History FalloutNewVegas / TropesEToH

** Doctor 0 in ''Old World Blues'' early on will mention a giant robo-scorpion [[TemptingFate before casting aside the idea]]. Do a bit of exploring, and you can find it later... [[SubvertedTrope half of it being buried under rubble near the Waste Disposal Plant]]. [[spoiler: Then you fight ''[[DoubleSubverted the real thing]]'' during the questline's climax.]]

* EvilCounterpart: [[spoiler: Ulysses]]--if the player character is good and supporting the NCR, down to him being [[spoiler: a Legion scout who was the original Courier for the Platinum Chip, a role he passed to you because of his hatred for you.]]

** [[spoiler: It's heavily implied through the investigation that the whole reason Jeannie sold Boone's wife to the Legion was because she critiqued her hotel.]]

* EvilVersusOblivion: Arguably, the entire ''Dead Money'' DLC if your character is evil. An evil karma Courier is a horrible person, no doubt, but [[spoiler: Elijah is an OmnicidalManiac out to wipe out the population of the Mojave and the NCR. You ''can'' side with him, but it results in a NonStandardGameOver. Not even going ahead with Ulysses' plan to nuke the two major powers does that.]]

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: [[spoiler: The reward for the quest ''The Legend of the Star'' is just Festus retelling you why the Sunset Sarsaparilla logo exists to begin with. It does lead to another quest with a better reward though.]]

* ExpositionOfImmortality: Mr. House, once you finally get to meet him, reveals himself to be quite a bit older than you might have been expecting. He's got quite the collection of pre-war artifacts, and he's more than happy to pay you to increase them, too. [[spoiler: He's also reduced to living in a life support system and communicating entirely through electronic screens and his robot minions, but given that he was born 260 years ago, that's not bad going.]]
* {{Expy}}: Mick and Ralph are similar to Flak and Shrapnel from ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}''. Both duos co-own a store together with one being in charge a weapons and the other being in charge of consumables. The difference between the two pairs is their demeanor towards their customers; Flak and Shrapnel tend to be gruff Jerkasses (as they used to be slavers in the past), while Mick and Ralph are considerably more welcoming and friendly. They can seem to be Foils of the other two.

* FactionSpecificEndings: The game has several endings depending on which faction you side with, as well as your morality and certain other choices (including individual "where are they now" segments for each recruitable character) as well as a "Wildcard" ending where [[spoiler: the player hijacks Benny's plan to take over the region]] which leaves all the factions sent packing.

** On both sides. Humans call Ghouls "zombies" and Ghouls call humans "smoothskins." [[spoiler: Ironically, one of the members of a Ghoul-centric religious faction is a human who delusionally pretends to be a Ghoul after exhibiting... mild natural symptoms such as balding after escaping from a certain vault.]]

** The [[spoiler: [[ZombieApocalypse inhabitants of Vault 22]].]]

** The Marked Men found in ''Lonesome Road'' are unfortunate NCR soldiers and Legionnaires caught in the Divide's sandstorms [[spoiler: after the nuclear warheads buried under the Divide were set off]]. The storms tore the skin from their bodies, then the intense radiation flash-ghoulified them. Even though they were from opposite sides, they now work together against all others because their constant, intense pain is the only identity they have left.

* FetchQuest: A few. Most notably, there is ''Still in the Dark'' for the Brotherhood of Steel. You first have to obtain 3 holotapes from dead [=BoS=] soldiers in widely separated locations. Then you have to talk to 3 Brotherhood scouts in widely separated locations. [[RuleOfThree Finally]] You have to enter [[RuleOfThree three]] vaults to get the parts to fix their air purification system.

