Heist of the Sierra Madre The Heist of the Sierra Madre was the infiltration and raiding of the Sierra Madre Casino in the year 2281 , with the objective of acquiring the advanced Pre - War technology inside the Sierra Madre , releasing the Cloud upon the Mojave Wasteland , and for Elijah to establish a new order in the Mojave Wasteland using the and molecular assembler technology from the Sierra Madre . The heist failed , and Elijah was either killed or trapped inside the casino vault , and the Courier escaped , as well as possibly some of the other three prisoners . Prelude . After the Brotherhood of Steel was defeated by the NCR at HELIOS One , Father Elijah disappeared into the wastes to search for technologies that would save the Brotherhood - to find what he believed was " one of the greatest treasures of the Old World . " For Elijah , the Brotherhood was doomed ; they needed to begin again and he would do whatever was needed , no matter how morally questionable , to ensure that came to pass . He traveled throughout the Wasteland , going as far as the Divide and spending time among the Ciphers . Eventually , Elijah stumbled across the Big MT in his travels , where he found an incredible amount of rare pre - War technology . Captured temporarily by the Think tank upon his arrival , he managed to escape in seconds , much to the shock of the brain bots . In the great expanse of Big Mountain , Elijah ran into another human , a courier , who spoke to him of the legend of the Sierra Madre . Making his way to Little Yangtze , he experimented on the survivors of the prison camp with explosive collar s while , curiosity getting the better of him , seeking out the radio frequency until finally tracking down a faint broadcast . Avoiding the local robots and suffering from migraines through the overuse of , Elijah fine - tuned both the collars and the radio signal . Now , with the location of the mythical casino and his collars ready , his grand plan to defeat the New California Republic was ever so close to fruition . However , the trail of crimes he had left across the wastes in the years preceding his arrival had not gone unnoticed , and a hardline faction of the Brotherhood soon dispatched assassins to stop him . Christine Royce was one of them . As the Think Tank sent robots to contain him and , catching a glimmer from a sniper scope , Elijah instinctively sensed the worst . He held out in the tower for a while , sniping the Think Tank ' s robots with his Tesla Cannon as they funneled through . Then , strategically detonating his subjects ' collars to make his getaway as she attempted her assassination , Christine was defeated , becoming a subject for medical experimentation as she was dragged away to the Y - 17 medical facility . Cybernetic modifications , one of the many Old World horrors left in the Big Empty , were implanted in her brain that damaged her perceptions of the world around her . Hacking into the Think Tank mainframe as the Big MT ' s robots closed in , Elijah fried Doctor 8 ' s voice module and rerouted Doctor 0 ' s processors to take control of the train network . Via remote control , he directed a train into one of the tunnels , creating a path for his escape through the wreckage . Leaving his retrofitted LAER rifle s and jury - rigged Tesla cannon behind , he then set off towards the Sierra Madre with a , several explosive collars , a Holorifle and , crucially , the knowledge that could make the Mojave his , and his alone . To prepare for his expedition , he renovated an abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker as a base of operations in the Mojave , setting it up ready for when he managed to get his hands on the technologies it offered . In making round - trips around the Sierra Madre to his bunker , he performed analysis of the Cloud and the Sierra Madre ' s environment . Once ready to go to the Sierra Madre , he left a final message for his protégée , Veronica Santangelo , in the event he did not return . Heist . Elijah captured many wastelanders to use as slaves to complete the heist , all of whom eventually died or killed each other , excluding Christine , Dog and God and Dean Domino . Elijah eventually captured the Courier . The Courier collected the three other prisoners who had survived , and triggered the Gala Event in the Villa . After this , the Courier and their three companions moved to the casino , where the casino ' s security features rendered all of them unconscious . Christine Royce was taken to the Executive suites . Dean Domino was taken to The Tampico , and Dog and God was taken to the Cantina Madrid . The Courier woke up in the lobby , and after reactivating the casino itself , dealt with their companions one by one . In the Tampico , the Courier either rescued Dean or was forced to kill him . In the executive suites , the Courier could either get help from Christine or be forced to eliminate her . In the Cantina Madrid , the Courier could have outright killed Dog and God . They could have had Dog take control , or have God take control . Or , the Courier could have merged them into one personality . During this time the ghost people made into the casino , and the Courier was forced to fight them . After all this was done , they moved down to the vault . After getting by numerous holograms , speakers , and portions of the cloud , the courier arrived at the vault . There are numerous outcomes as to what can happen here , but two out of the three are considered non - canon . Elijah will eventually come down to the vault and attempt to deal with the Courier . If Christine is on good terms with the Courier at this point , she will deactivate the turrets that are hostile to them . If Dean is on good terms with the Courier , he will deactivate the vault ' s speakers . No matter how the battle played out , Elijah was defeated and the Courier escaped . The Courier could just have killed him outright or trapped him in the vault . After this , the Courier leaves the Sierra Madre behind , optionally escaping with many of the Madre ' s treasures . But what Elijah was after , holograms and a way to weaponize the cloud , were not obtained , rendering the heist an overall failure . Appearances . The Heist of the Sierra Madre appears in the " " " Dead Money " .