Doctor Borous

Doctor Borous is a scientist living in Big MT in 2281.

Background
Before the Great War, the boy who would later become Borous was a child prodigy who had been bullied in American High by a classmate named Richie Marcus. He also had an unrequited crush on another student, Betsy Bright, who had turned him down for Richie and picked on him as well. His only friend was his dog, Gabe.

Later in his life, he became a part of Big MT's staff as head of the X-8 cyberdog project, and began cruelly experimenting on his own dog Gabe, feeding him various drugs such as psycho. Numerous other animals also fell prey to his vicious experiments, but only Gabe remained faithful and loyal, answering malice and cruelty with love and attachment. Sometime before the Great War, Gabe was eventually transformed into a prototype model of the cyberdog. However, due to errors in programming, he was forcibly sealed in an unfinished section of X-8's test areas, as a "...precaution.".

After the Great War, together with the rest of the Big MT "Think Tank" executives, the doctor became a think tank to continue his work at Big MT. However, when he started to show symptoms of the insanity that began to consume his comrades, Doctor Mobius, the sole sane researcher, wiped his pre-War memories, hacked his data banks and gave him the name "Borous", all to keep him and his colleagues forever trapped in the Big MT, so that they could never unleash the horrors of the crater on the unsuspecting world around them.

Doctor Borous is the "Head of Animalogy, Beastology, and DNA-Scrambling technology" at the Big MT, and created both the night stalkers and cazadores. He also claims to be responsible for creating the radar fence around the crater.

Quests

 * Old World Blues: If Klein can't be convinced otherwise, Borous, along with two other members of the Think Tank, are needed to convince Klein to give up trying to escape the Big MT. If the player doesn't have enough support from the other scientists to convince Klein, then Borous has to be killed, along with all the other Think Tanks, to prevent their escape.
 * Picking Your Brains: After completing 'Welcome to the Big Empty', the player needs to talk to Borous and the rest of the think tanks to complete this quest.
 * Welcome to the Big Empty: The player has to talk to Borous as with the rest of the think tank to complete the quest.
 * A Brain's Best Friend: After Gabe's bowl is returned to him, he feels an overwhelming sense of remorse and regret towards how he treated his dog, as Gabe was a loyal companion to him. This feeling is quickly repressed, however, and Borous' personality remains unchanged on the surface.

Effects of player's actions
If the player has shown Borous Gabe's bowl before completing Old World Blues, and the player doesn't have a 100 in Science or 85 in Medicine to convince Dr. Klein, Borous will side with the player in convincing Klein to back down.

Other interactions
After A Brain's Best Friend has been completed, once a day, the player can ask Borous what animals he's experimented on today and he'll give the player some of their parts:
 * three cazador poison glands and nightstalker blood jars, if Dr. Borous was caused to feel guilty over the treatment of Gabe.
 * three cazador eggs instead, if A Brain's Best Friend has been completed by passing the Speech 45 or Animal Friend check.

Appearances
Borous appears only in the Fallout: New Vegas add-on Old World Blues.

Behind the scenes

 * The name Borous is a reference to the name of the ancient symbol Ouroboros, which is typically depicted as a snake eating its own tail - another looping and infinite figure which follows the naming convention of the other members of the Think Tank. The misspelling of "Boros" was an error on Mobius' part.
 * Doctor Borous' speech often parodies that of a stereotypical 1950's science-fiction movie narrator, emphasizing certain word or phrases in an extremely over-dramatic manner.