** In ''Honest Hearts'', the Burned Man mentions Ulysses. [[spoiler: Apparently he's a Legion scout and spy.]]

** During Cass's companion quest (''Heartache By The Number'') one of the sacked caravans can be found near a billboard for ''The Silver Rush'', a weapons distributor specializing in energy weapons. Turns out[[spoiler: the owners (The [=VanGraffs=]) were paid by Alice [=McLafferty=] (of the Crimson Caravan) to sack competing caravan companies so [=McLafferty=] could buy them out, Cassidy Caravans included.]]
** When meeting the Happy Trails Caravan Company in the opening of ''Honest Hearts'', the Courier can expose Ricky as a liar and tell him to leave the expedition to Salt Lake City because he's in over his head, and the fact that his Pip-Boy, his sole contribution, is broken renders him [[TheLoad useless]]. This will cause Ricky to spitefully hope they walk into an ambush and get killed. [[spoiler: Once they get to Zion Valley, that's exactly what happens, and the entire Happy Trails Caravan Expedition dies with the Courier being the SoleSurvivor.]]

** Heartwarmingly, [[VideoGame/{{Fallout3}} Wasteland Survival Guides]], carried all the way from the Capital Wasteland, litter the Mojave, helping so much that they increase your survival skill.

** The in-game stats of many characters don't always reflect their abilities in-game. Caesar, for example, has only a 4 in Intelligence and Charisma.

** The Sierra Madre opening was a giant gambit pileup. [[spoiler: The maintenance crews embezzling money away from the construction; Vera and Domino planning to rob the casino; Sinclair's attempts to foil them, as well as him forcing employees and visitors to visit the vending machines for food and drugs, creating black markets; Big MT testing out incredibly sharp knives, faulty hazmat suits and auto-docs, and deadly gas. All this resulted in the guests getting trapped inside the casino, and subsequently massacred by the holograms, Ghost People, or the Cloud.]]

** Though it doesn't break the rest of the game, a glitch can completely screw over the town of Novac -- Chris Haversam randomly runs away and/or vanishes, preventing the player from finishing "Come Fly With Me" and thus getting anything other than a negative ending for the town as the ghouls in the nearby [[spoiler: help the town defend against or evacuate from Caesar's Legion]].

* GolfClubbing: There are 9-iron golf clubs around, with the VATS "Fore" attack that aim for [[GroinAttack one particular region]]. In ''Gun Runner's Arsenal'' there's an achievement for [[spoiler: killing Mr. House with a golf club, titled [[VideoGame/BioShock1 "A Slave Obeys"]]]]
* GondorCallsForAid: The Courier can invoke this at the end battle by doing enough favors for the smaller factions along the way. It's possible to, for example, fight alongside the NCR against the Legion with the [[spoiler: Boomers, Great Khans, Brotherhood of Steel, and even the leftovers of the Enclave]] backing you up and still [[spoiler: betray the NCR with your secret army of securitrons.]]

* GrayAndGreyMorality: [[spoiler: NCR and Mr. House both plan to drive each other out of New Vegas.]] Neither of them are any more villainous or altruistic than the other.

** The quest "I Put a Spell on You" is almost legendary for its unintuitive nature, aside from a plethora of bugs. Long story short, there's a spy somewhere in Camp [=McCarran=], and you've been tasked to single him out. After finding out there have been late-night sightings at the comm tower, you have two mission arrows: one to the comm tower, and another to the man you're working with, Captain Curtis. [[spoiler:Since Curtis is the spy, talking to Curtis and telling him your lead makes the mission practically unwinnable, since he will attack you in the tower instead of radioing his contact, thus you won't know if he will bomb the monorail. There is no hint that doing this was wrong, and there is no way other than using the console to set the winning value back to 0.]] Ergo, by '''following the directions''' you have failed the quest. You could still [[spoiler: side with the Legion, in which case you do the same quest, but instead are helping Curtis out in his plot to bomb the monorail. This is arguably the better path, as not only is it relatively easy, if done right it gets you an exploit for infinite caps. But if you start along that path, you're committed to bombing the monorail as soon as you collect the bomb.]] Want to play the Legion version of the quest? You can't be too hated by the NCR, because [[spoiler: Curtis]] is coded as a Ranger, and will see through your NCR disguise and attack you just like any other NCR Ranger, even though he's a Legion spy. This makes it impossible to talk to him.

