Courier's Journal: Week One
From the diary of Robert Edwin House, 10/21/2281:
Yesterday I wrote that the courier in Goodsprings had survived his trial the previous night, and defeated the escaped convicts with the help of the militia he gathered. This much, I expected.
Today, Victor's data indicates that this courier, rather than immediately setting out to pursue Benny as I hoped, instead made a detour yesterday to the NCR Correctional Facility, where he proceeded to kill approximately thirty men entirely by himself. This morning he then returned to prison once again to continue his rampage, massacring dozens more convicts in several of their outlying camps. Even now as I write this, he's exterminating yet another large group in Primm, and it's unlikely he'll stop there.
This, needless to say, I did not expect.
Time will tell whether this unusually extreme aggression of his will prove to be an asset or a liability. I am usually wary of mercenaries motivated by bloodlust rather than material gain; such types tend to be unpredictable. But I can admire this kind of brutal efficiency to a certain degree. Even had he stayed loyal, I never could have relied on Benny to handle making contact with the Boomers or wiping out the Brotherhood of Steel, despite my belief that such tasks will require a human touch. This man, on the other hand, may be well-suited for such work, if his violent tendencies can be suitably tempered. I will just have to hope that I can keep him happy.
I almost pity Benny for what he's brought upon himself.
Author's notes:
Aside from their use as a vehicle to facilitate comedy, one reason I wanted to bring the Mr. House interludes in earlier was because I wanted to explore some of his rationale for why exactly he chooses to recruit the Courier, especially considering that the Courier can potentially be anyone, even an unhinged, mass-murdering lunatic. You can kill everyone in the game on the way to Vegas, and House will still invite you inside. Nothing can ever totally explain that, but I feel like if House both believed the Courier to be indebted to him, and saw that kind of relentless violence and determination as a potential asset against the Boomers or the Brotherhood, then it might go at least some ways towards explaining it.