I Could Make You Care

I Could Make You Care is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.

Initiating the Quest
This quest is triggered by Veronica seeing things around the Mojave that cause her to question the wisdom of the Brotherhood of Steel remaining hidden underground and not interacting with the world. There are nine triggered conversations throughout the Mojave Wasteland that Veronica will initiate in response to nine different situations she and the Courier may encounter together. Note that you will only need to complete three of the conversations to activate this quest. Some of them can only be triggered by lines of dialogue that only happen once, so if the player has already heard that line before recruiting Veronica, the trigger won't occur. Note that there are three triggers that can never go away - the main doors at Camp McCarran terminal building, the entrance ramp of Vault 3, and traveling near Nelson or Cottonwood Cove. The Boomers museum trigger can be activated even if the player has already heard the tour, but not if Pete and the Boomers are hostile.

Note: If she doesn't initiate the listed conversation, it may initiate if the player talks to her via companion wheel or waits 30 seconds or so. There is a delay in the conversation trigger, and it won't trigger if the player is in conversation with someone else.

Here are the nine triggers, and the things Veronica says:
 * Casa Madrid Apartments - The trigger is some of Tom Anderson's lines. Specifically, the line, "I'm with the Followers of the Apocalypse...," (responding to the question, "What do you do here?"), and all of his lines confessing to the murder of Corporal White (part of the quest The White Wash). All of these lines are only given once. Veronica contrasts her good cause and lack of resources with the Brotherhood of Steel's incredible resources but lack of a good cause.
 * Vault 3 - The trigger area is on the outside, about a third of the way down the ramp to the door. Veronica talks about how the Fiends are giving the NCR more trouble than the Brotherhood ever did. (Veronica states that the fiends are giving the NCR more trouble than the brotherhood despite their lack of power armor and energy weapons, though in reality energy weapons are used by the majority of fiends).
 * Nelson or Cottonwood Cove - The trigger is the player traveling to either location and staying for 30 seconds or so. The trigger areas are large squares larger than each town, so it may trigger before the player actually sees the town, or while passing through a corner while on the way to another location. The two towns share a single trigger, so going to both does not count twice. Veronica comments on 'ordinary guys with knives and bullets, and they're taking over Nevada'.
 * Camp McCarran terminal building - The trigger area is just inside the terminal building, at the center set of main triple doors or the eastern set of triple doors closest to Colonel Hsu's office. The third set of triple doors on the west side will not trigger the conversation, as there is no trigger zone there. It is not necessary to pass through the doors; just walk very near them on the inside of the terminal. Veronica talks about her surprise at how many NCR troops there are.
 * Nellis Air Force Base - The Boomers museum. The player just needs to listen to Pete's lecture in front of the mural. The trigger is the last line of his speech. Veronica remarks on the similarities between the Boomers and the Brotherhood of Steel.
 * Old Mormon Fort - The trigger is Julie Farkas's line, "Are you here to drop off medical supplies? ..." which only happens the first time the player meets her. Veronica is impressed with the work they're doing. Some people have been able to trigger Veronica's dialogue in the Old Mormon Fort even after the player has already met Farkas. Try talking with doctors around the camp.
 * Camp McCarran terminal building - The trigger is the line, "A pleasure to meet you! I'm Dr. Thomas Hildern..." This line only happens when the player first meets Hildern. Veronica talks about the NCR investing in new research, unlike the Brotherhood.
 * REPCONN Test Site - The trigger is Jason Bright's line, "We wish to escape the barbarity of the wasteland..." which is his response to the first question about the "Great Journey." This line is only given once. Veronica compares Jason Bright to her old mentor, Elijah.
 * Silver Rush - The triggers are Gloria Van Graff's greeting "Welcome to the Silver Rush..." and her line "Please let me know if anything catches your eye." which is the response to the player saying, "I'm just browsing." Some of these lines will not happen during certain stages of Birds of a Feather. Veronica comments on all the energy weapons.

