Fallout 3 Quest Walkthrough - Strictly Business - Red, Lancaster, and Arkansas

2009-10-31

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Introduction

This little quest serves a few purposes. It’s one way to get in good standing with Paradise Falls, if you are trying to get inside the city for any reason. It’s also a good way to make some fairly easy money in the early part of the game. It’s also a required start to any slave trading career. We’ll get to that at the end though.

This quest is easy to start. Just move up to Paradise Falls. It’s roughly in the center of the map, in a large square looking area. You should be able to see it for miles, since there’s a large “big boy” statue in the center of the city. Once you make it to the gates, you will be stopped. You can get into Paradise Falls if your karma is low, if you bribe the guard, or if you do part of this quest. He’ll give you the mesmetron and some starter ammo along with a slave collar and the VIP List.

Arkansas

If you’re roleplaying and just want to trick the slavers, then this is the most moral choice. He’s the crazy sniper in Minefield who will try to kill you. He’s the only hostile one on this list. You still get negative karma for enslaving him, but he’s pretty easy to grab as long as you’re ready when you go into Minefield.

You should probably kill 2 birds with 1 stone by also doing the relevant Wasteland Survival Guide quest in Minefield. You can check that one out by clicking on the link. For this one, it basically works the same. As you enter the minefield, you’ll need to move cautiously along the road. Disable the mines but watch out as you get to the first cars. Arkansas will shoot them to trigger explosions as you move forward. He shouldn’t shoot directly at you until you make it to his perch at the end of the street.

Rush inside this building and stop when you’re in cover. There are a lot of mines, so you can’t just run forward like an idiot. Arkansas should move down to face you. Just step out and nail him with the mesmetron. Just talk to him to rob him and slap on the slave collar.

Susan Lancaster

She’s pretty easy to enslave. She will either be in her room on the second floor of Tenpenny Tower, or the top floor in another suite. It partially depends on how the Tenpenny Tower quest plays out. If you did the peaceful version, then there’s a decent chance she properly moved up to Burke’s suite in the top floor.

It doesn’t really matter though. No matter where she is, just go into her room at night, close the door, and use the mesmetron while sneaking. Save first, naturally. This should work without alarming the general tower. If she’s on the top floor and the guard goes hostile, go ahead and see whether the rest of the tower is alarmed. It is sometimes just limited to this guard.

If you’re having problems with enslaving her but want to officially finish the quest for the “Strictly Business” achievement, then just do the Tenpenny Tower quest in one of the ways that kills her. You can also kill her yourself with a pickpocketed grenade or the mister sandman move.

Red

Red is the easiest to enslave, but she’s the hardest to access. You basically have to do the entire Big Trouble in Big Town quest. I’ve got a guide for that and it would be a little pointless to rewrite it here. Just follow the link for the details. The basics are simple though. You need to rescue Red and finish out the rest of the quest to get the rewards. Once she’s back and Big Town is safe, you can just go into her clinic while she’s on duty. Just use the mesmetron to enslave her. The town shouldn’t even notice.

She might have also died in a super mutant attack, so she might not be an option.

Flak

Flak is your backup. He’ll always be alive unless you killed him for some reason. Think carefully about enslaving him though, since you’ll be cutting off a good ammo store. We’ll discuss that below though. Enslaving him is actually pretty easy, as long as you can do a little trial and error with quicksave and quickload. Just follow him around. He should be fairly alone in his room at night. Just wait a bit and go inside. You can also follow him outside at about 2 PM. He’ll go outside and smoke.

Either way, you just need to find a quiet corner and use the mesmetron. This will affect Shrapnel though. There’s an AI bug that makes him run around the wasteland looking for Flak. This appears to be unintended. If you use them often, it’s a big loss. If you scavenge like me, then it’s no big deal. If you really want to keep the store open, then you can just slip a grenade in his pocket and kill him. Shrapnel will stick around and the quest will understand that you can’t enslave him.

Aftermath

Fallout 3 - Strictly Business - The Paradise Falls Slave Pens

Once you’re done with Strictly Business, you’ll have the opportunity to just go out on your own. Grouse will continue to sell you mesmetron ammo and slave collars. You can use the mesmetron to enslave a number of general NPCs throughout the wasteland. There are some that just can’t be enslaved though. You should probably save before you try, so that you don’t waste ammo.

It seems like there’s a 50% chance for some NPCs to go into the stupor that allows you to put the slave collar on them. There’s also a chance that their head will explode or that they will go crazy and fight everyone. The ones that can’t be captured have the 50% chance for enslavement transferred to head explosion. So, if someone’s head just keeps exploding when you use the mesmetron, then they probably can’t be enslaved.

Otherwise, it’s all up to you. It does seem possible to use it on some raiders and even enclave soldiers. It’s naturally a bit difficult though. It’s best use is stealthy work on the general citizens of the wasteland.

It’s a decent source of income and a good challenge for role playing. Other than that, you’re basically free to do what you want.

This post is part of the series: Fallout 3 Quest Walkthroughs

Having trouble completing Fallout 3? Check out this collection of walkthroughs to guide you from beginning to end.