* HollywoodDensity: The gold bars in ''Dead Money'' play with this. There are 37 bars, each worth 10,439 caps but weighing 35 pounds. You're under a strict time limit to escape with whatever you can carry, and if you carry more than your encumbrance limit, you move far too slowly to make it out. If a player wanted to take all the bars—a total of 382,913 caps, enough that you'd basically never need money again—s/he would be carrying 1,295 pounds. The highest possible carry weight a player could have (i.e. max Strength and various Perks) is 375 pounds, so a player could only carry 10 of the bars at most without being over-encumbered, and they'd have to drop everything they were already carrying. While it ''is'' indeed legitimately possible to barely escape with everything in the vault, savvy players have found a way to exploit the game for a much easier getaway. [[spoiler: Kill Elijah and make sure to decapitate him. Then, load the gold into his inventory and use the "pick up" key to carry his decapitated head to the exit, still allowing the player to move quickly enough to make it out in time. Just before leaving, access Elijah's inventory via his head and take all the gold.]]

'''[=McNamara=]:''' *sigh* [[spoiler: I know.]]

* HumiliationConga: A particularly brutal one happens to the White Legs, should you choose to exterminate them in the final quest of ''Honest Hearts''. [[spoiler: Whatever's left of them, still blind with devotion to Caesar, attempt to crush the remaining New Canaanites. [[CurbStompBattle The New Canaanites ambushed and destroyed them with ease, now that they were prepared.]] What's left of the White Legs after that were promptly hunted down by the Dead Horses, and whatever was left of them after ''that'' were exterminated by a rival tribe, the 80s with ease. And then shortly afterward? Thanks to the Sorrows and Dead Horses, the 80's raiders were wiped out as well.]]

%%* FiveManBand: The Enclave Remnants, A BadassCrew [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment of]] {{Retired Badass}}es.
%%** TheLeader: Judah
%%** TheLancer: [[SourSupporter "Cannibal" Johnson]]
%%** TheBigGuy: [[{{BFG}} Moreno]]
%%** TheSmartGuy: Doc Henry
%%** TheChick: [[AcePilot Daisy Whitman]].

* {{Homage}}: ''Dead Money'' to the ''Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre'' and it's not exactly subtle about it either as the hotel & casino is called ''The Sierra Madre''.

** Due to how [=SPECIAL=] stats work, you can sneak by [=NPCs=] in broad daylight provided that the their perception is low and your sneak skill is high enough. Compounded with what the game considers "dark area," you could potentially stand next to a high-perception NPC against a brightened backdrop, provided you're in the shadows.

** This of course isn't the case with the Legion, and the The Tops and The Omertas on the Strip don't seem to have female goons, but everyone else plays it straight, including the horrible Fiends, the Khans, the White Legs, the NCR and the Brotherhood.

** Pre-war posters advertising the singer Dean Domino show up in loading screens and as occasional background clutter in the main game, long before you actually meet him in ''Dead Money''.

* ElvisImpersonator: A whole gang of them, using the surviving premises and supplies of a School of Impersonation. In an interesting twist, they don't really know who Elvis was - only that he was incredibly cool and widely revered - and their leader, The King, admits he'd have taken on the name no matter what the building was originally for, but the image works well for keeping Freesiders' spirits up.

** Also, it's possible to get the Khans, the Brotherhood of Steel and [[spoiler:the Enclave]] to fight for the NCR despite historically being some of their greatest and most hated enemies. This is especially significant for the Khans, who have been the bitter enemies of the vault dwellers who founded Shady Sands (which became NCR) ever since they were rival factions within Vault 15.

** Dean Domino from ''Dead Money'' is arguably the worst of the lot, as getting him [[spoiler:to not turn on you]] is downright contrary to the very logic of the game, though it does make sense from a character perspective. Why? In the '''very first''' conversation with him, you come to a choice between a Barter skill check and a normal dialogue choice. Almost any player will obviously pick the Barter choice if at all possible because skill-requiring answers are (and should be) superior to the ones available to all characters. However, in this case picking this choice will make it [[spoiler:impossible to get him to side with you inside the Sierra Madre and lock you out of the GoldenEnding for the DLC]]. Made even more egregious by the fact that the Barter dialogue choice is simply informing Dean that he isn't bargaining from a position of power because your collars (and thus lives) are linked and he basically doesn't have a choice but to work with you... '''which is precisely the truth'''!