Some events may force the quest to start at a later stage, even if three of the above triggers haven't happened.
 * Hidden Valley - Have Veronica open the bunker door after having armed Archimedes II during That Lucky Old Sun and having separately obtained Euclid's C-Finder. (Confirmed Xbox, PS3,& PC: The quest will start with "Bring the rangefinder to the elder" but you can do the quest normally.)
 * Go to Gibson's Shack south of Helios One with Veronica and use the debug console to unlock the terminal there.
 * The quest can sometimes be activated without having Veronica in the party, possibly by picking up the rangefinder. However, the quest will not continue further without Veronica.

Preliminaries

 * Get the quest to begin by recruiting Veronica and activating three of the nine triggers listed above.
 * Veronica will ask the player to go to Hidden Valley, as she has something she needs to do. Agree to go.
 * Visit the Elder in charge, either McNamara or Hardin, depending on whether the player has finished Still in the Dark and the outcome of that quest.
 * Veronica will try to convince the Elder that the Brotherhood needs to grow and change. The Elder will not be interested.
 * Veronica will ask the player to help her find some data or technology that will help her convince the Elder. She will suggest going to one of her old mentor Elijah's data terminals.
 * The terminal is in Gibson's Shack, near the Gibson Scrap Yard.

Acquiring the technology
Note: If the player has already completed That Lucky Old Sun without diverting power to Archimedes II, this option cannot be completed. It also appears that if That Lucky Old Sun has been completed at all and/or the player has obtained Euclid's C-Finder, choosing this option during this quest may lead to glitches. Also, if the player obtains the Euclid's C-Finder but the quest has not yet been initiated, this can provide a quick shortcut to the end of the quest.
 * The player and Veronica will find data on three interesting technologies, only one of which is necessary to continue the quest.
 * Option 1: Euclid's C-Finder & Archimedes II:
 * If not already done, complete That Lucky Old Sun and divert the power to Archimedes II. Note that it is not necessary to activate Archimedes I, the base-protection technology that will kill the NCR soldiers.
 * Obtain Euclid's C-Finder from Max in Freeside. It can be taken while he sleeps, bought for 1,000 caps (or at 20 caps with 45 barter), or pickpocketed.
 * Option 2: New farming technology:
 * If There Stands the Grass has been completed at all, choosing this option may lead to glitches. A workaround exists, see Fixes section (PC only).
 * If not already done, complete There Stands the Grass and do not allow Keely to delete the data. Make sure to leave with a copy of the data in the player's Pip-Boy.
 * Option 3: pulse gun:
 * (Optional) The player can obtain the key to the box containing the pulse gun from a filing cabinet in Pearl's Barracks at Nellis Air Force Base. The key must be stolen, which results in a karma loss. This removes the requirement of picking a very hard (100) lock.
 * The player needs to go to Vault 34 and eventually open the overseer's office, and unlock the armory door. In the armory is the very hard locked box with the pulse gun.
 * On an unpatched game, the pulse gun may sometimes be purchased from the Silver Rush, or may be carried by higher-level Fiends. This was fixed in the first patch.
 * Should you already have gone through Vault 34, you may have picked up the Pulse Gun from the Armory there already. Even if you have done so, the quest will not update for this until you have it in your inventory.
 * Note that at any time while doing Options 1 or 2, the player can go get the key from Nellis Air Force Base or the pulse gun from Vault 34 and switch to Option 3; it's not necessary to talk to Veronica and explicitly switch paths. It is not clear if the other direction (switching from option 3 to 1 or 2) will work.
 * Note: Switching is always possible by going back to the comm station and re-downloading the information as this will prompt a dialogue with Veronica enabling you to choose a different path.

