reference [extended history]

[quixotically]

CONTENT WARNINGS for the canon as a whole: nuclear apocalypse ; natural disasters ; violence, especially gun violence ; gore ; sexual themes and abuse ; suicidal ideology and suicide ; genocide ; all kinds of abuse ; torture ; social/emotional/political manipulation ; racism ; sexism ; drug use ; drug abuse ; body horror ; forced surgeries ; and whole a lot more.

Long story short, Fallout is a canon with a LOT of mature content.

Original History (pre-game)

Born to Micah and Elena Days in some tiny cattle town out in California. Named after her mother, but called "Ellie" by her father to differentiate. Her mother died in childbirth, leaving her mild-mannered father to raise their enthusiastically curious daughter. The family running the neighboring farm, the Carlyles, helped where they could.

Little Ellie's life was unremarkable until she was six. A group of raiders attacked the little cattle town, and with the Days farm being one of the farms on the border, it got hit first. Micah had just enough time to get his daughter hidden somewhere out of the way before the raiders kicked the door in. The Carlyles weren't able to make it over to the Days house until after the raiders left town, and they found Micah dead and his daughter curled up at his side.

The Carlyles adopted her, though it took her a while to really begin to open up to them and make the first steps towards recovering from the trauma of her father's loss. The Carlyle family numbered four: Emma, the mother; Leland, the eldest son; Kathleen, the middle daughter; and Mary, the youngest. It was Mary who Ellie bonded with first, being quiet and gentle and artistic, though sickly. The next who would win her over was Avery, friend of the Carlyle children, and Avery was the one who brought her into the family proper. Over the years, the group would grow to be very close-knit and include Leland's best friend, Isaac. Eventually, Ellie and Avery would come to fall in love and date.

When Ellie was fourteen, she, Leland, Isaac, and Avery decided to join a just-started caravan company so they could leave town and see the world. The company never flourished, but it managed to hang on to life for the next couple of years as they traveled the Big Circle. Everything went wrong, though, when they attempted to dodge an NCR toll checkpoint on the road. The caravan drove smack into the middle of a nest of radscorpions. Avery and Leland did not survive.

This rocked Ellie to the core, and she felt personally responsible since she tried and was not able to save her boyfriend and older brother. Isaac returned home, but Ellie did not go with him, feeling as though she could not face her family and the rest of the town after her failure. She traveled aimlessly for about a year, throwing herself recklessly into dangerous situations to help people, stating because it was "the right thing to do" and although that was a definite part of her motivation, she was also hoping that she would eventually join Avery and Leland. Around this time, she stopped introducing herself as "Ellie," feeling uncomfortable that anyone who wasn't family would call her that.

It was during one of these excursions that she was rescued by a traveling gunman from New Reno, Errolyn Bishop*. Elle ended up falling in step behind him and traveling with him, and within a short amount of time, she was entirely taken by his style and the way he was able to have a definitive impact on the world around him everywhere he went, just by sheer force of personality. It didn't take long before he became a mentor figure for her, and she began to emulate his style and take after his methods, although she was never able to bring herself to be as ruthless as he was. But he not only inspired her after she lost her purpose and childhood friends, but provided her guidance and protection. It isn't a stretch to say that, in a very short amount of time, Errolyn became Elle's Most Important Person, her authority figure whose approval she longed for most. But she also began to unhealthily project onto him, and he became even more than just a mentor to her. She started to see him as a symbol through which she could learn to make up for her failures -- and save herself from such a loss ever again. This made her all the more desperate for his approval, and all the more insecure about what he saw in her. It also guaranteed the imprint he would leave on her subconscious.

Elle traveled with Errolyn for four years, getting by doing whatever odd jobs suited them, including courier work. During this time a small town at the Divide began to grow and flourish, encouraged by the trade that the pair of them brought through. Elle was especially proactive with the formation of the town, being naturally friendly and having a penchant for bonding with people quickly. During this time, Elle only returns home to California once, with Errolyn at her side, but due to a fight with Isaac wherein he accused her of replacing Avery and Leland with Errolyn, she left soon after and was too hurt to go back just yet.

In the months before the start of the vanilla game, Errolyn decided to leave Elle in the Mojave in order to go back to New Reno and sort out some family business. The Mojave was comparatively the safest place he could possibly leave her in the wasteland, and he didn't want to get her involved with the New Reno politics. To pass the time until he came back, Elle took up courier business yet again, and that's when she picked up the job to deliver the Platinum Chip.

And then, well. Canon begins.