-->He said he'd be back with one of the greatest treasures of the Old World. Said he'd make the Mojave how it was meant to be... "[[KillEmAll wipe the slate clean.]]"

** The NCR, Caesar's Legion, and Mr. House are competing in a high-stakes tournament with New Vegas as the prize, and they're all trying to stack the deck in their favor -- and you're the WildCard. The core conflict is NCR and the Legion both fighting for control of the Dam and New Vegas. Beyond this basic plot, [[spoiler:House has an army of robots waiting to swoop in and steal the land literally right from under the Legion. The NCR and Legion both know this, and potentially have him assassinated. On top of that, Benny is planning to take over New Vegas by overthrowing House, as are the Omertas, except they plan on allying with the Legion first. You, the Courier, can at the same time also be planning to take over New Vegas by overthrowing House and stealing his army with the help of Yes Man, while either aiding or foiling the Omertas. Then the DLC just adds more gambits; Father Elijah of ''Dead Money'' manipulates the Think Tank, Courier, Dean Domino, and Dog/God into helping him obtain experimental pre-War technology in his attempt to conquer the Mojave by [[KillEmAll killing most of post-apocalyptic America's remaining population]], and can potentially succeed in bringing what's left of the world under his control (though unlike other options, this gives a NonStandardGameOver). The Think Tank of ''Old World Blues'' manipulates the Courier and Mobius in hopes that they'll be able to break out of Big MT and cause trouble in the Mojave, while Mobius already has an long-running scheme going on to make sure that The Think Tank aren't going anywhere while making sure the Courier is able to retake all of their removed body parts. And on top of all of this, Ulysses from ''Lonesome Road'' is planning on nuking both the Legion ''and'' the NCR while leaving the Mojave to die.]] That's about ten gambits, all trying to top one another. You decide which one (or combination of them) comes out on top.

* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: Of course the Courier survived being shot in the head twice, Benny's gun doesn't do enough damage with a critical hit headshot on a 1 Endurance character to kill in two hits.
* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The entire point of the game is that NCR and Legion are neither objectively good or evil, so while some named characters will be, most rank and file troops of either faction are of neutral karma. Thus, you can head into a camp of friendly legionnaires and pump them full of buckshot for no loss of karma. But when you try to loot the camp after, their goods that are marked as owned are still counted as such, so you get a karma penalty for stealing. Killing them in cold blood, no problem, taking their healing powder, that's terrible.

* EnergyWeapon: Following ''Fallout 3''. Unlike earlier ''Fallout'' games, here lasers are THE most accurate weapon in the game, especially outside VATS as the beams hit the target instantly. the plasmas act like [[SlowLaser Slow Lasers]], but those are not laser weapons.

--> Without thinking, you start amputating the leg. Partway through, you realize it was the '''wrong leg'''. As you start amputating the other leg, the patient dies from shock.

* EpicTrackingShot: One right in the beginning that covers almost everything about the game. You start from a poster of old Las Vegas in the deserted Lucky 38, then go to the current New Vegas where drunk NCR troopers and prostitutes make a ruckus on the streets while Securitrons come to break them up, to a NCR ranger taking a shot atop the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Fabulous_Las_Vegas_sign "Fabulous Las Vegas" sign]], to the raider he's sniping, to Legion scouts and troops on the move on the hills nearby, to the Goodsprings graveyard where the Khans are digging your grave, finishing with a zoom out once the shot reaches you unconscious on the ground.

** The in-game stats of many characters don't always reflect their abilities in-game. Caesar, for example,has only a 4 in Intelligence and Charisma.

