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.

If the Courier is at least Accepted with The Strip and has a karma rating no higher than Neutral, Mortimer will ask the Courier to help the White Glove Society by murdering Ted and framing Heck for the killing. This option also becomes avaliable if the player has the Cannibal perk, or can succeed at a Speech check of 62. If the Courier does as Mortimer asks, Mortimer reveals that the standard of luxury at the Ultra-Luxe was threatened by Heck, who was driving down beef prices to the point where anyone might be able to afford it. In addition, Mortimer will ask the Courier to hunt down the original target, and to persuade Marjorie to allow the White Glove Society to resume the practice of cannibalism.


 * NOTE: Even if you have already killed Ted and have NOT informed his father about his death, you are still able to approach Mortimer and begin his "favor" by lying and asking where Ted Gunderson is. He will then tell you that he's in the kitchen and will give you the necessary keys in order to "kill" him. Howevever, you will not be able to frame Heck and continue this line of quest completion. Your only options are to tell Heck 1 of 3 reasons why his son is dead.


 * NOTE: If you want your guns back, check out Metal Boxes behind the guy who exchanges caps for chips. While sneaking, lockpick the doors and enter the room (a silenced weapon helps).

Quick walkthrough
Returning Ted to Heck:

There will be three options for conversation with Heck after he is reunited with Ted.

1. You can lie and tell him you don't know who took him. This gains you reputation with the Strip as well as gaining reputation with the White Glove Society. Heck will also give you 500 caps.

2. You can tell Heck that it was a member of the White Glove Society. He then says he will blockade food from coming into all of the Strip. You can:

a. Agree with him. The effect this has on the strip is unknown. Fill this in if you decide to take that route. This will gain you infamy with the White Glove Society as well as lower your reputation with the strip. 500 caps.

b. Tell him not to punish the whole strip. He however will not listen to you and blockade the food anyways (outcome still unknown). Lose reputation with Strip. 500 caps.

3.Attempt a speech check of 35 to convince him to only punish the man responsible. Outcome is increased Strip (Neutral->Accepted) and White Glove Society reputation (Neutral->Idolized) along with 500 caps he promised.


 * You can actually beat this quest and "Pheeble Will" without any bloodshed or reputation loss. Make sure you do "Pheeble Will" First and simply convince him to let go of his anger and return to his ranch (Speech 75-take Cass and use whiskey,sexy sleepwear, and "Meeting People magazine" with Comprehension Perk). Then Go to Heck and agree to help him find his son. Do not go and speak to the Investigator! Leave your Companions outside and use a stealthboy to sneak into the kitchen (you'll need about five stealthboys and a decent sneak skill 50+). Make your way past the two White Gloves patrolling the hallway staying in stealthboy mode the whole time. You'll eventually reach a prep room with the Chef in front of a sink. Steal the freezer key from him and go into the freezer to find Hecks son. Tell him his father sent you and that you don't have time to explain. Sneak back out still in stealthboy mode (The White Gloves wont attack Ted). Take him back to his dad and tell him It was Mortimer. Then say that cutting off the food supply will only further the cannibalism (Speech 35). You'll receive fame for The Strip and get paid along with experience.

Detailed walkthrough
This quest can be done in different ways and combinations and yield different results, mostly The Strip and White Glove Society(WGS) fame/in-fame gain.

1. Once you have received the quest, talk to Marjorie in the restaurant as indicated by the quest marker.

Note: Lieing to her that you're cannibalistic will make you lose reputation with the white glove society

2. Talk to Mortimer, as the marker indicated. You can finish this quest in two ways starting from here:

I. Work with Mortimer

If you have the Cannibal perk or Speech<62>, you will get an extra dialogue option with Mortimer. You can agree to help him out either by OR
 * 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; congratulations you've saved Ted Gunderson.
 * Killing Ted and using his blood on Heck's suit, 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, which you are told is Carlyle St. Claira guy which lives north of The Strip. You'll need to do this if you want to complete a different mission with Caesar, which is to get the White Glove Society to join forces the 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.

