Fallout: New Vegas/Characters/The Courier

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


This is a partial character sheet for the Video Game Fallout: New Vegas. Visit here for the main character index. Subjective trope and audience reactions should go on the YMMV page.

"Your face does the thinking - two to the skull, yet one gets up. Odds are against you... but they're just numbers after the two-to-one."
—The Forecaster's comment on the Courier
"It appears that you are both the messenger and the message."
—Legate Lanius
"Rule of the Caravan Wastes: Do not fuck with the man who delivers your mail."
—Rose of Sharon Cassidy

The Courier was just a regular schmuck trying to make a living delivering packages before being ambushed by Benny and several Great Khans while delivering a particular package: a Platinum Chip. S/he takes two shots to the head, but somehow manages to survive. The story is driven by the Courier's attempts to understand the meaning behind the attack and the significance of the Platinum Chip. Ultimately, s/he gets to decide the future of the entire Mojave wasteland.

  • Action Survivor: After surviving two shots to the head, you proceed to become one of the most dangerous and influential individuals in the entire Mojave Wasteland.
  • And the Adventure Continues...: Regardless of the ending you get, it is made clear that the Courier's romps through the Wasteland are far from over. It's even an option in the NCR ending dialogue. Note that the adventure doesn't actually continue; game's over once you hit the ending.
    • Foreshadowing: Getting Dog and God merged and saving Christine in Dead Money will lead to the two mentioning Lonesome Road, in which the Courier faces off against Ulysses.
  • Anti-Hero: Can fall anywhere on the scale, or above or below.
  • Anti-Villain: Siding with the Legion, but maintaining Good Karma probably pushes you into this.
  • Anything That Moves: Men. Women. Robots. Ghouls. Yeah, it's an option. With the appropriate Perks, you can even hit on your own disembodied brain. It's appropriately horrified.
  • The Atoner: Can convince Ulysses that s/he can make up for what happened to the Divide by turning the Mojave into the font of life that the pre-disaster Divide once was.
  • Badass: Oh, most definitely.
    • Badass Abnormal: In Old World Blues, most of the Courier's vital organs are extracted in replaced with advanced cybernetics, granting you resistance to damage, chems and super human strength. Even before then, you can become more than human with the use of implants and power armor.
    • Badass Gay: If you go for the Confirmed Bachelor or Cherchez La Femme perks.
    • Badass Grandpa: The age of your character can be adjusted during creation, allowing the Courier to be one of these.
    • Badass Longcoat: Seen wearing one during the last slides of the Lonesome Road ending.
    • Badass Normal: At first, the Courier is just an ordinary wasteland survivor... who takes two bullets to the noggin, and all it does is piss him off (and maybe cause some brain damage; you can't have everything).
    • Badass Pacifist: If you go for the Pacifist Run.
    • Cultured Badass: During Silus' interrogation, a Courier with high-intelligence can reveal not only a familiarity with Latin, but are knowledgeable enough to be able to quote Virgil and Cicero.
  • Badass Boast: Their introduction can become one:

Courier: They call me The Courier.

Arcade: (after you tell the Enclave remnants to support the Legion) What the hell is wrong with you? Do you want New Vegas to become the slaving capital of the world!?
Courier: Actually, yes, I want it to become the slave capital of the world.

  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Have a high enough unarmed skill, and your bare hands can literally punch limbs off or even reduce low level enemies to chunks of meat.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Let's just say that the Wild Wasteland trait makes you see things quite a bit differently.
  • Courier: Well, whaddya know! The main goal of the first half of the game is completing your delivery (which you can even get paid five times your original amount for with a high enough Barter skill).
  • Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Ulysses calls you out on this in Lonesome Road.
  • Cursed with Awesome: In Old World Blues, you get your brain, heart and spine surgically removed by Dr. Dala. However, in response, you get replacements that work even better.
  • Cyborg: Becomes one in Old World Blues. To a lesser extent, can be upgraded with implants at the Followers' clinic.
  • Dark Chick: The Courier's role if s/he joins the Legion; you're still an outsider, operating outside the command structure to put the final pieces into place for Caesar's conquest of the Mojave.
  • Dark Horse Victory: In the Wild Card path.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Some dialogue options, of course.
  • Determinator: Gets shot in the head at point-blank range. This annoys him/her enough to track the shooter across the entire Mojave without even waiting for the brain damage to settle in.
  • The Ditz: If played with a low intelligence stat, anyway.
    • Genius Ditz: If you somehow manage to put in points in Science/Medicine while being an Idiot Hero.
    • If you're one of those people who feels the need to exhaust every dialog option (indicated by the option 'graying out', though still selectable), you'll end up asking a lot of questions to the same people repeatedly. A small number of NPCs will even take note of this.

