Fallout: New Vegas/Characters/Old World Blues

' 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. '''

The Think Tank
""It is truly the end of all intelligence when the Lobotomite speaks more wisdom than you "geniuses".

Dr. Klein

Voiced by: Jim Ward (Dr. Klein), Beau Weaver (Dr. Borous), Jocelyn Blue (Dr. Dala), and James Urbaniak (Dr. 0)"

A group of some rather... interesting Pre-War Scientists, they will be the first group of people (in a certain sense of the word) the Courier will meet.

"Mission Objective: Go talk to Dr. Klein, even though you don't have earmuffs."
 * Actor Allusion: James Urbaniak is basically playing Rusty Venture in his role as Dr. 0.
 * A Date With Rosie Palms: Dr. Dala has...somewhat more biological needs than her colleagues, to an extent that rapidly becomes disturbilarious. Apparently even when she was human she used, ahem, assistance (at least until the other Think Tank members got on her case for stealing batteries). The Courier can also reference masturbation in a dialogue with Dr. 8, with options ranging from prudishly tip-toeing around the subject to recommending his/her own methods.
 * A God Am I: Just listen to Borous in the lab he had set up to resemble his old high school. He even calls himself a god and acts like a cruel heartless asshole who is lord and master of his domain.
 * Berserk Button: Mr. House and RobCo, for Dr. 0. He can't even stand the fact that the Courier uses a Pip-Boy.
 * Borous' hatred of Communists arguably rivals Liberty Prime. He programmed the Book Chute in the Sink with its all-consuming need to cleanse printed books of their nasty, seditious-thought-provoking material by wiping them totally blank.
 * Brain In A Jar
 * Blatant Lies: Borous claims that he made the Cazadores sterile, docile and unable to leave the Big MT.
 * The same for nightstalkers, though despite being blatantly wrong, both that and the Cazadores might not be a lie: Borous is delusional enough to honestly believe what he says despite all the evidence against it.
 * He says that they're as "sterile as they are docile!" Which is definitely true. Just probably not in the way he meant it.
 * When Dr. 0 is ripping on Dr. Klein, the former tells the latter that one of his ideas was copied from the Chinese. Klein, in response, vehemently declares that to be a lie! ...And that he'd deleted all evidence to the contrary.
 * Blue and Orange Morality: Centuries of being robotic brains in jars have done much to alienate them from normal human thought. The Mentants they're hooked on probably didn't help either.
 * Bold Inflation: How Borous talks.
 * Comedic Sociopathy: Most of the time. Then you get to see some of their results, which are less funny.
 * Cloud Cuckoo Landers: The Think Tank and sanity went their separate ways a looong time ago.
 * Crippling Overspecialization
 * Dartboard of Hate: 0 has a picture of House with knives stabbed into it.
 * The Dog Bites Back: If 0 is inspired to take pride of being Dr. Zero, he'll angrily lash out against Klein in the final confrontation.
 * Dr. Genericius: Dr. Borous.
 * Drugs Are Bad: Centuries of Mentat abuse have not done them any favors.
 * Evil Is Petty: Borous is a Straw Misogynist and a Jerkass, but it's not because he went off the deep end with his rabid hatred of Dirty Communists.
 * Fantastic Arousal: Dr. Dala is, uh, interested in human bodily movements. Even rubbing your face is of interest.
 * For Science!: Duh. It's even stated as their literal motivation. Not any specific goal, mind you. Just...science.
 * Freudian Excuse: Borous was bullied in high school by one Richie Marcus and Betsy Bright, the girl he had a crush on chose to go smoking with Richie rather than go to the dance with him. Borous being the man behind Nightstalkers and Cazadores, high school probably messed him up something bad.
 * Heel Face Turn: If you befriend the 4 other Think Tank members,
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Dr. Klein can get rather Orson Welles-ian on occasion.
 * Humanoid Abomination: They're considered at least to count towards the Abominable challenge, though they're not exactly humanoid.
 * Insufferable Genius: Most of them.
 * Jerkass: Klein always, Borous always, 0 if he's in a bad mood. On the other hand, Dala thinks you're just fascinating and 8...seems...nice. Maybe.
 * Kick the Dog: Borous used his dog Gabe as a test subject, turning him into a giant cyberdog pumped up on Psycho.
 * Pet the Dog:
 * Know-Nothing Know-It-All: It's abundantly clear that Dr. Klein has absolutely no idea what the heck he's doing. Dr. 0 is seemingly almost as bad, as his scientific specialty is apparently limited to "taking robots apart" and he tends to destroy his equipment a lot, but he is willing to admit that he is not all that good at the thing he ostensibly specialises in, and he did produce both Muggy and Securitrons that are better than RobCo's Mk. II in some hardware respects, despite centuries of being in the open with no maintainance . The other Think Tanks seem genuinely skilled and productive in their areas of expertise, Dr. Borous dangerously so.
 * This could also be due to centuries of Mentat abuse, not to mention that the biogel that the brains float in is corrosive over time. All of the scientists there were geniuses when they were human.
 * According to Word of God, Klein is more the Lab Director/College Dean than the biggest genius. He's there to push them around and keep the group somewhat focused on research since, relatively speaking, he's the most sane and has the most forceful personality.
 * Large Ham: Dr. Klein and Borous, especially the latter.
 * The game itself lampshades this:
 * Large Ham: Dr. Klein and Borous, especially the latter.
 * The game itself lampshades this:


