you choose to give Veronica the message, she will gain the Elijah's Last Words perk.

Appearances
appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes
Veronica Santangelo was written by Eric Fenstermaker.

Bugs

 * If you equip Brotherhood of Steel power armor inside Hidden Valley while Veronica is a follower, even if you are a "member" of the Brotherhood of Steel, Veronica will react as if you have killed Brotherhood of Steel members, then repeatedly keep talking to you and saying "What?", every 3-8 seconds. Turning off your console or restarting solves the problem.
 * After giving Veronica her Formal Wear or White Glove Society Attire she may thank you and say she'll teach you punching, and the screen will fade out and in, but the perk won't be added. According to the GECK, the object that does the timing for the fade out/in when she teaches the player the move is shared with the nine triggers used to start I Could Make You Care. The script for giving the move doesn't fully reset the object, so if any of the nine triggers have activated, she will no longer be able to give the perk.
 * At Hidden Valley she may glitch and stay at the intercom and the door to the bunker will become locked. In the PC version the following commands can be used to fix this glitch: then.
 * After completing I Could Make You Care, she may stop following, but still interactive and able to talk. The compass will have an extra quest arrow pointing at Gibson's Shack even though the quest has been completed and the map won't have a marker on the location. She won't follow the player except for through certain loading doorways, upon which she will immediately initiate direct conversation. She won't move from this spot, or attack any enemies. Even upon removing her as a companion and returning to 188 and re-enlisting her, she will still not move. Possibly could have to do with the ending fight of her quest. You can also make her appear in Gibson's shack if you use the terminal to download the research notes.
 * Going to Gibson's Shack, Veronica will instantly appear when you enter. Use the computer and download the notes again. Walk outside and talk to her in normal dialog, tell her again what tech you will go for, and end the conversation. This seems to reset her and she will start to follow you as normal.
 * PC players can download and install this mod on New Vegas Nexus and consume the aid item it provides, then save the game, then disable the mod to fix this bug after it has occurred.
 * When Veronica is your companion, it is possible that she will not respond to any of the 'triggers' for the quest I Could Make You Care.
 * When you try to give Veronica a dress, she will sometimes act like you haven't given her the dress. A possible way to fix the bug is to have Veronica with you when you sit down and stand up from any chair. You may need to access her inventory after you stand up. She will then act like you have just given her the dress and will teach you the Scribe Counter unarmed move, even if you have already taken the dress out of her inventory earlier.
 * If you don't ask her to join during your first conversation with her, it is possible that the dialogue option for her to join never appears after that.
 * Veronica can occasionally become stuck at the Silver Rush in front of the gun supply after she activates one of the triggers for her quest.
 * When exploring the underwater levels of Vault 11, Veronica may get stuck and will permanently disappear for the rest of the game. To avoid this, tell Veronica to stay wait before exploring the underwater levels.
 * Sometimes, taking Veronica into the REPCONN Test Site offices level during the Come Fly With Me quest will cause Jason Bright to appear as hostile upon entry, and cause her to attack him without provocation. Telling her to wait outside the office entrance prevents this.
 * When paying Dawes the caps to enter the NCRCF, she will randomly attack Dawes when you get in, but the Powder Gangers will not be hostile.
 * Sometimes she will become trapped behind the first door (with the very hard lock) in Hidden Valley, rendering her unusable until the door can be locked. It will also prevent you for initiating dialogue with her, so you cannot use her to unlock the door.
 * When the player buy "Euclid's C Finder" from Max at Freeside while with Veronica, it might automatically activate the quest "I Could Make You Care" but leave it in a glitched state where it can't be completed.
 * When initiating conversation via the companion wheel, Veronica will have two mouths; a regular mouth that remains stationary and a "ghost" mouth that will speak over the stationary mouth, while both were still visible.
 * Veronica stops using her default power fist and equips a combat knife instead. Neither the power fist nor the combat knife shows up in her inventory, and giving her stronger melee weapons will not force her to switch. When waiting at the Lucky 38, she will walk around with her default power fist, however as soon as you tell her to follow you, she will switch back to the combat knife.
 * After destroying the BoS bunker, Veronica will say how it is your last chance. After this she will continuously engage conversation with you and you have to dismiss her to the Lucky 38.
 * NOTE: This will sometimes continue even if you revert to a previous save (prior to the destruction of the bunker)
 * After fast traveling to a location, she will occasionally start running away as quick as she can for no reason. To correct this either enter a building (That makes your game load a new area) or fast travel to another location.
 * Sometimes when given a ballistic fist, Veronica will later start using her default pneumatic gauntlet and the ballistic fist will have disappeared from her inventory. At a later time, it is possible to recover the "lost" weapon which has spontaneously swapped to your inventory and become invisible.
 * After giving Veronica her formal wear or White Glove Society dress you may lose the option to tell her to go to the Lucky 38.
 * Sometimes when equipping Brotherhood Power Armor even outside of Hidden Valley, Veronica will become angered and accuse you of fighting the Brotherhood.

Veronica Santangelo Вероника