Raul: (paraphrase) "That's what I love about you, boss: You always think if you hear enough times, you'll remember it eventually."

  • Doom Magnet: Ulysses sees the Courier as a kind of harbinger of mayhem, destruction and change wherever s/he goes. He's not exactly wrong.
  • Double Tap: The Courier survived it.
  • The Dragon: You can be this to Mr. House, if you so wish.
    • Dragon with an Agenda/The Starscream: If you suddenly decide to go for the Wild Card ending while in his service.
    • Dragon-in-Chief: If you are in the service of Mr. House, you'll be going around doing all the work for him. And you can design your character to be as intelligent and lucky as he is. If you help him gain control of New Vegas with an evil character, during the ending, the narrator will reveal that the only reason why he is keeping you around is because he is too afraid of what you might do if he crosses you.
  • The Dreaded: The Courier is this to their enemies.
    • The Powder Gangers even refer to the Courier as "The Grim Fucking Reaper".
  • Face Heel Revolving Door: You're free to swing your Karma Meter whichever way you like. One of the top-level perks in Lonesome Road (a set of three) is awarded based on your karma. If you're very good or very evil, you can take it for a significant combat bonus while resetting your karma. The bonus varies depending on the extreme.
  • Fingerless Gloves: You can wear them with many of the outfits, in both one or two-gloved varieties.
    • The Pipboy glove on your left hand that you can't remove is fingerless.
  • Foe Yay: In-Universe. A female courier has a lot of very good reasons to hate Benny and want to watch him die, that does not stop her from sleeping with him. Even he is initally freaked out by this.
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Played straight, subverted or averted depending on play throughs. Evil characters with the Four Eyes trait, certainly apply. Neutral or Good karma? Generally averted. Good players with a Legion alignment are a brilliant subversion.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: You start off as a random courier and by game's end, you could be king/queen of New Vegas, or have decimated the Legion, the NCR, a half-dozen small communities, or all of the above. Alternatively, just ask Benny.
    • Or ask Ulysses, who watched as the Courier unknowingly damned the community of the Divide from a potential God-send for the wasteland to a literal Hell on Earth.
  • Genius Bruiser: With high Strength/Endurance and Intelligence.
  • Gentleman Thief: High charisma and sticky fingers.
  • Hello, Insert Name Here: Played with; regardless of the name you pick you're almost invariably referred to as "The Courier".
    • Your chosen name will sometimes appear in written dialog, but never in the verbal dialog. Alas, the limitations of pre-recorded voice acting.
    • All that Ulysses will call you is Courier, treating it as a title.
  • The Hero: You can choose from a variety of different flavors!
    • Action Hero: Get a duster and a hat, load up with revolvers, lever-action rifles and the appropriate perks, you become a gunslinging cowboy. Or take tons of drugs, grab an assault carbine or light machine gun and be Rambo.
    • Anti-Hero: When you don't feel like being nice after doing the right thing. One of the reputation ratings you can get is even named dark hero.
    • Barbarian Hero: If you prefer getting up close and ignoring swaths of gunfire.
    • Byronic Hero: "Fuck everybody else, it's all about me!"
    • Guile Hero: Don't like bullets? Use words. Of course, this does not guarantee safety from bullets.
    • Idiot Hero: "ICE CREAM!"
    • Kleptomaniac Hero: If you are ultimately good, but enjoy pickpocketing or stealing things, you may come under this.
    • Science Hero:
      • Could be a combination of Action Hero and Guile Hero with more practicality, or maybe you just like melting your foes into goo. You can also hack automatic defenses and turn them against your enemies.
      • By the end of Old World Blues, you with Good or Neutral Karma become this, with the epilogue stating that the Courier would become the protector of the technologies of Big MT until said technologies were needed to help others.
  • I Am Who?: The DLC's hint towards the Courier being more special than what s/he appears to be, given that s/he appears to have a relationship with Ulysses. Finally revealed, as the Courier was the specific one that Ulysses watched over as s/he helped the settlement at the Divide. Until the tragic destruction of the Divide that killed everyone except Ulysses.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: If you so choose, you can take this as a perk. Can be taken to Extreme Omnivore levels with another.
  • Implacable Man/Woman: You trudge across half the Mojave Wasteland to find the man who shot you. Even Caesar applauds your tenacity.
  • Karma Houdini: You can steal and murder and get away with it if you're careful not to be seen. You can also commit heinous acts against factions and still associate with them as long as you have a means to raise your reputation back up. You can kill every Legion member you come across on your way to New Vegas, then you get the Mark of Caesar, pardoning you of all crimes and inviting you to a private audience with Caesar himself.
  • Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge: The good karma ending of Old World Blues states that the Courier went on to serve as protector of The Big Empty for many years, releasing beneficial technology to aid in the development of the Mojave, on an as-needed basis.
  • Made of Iron: You survived being shot in the head twice and then being buried.
    • Also, with an implant, two level perks, and two DLC perks, you can have a naked DT of 13.2, which is higher than most light armor.
  • Memetic Badass: In-Universe. After a while, you have to simply mention you're "The Courier" for the enemy to get nervous.
    • The first time players will probably notice this is the reaction of Boxcar, who's one of two survivors of the Legion's razing of Nipton. Boxcar has survived the Legion having decapitated a quarter of the town, crucifying the rest, and as he came second in their lottery, they left him alive but crippled. But even all that doesn't scare him as much as seeing the Courier walk in.