*Errolyn is an OC who belongs to somanyme, used in her background with permission.

the Vanilla Game

Elle is a Very Good-aligned Courier Six. This has not changed since the day she woke up in Goodsprings. It should be noted that due to her near-death experience caused by being shot twice in the head, Elle does not remember her life prior to waking up in Goodsprings (in a style similar to soap opera amnesia). She began her journey wide-eyed and optimistic, and these traits quickly became exaggerated and made extreme as she learned more about the harshness of the Mojave Wasteland and its people. She didn't know how to cope and so turned to what very little she knew in hopes of finding guidance, which, at this early stage in her new life, meant that she clung obsessively to the idealism with which she started.

This was a two-edged sword. On one hand, this meant that she waltzed into bad situations that she should have seen coming, and would have, if she had listened to her instincts. On the other, it meant that she strove to solve most situations as peacefully as possible with the intention of finding an ending where everyone walked away happy. Giving people the benefit of the doubt meant that though she was opening herself up to get stabbed in the back and taken advantage of, she would also come to make many friends and allies over the course of her journey.

After protecting Goodsprings from the attack of a gang of escaped inmates, Elle followed They Went That-a-Way in order. She followed the road south to the town of Primm, which was also having problems with the same gang. After rescuing the deputy from them, she set out to find someone to make the town safe. She ended up choosing the NCR, as she didn't have the skill or firepower to try for her other options. When she went down to the Mojave Outpost to sort that out, she met Rose of Sharon Cassidy. She initially intimdated Elle, but they ended up getting along after she earnestly listened to Cass' problems. After making sure Primm was safe, Elle then headed to Nipton, only to be utterly shocked and horrified to see what the Legion had done to it. She was too afraid of the Legionaries she met there to directly confront them. After backtracking to the Outpost to inform the NCR what happened, she continued onward to Novac.

There, she learned that one of the two snipers who looked after the town would have information about the men who attacked her. When she went to go speak with them, she first met Craig Boone, who is not the one who had the information, but he had problems of his own. After some discussion, Elle agreed to help him find out who sold his wife to the Legion. After searching around and talking to everyone in town, including the town conspiracy theorist, she uncovered the culprit. Once Boone enacted his revenge, Elle talked him into traveling with her.

During her investigations, she met the other sniper, a man who used to be close friends with Boone who was incredibly dedicated to Novac. But before he told her what she wanted to know, he proposed a trade: he would tell her, but first, he wanted her to clear the ghouls out of a nearby landmark, which the town used to scavenge for supplies. Elle agreed to do as he asked, and set out to meet with the ghouls to try to talk them into leaving. However, the ghouls had problems of their own; they intended to leave via space rockets, but couldn't access the basement where they were located. The basement was being occupied by a type of super mutants known as nightkin. Elle snuck through the basement and met with the nightkin's leader and arranged for them to leave peacefully so the ghouls could continue with their quest.

After seeing the ghouls safely on their way, she returned to town and learned that the men, led by one named Benny, were headed north for New Vegas. She continued following their trail to Boulder City, where she peacefully resolved a conflict with the NCR and some of the men who attacked her. From them, she learned that Benny, the man who shot her, left for New Vegas next. On the way to the city, she met Veronica Santangelo, who she bonded with immediately due to their shared cheery demeanor. It didn't take long before Veronica joined Elle and Boone on their travels.

Upon reaching New Vegas, Elle learned that in order to access the Strip to confront Benny, she had to gather two thousand caps to get past the gate. While saving up her money doing jobs for the Crimson Caravan, she ended up helping out around town. This ranged from collecting debts and hiring workers for the local bar, solving a conflict between the NCR settlers and the Freeside natives, and providing support to the local doctors. It's there that Elle met her third companion, Arcade Gannon, who she managed to convince to travel with her due to her willingness to help people. It's also during this time that Elle ended up convincing Cass to join her, too, when she returned to the Outpost during a job for the Crimson Caravan. She was also entrusted with a cyberdog named Rex, who needed his brain replaced in order to survive.

Finally, Elle and her ragtag group had enough money to get onto the New Vegas Strip. She was immediately ushered into the Lucky 38, a casino that had kept its doors closed to everyone for the past two hundred years -- but only Elle, as the others had to wait outside. The master of the casino and the Strip, Mr. House, wanted an audience with Elle, and so she got to be the first person to not only walk into the Lucky 38, but meet with him face to face. It turned out that he was the intended recipient of the Platinum Chip, the item that Benny attacked Elle to steal. Benny had been House's right hand, but after this betrayal, House intended for Elle to take that place instead.

Elle grew immediately emotionally attached to him, so much so that it would become a crucial part of her character development. As much as she told herself that she was working for him because he was the one ultimately responsible for saving her life and his vision was best for the Mojave, she was more motivated by subconscious emotions that she did not and could not understand. Though her memory was gone, there was a lasting imprint on her mind that drove her to loyalty to House: the mentor who she found later in life, Errolyn. She may have forgotten him, but he left a deep impression in her subconscious, and she was instinctively searching for him. And, upon meeting Mr. House, whose projected image and personality was similar to Errolyn's, Elle's confused mind thought she found him.

