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having a larkin
I picked up Fallout: New Vegas back in 2013, and proceeded to have the time of my life working my way through my very first truly open sandbox RPG I'd ever played. It also marked the first time my player character turned out to be a villain! Larkin has since been used (usually in fic) in less troubling forms as well, but her game story remains near and dear to my heart as a most unexpected ride.
This post is collated from a few old Tumblr posts written during and after the game, making up a streamlined 'liveblog' narration of my Courier 6 Larkin's rise to power in the Mojave Wasteland.
*
Larkin is someone who's been on their own for a long time. Not a vault kid; maybe a vault descendant, but without enough knowledge of her own history to say for sure. Mom was wary, twitchy, something of a hermit even by wastelander standards. Father wasn’t there, and for a long time she didn’t realise he was supposed to be. Learned to read ‘cause mom insisted, learned to shoot 'cause someone had to, and soon enough became the only link between the nearby town and the shack on the other side of the hill. When mom died, so did the last vague shreds of sentimental attachment to the area, and Larkin struck out to see if there wasn’t something more interesting to do.
After a lot of odd jobs and the occasional close call, she edged her way into the Mojave area and the courier position, which was most appealing. Good money - not just what they paid, but anything she happened to pick up along the way - and it let her keep the wandering habits, finding new places, people, and stories. On top of that, there was the reputation. For all her fickleness and present-minded focus, Larkin liked being a Courier, capital C, and she took pride in being reliable. She liked doing the handshake-and-smile routine with high-falutin’ folks. She liked being known.
So it really didn’t sit well when that asshole compromised it all.
Goodsprings: Took a little while to get back on her feet; forgivable, given the hole in her head. Rallied the town against the Powder Gangers, though she didn’t quite manage to convince Pete she could be trusted with explosives. As it was, Ringo died in the battle, as did Cheyenne the dog; any, er, 'grief’ was offset by getting all his caps and his bed. Picked up the assailant’s trail via Victor and others, and struck out after 'em as soon as she had supplies and a steady hand again. Vengeance wasn’t all that high in her mind, but by god she would be having her package back, thank you very much.
Primm: Checking in with the Mojave Express turned out a little trickier than expected. Solved the issue by shooting rather a lot of people and installing a robot as sheriff. The deputy seemed to think that was a dubious choice at best, but since he wasn’t volunteering to go raid a goddamn prison, his opinion didn't count for much. Nothing wrong with robots anyhow. Eventually she would pick up ED-E from the Express, once her player worked out how to do it.
Nipton: Had fun doing a 'favour’ for Ghost when she was planning on passing through the town anyway. Had slightly less fun skulking around ransacked ruins and creepy crucifixions. When confronted by the Legion, she kept things polite and conciliatory, and backed the hell out of that situation asap. On the upside, totally got to flirt with Cass at the Mojave Outpost.
Novac: Got off to a good start with the town when the story of the midnight Brahmin assassinations piqued her curiousity enough to see her lending a hand. (Was also very down with the giant dinosaur and tourist kitsch. Good place by Larkin standards.) Got roped into heading out to the power plant in order to get information on where to find the assailant, and from there got roped into an increasingly insane string of cascading quests that wore on her patience enough to make opening fire seem a tempting option. The nightkin were over-formidable foes, however, so the application of diplomacy and Stealth Boys ended up being the solution of choice. Eventually saw the damn ghouls off and won outright idolisation by the town. This somehow wasn’t hampered by her assistance in assassinating Jeannie May. Larkin had hoped for some sort of a reward, but with a shrug and a lie decided acquiring a skillful shooter was close enough, taciturn as he was - at least as long as he didn’t take a crack at the Legion and bring their wrath down on her head.
Helios 1: Science’d her way through the doors and met her first Follower of the Apocalypse. Ended up going with his suggestion to route the plant’s power evenly across the area; though no enemy of the NCR, Larkin’s no firm ally either, and seeing a spread of electricity for all served her wanderer proclivities better than seeing them specifically on better footing.
Boulder City: Found some cornered Khans. Sneak-rescued some hostages to be ensured of NCR support in battling the Khans. Internally flipped a table upon finding out the chip wasn’t there, and stomped off towards Vegas with an increasingly aggravated glint in her eye.
188 Trading Post: Met Veronica. Swapped Boone out for Veronica. Can only assume he realised Legionnaire-hunting was not as high on Larkin’s list of priorities as she’d suggested and so parted ways. Larks hadn’t heard enough about the Brotherhood of Steel to be offended by Veronica's allegiance, and found her entertaining, informative company.
REPCONN Facility: Frankly had a shitload of fun? There was a tour! By a robot! Of other robots! There was also some fun times to be had infiltrating the upper levels, but mostly Larkin wanted to live in the room with the galaxy model.
Camp Golf: Uh. Learned how to swim and ignored some sidequest opportunities on account of being self-centred.
Crimson Caravan: Mumble mumble sidequests. The important thing is that Cass was roped into being a companion. The pair continued to get on pretty well…at first.
Freeside: Sizable, but disappointingly grungy. Picked up a bit of work, though, which proved interesting enough. Nothing like being a debt-collecting pimp to help with the introductions.
New Vegas: Stars. In. Her. Eyes. Never seen a place like this before. (Also, as a player, watching Vegas light up at night for the first time? Wow.)
-The House Always Wins I: Going to be frank - Larkin was super flattered. Being the only person allowed inside Lucky 38 in living memory? Pretty sweet. Getting the run of parts of the place plus a luxury suite all her own? It’s like House actually knew her. She was cautiously respectful with the man himself; curious but trying not to overstep boundaries, and privately relieved not to be taken to task for failing to make the delivery in the first place (though by all accounts, not her fault). The fact he managed REPCONN and had robots everywhere was also a point in his favour. Cass shattered the glee a bit by voicing scepticism. Larkin didn’t much like the scepticism. The friendliness there began to fray.
-Ring-Ding-Ding: Thanks to the Black Widow perk, Larkin managed to convince Benny that she had a fetish for attempted murder and so earned a ride up to his suite. The high Sneak skill meant she had a pistol on her, and when he made the grave mistake of failing to take her demand for the chip seriously, he lost his head. Mission accomplished.
…and then she found Yes Man and things got even more interesting.
So ends the tale to date.
In short, FNV has been a lesson in Nice Is Not Good. Don’t think Cass is going to last much longer as a companion; if they’d met earlier in Larkin’s life she might have been a good influence, but as it is Larks is more inclined to get sulky than thoughtful every time she points out House isn’t a bastion of peace and goodwill, and she’s displeased with Cass’ decision to get all vengeful with some groups Larks doesn’t want to alienate. Maybe some time in the future I will roll a good guy and get to keep her around, but here and now their goals don’t align.
That said, Larkin’s loyalties aren’t exactly locked in with House either. She has never resented her wasteland lifestyle, but now that she’s seen a solid alternative, one where there’s a steady supply of food and caps and company and beds, she’s finding herself wondering just what more the world could give her. (A private space room!?)
She’s far from sharpening her blades, though. House is offering quite a lot as it is, and he’s been in the game much longer; as long as he makes good on all those offers, there’s sense in courting his favour rather than his ire. She’ll keep Yes Man secret, and she’ll keep her options open, but for now she’s going to be careful not to make the same mistakes Benny did.
*
Larkin and House are balanced upon the same see-saw: reward vs risk.
Larkin is not averse to being the right-hand, and that’s probably a point in her favour. She has ambitions, but they’re mostly centred around having regular meals, somewhere comfy to turn in, and a supply of entertaining company; having now acquired that, her cooperation with House is more a matter of holding onto the shiny side of life than craving a climb further up the ladder. Even the parts of her duty that might be considered a serious downside by others - such as continually being sent into danger while he sits safe in his tower - aren’t a deal-breaker. She was born in the wasteland, she knows the wasteland, and she would grow restless if her skills were used for little but city squabbles. To that end, becoming grand dictator (sorry, ‘autocrat’) of New Vegas could be seen as a cage as much as a throne. House is the one with the plans and the bureaucratic inclinations, and she has no strong opposition to letting him do as he wants there - especially when it’s a vision filled with fascinating things like trains and space travel. She can benefit from that just fine. People court the right-hand; they paint targets on the top dog.
Lingering in the back of her mind, however, is the possibility that she may outlive her usefulness, to quote a beloved cliche. House’s track record is actually pretty good, since he lifted the Three Families up, allowed them a measure of power and, by his own words, has little interest in turning the autocracy into an aggressively totalitarian sort of government. Words are just words, though, and the more help Larkin gives him, the more freedom he has from the power struggles that may have helped keep him in check. His proclaimed disinterest in subjugation clearly doesn’t carry over to a disinterest in sweeping away opposition and unwanted riff-raff, and Larks has no firm guarantee she won’t somehow slip into one of those categories by the end. A luxurious cage is preferable to a dumpster coffin.
For House’s part, he needs an agent right now, plain and simple; there are a number of essential tasks he just can’t see through without a proxy. So far, Larkin’s been a very reliable asset. She’s done as he’s asked, reasonably quickly and competently, and she’s proven capable of handling both the physical dangers and political machinations necessary. She’s also adapting to Strip life alarmingly well for a scruffy wastelander, and she at least appears to be skeeving people off a great deal less than Benny did.