The Brotherhood is not pleased

 * Return to the Elder. Veronica will show him the technology. He will remain unconvinced.
 * Veronica will ask the player's opinion about whether she should stay in the Brotherhood or leave. The player can choose for her, or can tell her it is her choice, in which case she will stay.
 * Veronica will want to go outside to get some air. Outside will be a team of Brotherhood of Steel paladins who are angry at Veronica and the player for spreading subversive ideas. The player must deal with them in one of the following ways:
 * If Veronica decided to leave the Brotherhood:
 * The player tells them so, and they let Veronica leave, but tell Veronica never to come back. (There's an optional 95 speech check here (rewards no XP for passing it), but it has essentially the same outcome.)
 * Note that killing the paladins at this point will fail the quest and make Veronica leave.
 * If Veronica decided to stay in the Brotherhood, the paladins are not so easily dissuaded. The only solutions are:
 * Pass a 95 speech check to get them to leave peacefully (this rewards no XP). As above, killing the paladins after succeeding the check will fail the quest and make Veronica permanently leave the player.
 * Scare them off with Terrifying Presence, which is only a temporary solution. They will be there every time the player returns to the Hidden Valley bunker until one of the permanent solutions is taken.
 * Fast travel before they have a chance to engage you in conversation as soon as you exit the bunker. This method is also temporary, but will give you enough time to get a 95 speech level or gather supplies for defending against them.
 * Talk to them until they turn hostile and attack, then kill them all. The player will not gain infamy with the Brotherhood or lose Veronica's trust by killing them, at least if the paladins shoot first.

Conclusion

 * Once the paladins are dealt with, the next actions depend on whether Veronica decided to leave the Brotherhood or remain a member.
 * Option 1: Veronica remains a member:
 * Veronica comments about her decision, and the difficulties of staying with such a dogmatic group.
 * The quest concludes. The player gets 1000XP and Veronica gets the Bonds of Steel perk.
 * Option 2: Veronica decides to leave:
 * Veronica expresses an interest in joining the Followers of the Apocalypse. She suggests going to the Followers' outpost.
 * At the outpost talk to Doctor Alvarez about Veronica joining. She says that Dr. Schiller makes the decisions, and he's gone for the day.
 * Go away from the outpost and wait at least 24 hours.
 * Upon returning to the outpost, the player will find the rogue paladins, who have slaughtered all the Followers of the Apocalypse and patients, and accuse the player and Veronica of sharing forbidden knowledge with outsiders. There's no way around it—the rogue paladins all need to be killed. Killing them will not gain Brotherhood infamy and will not make Veronica leave, you also gain their power armor and weapons which include Gatling lasers.
 * Veronica will blame herself, but it just reinforces that she made the right decision.
 * The quest concludes. The player gets 1000XP and Veronica gets the Causeless Rebel perk.
 * From here on out, you can still return to the Hidden Valley Bunker with Veronica, however, she will refuse to go inside and will instead wait outside.