Since House appeared to resemble her mentor, she strove for his approval, but the hope for fatherly affection was entirely misplaced in him, as he saw her as a means to an end and nothing more. But, because she was clinging so closely to her idealism, she ignored her instincts that she should be more cautious in following him and instead chose to believe that he truly did care for her in some personal capacity. After all, he saw purpose in her. He told her that she was important, simply by being who she was. She found more emotion in those statements than was actually there because she longed for them.

At last, it was time to confront Benny. Elle first persuaded Benny's right hand man to her side and then went and snooped around Benny's suite. There, she met Yes Man, and she was horrified to learn that Benny intended to kill Mr. House. This stunned Elle; she had been chasing Benny to get answers, because he took her memories away from her and she needed to know why. But now, she found out that Benny intended to take Mr. House away from her, too, and everything he meant to her. Now, more than ever, she burned with why? She charged to Benny to demand her answers, and when he suggested they go somewhere private to talk, she managed to keep enough wits about her to convince him to leave his bodyguards behind.

Benny came clean and told Elle his plan, confirming what Yes Man told her. Despite saying that he could sleep better at night knowing Elle had survived, he seemed entirely unrepentant about what he had done to her. In the end, his mistake was offering Elle a chance to work alongside him and betray Mr. House. Benny had long since been more of a symbol in Elle's mind than a person, representing the loss of her memories, something that she feared and felt the pain of every single day. And in that conversation, he confirmed that what he wanted to do most was to take something else incredibly important away from her. And then he asked her to become like him. Something in Elle snapped; her fight instinct won out over flight, causing a gunfight that was very short. Elle had won. She killed her boogeyman. But she just lost control of herself, so she freaked out in the aftermath.

When Elle returned to House, emotionally drained but bringing with her the Platinum Chip, he immediately set her out to work. He wanted to go to the home base of Caesar's Legion in order to activate a bunker that made Securitrons. Luckily for Elle, after she killed Benny, she was approached by a Legionary who told her that Caesar wanted an audience with her, too. Elle was petrified of the idea of going alone, so Cass, already feeling protective of her, invited herself along for the trip. Once face-to-face with Caesar, he thought that he could boss Elle around like she was one of his Legionaries, and ordered her to destroy the bunker that House wanted her to activate. But Elle followed House's orders instead, though the rumbling caused by the bunker activating made Caesar think she did what he wanted her to. She fled his base before he could begin to suspect otherwise.

House's next mission was to go and speak to a group of isolationist Vault dwellers called the Boomers. This was convenient, because, when Elle answered a summons to see the NCR ambassador, he'd explained that they also wanted her to go and talk to them. But before she set off for Nellis,f she needed to take some time to recover before she got started, so she took Rex and a couple of her friends and went to Jacobstown to help the poor cyberdog. There, she met Lily Bowen, who also ended up joining her team. After helping the doctor in town work on a cure for the nightkin's schizophrenia, Elle decided to swing down to Black Mountain, following a radio signal that took her to rescue Raul Tejada, who she also brought back home with her.

Finally, she felt ready to take on the task House entrusted to her. After sprinting past howitzers being fired at her, she was taken to the leader of the Boomers, who asked Elle to help around their base in order to acclimate the tribe to outsiders. Elle found out what they needed done, and then brought in her friends to help her -- partly because her skills were lacking, and partly to help prove that outsiders could help them. In the end, their efforts paid off, as the Boomers agreed to support Elle in the upcoming Second Battle at Hoover Dam.

In her travels for supplies to help the Boomers, Elle picked up another new radio signal on her Pip-Boy. After winning the Boomers' loyalty, but before she returned to Mr. House, Elle trekked out to seek its source. Once she found it, she was surrounded by a strange blue light, and then she fell unconscious...

DLC: Old World Blues

When Elle woke up in Big MT, she found out that she had been the subject of a surgical experiment involving the removal of her brain, heart, and spine and replacing them with technology. Perhaps the biggest problem, though, was that her brain had been misplaced. After listening to the Think Tank (the scientists responsible) argue amongst themselves, Elle agreed reluctantly to help them retrieve the technologies they needed to access the area where her brain had been spirited away to. It had been taken by another scientist, Dr. Mobius, who had been terrorizing the Think Tank for as long as they could remember. Once Elle defeated Mobius and got her brain back, it was thought that she would be able to replace the other parts taken from her. The Think Tank gave her Mobius' old room for a place to sleep in the meantime, which had once been full of experimental "Artificial Personalities," but they had been turned off and their files lost around Big MT.

