Veronica

Veronica Santangelo is a Brotherhood of Steel scribe and a possible companion found at the 188 Trading Post $$

Background
A journeyman scribe, Veronica is responsible for acquiring supplies for the Hidden Valley Bunker along with the other duties of a scribe, but relishes her time above ground and to explore life outside of the bunker. However, Veronica has become increasingly irritated by what she sees in the Brotherhood of Steel's strict adherence to the Codex and its unrealistic and uninformed views of themselves and the world. Veronica is a perpetual outsider caught between her loyalty to the Brotherhood and troubling doubts about the validity of their current course. With her current time above ground, Veronica jumps at the first chance that lets her explore the various groups of the Mojave Wasteland, hoping for insight on a world view that is not from a bunker.

Veronica was born into the Brotherhood. Her father was a paladin and her mother a scribe. Both were killed in the same battle with the New California Republic while she was still a child, and she was brought up by the whole Brotherhood as a result. Father Elijah took a keen interest in her education, becoming her tutor and eventually a parental figure (or the next best thing; Veronica never had a grandfather and Elijah was what she imagined one would be like).

From a very young age (before she was even able to speak, according to her), she demonstrated an aptitude for engineering, taking things apart and putting them back together. This drive and natural curiosity led her to choose the career of a scribe within the Brotherhood, turning her from a tinkerer into an engineering prodigy, in no small part thanks to Elijah's guidance. His technological genius rubbed off on her in many ways, but perhaps the most important thing he taught her was irreverence for dogma and authority. His years-long bickering with the elder council taught her to question the Brotherhood's direction.

As an adolescent, Veronica fell in love with Christine Royce. Discouraged by the expectation to procreate, she left and Veronica stayed behind.

Journey to the East
Unwilling to leave the Brotherhood behind, when it was Veronica's turn to make the decision, she chose to remain. She believed in what the Brotherhood stood for, or at least the values at the heart of their beliefs. Elijah's influence also played a role. When the Council decided to deal with him by promoting him out of the way, assigning him to investigate Hoover Dam in Nevada, he asked her to join him in founding a new chapter. He tricked the elders into approving the assignment, concealing the fact from Veronica.

At first, Veronica was elated to join her foster parent on such an important expedition. However, when Elijah sidetracked the chapter at HELIOS One, she started having doubts. Although she was his confidante, trusted with recovery runs and intel he wouldn't share with anyone else, she started seeing his nasty character flaws, beginning with obfuscation: He never told her the reason why he had her looking for various pieces of technology. The biggest change came in 2274, when news of the NCR's deployment to Hoover Dam reached the chapter at HELIOS. The elder flew into a rage, calling the NCR children playing with a bomb. It was then that Veronica realized he wasn't mad because of what he could do with the dam, but rather, being denied its power.

Despite her relationship with Elijah, she was still a 20 year old scribe with no ability to influence the direction of the Brotherhood. She watched powerlessly as the chapter waged a guerrilla war against the NCR over the next two years. During Operation: Sunburst, the chapter lost half their members, but Veronica survived.

Life after HELIOS
As the Brotherhood under the newly appointed elder, Nolan McNamara, entered a protracted lockdown to protect themselves from the NCR's Army and Rangers and rebuild its strength, Veronica became an outspoken critic of the Brotherhood's policies. Her difficult questions combined with her status as a veteran of HELIOS One made the leadership uncomfortable. To keep her away from the elder and the bunker heads, she was designated a procurement specialist and permitted outside the bunker to make regular supply runs and obtain provisions and other necessities for her peers. She was keenly aware of the reasons behind her new assignment, made even more frustrating by the fact that she got along with other members well as long as Brotherhood politics weren't involved.

Some exceptions include Head Scribe Lars Taggart, who tutored her and grew to dislike her attitude, Head Paladin Edgar Hardin, a hardliner, and Senior Initiate Melissa Watkins, likely for the same reasons Senior Scribe Linda Schuler dislikes the initiate. On the other hand, she gets on particularly well with Senior Paladin Ramos, who has a soft spot for Veronica's antics, Scribe Ibsen, Knight Torres and the aforementioned Scribe Schuler.

While her absence from the bunker did keep her out of command's hair, her exposure to the outside world only made her more aware of the Brotherhood's failure. Watching the influx of NCR troops, merchants, and citizens to the Mojave made her realize how it failed to adapt. The Brotherhood wanted to seize military technology, to control it so that it couldn't destroy humanity again. The single-minded pursuit of this goal resulted in stagnation, a failure to adapt to the shifting landscape of the wastes. The NCR had an army, a nation, and controlled the dam. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood was stuck in a glorified hole in the ground, unable to carry out its mission. Yet it still refused to change, to start helping people and serve humanity, rather than itself.