Boxcar: Are you fucking kidding me? First I get my legs smashed, and then in walks the Powder Gangers' Grim Fucking Reaper.

    • The end of Lonesome Road counts, too. When you walked in, the locals harassed you to no end. When you walk back out, they keep their distance out of either respect or fear.
  • The Messiah: Other then the title being the highest Good morality rank, the Courier can be this.
    • The Courier can be so messianic, they'll subvert the Arc Words of the series in one of the good endings to Lonesome Road by sparing Ulysses and allying with him to survive the Divide and preventing another nuclear catastrophe.

Ulysses: It's said, "War. War never changes." Wo/men do, through the roads that they walk. And this road has reached its end.

  • Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: In Lonesome Road, it turns out that by delivering a certain package from Navarro to the Divide, the Courier inadvertedly activated the ICBMs hidden underground, destroying the thriving settlement there, and instilling Ulysses with some twisted ideas about how a single person could determine the fate of a nation.
  • Mouth of Sauron: Should you decide to side with Mr. House, you'll step into this role for him.
  • Mysterious Past: You apparently have a history with some other courier, by the name of "Ulysses", who was originally supposed to be the one to deliver the platinum chip, but upon recognizing your name on Mojave Express' list of employees, he forfeited the job and insisted that you did it instead. No other details about your relationship is revealed during the game until Dead Money. It is also implied that you have visited New Reno and Utah at least once, and, if you are male with the Lady Killer perk, that you impregnated a woman in Montana in 2263. Of course, those are all optional dialogue and therefore not definite canon.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nice job single-handedly destroying the Mojave's greatest, most promising civilization and turning it into an irradiated, stormy hellhole, Courier. In all fairness, the storms are the result of something else, and the Courier could not have known what was about to take place. Also, one has to wonder how much of this is Ulysses simply glorifying that which he lost.
  • Odd Friendship: Most of the Courier's friends are weird. They range from a retired military sniper to a schizophrenic Ax Crazy nightkin to a Mormon missionary and former Legion legate.
  • Omnicidal Maniac
  • Omnicidal Neutral: It is an option in the Wild Card ending: you can collect the weak and destitute factions under your banner or crush them and rule yourself.
    • Especially if you stack it with the latter above, in Lonesome Road, you can choose to launch nuclear missiles against NCR and Legion's only pathways to the Mojave and thus leaving them to slowly choke to death from the lack of a trade routes (in NCR's case). Yikes.
  • One-Man Army: If you level up enough, you don't need anyone besides you and your weapon of choice. People lampshade how the Courier seems to be a force of nature, being able to do the impossible, mostly noticeably if the player chooses to kill Caesar or President Kimball.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Downplayed: you can mention your name in your own dialogue, and certain characters will know who you are, but of course, the current technical limitations of voice acting means that they will never call you anything but "Courier" out loud. The Courier sometimes does have the option to simply introduce him or herself solely by the nickname/job title.
  • Only Sane Man: In Old World Blues.
  • Really Gets Around: Even better with a female character. With the Black Widow perk, you can flirt/sleep your way in to almost anything.
  • Rebel Leader: In the "Independent" path.
  • Smarter Than You Look: If you pass intelligence checks with some people, they'll remark how you're "not as dumb as you look."
  • Smug Snake: There are certainly dialogue options available.