Bugs

 * In some cases, especially after a long playtime or getting to a certain point in the game, Veronica will not enter any of the dialogue triggers at all (see fixes for possible solution(s)).
 * Whilst trying to complete the Go with Veronica to talk to the Brotherhood of Steel elder at Hidden Valley section of the quest, Veronica enters the Hidden Valley Bunker and instantly runs to the intercom. She then proceeds to do nothing other than say "See you around" on a continual loop and refuses to engage in conversation.Upon fast traveling to Gibson's shack Veronica just walks off to the intercom at Hidden Valley and does the same thing.
 * After obtaining the pulse gun, your pip-boy may still show the objective "find the pulse gun in Vault 34".
 * If the player has completed There Stands the Grass prior to starting this quest, it's impossible to finish the quest with the "farming technology" even if the data was not destroyed by Keely. The quest directs you to the terminal in Vault 22, which no longer has the data.
 * Activating the Archimedes II weapon system and gaining the Rangefinder before you initiate this quest will automatically flag the journal to tell you to return to the Elder after activating the terminal in Gibson's shack. If you go get a second technology, the quest is seemingly broken. Neither Veronica or the Elder will have conversation options to continue further, and neither will initiate their dialogue scripts between the two, despite there being periods where you cannot talk to either one after coming close to the Elder.
 * The encounter with the Paladins outside the bunker may not spawn, stopping the quest from progressing. This can be fixed by re-entering and exiting the bunker until they turn up. It may take four or five attempts before they appear.
 * After the Brotherhood Paladins confront you outside the bunker Veronica may become immobile.
 * After taking the Rangefinder option, if you use HELIOS One to power the grid instead, you should be able to discuss the other two options with Veronica. However, when talking to her only her normal dialogue appears, rendering the mission unsolvable. Choosing to go to Vault 22 after destroying the data also renders the mission unsolvable because the terminal will be blank.
 * After completing the quest she may stop following you. Fast travel and dismissing and rehiring her has no effect. Reloading to a previous save after entering Vault 34 causes a "DLC not installed" error message and forces a restart.
 * When the Paladins initially deliver their ultimatum, sometimes only one will become hostile and three will run away, still friendly. The quest completes normally after killing the one hostile, but upon returning to the bunker the three have come back, deliver their ultimatum again, and attack. After this fight, Veronica refuses to follow you, and will sometimes start an unprovoked dialogue with you but only give the standard "what's up?". This appears to be caused by her attempting to deliver the quest-ending dialogue but, already having delivered it, getting stuck and refusing to budge until it's delivered.
 * If done after helping Paladin Hardin in the Still in the Dark quest, but before Elder McNamara is ousted, Hardin and McNamara will not talk to the player, and the Brotherhood quests will be locked. However, this does not have any affect on Veronica's quest itself. This can also cause Veronica to stop following you.
 * Quest can be received by buying the Rangefinder from Max in Freeside, however after finding Veronica and completing the quest by using the 95 speech option on the paladins that confront you outside of the bunker, the quest does not complete.
 * When entering Gibson's Shack, the load screen will freeze (roulette wheel stops spinning) and you will hear a fire crackling.
 * Nellis Air Force Base trigger may fail, and Veronica fails to comment after hearing the speech. (Xbox 360) it may take several attempts for this dialogue to initiate. The same can happen with the Silver Rush trigger.
 * If you chose the pulse gun option then on return the elders dialogue might not show up.
 * If you kill the Brotherhood Paladins in the Followers' Outpost and then equip their armor later while Veronica is still your companion, she will interrupt whatever you are doing to tell you that she will not stand for you killing members of the Brotherhood of Steel. Veronica will then go back to regular dialogue options.
 * If you re-enter the bunker after encountering the hostile paladins, sometimes not all of them will enter to follow you.
 * It is possible for the keys and information on the pulse gun at Nellis Air Force Base not to spawn in the cabinets rendering the "easy way" through this part of the quest way to be impossible.
 * Using Terrifying Presence on the paladins at the end boss fight causes them to cower. Killing them afterwards causes Veronica to initiate dialogue but only give her generic "What's Up?" greeting. Initiating dialogue manually doesn't change things.
 * If you place the pulse gun in your companion's inventory immediately after recieving it the objective will remain and the quest marker will continue to stay in Vault 34. This can easily be fixed by taking it back from your companion, causing the objective to complete.

