Crimson Caravan

The Crimson Caravan Company is one of the largest trading companies in the former American Southwest, with branches in almost every major town along the trade routes.

Background
Established in the Hub sometime before 2151, the Crimson Caravan Company became one of the largest and most influential caravan houses in New California, with two out of six merchant representatives in the Hub's Council. Their success was the result of a company policy characterized by others as crazy: The Crimson Caravan would do any job, no matter the risk. As long as the client paid for their expensive services, they would lead its heavily armed caravans just about anywhere. Yet despite their apparent recklessness, they had only lost two caravans by 2161. The company stood the test of time and continuously expanded its operations. With the formation of the New California Republic it became one of the key drivers of its economy, establishing new trade routes and broadening its reach. By 2281, pretty much every major settlement within its influence has a Crimson Caravan branch.

Organization
The Crimson Caravan Company is a well-organized merchant house. In its early years, it was operated by Demetre Romara and his daughter Keri Lee. His eccentric ways and enthusiasm for violence played part in both the company's success and in it building up a reputation of being reckless, and he only cared about that the people he hired get the job done.

Although the company had the least frequent departures (on the 3rd and 17th of each month), they covered the most caravan destinations, including the Lost Hills bunker and Necropolis. The standing company policy was to hire experienced guards only. To compensate for the danger encountered on the way, the guards were paid 600 bottle caps per course, for a total of 1200 caps for a round trip.

The rise of the NCR offered new possibilities for the company. Its efforts to expand its economic influence also helped the Republic develop. Crimson Caravan modified its operations, with the Hub serving as headquarters and local company branches opening in major markets throughout California and the Mojave.

The new structure also allowed the company to attract wealthy investors, such as the Jamison family of Redding, who would provide the additional capital necessary to expand the company's operations. An unexpected side effect was that the family was able to pressure the company's executive manager Alice McLafferty into posting a family member, Henry Jamison, to the position of CEO in New Vegas. By 2281, the branch was effectively driven to the ground, as the manager was less interested in company affairs and more in the affairs of casinos. More specifically, gambling and prostitutes. The underperforming nature of the New Vegas branch exemplifies an interesting element of the company's structure. If a branch fails to perform, a manager (in this case McLafferty) can take over operations to straighten out the business.

Another feature of the organization is its use of work contracts. Employees of the Crimson Caravan Company are hired for a specific duration, during which they are provided with food, water, living quarters, and other amenities in exchange for their labor. Their wages are withheld until their contract ends. The employees are informed in advance of the contract's nature, including the fact that leaving before the contract ends will result in forfeiture of wages. On the bright side, the company always pays up. However, non-compete clauses tend to be pretty rigid and even after an employee completes his stint with the company, they might prevent them from finding employment elsewhere.

Outside relations
As a major caravan house, Crimson Caravan finds itself in natural competition with other trading ventures, such as the Far Go Traders and the Water Merchants in 2161. The companies sabotage and undermine each other constantly, but keep it low key and rarely attack each other outright.

The expansion and development of the NCR and the Crimson Caravan Company yielded a contract between the two, in which the Crimson Caravan supplies the most military grade weaponry and many other pieces of equipment. However, this lucrative partnership also resulted in the caravan's list of competitors becoming considerably larger. By 2281, it included the largest ordnance manufacturing syndicate in the wastelands, the Gun Runners, the Mormon traders of New Canaan controlling the northern trade routes, and Mojave trading outfits such as Cassidy Caravans. Their old time rivals, such as the Far Go Traders, also continue to compete. The lucrative NCR armor manufacturing contracts are but one example.

The tradition of sabotage and undermining competitors in order to dominate the market was upheld by the Crimson Caravan's executive manager, Alice McLafferty. In the Mojave, it included sealing an agreement with the Van Graffs to undercut and/or exterminate competitors, industrial espionage, and simply buying out the competition.

The Crimson Caravan is also attempting to establish a branch in New Canaan and run other regional caravans out of business. As the taxes would bring the Crimson Caravan a disadvantage compared to the New Canaan caravans, they might overwhelm them with a flood of cheap NCR goods as a long-term solution. For this, Alice McLafferty would have to call in some favors with her contacts back in California, but the potential profit margins are apparently worth it.

Caravans
The Crimson Caravan Company holds a stock of pack brahmin, which they use in their caravans for carrying large amounts of goods over large distances. The accompanying caravaneers typically wear light leather armor or a variety of civilian outfits, such as caravaneer outfit, field hand outfit or prospector outfit. For combat, they utilize everything from knifes and brass knuckles to more sophisticated firearms like the caravan shotgun, varmint rifle or .357 Magnum revolver.

In dangerous regions, the company will usually break apart its caravans into several smaller bands. The reduced efficiency is offset by not loosing all of the merchandize, should a caravan get hit by raiders or worse.

Fallout
In 2161 they are headed by Demetre Romara, with his daughter Keri Lee working the schedules. Their travel destinations include Junktown, Boneyard, Necropolis and Brotherhood of Steel. The pay is $600 per run and they operate on the 3rd and 17th of every month.

Fallout: New Vegas
The Courier is offered work (You Can Depend on Me and later Pressing Matters) by Alice McLafferty and may release Janet from her contract in Young Hearts. The Crimson Caravan can also be brought down by peacefully completing Heartache by the Number, or assassinating McLafferty.

Appearances
The Crimson Caravan appears in Fallout and Fallout: New Vegas, and is indirectly mentioned in Fallout 2. It was also to appear in Black Isle's canceled Van Buren.

Behind the scenes
According to Joshua Sawyer, following the Brotherhood War and the destruction of the New California Republic's gold reserves, the Crimson Caravan, alongside with other merchants from the Hub, conspired to reintroduce the bottle cap as currency. Joshua Sawyer SomethingAwful.com: ''"It happened during the BoS-NCR war. I believe Alice McLafferty mentions it, but I'm not positive. She doesn't detail the events in this much detail, but here they are: The attacks caused NCR citizens (and others who held NCR currency) to panic, resulting in a rush to reclaim the listed face value of currency from NCR's gold reserves. Inability to do this at several locations (especially near the periphery of NCR territory where reserves were normally low) caused a loss of faith in NCR's ability to back their currency. Though NCR eventually stopped the BoS attacks, they decided to protect against future problems by switching to fiat currency. While this meant that BoS could no longer attack a) reserves or b) the source of production (all NCR bills are made in the Boneyard), some people felt more uneasy about their money not having any "real" (backed) value. This loss of confidence increased with NCR inflation, an ever-looming spectre of fiat currency. Because the Hub links NCR with the Mojave Wasteland and beyond, the merchants there grew frustrated with NCR's handling of the currency crisis. They conspired to re-introduce the bottle cap as a water-backed currency that could "bridge the gap" between NCR and Legion territory. In the time leading up to the re-introduction, they did the footwork to position themselves properly. If some old-timer had a chest full of caps, they didn't care (in fact, they thought that was great, since the old-timers would enthusiastically embrace the return of the cap), but they did seek to control or destroy production facilities and truly large volumes of caps (e.g. Typhon's treasure) whenever possible."''