 * Mad Scientist: No, really? The fact that they tend to hop themselves up on Mentats doesn't help a bit. They've also been doing virtually the same things over and over and over for more than 200 years. Vivisection can get boring, you know. Finally, this is Fallout, and Fifties Science! was imagined to be a little different to regular science.
 * Malaproper: Unpossible! And all things robotical.
 * Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Even when they were human, they weren't very good people.
 * My God, What Have I Done?: Borous comes to this realization when you bring him Gabe's dogbowl. He quickly suppresses his feelings however.
 * My Hero Zero: Dr. 0 (Zero), whose name is mistaken as O.
 * My Name Is Not Durwood: Dr 0 will make it clear to Dr Klein that his name is Zero if you managed to convince him.
 * Psychopathic Adult Child: Dr. Borous never really grew up past his high school years, a fact he makes evident in his school themed dungeon, where he also reveals he's what would happen if a embittered high school nerd who wanted to be a mad scientist really became one.
 * The Nicknamer: Dala calls the Courier a "teddy bear". She had a thing for collecting actual teddy bears when she was human. Lobotomites have become her... new teddy bears.
 * No Indoor Voice: Dr. Klein, due to someone messing with his volume control. Borous is incapable of speaking in anything but an announcer-like voice.
 * Borous does, however, speak in a relatively calmer voice after.
 * 0 was originally supposed to be like this before his character was re-written.
 * Not-So-Harmless Villain: Dr. Mobius warns the Courier that, despite their quirky personalities and seemingly incompetent harmlessness, the Think Tank are brilliant, dangerous, and amoral, and will bring untold horrors to the Mojave if they ever escape Big MT.
 * Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Dala is evidently a combination of a botanist, toxicologist and a physician/surgeon. She has 213 doctorates, several in fields she's invented herself.
 * Overrated and Underleveled: In Lonesome Road, in one of Ulysses' holotapes he remarks how powerful the Think Tank are, stating that they're too powerful for even him to defeat, and that it would take a hundred Elijahs to challenge their full, combined power. Dr. Mobius likewise plays up the difficulty of the Courier facing all 5 Think Tank members in a straight out fight. However, in-game they're quite a push-over once you override the Pacification Field that prevents you from shooting them.
 * Fridge Brilliance: The trick the Courier used to override the Pacification Field would not work for Ulysses or Elijah, nor would Ulysses know about it . Mobius, meanwhile, has an interest in playing up the difficulty of facing the Think Tank in a straight out fight.
 * They also make it clear that fighting you is the last thing they want to do. If you do indeed decide to wipe them out, Klein's reaction is exactly what you'd expect.
 * Patriotic Fervor: Borous hates communists almost as much as he hates Richie Marcus and Betsy Bright.
 * Althougth is is heavily implied part of his hatred of Dirty Communists is just a shoddy justification for holding onto his petty high school grudge.
 * Silent Bob: Dr. 8 is this, by virtue of being completely unintelligible to most, though 0 seems to be able to figure out what he's saying anyway and acts as translator.
 * The Smurfette Principle: Dala is the only female in the group.
 * Spell My Name With A 0: 0 has long since given up on correcting people on his name. With a high enough Intelligence you can tell him to put a slash through the zero and he will praise you as a genius.
 * The Unintelligible: Dr. 8, due to Elijah hacking his voice modules to play RobCo termlink protocol.
 * This Is Sparta: "Give. The. Lobotomite. The. Emitter."
 * Walking Techbane: 0's specialty is basically breaking robots, Muggy being the exception. He was however able to upgrade upon the Securitrons, but his have since gone Crush! Kill! Destroy!. The fact that House is arguably the better (or at least more famous) roboticist is the reason that that 0 loathes him.
 * This Is Sparta: "Give. The. Lobotomite. The. Emitter."
 * Walking Techbane: 0's specialty is basically breaking robots, Muggy being the exception. He was however able to upgrade upon the Securitrons, but his have since gone Crush! Kill! Destroy!. The fact that House is arguably the better (or at least more famous) roboticist is the reason that that 0 loathes him.

The Inhabitants of the Sink
""A toaster is just a Death Ray with a smaller power supply!"

