Following in His Footsteps

Following in His Footsteps is a main quest in Fallout 3. It is also an Achievement on the Xbox 360 and PC; and a Bronze Trophy on the PlayStation 3.

Detailed walkthrough
NOTE: Where it says optional, it means the player character can skip the parts before it, like going straight to Smith Casey's Garage will finish the quest and the player character will not have to go to Rivet City.

Megaton and '300 Pieces of Silver'
Objective: Investigate the nearby town of Megaton for information about James.

In Megaton, everyone will point you to the saloon owner, Colin Moriarty who will offer to tell you where your dad is if you give him 100 caps. If you do not accept the offer, he will ask for 300 the next time you talk to him. You can also use Speech to convince Moriarty that your father told you about him or choose certain dialogue options to get him to give you a discount, provided you agree to kill Silver and bring back the caps she stole.

You can find Silver northwest of Megaton at Springvale, inside a ranch house. There are seven ways of dealing with her:
 * 1) You can kill her and obtain 400 caps along with her equipment with no Karma change unless you start taking stuff from around the shack. She will attack you straight away if you say that you are there for the caps.
 * 2) With a successful speech attempt you can convince her to give you 400 caps to tell Moriarty she's gone.
 * 3) You can convince her to give you 300 caps to tell Moriarty she's gone.
 * 4) You can ask for no money and tell him she's gone. This will result in positive Karma, though you are still going to have to come up with 100 or 300 caps.
 * 5) You can simply say she's gone without working out a deal with her, though again, you will still have to come up with the money on your own.
 * 6) With the speech check you can make her give you 400 caps. You can then kill her to loot another 100 caps from her body. You'll lose Karma if you kill her after she gives you the 400 caps though. However, donating caps back to the Church of Atom will result in slight Karma gain.
 * 7) You can ask for no money and tell him she's gone. This will result in positive Karma. You can then kill her for 400 caps loot along with her equipment. If done this way, there will be no change to your Karma.

If you choose the bad Karma way to interact with Moriarty, you can steal the password to his terminal out of a cabinet next to it or you can pass a Speech check with Gob, that will tell you about Moriarty's terminal and if you ask him about the terminal after the Speech check he will tell you that Nova has the password, then you can try to pass a Speech check or use Lady Killer (male character) to seduce her into giving you the password. Or you can simply kill Gob and loot the password off his dead body (make sure you speak to each named person in his saloon to obtain side quests). However you obtain the information, it leads you to Galaxy News Radio.

Galaxy News Radio
Head to the Super-Duper Mart and from there across the Potomac to Farragut West Metro station. A room with mole rats has a stairway leading downwards. Then climb more stairs to find a chain gate with feral ghouls behind it. Beyond that will be yet another stairway and a door to Tenleytown/Friendship station. If you follow the tunnels south, you should exit in Chevy Chase, but watch out for super mutants and more ghouls.

You can also enter Tenleytown/Friendship station from Friendship Heights but this will involve a difficult battle with the raiders defending the entrance, as well as more ghouls inside.

Near the exit to Chevy Chase North the PC will find Sentinel Sarah Lyons with a squad of Brotherhood of Steel soldiers from Lyons' Pride. If talked to, Sarah will allow the PC to accompany her squad to the GNR building plaza, clearing out the super mutants in the nearby Early Dawn Elementary School in the process. The PC may then aid the Pride in an assault on the super mutants, super mutant brutes, and super mutant masters attacking the Galaxy News Radio building. Once the other mutants are dead, a super mutant behemoth is unleashed from behind a destroyed bus (watch out for it exploding when Initiate Reddin goes near it), which the PC may optionally help destroy. It is best advised to pick up the Fat Man nuclear launcher off the dead body of the Brotherhood soldier in the central fountain (there is a map marker pointing to it) as this will heavily damage the behemoth.

Depending on how fast you take the behemoth down and who dies in the process, your conversation with the remaining soldiers goes differently. Use the intercom to the right of the door to get inside the GNR Building. Once inside, talk to Three Dog. You have two options at this point. If you have high enough speech, you can convince him that after you have rescued your father he will help the cause. Doing this will give you the Scientific Pursuits quest for free. However, if you have insufficient speech, he will give you the Galaxy News Radio quest, which you will have to complete first to get Scientific Pursuits.

If you used speech successfully, make sure to talk to Three Dog again. He will offer to exchange the location of a large cache of military munitions in return for the Galaxy News Radio quest. This allows you to explore the quest for greater returns.

The Search Continues
Killing Three Dog without getting him to tell you to go to Rivet City ends the GNR quest and starts a new quest called The Search Continues. The objective is still to find Dad, your father can still be found at Vault 112 and you can still talk to Dr. Li. You do not get an achievement because it might be considered an "unmarked" quest, even though you can put it as an active quest on the Pip-Boy 3000.

Skipping this quest
Note that this quest can be fast-tracked by skipping several steps:
 * Visit Three Dog without speaking to Moriarty.
 * Retrieve the Project Purity journals from the Jefferson Memorial.
 * Go directly to Doctor Li in Rivet City.
 * Travel to Vault 112 where James is imprisoned.

If you end up finding Vault 112 before visiting Three Dog at GNR building plaza, this entire quest will be marked as completed. If you make it to the building, you'll still encounter all the super mutants (including the behemoth) with no Brotherhood of Steel soldiers in sight. (This will also happen if you speak to Li or retrieve the Journals first). The door to GNR will be locked but if you use the intercom after the mutants have all been killed, the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers stationed inside will let you in. You can then speak to Three Dog and get the achievement for Following in His Footsteps. Additionally, he'll offer you the Galaxy News Radio quest in exchange for the key and coordinates to Hamilton's Hideaway.

If you take this quest as normal and choose to find out about Dad on your own, e.g. from Doctor Li or from Vault 112, returning afterwards to place the satellite dish, Three Dog will remark on how you didn't need to do as he asked, as you already had what you wanted. You will receive good Karma and the key to the weapons cache at Hamilton's Hideaway for your troubles and for "fighting the good fight".

Bugs

 * There is an occasional glitch where the super mutant behemoth will not be triggered to appear. GNR will not open its doors, and the BoS soldiers will reach the fountain and then wander around the plaza aimlessly. If you speak to Sentinel Lyons, she will repeat her dialogue "You can tag along with us as far as GNR." A similar glitch occurs when, even after defeating the behemoth, the doors to GNR remain locked, even though the BoS soldiers enter it.
 * It is possible that, after entering GNR and leaving right away, the generic BoS paladins will become hostile and attack you. If you kill any of them, the others (Lyons, Vargas, etc.,) will also attack and you will receive bad Karma.
 * If you do go directly to Vault 112, and finish " Tranquility Lane " quest you will not be rewarded the trophy for " Following in his Footsteps " or any quest that may follow this.
 * When battling your way to the plaza, you will come across a small area with a pre-War playground. The first super mutant in this area may appear as a friend in V.A.T.S. and when you point at him, but the BoS soldiers will still shoot him down.

Gallery
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