You can also convince Mortimer to allow you to replace Ted with your companion (confirmed with Boone, Veronica, Arcade Gannon and Cass). Mortimer will be very thankful for your tremendous sacrifice, but your partner will become a "delicacy" to the Society. You will gain a lot of reputation with the White Gloves and some reputation on the strip, as well as bad karma. You can still convince Marjorie to convert back to cannibalism after this.

'''II. Investigate'''

NOTE: This path involve fighting and could be tough for low unarmed/melee characters. Getting weapons into the hotel(Sneak<50+>/Stealth boy) or able to fight unarmed will be very useful.

1. Ask about the investigator and Mortimer will give you a key to the investigator's room in the hotel

2. Once you're there you'll find the investigator is dead and ambushed by 2 WGS personnels. High unarmed skill/sneaking weapons through the entrance will be very useful here.

3.Pick up the note from the investigator's body and follow the hint

4. Wait until 4pm at steam room. Chauncey, one of the employee 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.

5. The next target will be the kitchen and there two door ways to get there:


 * Join the WGS and there will be an unlocked door that leads to the kitchen. Being "accepted" by the strip will let you join in the WGS right the way
 * Pick an easy lock at the gourmet, sneaking is needed as it is considered to be a crime. you'll need to go through a guard as well if taking this route.

6. Once you have access to the kitchen, there are three ways to save Ted:

'''Option 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 Skill. The wine is marked by quest marker, located on a table in a room at the middle of the main corridor

'''Option 2. Preparing fake human meat'''

Doing so will allow you to confront Mortimer after his confession of cannibalism at the end of the banquet. Chances to turn the entire hotel against you, since the WGS will help out. You'll need to get Philippe out of the way and there are two ways to prepare the meal yourself:

A. 75 survival skill

B. Intelligence of 6 + Philippe's recipes


 * Ways to get the recipes:
 * Barter<55> the recipe for 100 caps
 * Barter<55> + speech<55> the recipe for free
 * Pickpocketing
 * Kill him, which you will gain karma but likely to cause WGS to be vilified

Once the meal OR the wine is prepared, wait till 7pm and through intercom, ask the head waiter to serve the meal.

NOTE: Only one option, "drug the wine" OR "serving fake meal" will be needed when you call the head waiter. You can drug the wine and prepare the meal at the same time but only the first option will be in effect

'''Option 3. Save Ted right the way'''

It could probably save you some headaches from option 1 and 2. please read along step 7 below

7. Lock/Keep Philippe out of the way

This has probably been done before making the meal(Option 2). To get him out of the way, so that he won't attack you when making Ted escape, you can:
 * Speech<55> and activate the pantry door and trap him in (Get the key first if you don't like hacking terminal)
 * Medicine<55> will get him to yell about his horrible upbringing and cause him to quit, leaving you with the recipe and the job to cook for the banquet (Get the key first if you don't like hacking terminal)
 * Kill him, which you will gain karma but likely to cause WGS to be vilified

NOTE: There is a recipe sheet for Brahmin Wellington on the counter in the kitchen that you can steal for yourself.

8. Rescue Ted, talk to him. Whether revealing the truth to him or not seems to have no effect whatsoever.

9. Bring Ted back to Heck, his dad. There are two route you can take, just like how you could get into the kitchen.
 * The easiest way to save Ted would be to go through the locked door, which led to the gourmet of the hotel. You'll only have to kill/convince (Speech<55>) one guard as long as your standing toward WGS isn't vilified (The flamethrower boys will ignore you)
 * If you prepared the meal and wanted to confront Mortimer, go to the other way which leads to WGS room. When you enter the room, it is recommended you stay hidden until Mortimer finish his speech. NOTE: When/before Mortimer turn hostile, other WGS employee will/might turn hostile against you. Eventually turning the whole hotel against you as you fight.
 * If you drug the wine, everyone in the WGS room will fallen asleep and it is safe to go through WGS room without any fight at all

10. As you return Ted to Heck, you have options to tell Heck the true face of WGS or hide it from him.

NOTE: DO NOT wear the White Glove Society mask in the Dining Room with Mortimer. A White Glove Bouncer and the Head Waiter will see through the disguise and attack immediately (strangely, the Head Waiter ignores you in the kitchen unless you have released Ted first), followed by everyone else if you, your companions, or Ted intervene. If you are using it to sneak through the kitchens, than take it off the MOMENT you leave.

