You’re wandering the Mojave Wasteland, probably over-encumbered with bent tin cans and Mojave yucca fruit, when you stumble into a hidden bunker in Hidden Valley. If you’ve got Veronica Santangelo with you, everything changes. I Could Make You Care isn't just a side quest. It’s a gut-punch. It’s the moment Fallout: New Vegas stops being a post-apocalyptic power fantasy and starts being a tragedy about the slow, suffocating death of an ideology.
Most RPG quests follow a predictable loop. You go to a place, you kill a guy, you bring back a trinket, and everyone cheers. Obsidian Entertainment decided to do something different here. They wrote a story about institutional rot. Honestly, it’s one of the few times a video game accurately portrays how impossible it is to change a bureaucracy from the inside, even when that bureaucracy is staring down the barrel of its own extinction.
The Brotherhood of Steel’s Death Spiral
To understand why this quest hits so hard, you have to look at the state of the Mojave Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel. They’re hiding. After their disastrous defeat at HELIOS One against the NCR, they’ve crawled into a hole and pulled the lid shut.
Veronica is the only one who sees the writing on the wall. She’s their scribe, their scavenger, and effectively their conscience. She realizes that the Brotherhood’s strict adherence to "preserving technology" while ignoring the people using it is a suicide pact. If they don't adapt, they die. It’s that simple. But the Elder—whether it’s McNamara or Hardin—is stuck. They are paralyzed by a codex that was written for a world that no longer exists.
This isn't just flavor text. The quest forces you to find proof that the Brotherhood’s way of life is failing. You’re sent out to track down technologies that could save them: an experimental pulse gun, a Euclid’s C-Finder, or farming data from Vault 22. It’s a scavenger hunt for a miracle.
🔗 Read more: Getting the Chopper GTA 4 Cheat Right: How to Actually Spawn a Buzzard or Annihilator
Why the Technology Doesn't Actually Matter
You’d think that bringing back a world-ending superweapon or a way to end world hunger would be enough to make the Elder listen. It’s not. And that’s the brilliance of the writing.
When you return to the bunker with the technology, the Elder dismisses it. He doesn't care that the Pulse Gun could level a battalion of NCR Rangers. He doesn't care that the Vault 22 data could feed the entire Mojave. Why? Because it doesn't fit the "Codex." The Brotherhood isn't interested in growth; they are interested in purity.
It’s frustrating. It’s meant to be. You spend hours traversing deathclaw-infested ruins only to be told "no" by a man in a metal suit who is too scared to look at the sun. This is where I Could Make You Care shifts from a quest about gadgets to a quest about personhood. Veronica is heartbroken. Her family—the only one she’s ever known—is choosing to starve in the dark rather than change their menu.
The Three Paths of Veronica Santangelo
Once the Elder rejects the proof, you’re left with a choice that actually feels heavy. You have to advise Veronica on whether she should stay with the Brotherhood or leave to join the Followers of the Apocalypse.
💡 You might also like: Why Helldivers 2 Flesh Mobs are the Creepiest Part of the Galactic War
If she stays, she tries to change them from within. It doesn't work. She becomes a symbol of wasted potential, trapped in a bunker that will eventually become a tomb. If she leaves, the Brotherhood doesn't just let her go. They see it as a betrayal.
There’s a specific, brutal encounter if you choose the path where she tries to join the Followers. A group of Brotherhood Paladins shows up at the Followers' outpost. They don't just threaten her; they slaughter the scientists there. It is a senseless, violent act of gatekeeping. It proves that the Brotherhood would rather destroy a good thing than let one of their own contribute to it outside of their control.
The Tragic Connection to Father Elijah
You can't talk about this quest without mentioning Dead Money. Veronica’s former mentor, the man she loved like a father (and who was likely the lover of Christine Royce, another tragic figure), was Father Elijah.
Elijah is the dark mirror of this quest. He saw the same stagnation Veronica saw, but instead of trying to save the Brotherhood through logic and empathy, he went insane. He tried to find a "reset button" for the world. When you play I Could Make You Care, you’re seeing the fallout of Elijah’s departure. The Chapter is traumatized by his disappearance and his radicalism, which makes them even more resistant to Veronica’s moderate suggestions. It’s a cycle of trauma that feeds into their isolationism.
📖 Related: Marvel Rivals Sexiest Skins: Why NetEase is Winning the Aesthetic War
Factionalism and the Mojave’s Future
New Vegas is a game about old-world ghosts. The NCR is trying to recreate the 19th-century American expansion. Caesar’s Legion is a LARP of the Roman Empire. The Brotherhood is a dead knight in rusting armor.
This quest serves as the ultimate proof that the Brotherhood is a minor player. They aren't a faction that can win the Mojave; they are a faction that is simply waiting to be erased. Whether you choose to blow up their bunker or try to broker a peace treaty with the NCR, I Could Make You Care provides the emotional context for why they deserve—or don't deserve—to survive.
How to Get the Best Outcome (If One Exists)
There is no "happy" ending here. Every path ends with Veronica losing something. If you want the most "positive" mechanical outcome, you usually want to keep her in the Brotherhood while brokering the NCR-Brotherhood alliance later in the main quest. This at least keeps her safe, even if she remains unfulfilled.
- Triggering the Quest: You need to take Veronica to specific locations in the Mojave to trigger her dialogue. Good spots include the McCarran Terminal building, the Old Mormon Fort, and the entrance to Vault 3. She needs to see how other people are living and struggling.
- The Pulse Gun: Skip the Vault 22 data if you want to avoid the "spores" headache. The Pulse Gun in Vault 34 is much faster to grab if you have the lockpicking skills or find the key in the flooded section.
- The Final Choice: Honestly? Let her leave. Even though the Followers' outpost gets hit, staying in the bunker is a slow death. Leaving is a fast, painful one, but it’s the only way she maintains her soul.
The quest is a masterclass in narrative design because it respects the player's intelligence. It doesn't give you a "Speech 100" option to magically make the Elder change his mind. Some people are just too stubborn to be saved. That’s a hard lesson for a video game to teach, but New Vegas has always been comfortable with the uncomfortable.
To truly experience the weight of this story, make sure you've completed the Dead Money DLC and found the holotape Elijah left for Veronica. Bringing that back to her provides a sense of closure that the base quest lacks, even if that closure is bitter. It’s the final piece of the puzzle for a character who tried so hard to make them care, only to realize they never would.
Critical Next Steps for Your Playthrough
- Secure the Pulse Gun early: Head to Vault 34. You’ll need plenty of Rad-X and RadAway. The gun is in a footlocker in the armory. This bypasses the need to deal with the thorny ethics of the Vault 22 research data.
- Visit the Silver Rush: Taking Veronica to see the Van Graffs' energy weapon collection triggers one of her "observation" points. It’s an easy way to progress the quest without entering a combat zone.
- Download the "Uncut" mods: If you're on PC, some restored content mods add back extra dialogue for this quest that was trimmed for the original release. It adds even more nuance to the Brotherhood's internal politics.
- Check your Reputation: If you've already vilified the Brotherhood by hacking their systems or killing Paladins, you might lock yourself out of the "stay" ending. Keep your reputation at least Neutral before starting.