She didn't need to be a scribe to realize that the Brotherhood was doomed in the long run. Even with laser rifles and power armor, the Brotherhood was fast running out of people to bear these arms into combat, and as their power waned, their competitors' waxed. Without a radical course correction, she was staring at a lifetime of scavenging and watching her friends die pointlessly in lost battles.

Changes
By 2281, five years after the fall of HELIOS One, Veronica is at her wits' end. Increasingly torn between loyalty to her friends and unwillingness to join them on the funeral pyre of the order, she seeks to learn from the thriving cultures of the wasteland as she collects supplies for the bunker. She hopes to find some sort of solution that could help save the Brotherhood, but her irreverent attitude puts her dangerously close to outright banishment. Even Elder McNamara, the most progressive member of the chapter after Veronica, is unwilling to bend on what he considers the Brotherhood's core beliefs.

The fact that she received a curious note from Father Elijah doesn't help. The letter from this ghost of her past indicated a delusional, unstable personality, claiming to have the salvation the doomed Brotherhood needed. The familiar signature made it plain that it came from Elijah and only strengthened her resolve to try a solution that didn't involve wiping the slate clean.

Although she focuses on finding something to force the Brotherhood to change, she also has personal goals to keep her sane. Chief among these is finding a proper dress for herself, something that would allow her to feel like a woman once in a while. She hopes to find a designer gown one day, but until then, she keeps looking.

Quests

 * Beyond the Beef: The player character can offer Veronica to Mortimer as a substitute for Ted Gunderson for the banquet.
 * I Could Make You Care: Veronica will ask the Courier to take her to Hidden Valley, where she will talk to the Elder about the Brotherhood's collapse, and how it will need to grow and change to stay alive. Veronica then asks the player character to find some technology to convince the Elder.
 * If Veronica is convinced to leave, the Courier will have to go to the Follower's outpost and talk to Alvarez about getting her to join the Followers of the Apocalypse, but the doctor who decides who joins the Followers is out for the day. This will require a day's wait, after which a few rogue paladins are found to have destroyed the outpost, killing everyone. She then blames herself for what happens. Afterward, she earns the Causeless Rebel perk, giving her a 30% increased attack rate.
 * If she decides to stay, the quest is completed and she will gain the Bonds of Steel perk, giving her +4 DT.
 * You Make Me Feel Like a Woman: Veronica has a long-held dream of wearing a dress. Giving her formal wear, White Glove Society attire, Vera's outfit or a dapper gambler suit will make her very happy, and in return she will teach the special unarmed move, Scribe Counter. The attire can be removed from her inventory without penalty after learning the Scribe Counter.

Effects of player's actions

 * If the Courier talks negatively about the Brotherhood when first conversing with Veronica, she will refuse to join up as a companion, and further attempts to talk to her will yield only one dialogue option: "Goodbye."
 * If the player character has destroyed the Brotherhood bunker in Hidden Valley before recruiting Veronica, she will ask what they know about the Brotherhood when they meet at the 188 Trading Post. Telling her about destroying the Brotherhood will cause her to express shock and lead her to say, "Well in that case: This is for them," and attack.
 * Becoming Vilified with the Brotherhood of Steel causes Veronica to quit as a companion. However, it seems that even with a reputation as low as Merciful Thug, she will happily continue as a companion. She will remain a companion upon the destruction of the Hidden Valley Bunker, although she warns that it is the Courier's last chance, similar to what happens with Craig Boone after working too closely with the Legion, or Rose of Sharon Cassidy after gaining negative Karma with her as a companion. Destroying the Brotherhood of Steel by activating the bunker's self-destruction option will drop the reputation to Vilified, making Veronica leave the party even if she chose to leave the Brotherhood in her companion quest. Killing all the Brotherhood members without activating the self-destruction option is much less likely to make this happen, as it results in little to no loss of reputation. It is also possible for her to stay as a companion should the Courier complete all Brotherhood of Steel faction quests in their favor, make her leave the Brotherhood, and destroy them without killing any members.
 * Veronica will enable access to Hidden Valley on much friendlier terms without being stripped of gear, having an Explosive collar put on, and having to get rid of Ranger Dobson from one of the bunkers.
 * Completing her companion quest in favor of the Followers of the Apocalypse causes Veronica not to enter the Brotherhood bunker anymore. As a companion, she will always wait outside the entrance.
 * Equipping NCR faction armor while Veronica is a companion may lead her to issue her "last chance" warning.