NOTE: 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.

NOTE: 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.

Lay waste and kill everyone in your way
You may want to have backup such as Boone before considering this method. If your Alignment isn't evil enough to do this quest, it certainly will be by the time it's finished. First, do everything up until the you find the dead investigator. White Glove members will attack you and the best bet for this plan of attack is to flee the casino, wait a few days until they forget your crimes enough to allow you entrance to the casino again. Enter and the door guard will ask for your weapons, take the third option that mentions blowing his ass away, then choose the option with [Attack] preceding it. Continue to lay waste to everyone until you reach Mortimer. Try to talk with him to see if your Alignment is where it needs to be. If it's not there yet, kill him and take his keys, this will allow you entrance to the kitchen where you can rescue the son.

There is a lot of killing, but there are lots of Nuka-Cola and Sarsaparilla bottles to be stolen at the cost of your alignment. Some would consider this the spoils of war. Even with all of the White Glove society wasted, you can still peacefully return the son to Heck and receive the 500 caps and 500xp.


 * NOTE: If you kill i.e. Philippe while Sneaking, the WGS won't become hostile. If your sneak is high enough, this applies to killing a member of any other faction in the game. Remember, nobody can see you. I noticed so far that using a silence weapon does not play a role. Sneak is everything.

Use White Glove Society outfit as disguise, Find Ted, Sneak him out
Note: Used 'silent' weapons for this, silenced .22 and cane.

For this method you must enter the investigator's room only to be attacked. You must then kill the two Society members to gain their outfits, the canes are also useful if your weapons aren't great/have been taken. Put on the disguise and head to the kitchen area.

Once inside make your way towards the kitchen with Philippe in it. You will be stopped by a Society member in the main corridor but you do not even have to pass a speech check/repair check etc. as the unskilled option is fine as you are disguised. He will suggest you go upstairs and make yourself useful but will not enforce this.

Once you reach the kitchen you must get rid of Philippe. There are several ways to do this through either a medicine speech check, a normal speech check, locking him in the freezer or simply beating him to death. Once this is done make your way towards Ted who is locked in a freezer (open by looting/pickpocketing Philippe or computer hack). Talk to Ted and then proceed to leave with him. If any member of the White Glove Society witnesses the murder of Philippe you will immediately gain a Vilified reputation with the White Glove Society; turning all the members hostile. It is advised to follow Philippe to a secluded room and kill him silently before he can run into the hallway.

There is a main corridor which leads to the stairs which lead to the room with the brahmin carcasses and ultimately the exit. This corridor is patrolled by society members. This corridor is dotted with rooms which you can duck into whilst sneaking. Keep the door closed before you exit the kitchen and enter the corridor, watch the society members on the compass and wait for them to walk past the door. Sneak and enter the corridor and quickly duck into the next room closing the door behind you. The society members appear to have a low perception and if they have walked a couple of metres past the door they will not detect you (done w/ 40 sneak). If one spots you, quickly duck into a room and close the door (so no one else is alerted) and then kill them.

Once out of the kitchens meet with Heck and reunite him with his son. Note, once out of the kitchens, players may be attacked by white gloves on sight. Returning to the Casino lobby with Ted will create a massive fight scene with the player, Ted, Heck, and Heck's bodyguard in a battle against the White Gloves. This option will result in the death of the Ultra-Luxe Cashier, and thus no more chips can be bought or cashed in.

The clean run with good Karma
With good Karma this Quest can best be done with a high speech skill and enough fame from other strip missions to get into the White Glove Society by asking Marjorie after find the investigator dead and enabling the option for a sponsor by talking about it with Chauncey in the Sauna.