She does ask a lot of questions, though, and that might make him nervous. I think it’s safe to say Benny’s betrayal remains a fresh blow to his confidence, and after coming so close to losing everything, he seems a bit prickly about any behaviour that isn’t straightforward obedience. He might not know about Yes Man, but he has to assume Benny had some sort of plan that required him to hijack the chip, and that it wasn’t a plan conducive to his own survival. There’s also the bit where everything that makes Larkin useful also makes her threatening. He has no guarantees that she won’t be - hasn’t already been - wooed to support one of the other factions, or simply scheming to take his place. He can only try to buy loyalty, and Benny proved that some people will always want more.
So the dance goes on, and behind the genteel exchanges are cautious calculations and suspicious squints. He’s contemptuous of her patchy education and wastelander decorum; she privately rolls her eyes whenever he speaks as though he wouldn’t be facedown in the shit without her help. He has power; she has options.
Theirs is never going to be the most trusting partnership, but it could be a frighteningly effective one…as long as they can refrain from turning on each other.
*
Larkin is not remotely pleased with the order to kill the Brotherhood. She’s a killer, but she’s not an assassin. Striking deals with factions for support? Totally fine. Taking out someone actively moving against you? Understandable, though even then she wasn’t thrilled at having to gun down the Omerta bosses - it felt a little too much like being the playee instead of the player - and she still didn’t pull her weapon until they did.
Killing the Brotherhood, though? They haven’t made any proclamations of war. Plus they’re V’s family, and V is both a very helpful ally and a decent friend. Larkin doesn’t do the whole preemptive strike thing; she wouldn’t go on a rampage for Cass, so House is severely underestimating her if he thinks she’ll do it for him.
It’s not all that easy to piss her off, and once you do she’s still not the kind to blow her top; she doesn’t even seethe, really, though she can be prone to petulant fits. She just sort of…loses her patience, and if you still refuse to get out of her face then she removes yours. It won’t have come out of the blue. There will have been clear signals and plenty of opportunities to back off. Hell, she would have let Benny walk if he’d given her the chip, but he wouldn’t and her patience ran out.
She’s not quite at that point yet but she’s been pushed rather hard and man, House should know better by now. He’s spent the last few weeks making use of her skills, he knows the kinds of places she’s infiltrated and the people she’s gained loyalty from and he still thinks it’s a good idea to talk down to her. It’s even dumber because she could be convinced! She could be bribed and flattered, or talked around to seeing the Brotherhood as a threat. If he’s so certain the Brotherhood will stand against them, he could agree to let her try diplomacy and let her come to the threat conclusion on her own.
Instead he pulls out the employer-employee line and the only way he could have handled that more poorly is if he’d said owner-dog instead. Easy-going she may be, but it’s becoming clearer that Larkin has a lurking trigger when it comes to being caged. She’s agreed to work for House, yes, but not to be used by him. She’s not a tool. The assurances that ‘they’ were going places were a big part of what won her over to the cause; I honestly can’t believe he’s so arrogant as to overlook that. From a writing perspective it’s an understandable and well-enacted part of his character, but Jesus, it’s just so dumb. Of all the things to get shot in the face for, the inability to not be a condescending jackass has to be one of the more embarrassing.
It’s occurred to Larkin by now that she could just rabbit out of this situation altogether. There’s a big wide wasteland out there and she knows her way around it; she doesn’t want to lose what she has at Vegas but she values her independence a whole lot, and there could be other chances to make a cosy living. She’s overplayed her hand, though, and with the Legion actively gunning for it she’s a little wary of shedding what protection she has. Maybe she could outrun them, but maybe Caesar’s inclined to make an example of her. War’s pretty damn close around the corner and a few too many dangerous people know her name.
*
PART ONE: THE LEAD-UP
It turned out a week of meditation was unnecessary; I spent just one evening pacing around my living room before I grudgingly admitted that the only thing standing in the way of Larkin going Wild Card was whether or not she could arrange for sufficient support. This induced a lot of groaning from my end. Of course I was in control, but I’d committed myself to playing to Larkin’s leanings even when they clashed against my own preferences (see: my inability to acquire certain companions because they have morals) and I didn’t intend to break from that at the finishing post. I wouldn’t have felt good about killing the Brotherhood, but having come so far as a House-aligned courier…well. It was something of a wrench.
It should be noted that this wasn’t how Larkin wanted things to go either. A life as House’s second would have worked well for her, and she was genuinely pleased by the arrangement at the beginning. It gave her access to luxury, with free pass in and out of the Lucky 38; it gave her the benefits of security, with the authority of New Vegas behind her; and it still allowed her freedom, with assignments that sent her out across the wasteland. She liked that House would give her a goal but trust her to work out the finer details of when and how for herself. Hell, she liked House. She was fascinated by Vegas and admired him as the leader of both it and REPCONN, which she had some kind of strange crush on because robots and space.
That admiration was tempered by House’s unmasked contempt of the wasteland, but even that wasn’t a huge issue at first. It served to humanise him. Though the flash and glamour of Vegas enthralled her, Larkin’s home was the open road; she would never shed her ties to it and she had no desire to. She realised quickly that House didn’t get it, that by sequestering himself away in his shiny tower he had left himself ignorant to the way the wider world worked, and she wasn’t annoyed by that because it made them equals. Every time he mocked the wasteland as a society of savages and ingrates, she rolled her eyes in private amusement because he was making it clear that he needed her.
Unfortunately, House didn’t see things quite the same way. If his scoffs about the wasteland amused her, his constant prickliness about her questions drew her hackles up. She could understand that he had suffered a recent betrayal and was reluctant to share more than necessary for the mission, but at times he seemed reluctant to indulge her with even that much. She was helping him, wasn’t she? Why was it such an issue that she wanted to approach a task with her eyes open? More than once she was pushed to the brink of suspicion when he dragged his feet over a simple enquiry, only to be soothed by acknowledgement for a job well done or a confiding conversation about life before the war and his plans for the future.
It was a combination of factors that finally tipped Larkin’s loyalties. She had just come back from the Omertas assignment, which she hadn’t felt entirely comfortable with; she had been sent in to investigate a possible threat, and had ended up assassinating the casino’s two leaders and replacing them with a man she didn’t know particularly well—she hadn’t even uncovered what Big Sal had been planning in the first place. It felt less like a success and more like Cachino had managed to take advantage of her to ensure his own promotion. This left her in a particularly poor frame of mind to receive a mission that was blatantly an assassination—hell, a minor massacre that would endanger a personal ally. It wasn’t as though it was the first time House had wanted someone removed, but he’d always given her the choice of how to handle it; she chose to set Benny up in a fair fight, and she chose to recruit the Boomers. Not this time. This time he all but said to her face that she had no choice. She had orders, and she was to carry them out, and that was the end of the matter.
It was also the end of Larkin’s impression that he saw her as any kind of equal. It was made even worse by the timing; not only in that it followed on the tail of the Omertas assignment, but in that she had literally just alienated two powerful factions, driving one to outright hostility. Agitating a ramshackle gang is one thing, but doing the same to an army of slavers and rapists known for crucifying those who displease them? It had been something of a reckless leap of faith to side with House against that force. His statement that she had no choice consequently stung all the more because on some level it was true; she had just cut her options down considerably. With that in mind, his sudden disregard for her thoughts took on an even more sinister light. It was as though House, knowing that she had less room to move, now felt less obliged to cater to her. No further need to butter up the wasteland savage; she has nowhere else to go.
From Larkin’s point of view, House had just managed to compromise both her freedom and her security, and without those two assurances the luxury was not nearly enough. Her loyalty was officially shaken.
If it weren’t for Yes Man, she might have truly been trapped. The Legion was actively seeking to kill her, the NCR wanted nothing more to do with her, and the few allies she had weren’t going to be able to defend her against a three-pronged grudge if she tried to back out on House. If it weren’t for Yes Man, Larkin would have had to either commit herself to being House’s dog once and for all, and hope that any unpleasantries would be few and far between, or make a break east and hope that she could outrun her sudden proliferation in resourceful enemies.
She did have Yes Man, however, and so the question she found herself presented with was not what do I do but can I do it?
PART TWO: THE EXECUTION
Larkin’s first indication that she could get away with usurping House was when she succeeded in gaining the favour of the White Glove Society, and thus the admiration of the Strip as a whole. With the core of Vegas owing her various degrees of allegiance, as well as the Freeside factions at least accepting her, she finally felt she had firm enough footing to start shaking up the status quo.
There were, of course, the outside factions to deal with. The Boomers were already willing to stand with her—the emphasis being on her, not House—and she was able to break the Khans’ commitment to the Legion while remaining on good terms with them. The Brotherhood was more complicated, simply because they represented the true turning point. Either House was correct about their being a serious opponent, in which case his plans were justified regardless of his attitude, or House was incorrect and his attitude was an even greater concern.
Larkin had not had much to do with the Brotherhood before reaching the Mojave region. Most of her knowledge came from Veronica—who repeatedly stated than the Brotherhood had more enemies than friends and were likely to get themselves killed if they carried on with their current path—and from the story of Helios One—where the Brotherhood had been defeated by a scrappy army. Larkin’s own investigations into the group had her learning the extent of their lockdown. She fulfilled McNamara’s wishes to learn of his paladin groups; she then travelled and met with his scouts in the hope that they would further discourage the Brotherhood. When she realised the reports could give the Brotherhood reason to emerge from the lockdown, she quietly turned away from the compound and left them there, hiding the information from Veronica as well.
(She also journeyed to Black Mountain and from there to Jacobstown, which was interesting but not exactly a key point in her personal campaign.)