Other interactions
Giving Veronica the following dress-type items: may complete the quest You Make Me Feel Like a Woman (See the quest for full details and bugs) and will make her say one of the following lines randomly:
 * Formal wear
 * White Glove Society attire
 * Vera's outfit
 * Dapper gambler suit
 * "Aw, you shouldn't have. It's just my taste. Thank you."
 * "Hey, a dress! Thank you! I'm totally trying this on later."
 * " For me? Do you mean it? No, no it's too much. Well Okay. But it's too much. It's perfect. Thank you. Thank you."
 * "I wish I had something I could give you. I-Wait! What about punching? That's the gift that keeps on giving."

Companion

 * Veronica can be recruited at the 188 Trading Post by simply talking to her. As long as the player character does not make themselves out to be an enemy of the Brotherhood, she will ask if she can join their party and reveal her association with the order once she is accepted.
 * If the player character destroys Hidden Valley before recruiting her, the player character will be able to reveal that they are responsible for the chapter's destruction. Veronica will immediately attack, to avenge her lost family.
 * She is a follower focused on unarmed combat and benefits greatly from heavy armor and high end unarmed gear. However, this also puts her at risk when confronting deathclaws and the like. In her ranged mode, Veronica is a capable user of Energy Weapons.
 * As with other companions, Veronica will pick weapons according to their damage per second (i.e. the best weapons in inventory). For unarmed weapons, this will generally mean Fist of Rawr and Saturnite fist super-heated, followed by Pushy, Love and Hate, Embrace of the Mantis King! (GRA) and Displacer glove (depending on their condition). Veronica will not equip an industrial hand since it's marked as a player-only weapon.
 * Veronica will wear Brotherhood power armor, such as the one found on dead paladins at Black Mountain, REPCONN or near Nellis.
 * As with other companions, she offers a special perk: As long as she's in the party, the player character can talk to her and activate a workbench interface anywhere in the world, as she can help them craft with her own tools and expertise.
 * This advantage is nullified by the additional options provided by ED-E after playing through Lonesome Road and unlocking its workbench and reloading tools.
 * Veronica will leave the player character's party if their reputation with the Brotherhood drops to Vilified at any point. She will stay on board with it as low as Merciful Thug, however, but will warn that it is the player character's last chance. She will leave if the reputation drops further.
 * Alternatively, completing the quests Pistol Packing, Still in the Dark (favoring McNamara), and Eyesight to the Blind for the Brotherhood will earn enough positive favor with them that activating the bunker self-destruct will only drop reputation to Soft-Hearted Devil, after which Veronica will stay.
 * If she quits as a companion, she will not return any gear she is carrying or using.
 * Unlike other companions, Veronica will not object to being sent to Lucky 38. However, as with other non-player characters, she will collect and consume any food and drink left in the suite, including in containers. The scripts tied to special Nuka-Colas and the like will apply visual effects to the player should she consume them.
 * Like ED-E, Veronica will not die, regardless of any difficulty, unless the Brotherhood of Steel quests have started.

Non-player character comments

 * Nightkin: "Book girl has hard decision to make."
 * NCR civilians: "Your lady friend seems out of place here."
 * NCR tourist: "Your friend seems too civilized for a place like this."
 * Boomers: "I can spot a Brotherhood spy from a thousand yards. Even the cute ones."
 * Brotherhood of Steel: "If you're planning to take Veronica with you, be sure to have a good pair of earplugs with you. I'm kidding, Veronica! Put the power fist down!"; "Keep an eye on Veronica here. She's a sharp one."; "Try to keep Veronica out of trouble, would you?"
 * Powder Gangers: "Now there's a fine-looking woman. Just needs to ditch the robe."
 * Great Khans: "Your friend's cute - is she single?"
 * Followers: "I didn't know the Brotherhood had any people out here."
 * Freesiders: "Your lady friend needs to lighten up."
 * The Kings: "Your girl's kinda cute, but not my type at all. I don't go for smart chicks."
 * Omertas: "Let me know if the pretty lady with you is looking for some work."
 * Outer Vegas denizens: "Your friend's not from the desert, is she?"

Dead Money
After completion of Dead Money, the Courier can retrieve Elijah's holomessage from his console in the abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker and give it to Veronica, but only after exhausting all of Veronica's dialogue options regarding Father Elijah. In the same conversation, the Courier can choose to keep the holotape's knowledge instead, gaining the Elijah's Ramblings perk. Giving Veronica the message will give her the Elijah's Last Words perk.

Appearances
Veronica Santangelo appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes
Veronica was featured in the Meet the Companions Playstation Blog, written by Jason Bergman. The transcript appears below.