Slave collar

The slave collar is a pre-War prisoner control device, adapted by slavers after the War for the purpose of capturing and forcing slaves into submission.

Background
A relatively simple design on the outside, the collar is actually a little marvel of engineering. It comes with a signal transmitter that broadcasts its position to its controller, contains enough explosives to blow the wearer's head off without harming bystanders and some models include built-in microphones for surveillance.

After the war, they've found widespread use throughout the wasteland, most often by slavers. However, some also use the collars for simply ensuring cooperation, such as the Brotherhood of Steel and its Father Elijah, without the risk of hostilities.

The collar's self-destruct mechanism is not well-shielded as it can be set off by Mesmetron rays and some radio frequencies.

It is said on one of the Fallout: New Vegas loading screen tips that there is no known pre-War usage for these collars.

Fallout 3
Slave collars are used by the slavers from Paradise Falls. The collars send a frequency to Paradise Falls to keep track of where every collared slave is.

It is possible to remove a collar from an enslaved non-player character, simply by talking to them and selecting the appropriate conversation choice. Success in removing the collar is based on the player's Science skill: one's skill must be at least 25 to attempt to remove the collar, with only a 50% chance of success. The likelihood of success increases in steps (at skill levels 50 and 75) up to a 100% success rate.

Outside of initiating conversation, the player character may be approached in the Wasteland by an escaped slave still wearing a slave collar, who will beg for the collar to be removed.

The collar will also explode if struck by the Mesmetron, so be sure to mez only non-player characters who aren't yet wearing one. As Grouse states, "The Mezzer rays trigger the collar's self-destruct mechanism, so once the collar's on, don't shoot the slave with the Mesmetron, unless you want to pay me for a new collar."

There are two versions of this item; the first is a quest item given to the player by Grouse for use in the quest Strictly Business, along with a Mesmetron. It has a weight of 1 and a value of 0, and cannot be removed from the player's inventory except by enslaving a non-player character.

The second version of this item is a hidden apparel item that is generated on non-player characters enslaved by the player. It can be worn by the player on PCs by typing into the console: to add the collar to the inventory, then  to equip it. will remove the collar.

Related quests

 * Strictly Business
 * Strictly Profitable
 * The Kid-Kidnapper

Pacify NPCs
It is possible to turn hostile unnamed non-player characters (e.g. raiders) into friendly characters by first enslaving them and then instantly removing the slave collar. A Science skill of 75 or higher is recommended. Afterwards the player will again have the slave collar in their inventory, which can be used to enslave other non-player characters.

This procedure however, results in a lot of bad karma for the player. It is an effective means to accumulate bad karma without actually being bad. The removal of the slave collar does not reward positive karma if the player has enslaved the character.

Fallout: New Vegas
A slave collar is put on the Courier by the Brotherhood during the quest Still in the Dark to ensure that they do not give away their presence at Hidden Valley to the NCR Ranger they are sent to remove. If Veronica is with the Courier, this will be skipped.

In Freeside, there is a corpse simply labelled "Man", who is equipped with a destroyed slave collar that the player can equip on their person. It is identical to normal collars.

Dead Money
Slave collars, obtained by Father Elijah from the Big MT, are used by him to force cooperation from people captured by him to break into the Sierra Madre.

Old World Blues
A number of inert slave collars, labeled deactivated bomb collars, can be found in the watchtower at the Little Yangtze internment camp. These are presumably ones that Father Elijah left behind when he went to the Sierra Madre. There does not seem to be any way to reactivate them.

Behind the scenes
Exploding collars are frequently used as plot devices in fiction entertainment. The earliest known use of an exploding collar was in the Starchild Trilogy, a trio of novels published between 1964 and 1969.

Bugs

 * Removing a collar via dialogue from any non-player character who has been enslaved by the player (other than Red, Flak, Arkansas, and Susan Lancaster) may cause a crash to desktop.
 * If you put a slave collar on an Enclave scientist (the ones wearing a glass helmet), their body will become invisible leaving only their hands and head visible.
 * If the player receives the slave collar for the quest and kills Grouse the quest will end, and the slave collar will be 0 WG instead of 1 WG it usually adds.
 * If you put a slave collar on any non-player character and directly after entering the Operation: Anchorage addon, the slave will disappear, and you will be unable to get another collar from Grouse.