Her efforts were worthwhile—Larkin had found both the evidence and the support she needed, and she went to action the moment she reached Vegas again. Yes Man was notified. She rested well. She anticipated resistance in going after House, and she armed herself accordingly, before slipping out while Veronica was still asleep.
She also brought along some other items; her last action as an agent of House was to give him the three snow-globes found in her travels.
In something of a startling twist, she found herself facing little resistance as she opened up the doors to reach House. There were Securitrons from some distance that started in her direction when the alarm sounded, but it was simple to stay ahead of them, and those in her way made no move towards her at all. It was so unexpected that Larkin almost hesitated; had she been of slightly different temperament this confusion might have dissuaded her altogether. He clearly wasn’t prepared for an internal assault, despite knowing full well she had the platinum chip and ability to override all his systems. It was almost as though he had trusted her.
As it was, it did sway her slightly—when she reached House’s chamber, she left the old man alive. It was less guilt and more that she no longer saw him as a threat, however. House had proven, once and for all, that he did not truly understand the ruthless nature of the wasteland. There was little to fear from him now.
She did not intend to be cruel in leaving him alive; she simply thought she might still be able to get information from him. When things were settled, she would look at ensuring he had some mental stimulation on hand (if never the same access to the systems), and when he died within the year of infection she would not consider it a triumph. She may not have respected him as a leader, but she still acknowledged his successes as a man of science. Two of the snow-globes were placed in the chamber when it was sealed for good; the last (the test site) she kept in the penthouse control room.
After disabling House and installing Yes Man into the Lucky 38’s systems, Larkin went straight to Veronica. Up until that point she had kept her plans secret, sharing none of her dissatisfaction. Now, she drew her friend aside and said, “House is dead. I had to kill him. He was out of control, he was going after the Brotherhood, I had to do it. Will you help me in what I do next?” Obviously, this was misdirection on several levels, since her anger was never really about the Brotherhood, but Larkin had no qualms about hypocrisy. She disliked being used, not using others, and right then she needed every ally possible. The following conversation was terse in several ways, but Larkin used all angles at her disposal—that she just wanted to see the Vegas region safely through the war; that House had good plans but was the wrong man to carry them out; that Veronica owed her for effectively saving the Brotherhood—to ensure Veronica stayed by her side, at least for now. She would wring every possible use out of her friend before she saw her walk away.
With Veronica’s allegiance assured and Yes Man accessing all necessary points, the plan hit its final stages. The Legion were snapping Larkin’s heels, the war was so close it was visible, and the survival of Vegas was her only real hope for any sort of a free life; all of this made Larkin increasingly reckless. She had to kill several NCR soldiers in order to install the override at the substation, and as such was unable to save the NCR president from assassination. She didn’t care. These things might have ramifications in the future, but in the present the Legion were finally launching their attack and she could worry about everything else once she made sure she still had the right body parts to do the worrying.
The second battle for Hoover Dam was vicious. It was Larkin’s first taste of true war, and in fairness she handled it well, if not without injury; between support from the Boomers, the Khans, and her Securitrons, she was able to install Yes Man and awaken her army at the Fort. This was carried out with a brutal efficiency, however, and both Legion and NCR soldiers were felled as she infiltrated the control room; her enmity with both factions was secured, and her success more crucial than ever.
From the dam she swept through to the Legate’s camp. While Veronica and the Securitrons lead a distractive attack against the Legion soldiers, Larkin hauled herself into position, took aim, and removed the head of the Legion military. It was not a noble assault, but it was undeniably effective.
General Oliver’s subsequent arrival was not exactly welcome, though it did save her from having to seek him out. Larkin attempted to persuade him to recognise her martial superiority and leave without further conflict, but Oliver proved to be either steeped in stubbornness or simply unable to believe that she would risk such a direct attack against a leader of the NCR. Wounded, exhausted, and well out of patience, Larkin sighed heavily, gave the order to fire, and then ducked behind shelter to wait out the ensuing massacre.
Her victory was complete.
PART THREE: THE CONSEQUENCES
Both opposing armies were shattered, the remnants driven out of the Mojave, and Vegas left to forge a path free of the tense confinements three interlocking factions had cast upon it. It was not the smoothest transition—there were conflicts as smaller factions sought to fill the perceived power gap—but Larkin’s upgraded Securitron army proved useful in stifling such issues without too much bloodshed. The Fiends proved a more persistent enemy as they took advantage of the war to establish a foothold in Outer Vegas, and the struggle against them went on for years. Goodsprings and Primm fared well; Novac suffered somewhat during the war but managed to rebuild itself, and Jacobstown never managed to forge strong ties with the outside world after the Nightkin left to harry travellers. The Boomers flourished. The Great Khans formed an empire in the north-west, and I like to think they had amiable (if occasionally terse) relations with Vegas. The inspiration for a series of children’s books about a super mutant and her robot was born.
The greatest of Larkin’s mistakes was the Brotherhood; in the wake of the war, they emerged from their bunker to retake Helios One and hold hostage several trade routes. Her ability to rout them was undermined by the troubles closer to home and though it cannot be said for certain that she never managed halt their interference, they certainly remained in opposition to her interests for far longer than she had planned. Veronica continued to try and introduce reform into the group, and was eventually cast out for her efforts.
Larkin continued to use the Lucky 38 as a home and New Vegas as a base of power. Her life as a wastelander made her indulgent when it came to causes like battling raiders and advancing food and medical technologies. She balked less at taking aggressive actions against perceived threats, however; her soreness over the uprising of the Brotherhood, as well as her experiences with the war and House, gave her shorter patience when it came to opposition and less reluctance to engage in preemptive strikes. She also continued to mark her own interests as highest priority and, with an army at her back, was less concerned about who she had to trample to see them carried out.
Yes Man’s announced upgrade initially alarmed her, but proved to solve a number of problems; she had been wondering how to deal with an asset that was vulnerable to outside manipulation, being aware of how that had worked for Benny. With the AI now capable of resisting manipulation, he became a valuable aid and assistant. It would be inaccurate to say she ever trusted him, but she found his manner entertaining, his robotic nature intriguing, and his uses many. Together, they worked to unfurl House’s plans for the region and implement those that took Larkin’s fancy, and having a right-hand capable of managing Vegas left Larkin enough freedom to venture forth across the wasteland (with ED-E in tow) to deal with issues in person—she never believed that something had been carried out just because someone had told her so. It was ultimately more stress and responsibility than Larkin had really hoped to inherit, but it still made for an interesting life with plenty of comforts, not to mention the silent satisfaction of making a lasting mark across the country; her name would always be known.
*
[Cliffnotes: Larkin and Veronica are allies and occasional lovers, but after taking New Vegas Larkin becomes increasingly ruthless which troubles the far more Good-aligned V.]
I do want to emphasise that I don’t think Veronica overly naive or easily manipulated. I think she’s a good person and an optimistic idealist who strives to see the best in people, as evidenced by how determined she is to reform the Brotherhood, but savvy enough to see the writing on the wall when it comes.
The particular issue of Larkin is firstly that she met Larkin pre-Vegas, and secondly that Larkin is genuinely very charming - and quite charmed by Veronica in turn! She’s easy-going, flexible, doesn’t pick fights, is competent and seasoned without being bossy, and Veronica had been dealing with enough cold shoulders from her family that it was really rather nice to hang around someone who laughed at her quips and seemed genuinely interested in her opinions and flat-out admiring of her skills. The scaling of the REPCONN facility was a highlight of those early, carefree days, and I usually headcanon that they share their first kiss in the space room (Larkin bright-eyed with delight at their discovery, the memory of cramming together in a corner to avoid a sentry bot while muffling stupid silly laughter close at hand, the turn of a smile against her lips while the tiny planets spin ceaselessly overhead).
And then even once the Vegas plot started, well, House was a bit weird sure, but the Brotherhood hardly has a cleaner reputation, and it’s not like Larkin was murdering people left right and centre in his name. Everyone knew the war was coming, and by all accounts House was just angling to see Vegas survived it - even angling to help see the Legion outed, which Veronica could get behind. It was actually a little cool to be making a difference out in the wider world. Like getting to be the first people who managed to get in with the Boomers! And all the while Larkin’s still cheery and confident and clever, and still so pleased with Veronica’s company and Veronica’s assistance. Maybe she lies sometimes, maybe that cleverness takes some interesting routes here and there, maybe she’s not always leaping to help without incentive, but they’re still doing a surprising amount of good.
So when things go suddenly downhill and a tense, pacing Larkin tells her she had to kill House - that she did it because House was going after her family - she has no reason to disbelieve that. Things get uglier in the aftermath but war is ugly, and it’s Larkin who’s asking her to stand by her, to help her survive this so that she can help them all survive this. It’s not like she’s trying to kill NCR soldiers but the battlefield is such a mess…
And then they win a victory that’s patchwork at best. It’s not over. The Mojave’s threatening to split at the seams, Larkin’s wounded and exhausted and still saying please stay please help me I need someone I can trust.
The Brotherhood comes out of their cage - but in the worst way, the way she’d always feared. I saved them, Larkin says bitterly. I saved them for you.
People die. Left, right, and centre. Sometimes it’s because Larkin killed them. Sometimes it’s because Larkin made deals with people who kill. Where am I supposed to go? Larkin says when she suggests it; laughing, but not as she used to, not like she did when they were young and silly and breaking into buildings because they could. The Legion wants my head on a stick, after they’re done drying it to jerky on some crucifix. NCR might make it quicker, I suppose. A softening, a soothing. Things’ll settle down soon enough. Just gotta find the trail through it. And someone else dies because they were in the way.
