Rejected endings to Fallout: New Vegas

Above: The Courier contemplates his next move.

The Courier emerged from a shallow grave and became a contradictory, unpredictable force for good in the Wasteland. He always helped people when he could, even though sometimes he stole stuff when it was convenient for him. He also murdered about a half-dozen people for no reason, which he swears was by accident, such as when he meant to click through a closing line of dialogue without realizing that his hunting rifle was already swinging back up into view, and he shot old Alice McLafferty in the face. We tend to believe him, because this was the guy who scoured the desert for hours looking for a little girl's teddy bear. He never found it.

*****

Not the brightest bulb, our Courier. Oh sure, he was eager, almost desperate for work, and he sought out and accepted new assignments with vigor. The follow-through, that's what he had trouble with. We lost track of how many times the Courier appeared unbidden at our door, begged for a job, and then vanished for weeks. At first, we worried. Eventually, we just assumed that some other damned shiny object had caught his attention out there in the wasteland. And we were usually correct.

He'd show up again, months later, babbling about some crazy-ass vault he'd found, or some loony ghouls he'd befriended, and then he'd stare at us blankly when we asked: But what about our chems? Did you bring our chems? He had not. We are still waiting for our stimpaks. Our people are dying here!

F-, would not order from this Courier again.

*****

The Brotherhood of Steel had accepted the Courier into their private realm, and trusted him as they had never before trusted an outsider. They granted him weapons and armor, including their finest Power Armor, in exchange for nothing more than a few errands. When the Brotherhood looked at the Courier, they saw one of their own. Here was the man to bring science, technology, and learning into the new human age. The Courier repaid their trust by murdering them all when a talking computer told him to. Like, he didn't even think about it.

What a fucking psychopath.

*****

Talk about your faux pas! Guess who showed up at Camp McCarran in his best Brotherhood duds -- again? That's right, it was the Courier, or as we like to call him, The Zero of the Tastes. (Come on, it works.)

For the third time in a month, the Courier appeared at the gates of McCarran in a run-down suit of T-51b Power Armor, with, get this, a T-45d helmet! He could have worn brown shoes with a tuxedo and not looked half as ridiculous. We certainly can't blame the NCR for opening fire immediately. We can blame them for their lousy aim, though. Fellas, what happened?

*****

The Courier never found 50 of the Sunset Sarsparilla Star Caps. He tried. Really, he tried. He tried harder than any man should on a task so mindless. God, why did we even give him a quest like that? It was so stupid! What a goddamn waste of time! Arrgghhghgkhgdkjhdgsjhdsg

*****

When he arrived at Jacobstown, the Courier could not escape one single, insistent thought: "Is that Lieutenant Worf's voice?"

Indeed, actor Michael Dorn did provide the voice of the wise Super Mutant Marcus, a fact that the Courier quickly confirmed on the Fallout wiki. Throughout his travels, the Courier had a habit of vanishing for minutes at a time during conversations, leaving the other party standing mutely, with a blank expression, as the Courier chased down another tidbit of casting information on the Internet. He was right more often than he was wrong, instantly identifying actors such as Matthew Perry, Michael Hogan, and Dave Foley.

The Courier did once go awry. After spending several hours with Boone, he could have sworn the sniper was voiced by Nolan North. I mean, who makes a video game these days and doesn't cast Nolan North? Boone sounds just like him. But no, according to the credits it was some guy named "Jason Marsden." Although he would never admit it, the Courier privately believes that this is a pseudonym for Nolan North. But he was always sure that the guy who did the voice of Marcus had also played Lieutenant Worf. It was obvious.

Because Worf... Worf never changes.