Once your Member, dress accordingly (Marjorie will give you the proper suit and key to the Members area). Now you will be able to go into the White Glove Society Members Area with no problems. Enter the Kitchen and in the basement, make the Cook give you his recepie and run off for his psychic timeout (already described). After stealing or obtaining the recipe, lock him in the storage closet by using the terminal after telling him that you saw a radroach in order to take his place as cook. Cook the fake cannibal meal and wait to 7:00 PM to use the Intercom. Get Ted Gunderson out and tell him the truth but also talk him into follow you without intention to avenge himself right away. Sneak up to the door to White Glove Society dining room, enter in hidden state and stay at the door. Mortimer should already started holding his speech. Wait until he is finished, then run to him and start the conversation using the loud option path revealing to all what he has done. Depending on your exact course of action involving speech checks or sneaking, this may result in a confrontation in which the White Glove Socitety Members will rush in against Mortimer. Otherwise, Mortimer will simply condemn everyone in the room and run off to found a new White Glove Society. If Mortimer dies, you may optionally obtain his "Formal Ware" for Veronica, which will allow you to gain her Brotherhood special attack. Go back into the Lobby to reunite Ted with his father Heck Gunderson. Talk Heck Gunderson out of blaming all the White Glove Members and stopping to deliver food to the strip and you will finish with a Fame increase for the Strip and +500 Bottlecaps. Talking with Marjorie afterward will result in gaining fame with the White Glove Society for preventing a scandal.

Lie, pretend you are a cannibal, and walk Ted out unscathed
With this method, you can avoid being attacked altogether. Speak to Marjorie to learn about another investigation, as well as the Society's cannibalistic past. Do not pretend to be a cannibal with her or you will lose reputation. Then, talk to Mortimer. Use truthful answers to get him to give you the key with no hassle, then, if you have a high speech skill, lie about being a cannibal to get him to give you keys. This will allow you to freely enter the kitchen area. Inside, if approached by a guard, you must lie with a high enough speech check that Mortimer told you to move Ted to a different room. Now, the guard will not attack you if he sees you with Ted. Next, find the room with Philippe, the main chef. Tell him that you do not work for him and that you saw a radroach in the pantry [speech 55]. Once he goes into the pantry, close the door, approach the terminal beside it, and lock the door. Now, free Ted in the room to the right and convince him to follow you. You will be able to walk him back to his father without being attacked. Once with his father, you can convince him with a speech check to not break his deal with the society because it will only make the cannibalism worse.

Bugs

 * Some of the following bugs will occur when you simultaneously take path 2 of the above Quick Walkthrough and agree to help Mortimer. For example, if you've already visited the investigator's room and will be going to the Steam Room, do not speak to Mortimer about his Craving and help him with his problem. In addition to Mortimer exiting the Members Only Area before ending his speech and you being attacked by many White Glove Society members (including Majorie) when you attack Mortimer during his speech, there may also be the problem of chef Phillipe not spawning.


 * Sometimes Mortimer starts walking towards the exit in the middle of his speech, stopping him while he's walking or while he's standing at the podium, he'll attack you no matter what you do in this situation; and so will his allies (Head Waiter, Marjorie). You'll gain lots of bad reputation with the White Glove Society, personally I got past "Hated". You'll get attacked by all White Glove Society guards on your way to out of the casino. When completing the quest, you'll gain good reputation with The Strip.
 * I don't know the solution to this problem, but I did do some bad stuff in that casino that you should avoid, perhaps that will fix it. I pick-pocketed Mortimer before I had started this quest, took the members only key and went inside the Members Only Area - which instantly aggravated the White Glove's sitting in the diner, impossible to flee from, I had to kill some of them. This gave me bad reputation with the White Glove Society, but putting on one of their costumes made it possible for me to walk inside the casino without getting attacked by guards. I also brought Rex, the robo-dog companion, who were quite annoying in there.