Veronica tells herself: one more week. One more month. Just until things have been smoothed over with the Omertas. Just until the fault in the Dam is fixed. Just until Larkin recovers from the bullet that clipped her shoulder in the newest Freeside riot. Just until she isn’t needed-
I couldn’t have done it without you, Larkin says, warm voice and distracted eyes, and there comes a day Veronica finds herself thinking back, That’s what I’m afraid of.
*
I don’t actually count the DLCs as part of Larkin’s New Vegas timeline so I’m casting [Dead Money] as something that happened a couple of years before the main game; it’s really quite feasible for Larkin to have gotten herself into this situation by poking around the legend of the Sierra Madre, and in fact the whole DLC promises to be a solid thematic match for her with the emphasis on greed and letting go. Poignant foreshadowing, and I didn’t even have to write it.
Having it be an earlier misadventure also fits well in terms of characterisation, in that it’s rather more fun going in as a younger, warier wastelander and not a mid-to-late game Larkin who’s gotten rather used to being hot shit in the Mojave and has pull with a variety of factions. This is a Larkin who isn’t so confident she can make it out of this, who isn’t accustomed to having many resources at her disposal, who is on a much more equal level with her companions. Not The Courier, known from Goodsprings to the Strip, but a scruffy merc little different from the other varied unfortunates Elijah has dragged into his obsession.
Except that she will, of course, make it out, and in doing so gain valuable experience that helps justify her accomplishments in New Vegas. Makes it more believable when an older Larkin can go, “Oh, so you want me to walk right into the Legion camp, activate a bunch of robots under their noses, and then lie to their leader’s face? Sure, that doesn’t sound worse than that time I had to break into an old world facility surrounded by ZOMBIES and DEATH CLOUDS with a BOMB COLLAR around my neck.”
Also helps explain why she rankles so much when House treads on her pride. She’s been used as a tool before; she’ll not go down that path again.
*
I said that I’d wait to try the DLCs before working out how much of them I want to incorporate into the gameverse tale, and having played Dead Money I’m now inclined to think I want to incorporate more or less the whole thing - because it gives me a really handy post-game hook. Almost certainly messes with the canon timeline a bit, but I’m not out to write a novel any time soon so I’m handwaving it in the name of fun.
As noted, Larkin gets drawn into the Dead Money mess around the age of 23, spends a week or so suffering, and gets out with maybe one gold bar, which allows for a comfortable few months in recompense. (A spending splurge that means she recovers well from her time amidst the Cloud, with a healthy portion left over as savings to be squirrelled away for emergencies.) She parts with Christine on loosely friendly terms; they didn’t know each other long enough or under relaxed enough circumstances to bond in any great depth, but after dragging someone’s dying ass up a staircase and collaborating on a murder plot with them, it’s only natural to hope their future endeavours go well.
At age 25-26, nine-ish months of game plot occur. Blah blah etc, Larkin eventually deposes House and establishes herself as a significant power in Vegas, with Veronica and Yes Man helping her out. The first six months that follow are barely bridled chaos, and even after that there is a hell of a lot to deal with; there are plenty of people who respect Larkin for being The Courier who pushed the NCR and Legion out, but no small number resent her for upending the status quo so dramatically (and nearly plunging the city into complete economic disaster in the process). There are of course also the handful who simply see her as easier pickings than the elusive House ever was.
And Larkin’s certainly more exposed than House, because she still insists on striking her deals and seeing things carried out in person. There’s a danger to it, but there’s equal danger in sitting too far out of the action; she knows how easy it to have vital information hidden or misconstrued by those with an agenda. It’s around this period that she upgrades her look a bit from the grubby wastelander half-angling to be underestimated. Still goes armed and armoured (because there’s presenting a confident image and then there’s asking to be stabbed), but it’s less of a chunky / patchwork mess, and more…something like the assassin suit in style, I suppose? A sleeker, meaner Larkin, balancing practicality against image, her background and experiences against life as a permanent part of the Strip.
Two-ish years after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, Larkin’s progressed from significant power to dominant power, generally recognised as the head of what loose hierarchy exists, and had a few close calls. A wary eye is still kept on all horizons, with rumours out of both east and west speaking not of war, not yet, but enough hostility to settle uncomfortably between her shoulder-blades. She has alliances, but people are fickle; she has the Securitrons, but they’re known and familiar and far from invulnerable, and their numbers have been whittled down over the years. As she lounges at the top of the Lucky 38, she finds her thoughts drifting back to a misadventure from her youth and the unique tech she’d witnessed there.
At age 28, Larkin returns to the Sierra Madre with Veronica in tow - a Veronica who’s older and tireder and still trying to do what’s right. The former scribe has been loyal, has been valuable, and has been growing ever uneasier with her friend / sometimes lover and all that’s been done in the name of staying safe or making improvements or it’s not like this is how I want to play it, V, but it’s how it has to happen. After being cast aside by her old family, however, she can’t make herself abandon what small measure of it she has here.
She’s taken completely by surprise by the face who greets them at the gates.
Larkin has long since guessed that Christine’s Elijah and Veronica’s Elijah are likely one and the same, and Veronica’s presence is at least partly grease on the wheels: Look at this! Old friends, all three of us. Who’d have thought? It works, too; nobody’s throwing themselves into anyone’s arms, but beneath the bewilderment and disbelief there’s real relief at finding out they’re both alive, and the faintest echoes of an old tenderness, a young love cut short but never forgotten. As for Larkin, well, Christine’s memories of Larkin are of a resourceful and reliable ally, and in the wild weirdness of the moment Veronica’s doubts are submerged again as they laugh together and shake heads over how they’ve all changed and oh, god, it’s really Christine? It makes for a warm welcome.
The good feeling lasts maybe a day or two as the warden shows them about and ample tales are traded. Then, on the second night, Larkin casually comes out and says that she’s here for the tech - for the holograms predominantly, but she’s not averse to the other bits and pieces that make the Sierra Madre such a fortress. She’s not after Elijah’s dream of hunching like a mad vulture over a dead zone, but the holograms alone would vastly improve her security.
Christine says no.
More than that, Veronica says no. She, more than Christine, knows what Larkin’s not saying, knows what kind of edge she’s seeking, has watched her walking slowly but steadily down a path that is becoming harder and harder to condone. And now - away from Vegas, away from the politicking and the danger and the Hard Choices That Must Be Made - she finds herself appealing to the young woman she befriended in the first place. Is this really necessary? Heck, do we even need to go back? It was just…it was so nice travelling out here, just the two of them (and a Securitron) like the old days, and Christine’s presence is reminding her of a time she was truly happy, which makes it easier to recognise that she’s not anymore. That she hasn’t been for a long time now.
Veronica’s reluctance only firms Christine’s stance that what’s in the Sierra Madre should stay in the Sierra Madre; likewise, Christine being present means Larkin can’t resort to her usual manipulative tactics to talk Veronica around from her misgivings. It means a long conversation that gets just close enough to ugly for Christine to grow wary - before Larkin finally smiles, holds up her hands, and says alright, very well, the point has been made. Can’t blame her for trying. Have you gotten much news from the south in your six years of solitude? Ah, well…
(And Veronica thinks, later, she should have known that moment for what it was, but she never really thought she’d end up on the other side of it.)
By the time they all part for bed, things aren’t quite as comfortable as they were before the disagreement, but Larkin waves off Veronica’s attempt to talk privately, claiming weariness and no hard feelings. Veronica hesitates, looks down the hallway a long moment before turning in…and then wakes during the night to find Larkin has attempted to lock both she and Christine in their rooms in order to take the tech by force.
What commences is three-ish days of cat-and-mousing in the deadly playground that is the Sierra Madre; no bomb collars this time at least, but an infinitely more personal fight. The longer it goes, the less Larkin holds back, and the ruthless resourcefulness that saw her turn the tables on Elijah has only been honed further since they last met. She is The Courier-
But Christine is the Warden. She has spent those same six years guarding this territory. She knows it inside and out, she taught Larkin half her skills with computers; the Cloud barely scathes her lungs, and the Ghost People shy away from her and those she protects. Eventually, with Veronica’s aid, she ends the bitter struggle over the Sierra Madre’s treasures by taking it out of the equation altogether - they rig a bomb that triggers a chemical reaction and ignites the Cloud like a funeral pyre that will burn for nearly a decade.
All three make it out before it goes; as deeply distressed as Veronica is by Larkin’s actions, as brutal a confirmation this has been that the woman she liked and loved (as a friend and, in a few precious moments, a little like something more) has gradually become no better than House, no better than Elijah - she doesn’t want her dead. She makes sure her old friend has a fair chance to escape.
Veronica and Christine flee together. Nothing has quite been rekindled between them yet; it’s been such a long time, and so much has happened. They’re quiet and hurting, leaving more things burning in Sierra Madre’s fires than tech and treasures. There’s a strange sense of lightness though, the slow awareness of freedom - from Christine’s vigil over the city of the dead, to Veronica’s dogged loyalty to a cause she’d long lost heart in - and for once the future is a total, enticing mystery.
Larkin limps back alone to New Vegas, humiliated and hating. To have lost a fight she started is a grievous blow to her pride, and the paranoiac edge that can in some ways be traced to the her first encounter with the Sierra Madre is now spiralling after the second - it doesn’t help that both Christine and Veronica are ex-Brotherhood, a group that Larkin has developed an increasingly personal grudge against. She genuinely believes that the fight isn’t finished here, that they’ll return all high and mighty to deny her Vegas as well, and even if they don’t someone else fucking will, there’s always someone who wants what she has.
