Birds of a Feather

Birds of a Feather is a side quest in Fallout: New Vegas.
==Quick walkthrough==
==Detailed walkthrough==
===Guard duty===
Upon asking Gloria Van Graff for work, she will offer the Courier a position as an entrance guard. If accepted, she will tell them to meet Simon outside so he can show them the ropes. When confirming to him that they are the new guard, he will give the Courier Van Graff combat armor and their choice of a laser or plasma rifle.
Upon taking their post next to the door of the Silver Rush, Simon will instruct the Courier to keep out undesirables, search potential customers as well as not start any fights or abandon their post. Afterwards, a series of customers will approach the Courier, wishing to enter the store.
The first person is a drunk, the second is a normal gambler, the third has a problem with being searched. This individual requires a 65 Speech check to search them without incident, otherwise they can be let in or rudely denied entrance. The fourth is a man claiming to look for something to replace his revolver, but in reality is there to kill the Van Graffs in revenge for an unspecified action against his family. He is carrying a bomb, and if he is allowed to enter, will blow up the entire store, killing everyone inside and destroying most of the inventory. This will fail the quest. Choosing to search him or asking if he has been drinking will result in him turning hostile. 
The last person to appear is Pacer, if he is still alive. He wishes to talk with Gloria, but decides to allow the Courier to pass along a message for him instead. The Courier can say they will do as he asks, in which case he will mock them, calling them a "good dog." He can also be told to deliver his own message, with Simon complimenting the Courier for keeping a cool head. If one tells him to leave and then taunts him, he will attack. Once killed, Simon will remark that Gloria will be furious over the matter and G.I. Blues will fail if not already completed. Report to Gloria, and depending on the Courier's actions, she will pay 100-300 caps. 
* If one followed Simon's instructions and treated all customers politely, including the drunk, and agreed with Pacer about speaking with Gloria or asked Pacer why he would not speak with Gloria himself, she will pay 300 caps as a bonus. 
* If some customers were let in without patting them down and/or Pacer was killed, she will comment that the Courier had trouble following instructions but did not do too bad and will pay them 200 caps.
* If all customers were let in without searching them with the exception of the suicide bomber, she will comment that they let every jackass off the street inside, and if Pacer was killed, that they robbed her of her revenge and for that alone she should kill the Courier, but they deserve some reward for preventing the bomber from blowing up the store and she will pay 100 caps.
* The quest will also fail if Simon is attacked or the Courier leaves their post.
===Van Graff package===
Gloria will then inform the player character that they have found someone else for the guard position but she will offer them a new job to deliver the Van Graff package to a man who can be found east of Durable Dunn's sacked caravan. With a Speech check of 75, one can get 200 caps from the man. Killing the man after the exchange will gain infamy with Caesar's Legion and fail the quest. If any enemies are nearby when the Courier finds the man, he will flee the area and the quest will fail.
Once the package is delivered. Gloria will inform them that Jean-Baptiste Cutting needs help with a matter and that she volunteered the Courier to assist him. Jean-Baptiste will tell them to bring Rose of Sharon Cassidy to him so that he can have a talk with her. If he is asked where she is, he will suggest talking to Alice McLafferty at the Crimson Caravan Company. Alice tells the player character to check the Mojave Outpost, which is west of Nipton. 
===Bringing Cass===
Upon asking Cass if she will follow the player character to Freeside, she will say that she is waiting for her papers to clear. One must first ask her if there is any work available, which will start the side quest You Can Depend on Me. The objective relating to Cassidy Caravans must be completed before Cass will follow the player character. If one has a human companion with them when attempting to recruit Cass, one will need to send them away to allow Cass to follow the player character. One can also avoid this altogether if she is already available as a companion or by killing her at the Outpost, though killing her in open sight will incur NCR infamy and turn the troops there hostile. If she is brought to Jean-Baptiste and he is talked to, he will mention that he is responsible for the massacre of her caravan and that the Crimson Caravan Company and Van Graffs are shutting her down. The Courier can either let him kill her or threaten him not to, in which case the Van Graffs will turn hostile and the quest will fail. If Cass is killed, one will permanently lose her as a companion and fail her companion quest Heartache by the Number. The player character will successfully finish this part of the quest and receive 350 caps as a reward. Jean-Baptiste will tell them to talk to Gloria, who will initiate the final portion of this quest.
===Legion deal===
Gloria will ask the player character to help her with one more job. A deal with the Legion is going down in the abandoned warehouse, and things might get rough. During the deal, NCR troopers storm in, and together with the Van Graffs, they take out the Legion. The Courier is actually not required to kill any Legionaries, as the NCR and the Van Graffs will easily take care of them. The reward for "helping" Gloria is 1000 caps, Freeside and NCR fame, and the Van Graff combat armor.
==Quest stages==
==Notes==
* When Simon announces that a customer is approaching, one can use the wait action for customers to appear instantly at the player character rather than wait for them to walk over in real time.
* While Simon will assist the player character in killing the suicide bomber, he will not assist them in killing Pacer if he is turned hostile.
