G.I. Blues

G.I. Blues is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.

Quick Walkthrough
The player is asked to perform several tests of loyalty for The Kings.

Part 1
The King will want you to examine Orris, a bodyguard popular among tourists in Freeside. He will provide you 200 caps in order to hire him.

Head to Freeside's North Gate, and hire Orris, who is standing near the entrance.

Follow Orris as he gives you a tour around Freeside. After nearing the Strip's north gate, he will mention that he doesn't like the look of some thugs ahead and suggests another way around, which leads you to an alley. Once there, four thugs will be ambushing you, but Orris will make quick work of them.

When he talks with you about the thugs, an Intelligence of 6 allows you to ask why he fired three shots when there were four dead bodies. A Barter test of 50 allows you to threaten Orris in exchange for caps.

Examining the bodies with a Medicine skill of 30 will show that they are just pretending to be dead. You may also punch the dead bodies, causing them to wake up and attack you.

After getting a piece of evidence that Orris is a fraud, report to the King. He will then pull Orris out of the streets.

If you report him to the King without examining his con further, he will ask you to hire him again with your own money. Once you hire him, Orris will be aware that you were talking to the King, and will turn hostile. You will be forced to fight him and his goons.

Once you dispose of Orris, report to the King. He will say "oh, so it went that way."

Part 2
The King will tell you about NCR attacks on the people of Freeside. You will be prompted to talk to a few victimized squatters found in the Old Mormon Fort.

Roy and Wayne will tell you about one of their attackers talking to a "Lou Tenant." Go back to the King and tell him what you found out. He will then send you to find out more about the NCR attacks around Freeside.

Head to one of the squatter camps in Freeside and talk to the Missionary. Since he only offers help to NCR citizens, he will test you whether or not you are a citizen of the NCR. The answers to his questions are as follows: Question 1 - Who is the most popular NCR President of all time? - President Tandi. Question 2 - What was the original capital of the NCR? - Shady Sands. Question 3 - What animal is on the NCR Flag? - Two-Headed Bear. Alternatively, you can go behind the building to your left as you enter Freeside's East Gate, and there is another Missionary with a speech check of 50 that gets the same result (It says you lie but there is no karma penalty).

If the test is passed with no mistakes (take not that you are not notified of having given any wrong answers up until now), the Missionary will give you the location of the NCR "soup kitchen," which is in the old train station in the northwest part of town. He will then tell you a password to enter, which is "Hope."

Alternatively you can ask Rotface about the NCR soldiers in the area, he's located near the Freeside East Gate. He will charge you 150 caps for the location of the "soup kitchen" or you can pass a Barter check of 25 to bring it down to 50 caps. After mentioning there is a Password he will charge you 250 caps for it or you can pass another Barter check of 50 to bring it down to 100 caps, he will then tell you it is "Hope".

The ruined store will have two NCR guards standing side by side in the front door. Tell one of the guards the password, and you will be let in. Alternatively, if you skip talking to the Missionary, you can talk to the left guard and pass a Speech check of 60 to enter (Talking to Julie Farkas beforehand will lower the speech check to 30).

Once inside, talk to Elizabeth Kieran. After handing you free food, she will say that they do not serve food to the locals. Mentioning Julie Farkas will lead her to tell you that their envoy was brutally beaten when sent to the Kings.

Return to the King and tell him what you know. Once you enter the building, however, Pacer will start a forced conversation. You can ask him to pay you 200 caps to keep your mouth shut about the NCR activities, or just disregard what he's trying to ask you.

If you have run-lock on when you return to tell the King about the free food you can avoid the conversation with Pacer.

Once you talk to the King about the NCR envoy, he will be interrupted by his henchman. Pacer is stirring trouble against the NCR. The King will then send you to try to defuse the situation. Alternatively, if you do not mention the envoy to the King, you will be forced to fight the soldiers.

Head to the old train station where the NCR is situated. Pacer will be hiding behind the train station's waiting benches under heavy fire by the NCR soldiers. You can either support Pacer and help him fight the soldiers (and gain NCR infamy), or talk to Elizabeth, who is heading the attack, about negotiating a truce with the King. Holstering your weapon during this ordeal will prevent the NCR soldiers from shooting you.

Once done, you will gain EXP and the King will reward you with one favor from him.