She might not be wrong.
She will be ready.
This post is collated from a few old Tumblr posts written during and after the game, making up a streamlined 'liveblog' narration of my Courier 6 Larkin's rise to power in the Mojave Wasteland.
*
Larkin is someone who's been on their own for a long time. Not a vault kid; maybe a vault descendant, but without enough knowledge of her own history to say for sure. Mom was wary, twitchy, something of a hermit even by wastelander standards. Father wasn’t there, and for a long time she didn’t realise he was supposed to be. Learned to read ‘cause mom insisted, learned to shoot 'cause someone had to, and soon enough became the only link between the nearby town and the shack on the other side of the hill. When mom died, so did the last vague shreds of sentimental attachment to the area, and Larkin struck out to see if there wasn’t something more interesting to do.
After a lot of odd jobs and the occasional close call, she edged her way into the Mojave area and the courier position, which was most appealing. Good money - not just what they paid, but anything she happened to pick up along the way - and it let her keep the wandering habits, finding new places, people, and stories. On top of that, there was the reputation. For all her fickleness and present-minded focus, Larkin liked being a Courier, capital C, and she took pride in being reliable. She liked doing the handshake-and-smile routine with high-falutin’ folks. She liked being known.
So it really didn’t sit well when that asshole compromised it all.
Goodsprings: Took a little while to get back on her feet; forgivable, given the hole in her head. Rallied the town against the Powder Gangers, though she didn’t quite manage to convince Pete she could be trusted with explosives. As it was, Ringo died in the battle, as did Cheyenne the dog; any, er, 'grief’ was offset by getting all his caps and his bed. Picked up the assailant’s trail via Victor and others, and struck out after 'em as soon as she had supplies and a steady hand again. Vengeance wasn’t all that high in her mind, but by god she would be having her package back, thank you very much.
Primm: Checking in with the Mojave Express turned out a little trickier than expected. Solved the issue by shooting rather a lot of people and installing a robot as sheriff. The deputy seemed to think that was a dubious choice at best, but since he wasn’t volunteering to go raid a goddamn prison, his opinion didn't count for much. Nothing wrong with robots anyhow. Eventually she would pick up ED-E from the Express, once her player worked out how to do it.
Nipton: Had fun doing a 'favour’ for Ghost when she was planning on passing through the town anyway. Had slightly less fun skulking around ransacked ruins and creepy crucifixions. When confronted by the Legion, she kept things polite and conciliatory, and backed the hell out of that situation asap. On the upside, totally got to flirt with Cass at the Mojave Outpost.
Novac: Got off to a good start with the town when the story of the midnight Brahmin assassinations piqued her curiousity enough to see her lending a hand. (Was also very down with the giant dinosaur and tourist kitsch. Good place by Larkin standards.) Got roped into heading out to the power plant in order to get information on where to find the assailant, and from there got roped into an increasingly insane string of cascading quests that wore on her patience enough to make opening fire seem a tempting option. The nightkin were over-formidable foes, however, so the application of diplomacy and Stealth Boys ended up being the solution of choice. Eventually saw the damn ghouls off and won outright idolisation by the town. This somehow wasn’t hampered by her assistance in assassinating Jeannie May. Larkin had hoped for some sort of a reward, but with a shrug and a lie decided acquiring a skillful shooter was close enough, taciturn as he was - at least as long as he didn’t take a crack at the Legion and bring their wrath down on her head.
Helios 1: Science’d her way through the doors and met her first Follower of the Apocalypse. Ended up going with his suggestion to route the plant’s power evenly across the area; though no enemy of the NCR, Larkin’s no firm ally either, and seeing a spread of electricity for all served her wanderer proclivities better than seeing them specifically on better footing.
Boulder City: Found some cornered Khans. Sneak-rescued some hostages to be ensured of NCR support in battling the Khans. Internally flipped a table upon finding out the chip wasn’t there, and stomped off towards Vegas with an increasingly aggravated glint in her eye.
188 Trading Post: Met Veronica. Swapped Boone out for Veronica. Can only assume he realised Legionnaire-hunting was not as high on Larkin’s list of priorities as she’d suggested and so parted ways. Larks hadn’t heard enough about the Brotherhood of Steel to be offended by Veronica's allegiance, and found her entertaining, informative company.
REPCONN Facility: Frankly had a shitload of fun? There was a tour! By a robot! Of other robots! There was also some fun times to be had infiltrating the upper levels, but mostly Larkin wanted to live in the room with the galaxy model.
Camp Golf: Uh. Learned how to swim and ignored some sidequest opportunities on account of being self-centred.
Crimson Caravan: Mumble mumble sidequests. The important thing is that Cass was roped into being a companion. The pair continued to get on pretty well…at first.
Freeside: Sizable, but disappointingly grungy. Picked up a bit of work, though, which proved interesting enough. Nothing like being a debt-collecting pimp to help with the introductions.
New Vegas: Stars. In. Her. Eyes. Never seen a place like this before. (Also, as a player, watching Vegas light up at night for the first time? Wow.)
-The House Always Wins I: Going to be frank - Larkin was super flattered. Being the only person allowed inside Lucky 38 in living memory? Pretty sweet. Getting the run of parts of the place plus a luxury suite all her own? It’s like House actually knew her. She was cautiously respectful with the man himself; curious but trying not to overstep boundaries, and privately relieved not to be taken to task for failing to make the delivery in the first place (though by all accounts, not her fault). The fact he managed REPCONN and had robots everywhere was also a point in his favour. Cass shattered the glee a bit by voicing scepticism. Larkin didn’t much like the scepticism. The friendliness there began to fray.
-Ring-Ding-Ding: Thanks to the Black Widow perk, Larkin managed to convince Benny that she had a fetish for attempted murder and so earned a ride up to his suite. The high Sneak skill meant she had a pistol on her, and when he made the grave mistake of failing to take her demand for the chip seriously, he lost his head. Mission accomplished.
…and then she found Yes Man and things got even more interesting.
So ends the tale to date.
In short, FNV has been a lesson in Nice Is Not Good. Don’t think Cass is going to last much longer as a companion; if they’d met earlier in Larkin’s life she might have been a good influence, but as it is Larks is more inclined to get sulky than thoughtful every time she points out House isn’t a bastion of peace and goodwill, and she’s displeased with Cass’ decision to get all vengeful with some groups Larks doesn’t want to alienate. Maybe some time in the future I will roll a good guy and get to keep her around, but here and now their goals don’t align.
That said, Larkin’s loyalties aren’t exactly locked in with House either. She has never resented her wasteland lifestyle, but now that she’s seen a solid alternative, one where there’s a steady supply of food and caps and company and beds, she’s finding herself wondering just what more the world could give her. (A private space room!?)
She’s far from sharpening her blades, though. House is offering quite a lot as it is, and he’s been in the game much longer; as long as he makes good on all those offers, there’s sense in courting his favour rather than his ire. She’ll keep Yes Man secret, and she’ll keep her options open, but for now she’s going to be careful not to make the same mistakes Benny did.
*
Larkin and House are balanced upon the same see-saw: reward vs risk.
Larkin is not averse to being the right-hand, and that’s probably a point in her favour. She has ambitions, but they’re mostly centred around having regular meals, somewhere comfy to turn in, and a supply of entertaining company; having now acquired that, her cooperation with House is more a matter of holding onto the shiny side of life than craving a climb further up the ladder. Even the parts of her duty that might be considered a serious downside by others - such as continually being sent into danger while he sits safe in his tower - aren’t a deal-breaker. She was born in the wasteland, she knows the wasteland, and she would grow restless if her skills were used for little but city squabbles. To that end, becoming grand dictator (sorry, ‘autocrat’) of New Vegas could be seen as a cage as much as a throne. House is the one with the plans and the bureaucratic inclinations, and she has no strong opposition to letting him do as he wants there - especially when it’s a vision filled with fascinating things like trains and space travel. She can benefit from that just fine. People court the right-hand; they paint targets on the top dog.
Lingering in the back of her mind, however, is the possibility that she may outlive her usefulness, to quote a beloved cliche. House’s track record is actually pretty good, since he lifted the Three Families up, allowed them a measure of power and, by his own words, has little interest in turning the autocracy into an aggressively totalitarian sort of government. Words are just words, though, and the more help Larkin gives him, the more freedom he has from the power struggles that may have helped keep him in check. His proclaimed disinterest in subjugation clearly doesn’t carry over to a disinterest in sweeping away opposition and unwanted riff-raff, and Larks has no firm guarantee she won’t somehow slip into one of those categories by the end. A luxurious cage is preferable to a dumpster coffin.
For House’s part, he needs an agent right now, plain and simple; there are a number of essential tasks he just can’t see through without a proxy. So far, Larkin’s been a very reliable asset. She’s done as he’s asked, reasonably quickly and competently, and she’s proven capable of handling both the physical dangers and political machinations necessary. She’s also adapting to Strip life alarmingly well for a scruffy wastelander, and she at least appears to be skeeving people off a great deal less than Benny did.
She does ask a lot of questions, though, and that might make him nervous. I think it’s safe to say Benny’s betrayal remains a fresh blow to his confidence, and after coming so close to losing everything, he seems a bit prickly about any behaviour that isn’t straightforward obedience. He might not know about Yes Man, but he has to assume Benny had some sort of plan that required him to hijack the chip, and that it wasn’t a plan conducive to his own survival. There’s also the bit where everything that makes Larkin useful also makes her threatening. He has no guarantees that she won’t be - hasn’t already been - wooed to support one of the other factions, or simply scheming to take his place. He can only try to buy loyalty, and Benny proved that some people will always want more.
