Fallout: New Vegas/Characters/Old World Blues

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.

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.

  • 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.
  • Big Bad: They, specifically Dr. Klein, are the real instance of this trope in Old World Blues, not Dr. Mobius as they want you to think.
  • 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 (assuming you convinced him to side with you), 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.
  • Brain In a Jar: They are literally brains supported by floating jars.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Landers: The Think Tank and sanity went their separate ways a looong time ago.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: Most of the time. Then you get to see some of their results, which are less funny.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: Each of them has a specific obsession, and nothing even approaching skills in any other area.
  • Dartboard of Hate: 0 has a picture of House with knives stabbed into it.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Drugs Are Bad: Centuries of Mentat abuse have not done them any favors.
  • Dr. Genericius: Dr. Borous.
  • Evil All Along: Well, amoral, but you already know that. The problem is that they're manipulating you into giving them what they need to escape Big MT to conduct their experiments on the Mojave and the world at large.
  • 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. In truth, he never got over a jock bullying him and stealing a girl who most likely didn't give a crap about him anyway. As a result, as one quest shows, he became a total asshole who would happily take his worst enemy and have him torn apart by vicious mutated animals, just because he never got over it.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Heel Face Turn: If you befriend the 4 other Think Tank members, they'll stand up to Dr. Klein when he tries to pull a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on you during the final confrontation.
  • 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: When you bring him Gabe's dog bowl, he mourns his cruel treatment of the one creature he truly cared about.
  • 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 maintenance.[1]. 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:

Mission Objective: Go talk to Dr. Klein, even though you don't have earmuffs.

  • 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.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Remember the Cloud, the Ghost People, Christine and the fall of the Sierra Madre in general? Yeah, it was all their idea. Or at least, their doing. Not to mention the Cazadors, Nightstalkers and the Spore carriers plaguing the Mojave and Zion Valley.
  • Meaningful Name: All their names have to do with infinite loops and endless repetition. A 0 (a loop), an 8 (a sideways infinity symbol), Klein (as in Klein bottles), Mobius (as in Mobius strips), Borous (short for Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail - though you can point out that it's spelled incorrectly) and Dala (short for mandala, a circular geometric pattern).
  • 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.
  • 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 presenting Gabe's feed bowl to him.
    • 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.[2] Mobius, meanwhile, has an interest in playing up the difficulty of facing the Think Tank in a straight out fight.[3]
    • 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 it is heavily implied part of his hatred of Dirty Communists is just a shoddy justification for holding onto his petty high school grudge.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • This Is Sparta: "Give. The. Lobotomite. The. Emitter."
  • The Unintelligible: Dr. 8, due to Elijah hacking his voice modules to play RobCo termlink protocol. You can understand him through a skill check. At least, the Courier will, so you have to figure out what 8 is saying via the Courier's responses.
  • 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.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the end, Klein will try to pull this on you. You can either kill the Think Tanks or convince him otherwise. If you've befriended the other Think Tanks, they'll speak on your behalf. Or, you can convince them your skull now houses the BRAIN OF MOBIUS!

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?"

  • 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, the toaster goes on to found and be the center of his own cult, laying waste to all unfortunate appliances.
  • 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 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.
  • 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.

Look out! Communist! ...No, false alarm. It was just a plate.

  • 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.

"Guess you'll be putting on your travelling boots again, hitting that old lonesome road."

  • Token Evil Teammate: The Toaster again.
  • Upper Class 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.

  • Artificial Intelligence: It is one.
  • 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.
  • 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.

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.

  • Robot Girl: Suit, technically.
  • 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 until you meet him and get his side of the story.

  • Absent-Minded Professor: Due to a combination of senility, drug addictions and his brain being corroded by the biogel. It's kinda sad, really.
  • 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. Because, of course, he's not the real threat.
  • Anti-Villain: He's actually a kindly, half-senile old man. His mad scientist tendencies are the result of tripping on Mentats and Psycho.
  • Big Bad: Kinda.
  • Brain In a Jar: Like the Think Tank (which he belonged to).
  • Crippling Overspecialization
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass/The Chessmaster: Despite seemingly being a friendly, harmless, half-senile old man, it's clear that Mobius cooked up a genuinely complex and effective plan to keep the Think Tank safely sealed inside the Big MT, and also manipulated the Think Tank into providing you with the means to get your brain back and reinstall all your stolen organs.
  • The Dragon: The X-42 Giant Roboscorpion is effectively this for him.
  • Dr. Genericius: Dr. Mobius.
  • Good All Along: He's trying to keep the Think Tank from escaping the Big MT and inflicting their atrophied morals and dubiously logical Science! on the world at large.
  • Graceful Loser: If you tell him that his plan failed because the Think Tank only needs the blueprints to the various tech, which they already have at that point, his response is a mere "Oh well, I tried".
  • Hero Antagonist: For a given value of "hero".
  • 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. In fact, you don't even have to fight him at all, given that he's really a harmless, well-intentioned old man.
  • Large Ham: He's voiced by Cam Clarke so this goes without saying. A good dose of Psycho helps a lot as well.
  • 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: Assuming he actually counts as bad.
  • Only Sane Man: For a given value of sane, anyway - more sane than the Think Tank, which isn't saying much, and then only when he isn't hopped up on Psycho and Mentats.
  • 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.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: He only broadcast crazy messages and unleashed the Robo-Scorpions so the scientists of the Think Tank wouldn't escape and harm the rest of the world.
    • Well, that and he tends to be high as a kite when he threatens them.
  • 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.

The Courier's Brain

Voiced by: Suhil Malhotra

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

  • Brain In a Jar: It's your disembodied brain floating in a tub of biomed gel.
  • Enemy Without: Not really, but your brain isn't that happy with you.
  • Jerkass: The Courier him/herself can outright ask why his/her own brain is such a dick.
  • Living MacGuffin: Pretty much what everyone in Big MT, including you, needs to further their plans.
  • Neat Freak: Your brain is quite clean and proper.
  • Not So Different: When it lambasts the Courier for constantly charging into danger, the Courier can counter that since it's... well, his/her brain, then those actions are just as much its responsibility as his/her's. The brain, in turn, counters that those are all simply glands at work, and thus the Courier is to blame. But with a high enough intelligence, the Courier points out that the brain contains most glands, unless it's trying to pin everything on the thyroid.
  • Screw Yourself: You can actually hit on your own brain with the Black Widow/Confirmed Bachelor perk, to its incredible disgust.
  • Split Personality Merge: Possible at the end.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Your brain does not enjoy venturing in filthy dilapidated Vaults, dealing with creatures such as Cazadores on a relatively daily basis and going on a pointless quest of vengeance.
    • If you're playing as a female Courier and slept with Benny, your brain will have some choice words about that, as well.
  1. ↑ Their software, on the other hand...
  2. ↑ It relied on the Courier remaining perfectly lucid while still not having a brain in the head, and even the Think Tank were surprised at that working.
  3. ↑ He was their friend, and wants this to be resolved peacefully.
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