* Pacer will have unique dialogue with the Courier if G.I. Blues was previously completed by helping eliminate the NCR missionaries instead of brokering peace with the Kings, in which he will be more cordial instead of condescending.Pacer: "Hey, you're the one who helped us out with those NCR chumps. You really get around, don't you?"The Courier: "Good to see you too, Pacer."Pacer: "I'm sure it's the highlight of your day. Anyway, I gotta bounce. Things to do, and all that."(Pacer's dialogue)
* Once Gloria has been spoken to, the final part of the quest begins immediately and one will not be able to retrieve any items from Cass's body that she may have been carrying for them. But one can take them from her ashes at the end of the quest.
* If Cass is killed instead of recruited, the journal will update to tell the player character to 'Let Jean-Baptiste know that the Cassidy girl is dead'. Upon returning to him, the player character will still be rewarded and the quest will continue as normal.
* Normally, one is forced to either let Cassidy die or fight the Van Graffs as soon as one initiates dialogue with Jean-Baptise, however with the Terrifying Presence perk, one can exit the dialogue and take more time before coming to a final decision on how to handle the situation. This option works countless times, but the quest will not continue until a permanent solution is chosen. 
* As of patch 1.2.0.31x, completing Heartache by the Number peacefully will turn the Van Graffs permanently hostile. Apparently, word gets around that the player character turned them in to the NCR. This makes it impossible to complete both Birds of a Feather and Heartache by the Number in the same playthrough.
* Upon completing the first part of the quest where the player character guards the door, they will be able to come and go from the Silver Rush without having their weapons confiscated by Simon.
* It is possible to steal from the footlocker next to Simon and get the Van Graff combat armor. However, once one steals it, it becomes stuck in their inventory marked as a quest item. Because the armor is a quest item, it does not actually weigh anything even though it says it weighs 25. If one completes this quest and receives another set of the armor, they will stack, removing the quest item tag from the original stolen armor and giving back its weight. (Fixed in v140525, the crate is empty and the armor is forcibly removed).
* The gambler who tries to get inside with a bomb carries a note explaining his actions, reading:
* If one pickpockets the bomb from the man who wants to blow up the Silver Rush and then lets him in, the store will still explode.
* If the suicide bomber and/or Pacer is killed by Simon or the Courier, their bodies will be placed in the dumpster to the right of the Silver Rush's door, provided it has not been disintegrated or melted.
* Killing the strange man will result in Caesar's Legion infamy and will fail the quest.
* The player character can start this quest by bringing Cass to the Silver Rush and talking to Jean-Baptiste Cutting. The quest will begin and, after a short dialogue, he will attack Cass. However, since the player character has never gone through the earlier stages of the quest, the door guard will still take all the player character's weapons on entry, and will continue to do so even if one goes out and back in after Cass is dead. This makes it harder to complete the final stage, because after talking to Gloria Van Graff to start the final section, one automatically fast-travels to the abandoned warehouse, still with no weapons except for concealed ones.
* If Cass has already been recruited as a companion and has left to head west because of the one's evil Karma, the only way to complete the "kill Cass" section of the quest is to try to catch her before she leaves the map and kill her. Her path back to the west passes through the locked gate at the Mojave Outpost.
* The man that is executed by Baptiste upon entering the Silver Rush for the first time is actually a Van Graff thug, and will attack the player character if they attack other Van Graffs, or walk past them during the killing.
* After killing the fourth customer, if the player goes to the dumpster on the side of the Silver Rush, they will see the gambler's dead body.
* The official player's guide erroneously states that a Speech check of 60 is required to convince the third visitor that arrives while guarding the door to submit to a search, when a Speech check of 65 is actually required.
* Originally the intro to the quest was longer. The execution had more to it, however this was cut. The intro originally had Gloria say that she and the man they are executing were in love. She caught him cheating on her at a Casino and she is now using him as an example for Mr. Soren to show even if she loves him, she will kill him, as a show to never break faith with her organization.
* It is possible to complete this quest on PC and still have Cass as a companion. When Jean-Bapitise is killing Cass, her body will turn into a pile of ash. While her corpse is still disintegrating, go into the console, select her, and type . The quest will then proceed normally. If this does not work, see bugs.
* It is possible to skip the stage of bringing Cass to Jean-Baptiste and keep her as a companion on PC by going into the console and type . Then do not talk with Jean-Baptiste but go directly to Gloria for the next and last stage.
* If Craig Boone is in the player's company when transported to the Abandoned warehouse to deal with the Legion, he is not automatically hostile to them, nor are they hostile to him, and hostility only occurs when the gas grenade is thrown into the Legion troops.
* Letting the fourth man in while guarding the door causes the quest to fail shortly after. An explosion is heard from within the shop, knocking the player and Simon down to the ground, doing no damage but giving small amounts of radiation. Simon will rush in to witness the aftermath. Everyone inside the store will be dead and some of the shop items that were originally on display will no longer be salvageable, though everything behind the locked door on the first floor will still be intact. The second floor will also be unaffected by the explosion. Talking to Simon afterwards causes him to sarcastically thank the player character for his new unemployment status, and then turn hostile.
* If one has sided with Caesar's Legion, all of the NCR troopers who ambush the legionaries during the exchange will be hostile. Killing them, however, has no impact on the quest and one is free to do so without affecting anything but one's NCR reputation.
* The prime legionaries encountered in the warehouse are equipped with Legion veteran armor instead of Legion prime armor.
* Despite Gloria claiming that someone else will be replacing the Courier as the door guard of the Silver Rush, nobody ever does.
==Bugs==
==References==
Category:Fallout: New Vegas side quests
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