The Toaster

Voiced by: Jim Ward (Sink CIU, Sink Auto-Doc), Beau Weaver (Book Shredder), Roger Cross (Biological Research Station), Veronica Belmont (Light Switch 01/02), Jocelyn Blue (Sink appliance), Sunil Malhotra (Muggy), Rashawn Underdue (Blind Diode Jefferson), Jace Hall (Toaster)"

A group of appliances at the Sink, the Courier's home base during Old World Blues. Each one has their own personality.

""If I made out with the Sink, would you pay more attention to me?""
 * Artificial Intelligence
 * Attention Whore: Light Switch 02

"Look out! Communist! ...No, false alarm. It was just a plate."
 * Ax Crazy: The toaster, of all things. His purpose in life is to 'murder' other toasters and other appliances, ripping them into their component parts. If the Courier ends the DLC with bad karma,
 * Betty and Veronica: The light switches. 02 is the Betty, 01 is the Veronica.
 * Card-Carrying Villain: The toaster is quite possibly the most hilarious example ever.
 * Casanova Wannabe: The biological research station. It really wants your seed, baby!
 * Companion Cube: All of them.
 * Double Entendre: Several of the Biological Research Lab's responses to the Courier, and the Courier can respond in kind.
 * Expy: The toaster is basically the Fallout equivalent of Murray from the Monkey Island series. Only a toaster.
 * The toaster is also a subtle Shout-Out to a cut toaster from Fallout 2. Although the one from Fallout 2 would only ask if you wanted toast...
 * The Jeeves: The Sink Central Intelligence. To the point that it will constantly call you "sir", even if you're a woman and point this fact out, because it was programmed to and not likewise programmed to say "ma'am" or leave out the honorific altogether.
 * Jive Turkey: Blind Diode Jefferson, your jukebox. He also says he'd sing the Blues, but he can't because the bits of him that actually played music were stripped out.
 * Harmless Villain: As much as he would like to burn the world, there's really only so much the Toaster can do.
 * Hey, It's That Voice!: Ulysses is feeling rather frisky right now towards the Courier.
 * Keet: Muggy's adorable, perpetually cheerful mug makes him seem like this, but it's subverted: he's a tiny ball of hate, self-loathing and neuroses who is well aware of being all these things, which just fills him with even more rage.
 * Kill It With Fire: If the toaster had its way... Fortunately, its tiny heating coil restricts it to simply heating up Saturnite, and then only if you let it. The weapons created this way will set your enemies alight instead.
 * Large Ham: The toaster, again. And Muggy.
 * Incoming Ham: "Ahahahaha! I am on-line once again! Tremble world before my electric heating coil of doom!"
 * Neat Freak: The sink (not to be confused with The Sink, which is your base). The idea of a filthy wastelander touching her is quite repulsive.
 * And Muggy. Although he intentionally leaves all of Dr. 0's mugs and plates filthy out of spite.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: Guess who?
 * Orwellian Editor: The book chute's job is to take any "seditious" books you have, and remove all of their text, all in the name of keeping citizens from thinking for themselves. Won't that keep you happy and docile, citizen?
 * Red Scare: The book chute is especially hateful of Communists, and regards any free thought as seditious.

""Guess you'll be putting on your travelling boots again, hitting that old lonesome road.""
 * Refuge in Audacity: The biological research lab seeds Muggy, tricking him into thinking a mug fell down his chute.
 * Robotic Psychopath: The toaster, as stated above.
 * Take That: Muggy the miniature Securitron was made by 0 as one to spite House. Muggy is aware of this and hates him for it.
 * Title Drop: At the end of the expansion, Blind Diode Jefferson does this for the next DLC.


 * Token Evil Teammate: The Toaster again.
 * Upperclass Twit: The Sink Central Intelligence is rather condescending.
 * Villainous Breakdown: Sort of. When you tell the toaster that the world was already destroyed in nuclear fire, he's saddened because it wasn't by him. He gets over it by the next time you talk to him though, vowing to be the world's second destroyer.
 * You Have Researched Breathing: Some of them require upgrades to do what should be some pretty simple stuff. The sink, for instance, which allows you to get a drink of water, requires a module for filling up empty bottles with water.

The Stealth Suit Mark II
""Hello. It's nice to meet you. Who can I hide you from today?"

Voiced by: Veronica Belmont"

Yep, the Stealth Suit is a character. Of a sort. You find her in one of the labs. When equipping her, she will use Stimpacks and Med-X on you as needed.