Orris
The first request from The King is to hire a certain bodyguard, Orris, and see why he's so popular with the local tourists. The player must hire and follow Orris from the North Gate to the South Gate, noting any suspicious activity en-route.
 * The first time the player follows Orris, The King will supply the 200 caps needed to hire him. At this point you can keep the caps and simply go kill him. Since he wont be aggressive you can lay mines to lure him into or setup a sneak attack critical headshot.
 * (OPTIONAL) If real Freeside thugs come out, Orris will shoot them and tell you to be more careful then he will return to his original spot. When you tell The King that he is legit, he will force you to hire him again and that you must pay to hire him with your own money. After hiring him again, Orris will lead you to the front of The Strip North Gate and tell you that his men spotted you telling The King about his actions and he will become hostile and attack. If his men see this, they will also attack you.
 * Upon nearing the South Gate, Orris will say to the player and that he "doesn't like the look of some of those guys up ahead" and will make a rather long detour.
 * You can continue on the main path towards the thugs and Orris will approach you, mentioning how the thugs were harmless after all, and will continue to the south gate. (NOTE: This approach of the quest will skip the following method!).
 * When you follow Orris down the side street he will run far ahead of the player to kill a "thug". When questioned as to how he knew of the thug's presence, Orris tells the player it was instinct.
 * At this point, the player must catch Orris lying about the "thugs":
 * The player can interrogate Orris further by means of an Intelligence check (6), followed by a barter check (50). Doing so results in caps from Orris.
 * Passing a medicine check (30), the player can examine the "dead thugs" to reveal the scam.
 * Attacking one of the "dead thugs" will cause them to get up and fight back, noting that they are not being paid enough for this. Orris will also attack the player.
 * The player can choose to kill Orris (difficult for a low level character as he has metal armor and a hunting revolver). Also, when you attack Orris the 4 "dead" thugs will also attack you.
 * If the player cannot catch Orris any way, he will have to be hired again before the quest will advance.
 * Note that pickpocketing Orris' ammunition will break this task - when he goes to "shoot" his thugs, he'll be stuck in the firing position, but won't shoot, preventing the quest from advancing. Reverse pickpocketing even a single round onto him will correct this, as he'll reload and pretend to shoot his thugs. Curiously, this doesn't actually consume any ammunition, and you can steal your ammunition back afterward to make killing him much easier, especially if you stole his combat knife already.
 * Note that you can do both interrogating and killing Orris. This is the most lucrative(Both money and experience wise) approach as Orris and his buddies give bits of XP and Orris' weapon and armor are valuable. The quest will say return to The King about Orris' illegitimacy at first but once you kill him the quest will change to Tell The King Orris is dead.
 * If successful, the player is told to report back to The King.
 * If the speech check fails, the player must return to The King and tell him that Orris appears to be legitimate.
 * The King will not be satisfied with this, and orders the player to hire him again. The 200 caps will not be provided this time.
 * Upon re-hiring Orris, he will initially be friendly towards the player, but near the South Gate he turns to the player and say he saw them talking to The King, and that he "hates losing customers". He will then turn hostile, and several of his thugs will join him in combat.
 * To complete the quest after this point, Orris and his thugs must be killed.
 * Alternatively, the player may kill Orris without talking to him, and then report to The King without having to deal with Orris's thugs.

Old Mormon Fort

 * Return to the King. A new request is given to the player.
 * You must talk to a few roughed up Freesiders in the Old Mormon Fort. When you discover that off duty NCR troops roughed up some of the Kings loyal natives, go back and tell the King. He's disappointed with the lawlessness of off duty troops and asks you to probe a bit deeper. Evidently, there is a history of squabbling retaliations between The Kings and NCR.

NCR humanitarian convoy
The final part of this quest requires the player to discover who's getting free NCR meals and water in Freeside.
 * Talk to Julie Farkas in the Old Mormon Fort. (Optional)
 * She will send you to talk to Elizabeth Kieran at the Ruined store (note: finding the store is hard for some players, click the ruined store link for a detailed description)
 * Alternatively, you can "ask around the squatter camps." The characters called "Missionary" have a note on them you can pickpocket for the store location, or you can claim to be an NCR citizen and answer 3 questions
 * Question 1 - Who is the most popular NCR President of all time? - President Tandi.
 * Question 2 - What was the original capital of the NCR? - Shady Sands.
 * Question 3 - What animal is on the NCR Flag? - Two-Headed Bear.
 * OR pay him 10 caps (70 barter check), to get them to give you the same information you'd get from pickpocketing them. Alternatively: Rotface, a beggar near Mick and Ralph's can be paid 150 caps for the location (or 50 caps with a 25 barter check) and 250 caps for the password (or 100 caps with a 50 barter check).
 * At the Ruined store will be two guards guarding the door. Each will ask you for a password. They can both be persuaded to let the player in without the password with a high enough speech level. Strangely enough the guard on the left gives a speech check of 30 and the one on the right one of 60.
 * Once inside the store, talk to Elizabeth to discover that the NCR only distributes food to NCR citizens and not to locals due an unknown member of the Kings (most likely Pacer) having prevented an envoy from reaching the king with an offer to aid in the supplying of freeside.
 * If you want to remain on level terms with the NCR, not having to kill them, you must make sure Elizabeth tells you about the Envoy.
 * When you return to tell the Kings, Pacer will immediately approach you as you walk in. He will claim Elizabeth Kieran's side of the story is a lie and nothing to bother the King with.
 * For your troubles, he'll give you 200 caps (or 300 with a Barter check of 50).
 * You can also take the caps and tell the truth to the King if you so choose.
 * Or you can tell him you think the king should still know about it and take no bribe.
 * Depending on dialogue lines chosen you can influence the outcoming of this quest, make sure you tell the King about the envoy for the non-violent ending or keep this information to yourself to end the quest with violence.
 * Immediately after this conversation ends, a member pops up and tells of the battle near the train station. Depending on dialog chosen prior, the king will order you to either tell the NCR of the misunderstanding with the envoy or to kill the NCR troopers. Leave the King and head over to the station for the final confrontation.
 * As you approach the quarrel, you will see Pacer cowering in a bus stop covering with the NCR shooting at him and his fallen Kings.
 * If you wish to resolve the situation peacefully, you must holster your weapons or put your hands down to allow the deal to be considered by NCR. You must have told the King about the envoy for this resolution, else he will have given you the order to end the conflict by helping Pacer kill the NCR troops. Holstering your weapon will not help if this branch of the quest is taken.
 * Killing Pacer will cause you to fail this quest but will yield positive reputation for the NCR and all Kings members will attack you on sight.
 * If The King ordered you to fight NCR, kill Elizabeth Kieran and the NCR troopers.
 * Return to The King. He will give you a reward of XP and a favor of your choosing. In this case, you can get:
 * Entrance to the strip, this will allow Ralph to hook you up with a fake passport.
 * Permission to join the Kings, giving you a kings jacket and you're able to get you hair done by asking Sergio.
 * 1000 caps
 * You can also use the favor on the Kings' Gambit quest. Using the favor will allow you to stop the violence against the NCR, but no other favors can be chosen, as the King will claim that this makes you even.

Behind the scenes

 * During the quest, when talking to Wayne, he will mention he heard someone say "Lou Tenant", Roy then says that he means "Lieutenant", then calls him "dumber than a mutant". This is very possibly a reference to Lou, from the first Fallout.
 * G.I. Blues is the name of a movie starring Elvis Presley. It is also the name of a song that is sung by Elvis.
 * The victims you are sent to speak with at Mormon Fort are Roy, Wayne and Farris. Roy Wayne Farris is better known as WWF / WWE professional wrestler Honky Tonk Man.

Bugs

 * After hiring Orris you can encounter a bug where he just stands there pointing his gun instead of shooting the Thugs. You can fix it by killing them yourself which will advance the quest, though after he runs off he can sometimes die mysteriously before making it back to Freeside's North Entrance. This bug may be caused by pick pocketing Orris's ammunition, even though he will still have some in his gun. Reloading another save will also fix this bug.
 * When asked to investigate the presence of NCR soldiers in Freeside, if the player doesn't ask Julia Farkas about the NCR before talking to Elizabeth Kieran, you may encounter a bug when asked to back up Pacer in the shootout with the NCR, where Pacer simply runs continuously into a wall with no dialogue options available.
 * If you are at the part when Orris "kills" the four thugs and a real thug comes out he will continue to fire more than the gun is capable of. Making it more than the three shots mentioned in the followed dialog, this has no effect on the quest at all.
 * Sometimes if you look close enough a King's member will be standing with the "men who don't look good up ahead". Also as part of this encounter, if you continue to follow Orris and you do the medical check, when the thugs/Orris attack you the King member will assist you in the firefight. After the fight the King member will become stuck in place with an aggressive gun fight look on his face with his gun still drawn. No interactions are possible with the King member at this point (including pick pocketing).
 * When returning to The King to report what you learned about Orris the marker shows the wrong spot. He's up on the 3rd floor. Once you get up there turn right go down the hallway, turn right again, and go into the 2nd room down the hallway and he'll be right there with Rex. Sometimes he will disappear making it impossible to complete the quest.
 * After returning to the King to inform him the NCR sent a representative to speak with him the player may get stuck. Part of the dialog sequence has a King gang member run into the room. The King gang member will get stuck trying to run through the kings dog. After waiting a couple minutes he eventually gets through and the dialog continues.

Солдатский блюз