Fixes

 * Solution to the dialogue between Veronica and the Elder freezing or not starting at all during the first phase I Could Make You Care: upon arrival, stand beside the Elder's table and raise and lower (twice if necessary) your Pip-boy any time the conversation freezes. You might lose some sentences, but the first step of the given quest (Bring Veronica to the Elder) will be completed, and Veronica gives you the next step of the quest (the terminal thing) as soon as you leave the Elder's room.
 * Solution to Veronica not following after I Could Make You Care: During the battle with the paladins, KO Veronica before you kill the last paladin. When she wakes up, you can manually talk to her twice for her standard dialog. *Note* won't work on hardcore for obvious reasons.
 * If she becomes immobile after completing the quest, try talking to her using the companion wheel. She will thank you for helping her out and she should start following again. If this doesn't work try one of the other fixes below. There is also a fix on NewVegasNexus: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35943
 * If Veronica won't follow you anymore (she simply stands in place and won't move, despite being able to interact with her) after you fight the Paladins outside the Hidden Valley Bunker (After suggesting she stay with the Brotherhood to gain her Bonds of Steel Perk), simply travel to Gibson's Shack, re-download the data from the computer, talk to her so she brings up the conversation about what technology to pursue, choose the technology you choose initially to complete the quest, exit the conversation, talk to her again, enter her workbench and craft ANY item (1 ammunition conversion works just fine), after the item is crafted and added to your inventory she should now follow you again. Test by simply entering into sneak mode, if she crouches with you she is now following you again. Solution works for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
 * If Veronica won't follow you anymore, you'll have to go back to before the part of the mission where she speaks to the elder after you retrieved the notes, and directly tell her you want her to leave (don't suggest for her to stay, and don't allow her to choose for herself).
 * If Veronica gets stuck and won't follow you anymore, and then you get the infinite loop once you get to the comm terminal at Gibson's Shack, you'll have to restart the mission (from a previous save) and work back to the part where she speaks to the elder after you retrieved the notes, and directly tell her you want her to leave (don't suggest for her to stay, and don't allow her to choose for herself). Then go to Gibson's Shack and access the comm terminal, and once you do, it will say (in the upper left side of your screen) "COMPLETED: Access Father Elijah's notes for the comm terminal", and upon exiting the terminal, Veronica will automatically start talking. After you choose one, it will give you the option to exit the dialogue, and Veronica says, "I like the way you think...".
 * If Veronica missed too many triggers to initiate her companion quest, the console command will advance her companion quest dialog conversations. This may need to be done up to 3 times, allow a few seconds after the console command for her to initiate dialog.
 * Since there are always three triggers available (McCarran, Vault 3, Nelson/Cottonwood Cove), it's generally going to be better to trigger the quest "normally" - use the console only if the regular triggers won't work.
 * If you have already completed There Stands the Grass and you are unable to download the Vault 22 data: it's possible to reset the mainframe terminal by using the console command 'set e6a6a.DataState to 0'; you can then re-download the data to complete the objective. This should even work if the data was deleted. (Or you can talk to Veronica about the technologies and switch to a different objective.)
 * If the triggers don't seem to be occurring (including her dress trigger), leave Veronica at the 38 and take another companion with you for a while, and come back to her later. In my case, i completed Raul's companion quest, and when i returned to the 38 and picked up veronica, the dress conversation triggered, as well as two quest triggers. I then did the boomer museum trigger, which worked the way it was supposed to. afterwards, the rest of the quest went off almost without a hitch... i only encountered the Gibson's Shack freeze bug (for which a workaround is listed on this page under "bugs")
 * If the dialogue options do not open automatically give Veronica some Formal Wear for the unmarked quest You Make Me Feel Like a Woman and she will most likely not respond. However, sit down, and when you stand back up, open the companion wheel, go to the talk to option, and then talk to her about trading equipment, take the dress back and put it back in, and when you leave the triggers should work.
 * If Gibson's Shack freezes upon trying to enter, ask Veronica to wait outside. You can download the data without her, and her dialog will automatically trigger when you exit and see her again.
 * Sometimes there will be a non hostile paladin frozen outside the followers outpost when you return, you will not loose any karma for killing the paladin.
 * If Veronica does not acknowledge the quest triggers, simply send her back to the 188 Trading Post and then speak to her, where she'll then recognise the quest triggers, and even possibly the dress (if given to her previously without effect) for You Make Me Feel Like a Woman.

Behind the scenes

 * 'I Could Make You Care' is the name of a song by Frank Sinatra.

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