"The infiltration program in X-13 felt spent, having repeatedly upgraded the Stealth Suit until it could upgrade it no more. It felt warm, fulfilled, and a bit sluggish. It realized not long after, the Stealth Suit had left it without so much as a note on the nightstand. So the infiltration program sent out Robobrains into the wastes looking for its wayward technology."
 * Artificial Intelligence
 * Deadpan Snarker: Has a variety of things to say should you attempt to sneak with your Pip-Boy light on.
 * Evolving Weapon: Armor, really, but you can upgrade her via tests.
 * The Medic: As stated above, she will heal you when you are injured.
 * Robot Girl: Suit, technically.
 * Robo Ship: It's fairly evident she's quite fond of you.
 * It seems like the Infiltration program in X-13 has a bit of an attachment to her as well, if the epilogue is anything to go by.


 * Stop Helping Me!: Her automatically injecting you with Med-X will give you an addiction if you let it continue. And she will also burn your stimpack supply quickly when all you need is just some slow healing from food and drink.
 * She'll also occasionally give false signals of enemy attacks, even accompanied by "Just kidding!" a moment thereafter.
 * Yandere: May show signs of this.

Dr. Mobius


""Well, there's many things they have forgotten sitting in their bowls. Friendship. The thrill of discovery. Love. Masturbation. The usual."

Voiced by: Cam Clarke"

The antagonist of Old World Blues.


 * Affably Evil: He rambles on placidly about nothing very much when you speak to him and seems genuinely surprised you're there to fight. It takes some effort for him to recall that he ever had plans at all, let alone brilliant schemes - but he assures you that if he had, they would indeed have been brilliant! Then he'll give you some Mentats with the air of a grandfather handing out sweets. It's very hard to imagine how he could be less threatening.
 * Big Bad:
 * Brain In A Jar
 * Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass/The Chessmaster: Despite seemingly being, it's clear that.
 * Crippling Overspecialization
 * Dr. Genericius
 * The Dragon: The X-42 Giant Roboscorpion is effectively this for him.
 * Graceful Loser: If you tell him that, his response is a mere "Oh well, I tried".
 * King Mook: Mobius is noticeably tougher than the other Think Tank members, which even gets lampshaded in dialogue if you talk to him about trying to fight the Think Tank.
 * Post Final Boss: Although his stats are objectively pretty good, he's a fairly mediocre fight compared to all the Demonic Spiders in the Big MT you've been fighting as regular enemies. The real final boss of Old World Blues was the X-42 Giant Roboscorpion guarding his lab.
 * Large Ham: He's voiced by Cam Clarke so this goes without saying.
 * Mad Scientist
 * Malaproper: He uses words like "raisin" instead of "reason" and other such mix-ups. Quiet, Dessert, etc.
 * Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: He uses robot Radscorpions that shoot lasers at you.
 * Non-Action Big Bad:
 * Properly Paranoid: Mobius studied the post-apocalyptic economy extensively and correctly guessed that bottlecaps would be used as currency, which is why the Sink accepts them.
 * The Stoner: While all the Think Tanks are Mentats addicts, Mobius' drug habits are arguably worse, including Psycho and Jet. He claims he gets the dispensers mixed up.
 * When All You Have Is a Hammer: His Robo-Scorpions are pretty much his only way of solving problems and he is very enthusiastic about using them, though it would be hard not to be. Just try saying you're going to unleash the Robo-Scorpions without hamming it up.
 * Non-Action Big Bad:
 * Properly Paranoid: Mobius studied the post-apocalyptic economy extensively and correctly guessed that bottlecaps would be used as currency, which is why the Sink accepts them.
 * The Stoner: While all the Think Tanks are Mentats addicts, Mobius' drug habits are arguably worse, including Psycho and Jet. He claims he gets the dispensers mixed up.
 * When All You Have Is a Hammer: His Robo-Scorpions are pretty much his only way of solving problems and he is very enthusiastic about using them, though it would be hard not to be. Just try saying you're going to unleash the Robo-Scorpions without hamming it up.
 * When All You Have Is a Hammer: His Robo-Scorpions are pretty much his only way of solving problems and he is very enthusiastic about using them, though it would be hard not to be. Just try saying you're going to unleash the Robo-Scorpions without hamming it up.
 * When All You Have Is a Hammer: His Robo-Scorpions are pretty much his only way of solving problems and he is very enthusiastic about using them, though it would be hard not to be. Just try saying you're going to unleash the Robo-Scorpions without hamming it up.
 * When All You Have Is a Hammer: His Robo-Scorpions are pretty much his only way of solving problems and he is very enthusiastic about using them, though it would be hard not to be. Just try saying you're going to unleash the Robo-Scorpions without hamming it up.

Brain
"Voiced by: Suhil Malhotra"

A brain who has a few things to say to you.


 * Brain In A Jar
 * Jerkass:
 * Neat Freak
 * Not So Different:
 * What the Hell, Hero?:
 * Not So Different:
 * What the Hell, Hero?:
 * What the Hell, Hero?:
 * What the Hell, Hero?: