Fallout 3 Mission/Quest Walkthrough - Following in His Footsteps

Location: Megaton

From: Finished the quest "Escape!"

Rewards: Dad's location; 300 XP.

Head to and investigate the town of Megaton (and its inhabitants).

Optional: Speak with Saloon owner Colin Moriarty about your dad.

Optional: Deal with Silver, up in Springvale, for Colin Moriarty.

Optional: Get information from Colin Moriarty or his terminal (by hacking or obtaining the passcode).

Head to GNR Building Plaza - Galaxy News Radio and Three Dog.

Optional: Help the Brotherhood of Steel defeat the Super Mutants.

Optional: Speak with Three Dog about your father. Then, either pass the speech check, or complete the quest "Galaxy News Radio" that Three Dog issues you with, to gain information.

• Investigate the nearby town of Megaton for information about your father, James

Head south-east, to Megaton, the town which has a massive undetonated bomb in the centre. You'll encounter a few colourful characters here, including Confessor Cromwell who leads the Church of the Children of the Atom (they worship the bomb, and think god sent it to them) - you have the option to donate some caps to his Church if you want to gain some Positive Karma. Another inhabitant (who'll trigger a set of side missions, if you accept her offer) is Moira Brown who owns the Craterside Supply store. They're a good way to gain some experience, XP and weapons/loot. Also, if you speak to Lucy West you have the option to do a mission for her - "Blood Ties", which involves heading north-west, where you encounter the bodies of Lucy's parents and learn of her brothers vampiric tendencies.

Back in Megaton, while speaking to the various inhabitants, if you mention you are looking for your father or information on his whereabouts, the non-playable characters urge you towards the Saloon and Colin Moriarty who will then offer to tell you where your father is for 100 caps. If you decline, and ask him again later, he will then ask you for 300 caps. You also have a Speech <Lie> option here where you tell him your father told you about him, or you can choose certain speech decisions to get him to give you a discount on his price - but only if you agree to kill Silver and bring Colin Moriarty back the caps she took from him.

You'll find Silver in a ranch-style house northwest of Megaton, at Springvale. If you talk to her you can find out that Moriarty used to sell her body to his punters. There are many different ways of handling the situation (though she will attack you straight away if you say you are there for the caps that she stole from Moriarty):

1. You could convince (bribe) her to give you 300 caps in order for you to tell Moriarty she's gone.
2. With the successful speech check in your conversation you could maybe convince her to give you 400 caps to tell Colin Moriarty that she's gone.
3. You could kill her and get her equipment and 400 caps, as well as no Negative Karma. If you start stealing stuff from her house in addition to this you will get Negative Karma.
4. You could ask her for no money at all, and tell Moriarty that she's gone, resulting in Positive Karma, though you still have to come up with 100 or 300 caps to give to Moriarty.
5. You could say Silver's gone without working out a deal with her, though you'll have to come up with the 100 or 300 caps for Moriarty, still.
6. You could ask for no money at all and then tell Moriarty that she's gone, which will give Positive Karma. You can then kill her for her 400 caps and equipment and there will be no change to your Karma.
7. You could make her give you 400 caps with the successful speech check, and then kill her to loot another 100 caps from her corpse. You will lose Karma at this point, though.

If you choose the Negative Karma way to speak with Colin Moriarty, find the password to the computer terminal in a cabinet next to it. Alternatively, you could pass a speech check with Gob the Ghoul/bartender who tells you about Moriarty's computer terminal - if you ask him about the computer terminal after this point, he'll say that Nova, the barmaid has the password. You could then try to pass a speech check with her or use the Black Widow/Lady Killer perk (female and male characters, respectively) to try to seduce her into giving you the terminal password. You could also just take the blunt method and kill Moriarty to gain the password from his body. However you get it, it leads to Galaxy News Radio and the GNR Building Plaza.

Venture to the Super-Duper-Mart, and then on to Wilhelm's Wharf. You may then swim across the river with minimum radiation effect. You could also cross over the nearby bridge, but beware of leftover Frag Mines which you probably should disarm, and gain XP. Whichever way you choose, you could encounter Super Mutants and/or Raiders.

Enter the nearby Farragut West Metro Station and go to the room with Mole Rats which has stairs leading down. Then climb more stairs to find a metal/chain gate with Feral Ghouls behind it. Beyond that, will be another stairway and the door to get to Tenleytown/Friendship Station. Follow the tunnels heading south to exit in Chevy Chase; beware of more Super Mutants and Ghouls, though. You could also have entered Tenleyship/Friendship Station from Friendship Heights, but it involves a battle with Raiders who defend the entrance, and there are more Ghouls inside.

Near to the exit of Chevy Chase North, you will find Brotherhood of Steel Sentinel Sarah Lyons with a squad of Brotherhood of Steel soldiers from Lyon's Pride. If you talk to her, she will allow you to stick with her squad to get to the GNR Building Plaza and Galaxy News Radio, while clearing out Super Mutants in the process. You may then aid the Lyon's Pride in an attack on the Super Mutants, Super Mutant Brutes and Super Mutant Masters who are assaulting your destintation, the Galaxy News Radio building. Once these are all dead, a massive Super Mutant Behemoth is unleashed which you can help kill. There's a great Fat Man weapon from the Brotherhood of Steel corpse next to the fountain, which will heavily hinder the Behemoth.

Your conversation with the remaining Brotherhood of Steel soldiers varies depending on how fast you take down the Behemoth and who gets killed in the process. Use the intercom to the right of the double entrance doors to gain access to Galaxy News Radio, and Three Dog. Once inside, go upstairs, taking the first door on the left on the landing, and then the stairs on the right, and talk to Three Dog. Two options present to you at this point. If your Speech level is sufficiently high, you could convince him that your father will help his cause on your rescue - this will give you the "Scientific Pursuits" quest. But if your Speech isn't sufficiently high, he'll issue you with the "Galaxy News Radio" quest. You must first complete this to gain access to "Scientific Pursuits". Ensure you sure to talk to him after/if you used a successful speech check, because he'll then offer to exchange the whereabouts of a military munitions cache in exchange for the "Galaxy News Radio" quest. It's up to you.

If you end up killing Three Dog before he tells you to go to Rivet City, and Dr. Li, it ends the GNR quest and starts a new one - "The Search Continues". You could still talk to Doctor Li at Rivet City, and your father will still be in Vault 112.

Weirdly, this quest can be fast-tracked by missing out a number of steps:

1. Go speak to Three Dog without speaking to Colin Moriarty.
2. Go to the Jefferson Memorial (the Rotunda, underneath) to retrieve the Project Purity journals from your father.
3. Go straight to see Doctor Li in Rivet City.
4. Go to Vault 112 where your father is located.

If you find Vault 112, the journals or Dr. Li before you talk to Three Dog, the quest will be completed. If you visit Three Dog at the GNR Building Plaza after (later in the game), the Super Mutants and the Behemoth will still be there though, and there sometimes are and sometimes aren't Brotherhood of Steel soldiers there. You still use the intercom to speak and gain entry, and Three Dog will give you the achievement for the quest "Following in His Footsteps". He'll also offer you the coordinates and the key for the useful Hamilton's Hideaway in exchange for the "Galaxy News Radio" quest. If you choose to do this for him (after finding out about your father on your own by talking to Dr. Li or going to Vault 112) and then go back and speak to him, you'll receive the key to the military munitions cache as well as Positive Karma because you did it out of the goodness of your heart...or words to that effect.