* EpicTrackingShot: One right in the beginning that covers almost everything about the game. You start from a poster of old Las Vegas in the deserted Lucky 38, then go to the current New Vegas where drunk NCR troopers and prostitutes make a ruckus on the streets while Securitrons come to break them up, to a NCR ranger taking a shot atop the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Fabulous_Las_Vegas_sign "Fabulous Las Vegas" sign]], to the raider he's sniping, to Legion scouts and troops on the move on the hills nearby, to the Goodsprings graveyard where the Khans are digging your grave, finishing with a zoom out once the shot reaches you inconscious on the ground.

** ''Old World Blues'' has the Lobotomites who,after being surgically alerted by the Think Tank until insanity, wear crude gasmasks made of goggles and respirators. They were originally meant to appear in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' before they (and a lot of other stuff) was DummiedOut and first appeared in a loading screen in ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' attacking the Vault Dweller in a fit of madness.

** Played straight with the Tribals, however, if what was once Zion National Park is any indication. Or Raul's irritated insistence on calling the land of Two-Sun, as the local tribals call it, by its actual name: Tuscon, Arizona.

** Your first encounter with Caesar's Legion is likely to be at the nearby town of Nipton, where they have performed a massacre.

'''Math:''' F-
--> '''Science:''' F- -
--> '''History:''' F-

* ForcedOrgasm: PlayedForLaughhs in the ''Old World Blues'' DLC. Dr. Dala is [[CovertPervert disturbingly fascinated by your facial expressions and body movements]] due to the fact that as a BrainInAJar, she hasn't had a body of her own in centuries and is suffering from heavy pent-up sexual frustrations. In the quest "Coming Out of Her Shell", The PlayerCharacter can take advantage of this and induce her into an involuntary orgasm by doing mundane things like stretching, rubbing their face, or breathing deeply. This will unlock the option of her giving you energy ammo once per day in exchange for letting her watch you breathe for a few seconds.

** One of their guiding principles is that [[EvilLuddite reliance on technology makes people weak]]. In the Legion, any medicine more advanced than tribal healing powder is forbidden, and thousands of people die due to lack of proper medical care; this fine in the Legion as it's argued if you can't survive on your own merit, you don't deserve to live anyway. However, [[spoiler:Caesar is terminally ill and has a broken Auto-Doc in his tent, and commands the Courier to fix it so he can cure himself of his brain tumour.]] Also, what differentiates their {{Elite Mook}}s from the rank-and-file fodder is their access to more advanced guns and melee weapons; Centurions often wield things like Chainsaws and Anti-Materiel Rifles. Did we mention that Caesar himself uses a [[PowerFist Displacer Glove]]?

* GadgeteerGenius: The Jury Rigging perk, which allows you to repair any weapon or armor with a somewhat similar piece of equipment. A PowerFist with some boxing tape? A shiskebab with a rolling pin? A PowerArmor helm with a pair of sunglasses? You can do that. [[TooDumbToLive The reverse is also true]].

* HighClassGloves: The White Glove Society wear gloves and certainly give the impression of being "high class" with their fancy outfits and upper-class demeanor, particularly in contrast to the fities-styled "Chairmen" and the mobster-styled Omertas. [[spoiler:It turns out that this is partly an act that Mr. House forced them into, and that the White Gloves are using it to cover up their past as cannibals.]]

** No matter what wonders of pre-War technology the Courier gains control of in ''Dead Money'' and ''Old World Blues'', they won't have any impact on the Second Battle of Hoover Dam except for what you use personally.

** Increasing your rep with any major town will result in better prices at their stores. The best way to do this is to go out of your way to help people in that town (defending Godsprings from the Powder Gangers, getting a new sheriff for Primm, etc). In contrast the evil option would be to just murder everyone. This will allow you to loot the place, but deny you the additional merchants, which can be more harmful in the long run.

** In ''Honest Hearts'', killing or hostilizing any friendly NPC's triggers "Chaos in Zion" and forces you into a shorter alternate quest, denying you any of the rewards or achievments earned from the normal path.