So the dance goes on, and behind the genteel exchanges are cautious calculations and suspicious squints. He’s contemptuous of her patchy education and wastelander decorum; she privately rolls her eyes whenever he speaks as though he wouldn’t be facedown in the shit without her help. He has power; she has options.
Theirs is never going to be the most trusting partnership, but it could be a frighteningly effective one…as long as they can refrain from turning on each other.
*
Larkin is not remotely pleased with the order to kill the Brotherhood. She’s a killer, but she’s not an assassin. Striking deals with factions for support? Totally fine. Taking out someone actively moving against you? Understandable, though even then she wasn’t thrilled at having to gun down the Omerta bosses - it felt a little too much like being the playee instead of the player - and she still didn’t pull her weapon until they did.
Killing the Brotherhood, though? They haven’t made any proclamations of war. Plus they’re V’s family, and V is both a very helpful ally and a decent friend. Larkin doesn’t do the whole preemptive strike thing; she wouldn’t go on a rampage for Cass, so House is severely underestimating her if he thinks she’ll do it for him.
It’s not all that easy to piss her off, and once you do she’s still not the kind to blow her top; she doesn’t even seethe, really, though she can be prone to petulant fits. She just sort of…loses her patience, and if you still refuse to get out of her face then she removes yours. It won’t have come out of the blue. There will have been clear signals and plenty of opportunities to back off. Hell, she would have let Benny walk if he’d given her the chip, but he wouldn’t and her patience ran out.
She’s not quite at that point yet but she’s been pushed rather hard and man, House should know better by now. He’s spent the last few weeks making use of her skills, he knows the kinds of places she’s infiltrated and the people she’s gained loyalty from and he still thinks it’s a good idea to talk down to her. It’s even dumber because she could be convinced! She could be bribed and flattered, or talked around to seeing the Brotherhood as a threat. If he’s so certain the Brotherhood will stand against them, he could agree to let her try diplomacy and let her come to the threat conclusion on her own.
Instead he pulls out the employer-employee line and the only way he could have handled that more poorly is if he’d said owner-dog instead. Easy-going she may be, but it’s becoming clearer that Larkin has a lurking trigger when it comes to being caged. She’s agreed to work for House, yes, but not to be used by him. She’s not a tool. The assurances that ‘they’ were going places were a big part of what won her over to the cause; I honestly can’t believe he’s so arrogant as to overlook that. From a writing perspective it’s an understandable and well-enacted part of his character, but Jesus, it’s just so dumb. Of all the things to get shot in the face for, the inability to not be a condescending jackass has to be one of the more embarrassing.
It’s occurred to Larkin by now that she could just rabbit out of this situation altogether. There’s a big wide wasteland out there and she knows her way around it; she doesn’t want to lose what she has at Vegas but she values her independence a whole lot, and there could be other chances to make a cosy living. She’s overplayed her hand, though, and with the Legion actively gunning for it she’s a little wary of shedding what protection she has. Maybe she could outrun them, but maybe Caesar’s inclined to make an example of her. War’s pretty damn close around the corner and a few too many dangerous people know her name.
*
PART ONE: THE LEAD-UP
It turned out a week of meditation was unnecessary; I spent just one evening pacing around my living room before I grudgingly admitted that the only thing standing in the way of Larkin going Wild Card was whether or not she could arrange for sufficient support. This induced a lot of groaning from my end. Of course I was in control, but I’d committed myself to playing to Larkin’s leanings even when they clashed against my own preferences (see: my inability to acquire certain companions because they have morals) and I didn’t intend to break from that at the finishing post. I wouldn’t have felt good about killing the Brotherhood, but having come so far as a House-aligned courier…well. It was something of a wrench.
It should be noted that this wasn’t how Larkin wanted things to go either. A life as House’s second would have worked well for her, and she was genuinely pleased by the arrangement at the beginning. It gave her access to luxury, with free pass in and out of the Lucky 38; it gave her the benefits of security, with the authority of New Vegas behind her; and it still allowed her freedom, with assignments that sent her out across the wasteland. She liked that House would give her a goal but trust her to work out the finer details of when and how for herself. Hell, she liked House. She was fascinated by Vegas and admired him as the leader of both it and REPCONN, which she had some kind of strange crush on because robots and space.
That admiration was tempered by House’s unmasked contempt of the wasteland, but even that wasn’t a huge issue at first. It served to humanise him. Though the flash and glamour of Vegas enthralled her, Larkin’s home was the open road; she would never shed her ties to it and she had no desire to. She realised quickly that House didn’t get it, that by sequestering himself away in his shiny tower he had left himself ignorant to the way the wider world worked, and she wasn’t annoyed by that because it made them equals. Every time he mocked the wasteland as a society of savages and ingrates, she rolled her eyes in private amusement because he was making it clear that he needed her.
Unfortunately, House didn’t see things quite the same way. If his scoffs about the wasteland amused her, his constant prickliness about her questions drew her hackles up. She could understand that he had suffered a recent betrayal and was reluctant to share more than necessary for the mission, but at times he seemed reluctant to indulge her with even that much. She was helping him, wasn’t she? Why was it such an issue that she wanted to approach a task with her eyes open? More than once she was pushed to the brink of suspicion when he dragged his feet over a simple enquiry, only to be soothed by acknowledgement for a job well done or a confiding conversation about life before the war and his plans for the future.
It was a combination of factors that finally tipped Larkin’s loyalties. She had just come back from the Omertas assignment, which she hadn’t felt entirely comfortable with; she had been sent in to investigate a possible threat, and had ended up assassinating the casino’s two leaders and replacing them with a man she didn’t know particularly well—she hadn’t even uncovered what Big Sal had been planning in the first place. It felt less like a success and more like Cachino had managed to take advantage of her to ensure his own promotion. This left her in a particularly poor frame of mind to receive a mission that was blatantly an assassination—hell, a minor massacre that would endanger a personal ally. It wasn’t as though it was the first time House had wanted someone removed, but he’d always given her the choice of how to handle it; she chose to set Benny up in a fair fight, and she chose to recruit the Boomers. Not this time. This time he all but said to her face that she had no choice. She had orders, and she was to carry them out, and that was the end of the matter.
It was also the end of Larkin’s impression that he saw her as any kind of equal. It was made even worse by the timing; not only in that it followed on the tail of the Omertas assignment, but in that she had literally just alienated two powerful factions, driving one to outright hostility. Agitating a ramshackle gang is one thing, but doing the same to an army of slavers and rapists known for crucifying those who displease them? It had been something of a reckless leap of faith to side with House against that force. His statement that she had no choice consequently stung all the more because on some level it was true; she had just cut her options down considerably. With that in mind, his sudden disregard for her thoughts took on an even more sinister light. It was as though House, knowing that she had less room to move, now felt less obliged to cater to her. No further need to butter up the wasteland savage; she has nowhere else to go.
From Larkin’s point of view, House had just managed to compromise both her freedom and her security, and without those two assurances the luxury was not nearly enough. Her loyalty was officially shaken.
If it weren’t for Yes Man, she might have truly been trapped. The Legion was actively seeking to kill her, the NCR wanted nothing more to do with her, and the few allies she had weren’t going to be able to defend her against a three-pronged grudge if she tried to back out on House. If it weren’t for Yes Man, Larkin would have had to either commit herself to being House’s dog once and for all, and hope that any unpleasantries would be few and far between, or make a break east and hope that she could outrun her sudden proliferation in resourceful enemies.
She did have Yes Man, however, and so the question she found herself presented with was not what do I do but can I do it?
PART TWO: THE EXECUTION
Larkin’s first indication that she could get away with usurping House was when she succeeded in gaining the favour of the White Glove Society, and thus the admiration of the Strip as a whole. With the core of Vegas owing her various degrees of allegiance, as well as the Freeside factions at least accepting her, she finally felt she had firm enough footing to start shaking up the status quo.
There were, of course, the outside factions to deal with. The Boomers were already willing to stand with her—the emphasis being on her, not House—and she was able to break the Khans’ commitment to the Legion while remaining on good terms with them. The Brotherhood was more complicated, simply because they represented the true turning point. Either House was correct about their being a serious opponent, in which case his plans were justified regardless of his attitude, or House was incorrect and his attitude was an even greater concern.
Larkin had not had much to do with the Brotherhood before reaching the Mojave region. Most of her knowledge came from Veronica—who repeatedly stated than the Brotherhood had more enemies than friends and were likely to get themselves killed if they carried on with their current path—and from the story of Helios One—where the Brotherhood had been defeated by a scrappy army. Larkin’s own investigations into the group had her learning the extent of their lockdown. She fulfilled McNamara’s wishes to learn of his paladin groups; she then travelled and met with his scouts in the hope that they would further discourage the Brotherhood. When she realised the reports could give the Brotherhood reason to emerge from the lockdown, she quietly turned away from the compound and left them there, hiding the information from Veronica as well.
(She also journeyed to Black Mountain and from there to Jacobstown, which was interesting but not exactly a key point in her personal campaign.)
Her efforts were worthwhile—Larkin had found both the evidence and the support she needed, and she went to action the moment she reached Vegas again. Yes Man was notified. She rested well. She anticipated resistance in going after House, and she armed herself accordingly, before slipping out while Veronica was still asleep.
She also brought along some other items; her last action as an agent of House was to give him the three snow-globes found in her travels.
In something of a startling twist, she found herself facing little resistance as she opened up the doors to reach House. There were Securitrons from some distance that started in her direction when the alarm sounded, but it was simple to stay ahead of them, and those in her way made no move towards her at all. It was so unexpected that Larkin almost hesitated; had she been of slightly different temperament this confusion might have dissuaded her altogether. He clearly wasn’t prepared for an internal assault, despite knowing full well she had the platinum chip and ability to override all his systems. It was almost as though he had trusted her.
As it was, it did sway her slightly—when she reached House’s chamber, she left the old man alive. It was less guilt and more that she no longer saw him as a threat, however. House had proven, once and for all, that he did not truly understand the ruthless nature of the wasteland. There was little to fear from him now.
She did not intend to be cruel in leaving him alive; she simply thought she might still be able to get information from him. When things were settled, she would look at ensuring he had some mental stimulation on hand (if never the same access to the systems), and when he died within the year of infection she would not consider it a triumph. She may not have respected him as a leader, but she still acknowledged his successes as a man of science. Two of the snow-globes were placed in the chamber when it was sealed for good; the last (the test site) she kept in the penthouse control room.
After disabling House and installing Yes Man into the Lucky 38’s systems, Larkin went straight to Veronica. Up until that point she had kept her plans secret, sharing none of her dissatisfaction. Now, she drew her friend aside and said, “House is dead. I had to kill him. He was out of control, he was going after the Brotherhood, I had to do it. Will you help me in what I do next?” Obviously, this was misdirection on several levels, since her anger was never really about the Brotherhood, but Larkin had no qualms about hypocrisy. She disliked being used, not using others, and right then she needed every ally possible. The following conversation was terse in several ways, but Larkin used all angles at her disposal—that she just wanted to see the Vegas region safely through the war; that House had good plans but was the wrong man to carry them out; that Veronica owed her for effectively saving the Brotherhood—to ensure Veronica stayed by her side, at least for now. She would wring every possible use out of her friend before she saw her walk away.
With Veronica’s allegiance assured and Yes Man accessing all necessary points, the plan hit its final stages. The Legion were snapping Larkin’s heels, the war was so close it was visible, and the survival of Vegas was her only real hope for any sort of a free life; all of this made Larkin increasingly reckless. She had to kill several NCR soldiers in order to install the override at the substation, and as such was unable to save the NCR president from assassination. She didn’t care. These things might have ramifications in the future, but in the present the Legion were finally launching their attack and she could worry about everything else once she made sure she still had the right body parts to do the worrying.
The second battle for Hoover Dam was vicious. It was Larkin’s first taste of true war, and in fairness she handled it well, if not without injury; between support from the Boomers, the Khans, and her Securitrons, she was able to install Yes Man and awaken her army at the Fort. This was carried out with a brutal efficiency, however, and both Legion and NCR soldiers were felled as she infiltrated the control room; her enmity with both factions was secured, and her success more crucial than ever.
From the dam she swept through to the Legate’s camp. While Veronica and the Securitrons lead a distractive attack against the Legion soldiers, Larkin hauled herself into position, took aim, and removed the head of the Legion military. It was not a noble assault, but it was undeniably effective.
General Oliver’s subsequent arrival was not exactly welcome, though it did save her from having to seek him out. Larkin attempted to persuade him to recognise her martial superiority and leave without further conflict, but Oliver proved to be either steeped in stubbornness or simply unable to believe that she would risk such a direct attack against a leader of the NCR. Wounded, exhausted, and well out of patience, Larkin sighed heavily, gave the order to fire, and then ducked behind shelter to wait out the ensuing massacre.
Her victory was complete.
PART THREE: THE CONSEQUENCES
Both opposing armies were shattered, the remnants driven out of the Mojave, and Vegas left to forge a path free of the tense confinements three interlocking factions had cast upon it. It was not the smoothest transition—there were conflicts as smaller factions sought to fill the perceived power gap—but Larkin’s upgraded Securitron army proved useful in stifling such issues without too much bloodshed. The Fiends proved a more persistent enemy as they took advantage of the war to establish a foothold in Outer Vegas, and the struggle against them went on for years. Goodsprings and Primm fared well; Novac suffered somewhat during the war but managed to rebuild itself, and Jacobstown never managed to forge strong ties with the outside world after the Nightkin left to harry travellers. The Boomers flourished. The Great Khans formed an empire in the north-west, and I like to think they had amiable (if occasionally terse) relations with Vegas. The inspiration for a series of children’s books about a super mutant and her robot was born.
The greatest of Larkin’s mistakes was the Brotherhood; in the wake of the war, they emerged from their bunker to retake Helios One and hold hostage several trade routes. Her ability to rout them was undermined by the troubles closer to home and though it cannot be said for certain that she never managed halt their interference, they certainly remained in opposition to her interests for far longer than she had planned. Veronica continued to try and introduce reform into the group, and was eventually cast out for her efforts.
Larkin continued to use the Lucky 38 as a home and New Vegas as a base of power. Her life as a wastelander made her indulgent when it came to causes like battling raiders and advancing food and medical technologies. She balked less at taking aggressive actions against perceived threats, however; her soreness over the uprising of the Brotherhood, as well as her experiences with the war and House, gave her shorter patience when it came to opposition and less reluctance to engage in preemptive strikes. She also continued to mark her own interests as highest priority and, with an army at her back, was less concerned about who she had to trample to see them carried out.
Yes Man’s announced upgrade initially alarmed her, but proved to solve a number of problems; she had been wondering how to deal with an asset that was vulnerable to outside manipulation, being aware of how that had worked for Benny. With the AI now capable of resisting manipulation, he became a valuable aid and assistant. It would be inaccurate to say she ever trusted him, but she found his manner entertaining, his robotic nature intriguing, and his uses many. Together, they worked to unfurl House’s plans for the region and implement those that took Larkin’s fancy, and having a right-hand capable of managing Vegas left Larkin enough freedom to venture forth across the wasteland (with ED-E in tow) to deal with issues in person—she never believed that something had been carried out just because someone had told her so. It was ultimately more stress and responsibility than Larkin had really hoped to inherit, but it still made for an interesting life with plenty of comforts, not to mention the silent satisfaction of making a lasting mark across the country; her name would always be known.
*
[Cliffnotes: Larkin and Veronica are allies and occasional lovers, but after taking New Vegas Larkin becomes increasingly ruthless which troubles the far more Good-aligned V.]
I do want to emphasise that I don’t think Veronica overly naive or easily manipulated. I think she’s a good person and an optimistic idealist who strives to see the best in people, as evidenced by how determined she is to reform the Brotherhood, but savvy enough to see the writing on the wall when it comes.
The particular issue of Larkin is firstly that she met Larkin pre-Vegas, and secondly that Larkin is genuinely very charming - and quite charmed by Veronica in turn! She’s easy-going, flexible, doesn’t pick fights, is competent and seasoned without being bossy, and Veronica had been dealing with enough cold shoulders from her family that it was really rather nice to hang around someone who laughed at her quips and seemed genuinely interested in her opinions and flat-out admiring of her skills. The scaling of the REPCONN facility was a highlight of those early, carefree days, and I usually headcanon that they share their first kiss in the space room (Larkin bright-eyed with delight at their discovery, the memory of cramming together in a corner to avoid a sentry bot while muffling stupid silly laughter close at hand, the turn of a smile against her lips while the tiny planets spin ceaselessly overhead).
And then even once the Vegas plot started, well, House was a bit weird sure, but the Brotherhood hardly has a cleaner reputation, and it’s not like Larkin was murdering people left right and centre in his name. Everyone knew the war was coming, and by all accounts House was just angling to see Vegas survived it - even angling to help see the Legion outed, which Veronica could get behind. It was actually a little cool to be making a difference out in the wider world. Like getting to be the first people who managed to get in with the Boomers! And all the while Larkin’s still cheery and confident and clever, and still so pleased with Veronica’s company and Veronica’s assistance. Maybe she lies sometimes, maybe that cleverness takes some interesting routes here and there, maybe she’s not always leaping to help without incentive, but they’re still doing a surprising amount of good.
So when things go suddenly downhill and a tense, pacing Larkin tells her she had to kill House - that she did it because House was going after her family - she has no reason to disbelieve that. Things get uglier in the aftermath but war is ugly, and it’s Larkin who’s asking her to stand by her, to help her survive this so that she can help them all survive this. It’s not like she’s trying to kill NCR soldiers but the battlefield is such a mess…
And then they win a victory that’s patchwork at best. It’s not over. The Mojave’s threatening to split at the seams, Larkin’s wounded and exhausted and still saying please stay please help me I need someone I can trust.
The Brotherhood comes out of their cage - but in the worst way, the way she’d always feared. I saved them, Larkin says bitterly. I saved them for you.
People die. Left, right, and centre. Sometimes it’s because Larkin killed them. Sometimes it’s because Larkin made deals with people who kill. Where am I supposed to go? Larkin says when she suggests it; laughing, but not as she used to, not like she did when they were young and silly and breaking into buildings because they could. The Legion wants my head on a stick, after they’re done drying it to jerky on some crucifix. NCR might make it quicker, I suppose. A softening, a soothing. Things’ll settle down soon enough. Just gotta find the trail through it. And someone else dies because they were in the way.
Veronica tells herself: one more week. One more month. Just until things have been smoothed over with the Omertas. Just until the fault in the Dam is fixed. Just until Larkin recovers from the bullet that clipped her shoulder in the newest Freeside riot. Just until she isn’t needed-
I couldn’t have done it without you, Larkin says, warm voice and distracted eyes, and there comes a day Veronica finds herself thinking back, That’s what I’m afraid of.
*
I don’t actually count the DLCs as part of Larkin’s New Vegas timeline so I’m casting [Dead Money] as something that happened a couple of years before the main game; it’s really quite feasible for Larkin to have gotten herself into this situation by poking around the legend of the Sierra Madre, and in fact the whole DLC promises to be a solid thematic match for her with the emphasis on greed and letting go. Poignant foreshadowing, and I didn’t even have to write it.
Having it be an earlier misadventure also fits well in terms of characterisation, in that it’s rather more fun going in as a younger, warier wastelander and not a mid-to-late game Larkin who’s gotten rather used to being hot shit in the Mojave and has pull with a variety of factions. This is a Larkin who isn’t so confident she can make it out of this, who isn’t accustomed to having many resources at her disposal, who is on a much more equal level with her companions. Not The Courier, known from Goodsprings to the Strip, but a scruffy merc little different from the other varied unfortunates Elijah has dragged into his obsession.
Except that she will, of course, make it out, and in doing so gain valuable experience that helps justify her accomplishments in New Vegas. Makes it more believable when an older Larkin can go, “Oh, so you want me to walk right into the Legion camp, activate a bunch of robots under their noses, and then lie to their leader’s face? Sure, that doesn’t sound worse than that time I had to break into an old world facility surrounded by ZOMBIES and DEATH CLOUDS with a BOMB COLLAR around my neck.”
Also helps explain why she rankles so much when House treads on her pride. She’s been used as a tool before; she’ll not go down that path again.
*
I said that I’d wait to try the DLCs before working out how much of them I want to incorporate into the gameverse tale, and having played Dead Money I’m now inclined to think I want to incorporate more or less the whole thing - because it gives me a really handy post-game hook. Almost certainly messes with the canon timeline a bit, but I’m not out to write a novel any time soon so I’m handwaving it in the name of fun.
As noted, Larkin gets drawn into the Dead Money mess around the age of 23, spends a week or so suffering, and gets out with maybe one gold bar, which allows for a comfortable few months in recompense. (A spending splurge that means she recovers well from her time amidst the Cloud, with a healthy portion left over as savings to be squirrelled away for emergencies.) She parts with Christine on loosely friendly terms; they didn’t know each other long enough or under relaxed enough circumstances to bond in any great depth, but after dragging someone’s dying ass up a staircase and collaborating on a murder plot with them, it’s only natural to hope their future endeavours go well.
At age 25-26, nine-ish months of game plot occur. Blah blah etc, Larkin eventually deposes House and establishes herself as a significant power in Vegas, with Veronica and Yes Man helping her out. The first six months that follow are barely bridled chaos, and even after that there is a hell of a lot to deal with; there are plenty of people who respect Larkin for being The Courier who pushed the NCR and Legion out, but no small number resent her for upending the status quo so dramatically (and nearly plunging the city into complete economic disaster in the process). There are of course also the handful who simply see her as easier pickings than the elusive House ever was.
And Larkin’s certainly more exposed than House, because she still insists on striking her deals and seeing things carried out in person. There’s a danger to it, but there’s equal danger in sitting too far out of the action; she knows how easy it to have vital information hidden or misconstrued by those with an agenda. It’s around this period that she upgrades her look a bit from the grubby wastelander half-angling to be underestimated. Still goes armed and armoured (because there’s presenting a confident image and then there’s asking to be stabbed), but it’s less of a chunky / patchwork mess, and more…something like the assassin suit in style, I suppose? A sleeker, meaner Larkin, balancing practicality against image, her background and experiences against life as a permanent part of the Strip.
Two-ish years after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, Larkin’s progressed from significant power to dominant power, generally recognised as the head of what loose hierarchy exists, and had a few close calls. A wary eye is still kept on all horizons, with rumours out of both east and west speaking not of war, not yet, but enough hostility to settle uncomfortably between her shoulder-blades. She has alliances, but people are fickle; she has the Securitrons, but they’re known and familiar and far from invulnerable, and their numbers have been whittled down over the years. As she lounges at the top of the Lucky 38, she finds her thoughts drifting back to a misadventure from her youth and the unique tech she’d witnessed there.
At age 28, Larkin returns to the Sierra Madre with Veronica in tow - a Veronica who’s older and tireder and still trying to do what’s right. The former scribe has been loyal, has been valuable, and has been growing ever uneasier with her friend / sometimes lover and all that’s been done in the name of staying safe or making improvements or it’s not like this is how I want to play it, V, but it’s how it has to happen. After being cast aside by her old family, however, she can’t make herself abandon what small measure of it she has here.
She’s taken completely by surprise by the face who greets them at the gates.
Larkin has long since guessed that Christine’s Elijah and Veronica’s Elijah are likely one and the same, and Veronica’s presence is at least partly grease on the wheels: Look at this! Old friends, all three of us. Who’d have thought? It works, too; nobody’s throwing themselves into anyone’s arms, but beneath the bewilderment and disbelief there’s real relief at finding out they’re both alive, and the faintest echoes of an old tenderness, a young love cut short but never forgotten. As for Larkin, well, Christine’s memories of Larkin are of a resourceful and reliable ally, and in the wild weirdness of the moment Veronica’s doubts are submerged again as they laugh together and shake heads over how they’ve all changed and oh, god, it’s really Christine? It makes for a warm welcome.
The good feeling lasts maybe a day or two as the warden shows them about and ample tales are traded. Then, on the second night, Larkin casually comes out and says that she’s here for the tech - for the holograms predominantly, but she’s not averse to the other bits and pieces that make the Sierra Madre such a fortress. She’s not after Elijah’s dream of hunching like a mad vulture over a dead zone, but the holograms alone would vastly improve her security.
Christine says no.
More than that, Veronica says no. She, more than Christine, knows what Larkin’s not saying, knows what kind of edge she’s seeking, has watched her walking slowly but steadily down a path that is becoming harder and harder to condone. And now - away from Vegas, away from the politicking and the danger and the Hard Choices That Must Be Made - she finds herself appealing to the young woman she befriended in the first place. Is this really necessary? Heck, do we even need to go back? It was just…it was so nice travelling out here, just the two of them (and a Securitron) like the old days, and Christine’s presence is reminding her of a time she was truly happy, which makes it easier to recognise that she’s not anymore. That she hasn’t been for a long time now.
Veronica’s reluctance only firms Christine’s stance that what’s in the Sierra Madre should stay in the Sierra Madre; likewise, Christine being present means Larkin can’t resort to her usual manipulative tactics to talk Veronica around from her misgivings. It means a long conversation that gets just close enough to ugly for Christine to grow wary - before Larkin finally smiles, holds up her hands, and says alright, very well, the point has been made. Can’t blame her for trying. Have you gotten much news from the south in your six years of solitude? Ah, well…
(And Veronica thinks, later, she should have known that moment for what it was, but she never really thought she’d end up on the other side of it.)
By the time they all part for bed, things aren’t quite as comfortable as they were before the disagreement, but Larkin waves off Veronica’s attempt to talk privately, claiming weariness and no hard feelings. Veronica hesitates, looks down the hallway a long moment before turning in…and then wakes during the night to find Larkin has attempted to lock both she and Christine in their rooms in order to take the tech by force.
What commences is three-ish days of cat-and-mousing in the deadly playground that is the Sierra Madre; no bomb collars this time at least, but an infinitely more personal fight. The longer it goes, the less Larkin holds back, and the ruthless resourcefulness that saw her turn the tables on Elijah has only been honed further since they last met. She is The Courier-
But Christine is the Warden. She has spent those same six years guarding this territory. She knows it inside and out, she taught Larkin half her skills with computers; the Cloud barely scathes her lungs, and the Ghost People shy away from her and those she protects. Eventually, with Veronica’s aid, she ends the bitter struggle over the Sierra Madre’s treasures by taking it out of the equation altogether - they rig a bomb that triggers a chemical reaction and ignites the Cloud like a funeral pyre that will burn for nearly a decade.
All three make it out before it goes; as deeply distressed as Veronica is by Larkin’s actions, as brutal a confirmation this has been that the woman she liked and loved (as a friend and, in a few precious moments, a little like something more) has gradually become no better than House, no better than Elijah - she doesn’t want her dead. She makes sure her old friend has a fair chance to escape.
Veronica and Christine flee together. Nothing has quite been rekindled between them yet; it’s been such a long time, and so much has happened. They’re quiet and hurting, leaving more things burning in Sierra Madre’s fires than tech and treasures. There’s a strange sense of lightness though, the slow awareness of freedom - from Christine’s vigil over the city of the dead, to Veronica’s dogged loyalty to a cause she’d long lost heart in - and for once the future is a total, enticing mystery.
Larkin limps back alone to New Vegas, humiliated and hating. To have lost a fight she started is a grievous blow to her pride, and the paranoiac edge that can in some ways be traced to the her first encounter with the Sierra Madre is now spiralling after the second - it doesn’t help that both Christine and Veronica are ex-Brotherhood, a group that Larkin has developed an increasingly personal grudge against. She genuinely believes that the fight isn’t finished here, that they’ll return all high and mighty to deny her Vegas as well, and even if they don’t someone else fucking will, there’s always someone who wants what she has.
She might not be wrong.
She will be ready.