 * If you fail the quest but manage to get Ted Gunderson out of the Ultra-Luxe casino, he will continue to follow you as a second companion. However, unlike proper companions, he can die during battle.


 * This hasn't been confirmed yet, but I am not able to contact Marjorie as she and the rest of the White Glove Society are stuck in their nightly meetings. Waiting, leaving the casino, or sleeping haven't solved the problem so as of now, I'm not able to complete the quest.
 * This happened to me. Marjorie and Mortimer never left the VIP area after (in-game) weeks had passed. Had to them both to continue on the quest.


 * Ted Gunderson may become invisible during the quest, similar to the Powder ganger bug. This seems to have no effect as his name is still shown and you can still interact with him. It's a severe inconvenience though as he can get "lost" in the walls. Only known way to fix this is to somehow force Ted into another room and refreshing that room.


 * The door to the deep freezer where Ted Gunderson is being held remains inaccessible after the dinner has been served and the deep freezer key obtained from the chef.


 * Ted Gunderson wont follow you 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.
 * It appears this only happens if you take Ted to the Banquet to expose Mortimer. Another option would be to simply reload a previous save and just do everything you did up to that point, but instead of going to the banquet, take Ted out through Gourmand and straight to his father. If you are the type who wants to see justice done, or at least feel like you did the right thing, simply tell Ted's father it was Mortimer, and then convince him through a speech check to not take action against the entire Strip.
 * If you do take the first path, make sure that upon reentering the strip via the north gate that you run as quickly as you can for the gate, without looking around and zone into the strip immediately. If you are too slow about it Ted Gunderson will be exterminated by the securitrons guarding the gate on account of not having a strip passport or something similar.


 * I had a problem where Mortimer would leave the room during his speech, thus leaving it incomplete and making it impossible to reveal Ted at the right time. If you confront him on his way out of the room, he just attacks you.
 * Enter the console when Mortimer starts to walk away from the podium and use the command . He will freeze in place and continue his speech. When he finishes, target him again and use and he will start to walk away again, and you can confront him.


 * I recently encountered a bug with Ted. I sneaked him out before looking into the investigator's room. Now, he is with his father like normal, but there are still quest objectives regarding him such as Mortimer wanting you to talk to him. This is exceedingly frustrating and I'd advise you to navigate around it.


 * 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.


 * When starting a conversation with Chauncey, the game crashes. It appears that the closer you stand to him when you start the conversation with him, the less likely it is to crash.


 * 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.


 * NPCs would walk around continuously after being drugged. Talking to them only brought up their inventories.  Was unable to complete the quest.


 * If you make the food but fail to bring Ted up immediately after the food, the banquet will end and Mortimer and the other important White Glove Society Members will have left the hall, making it impossible to parade Ted and expose Mortimer.


 * After stashing Carlyle in the dumpster and traveling back to The Strip North Gate, I was unable to pass through the door as it needs a key again. Therefore I am unable to contact Mortimer what-so-ever.


 * After distributing Ted's blood in the hotel suite, if you're killed all the securitrons on the strip, you'll never be able to tell one about the blood you found. The quest arrows just keep pointing to their corpses.


 * When starting a conversation with Chauncey, it's impossible to find a way to get out of it no matter what you may try to click on. If this happens after you've gone through the complete dialogue, reload your last auto and speak to Chauncey once more.


 * 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.


 * 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.


 * After facing numerous bugs and finishing the quest, every scoped weapon shows a Pip-Boy when you look through the scope. The bug is only temporary, however it is not 100% confirmed if this bug is even related to this quest.


 * When talking to Phillipe, and you use a skill book to raise the medicine skill to pass his challenge, once it wears off you can talk to him again to get the same challenge again, but won't have enough to pass. It gives you the opportunity to see what he would say when you fail. The option only comes up after the medicine wears off, else there wont be an option once you pass it.


 * When meeting Chauncy at the bathhouse, client will hang in vicinity. However, i was able to skip this part and continue on with the quest.

Background

 * 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.

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