Oliver: Do you seriously think you have what it takes to build a nation? Carve out a frontier, train troops, build roads, and create towns?
Courier: My sycophants tell me "Yes".

  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: A Male Courier with the Ladykiller Perk can invoke this when nervously asking if the Lone Stranger, who's in the Mojave looking for his father, didn't happen to come from Montana? When he replies he isn't, he asks why the Courier is so interested.

Courier: No reason.

  • Took a Level in Badass: You're just a regular delivery boy/girl... then you take two shots to the head. The rest of the game sees you slowly solving every challenge you come up against.
    • To be fair though, the Courier was just a regular delivery boy/girl... in the Fallout Universe, which means long hikes, alone, through the raider and mutated beastie-infested Mojave Desert. That, coupled with the fact that s/he survives a shot to the head at the beginning of the game means s/he may very well have been a badass from the start and is just becoming even moreso as the game goes on.
      • Though that depends on the area s/he worked in before. The Courier wouldn't need to be very skilled to survive in the NCR, for example. Lonesome Road reveals that the Courier did make deliveries mostly in the NCR, as Ulysses mentions Vault City, New Reno and Circle Junction.
    • If you managed to pass all of Lanius' speech checks (requires 100 speech skill to pass all of them), he will comment that the two bullet holes in your head are making you strong.
  • Unexplained Recovery: Sure, you know that Doc Mitchell saved you, but to everyone involved in your death, you're a ghost coming to haunt them. Played for all it's worth in dialogue choices:
    • From one of the Great Khans present;

Jessup: What the hell, you're supposed to be dead!
Courier: I'm a ghost, here to haunt you. Oooooohh!/I got better

    • And Benny, the man who put you in the ground.

Benny: Hu- wha- you're... how are you alive?
Courier: I got better.

  • Unstoppable Mailman
  • Villain Protagonist: If you don't find the idea of playing as The Hero appealing, you don't have to be one; you can act like the biggest asshole ever to walk the wastes instead. Even more so than the evil versions of the Vault Dweller, Chosen One and Lone Wanderer, as the main story at least pitted them against monsters who were planning to destroy most of the remaining human race. However, the Courier can hook up with the Legion to bring a nation of crucifying, rapist slavers to power, and utterly obliterate several factions in horrible ways For the Evulz.
  • Warrior Therapist: Among the eleven possible companions, only ED-E, an eyebot, and Rex, a cybernetic dog, do not seek guidance from the Courier. Dean Domino can also count depending of how nice or not s/he is with him.
  • Wearing a Flag on Your Head: The same way as Ulysses after completing Lonesome Road. Doubly so, you not only get a duplicate of Ulysses' duster, but you also get your own based on your end faction choice as a gift from Ulysses.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy/White-Haired Pretty Girl: If you choose so with the hair colors.
  • Wild Card: You tip the balance of power in the Mojave Wasteland, whether to the NCR, Legion, House or yourself.
  • You Are Number Six: S/He is the Sixth Courier who have been hired by Mr. House and is therefore called like that by some characters.
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