Elle restored as many of the personalities as she could and befriended the Think Tank in-between retrieving the technologies they requested, all while fending off the many, many hazards in Big MT that were trying to kill her. After collecting the technologies, the Think Tank figured out how to use them to break into the Forbidden Zone where Mobius waited. She had to bypass the giant roboscorpion first, of course, but after that threat was eliminated, she proceeded on to confront Mobius.

It turned out that Mobius wasn't an Evil Scientist, after all, but he had once been friends with the Think Tank and knew that if left to their own devices, they could really damage the world they meant to help. So, he changed their programming so that they forgot about the outside world and distracted them by becoming their enemy. But thanks to Elle's arrival and the success of the surgical experiment on her, the Think Tank now had the know-how to put their brains back into bodies and leave Big MT. Elle told him that she would try to stop that from happening, but she really needed her brain back so that she could leave and go back home. He was more than happy to let Elle take her brain back, but only "if it agreed."

Turned out, Elle's brain had been put in a jar that let it talk on its own, too. After the strangest conversation Elle had in her life, she managed to persuade her brain to come back with her by agreeing to listen to it more and take better care of herself. With that done, she spoke with Mobius about her options for stopping the Think Tank, and she already knew that she wanted to talk them out of it peacefully, instead of going a violent route or making them scared again. Thankfully, her befriending of most of the Think Tank came in handy; when the leader of the Think Tank tried to bully Elle into giving in to him, the others chimed in on Elle's side. So, thanks to the Power of Friendship, Elle convinced the Think Tank to do science for her, as she could help provide them a moral compass where Mobius could not.

Before she left, she finished restoring and upgrading all of the Artificial Personalities, doing a lot of exploration along the way, even creating her very own cyberdog. During her exploration, she found items left behind by the visitors who came to Big MT last and escaped. Two of them left behind holotapes of their conversations, and these especially caught Elle's attention. They were a woman who was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel and a man who was seeking a courier, a female one, and it sent chills up Elle's spine. She wanted to learn more about him, this visitor, but there was nothing left about him on Big MT. She spoke to the Think Tank about their past visitors, but they just left her with more questions about them.

This DLC taught Elle the importance of never losing sight of where one came from. The Think Tank had lost sight of why they began as scientists to begin with, and they could not be allowed to see that the world had changed around them. Not only had they made themselves too dangerous to the world that they once sought to protect, but they also would not be able to truly adapt to what that world had become.

Her time in the Big MT also taught her the importance of looking outside of her personal scope. Prior to arriving there, she knew very little about science and did not try very hard to catch up with that knowledge. But she had to expand her horizons not just in order to not only keep up with the Think Tank's experiments, but because she realized that it wasn't going to go away or get any better if she kept her eyes closed to it. She began to strive to learn what she could and at this point actively started to apply her intelligence.

the Vanilla Game

Upon Elle's return to the Mojave, she immediately beelined for home. Her friends demanded where she'd been, and she explained the best she could, but couldn't tell them everything, as the Think Tank had conditioned her so that she couldn't speak of the location of Big MT or the Think Tank's secrets.

She reported in to House and received her next assignment: she was to root out what the owners of the casino across the street were up to. While she was working out the mystery there, she also helped several of the casino's prostitutes escape. By the time Elle was done, the owners of the casino (who were planning on betraying House) were killed and the weapons they amassed destroyed.

Next, Elle checked in with the NCR to see if they needed her help with anything. They asked for her help in finding a permanent solution to the conflict in Freeside between the natives and the NCR. Elle chose to approach the leader of the local friendly gang, who owed her a favor for her help earlier. She talked him into firmly putting his foot down about the ordeal, as he had a great deal of influence among the Freeside natives.

Around this time, Elle helped Cass find out what happened to her caravan, and talked her into getting her revenge peacefully, through bureaucracy. She also picked up the last member of her found family, ED-E, who she fixed thanks to lessons from Veronica and Raul.

House's next assignment came as a nasty shock: he wanted Elle to kill the Mojave's chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel, because they would never accept his rule of Vegas and use of Securitrons. For the first time, Elle found herself protesting, because the Brotherhood was Veronica's family, but House scolded her harshly and sent her on her way. Considering how much Elle longed for his approval, this shook her deeply. But she couldn't bring herself to just go along and do such a thing.

So Elle began to seek out ways to delay approaching the Brotherhood. The quests she passed her time away with include: ED-E My Love (she gave ED-E's data to the Followers), There Stands the Grass (she agreed with Keely and destroyed the data), I Don't Hurt Anymore (cw: sexual assault), That Lucky Old Sun (Elle chose to redistribute the power to Freeside and Westside), Andy and Charlie, Talent Pool, and part of Old School Ghoul (she listened to Raul's stories with great empathy and support, encouraging him to see that older people can still help their communities).

Further escape from her mission came in the form of a radio signal picked up out in the east. It spoke of the Sierra Madre Casino, inviting people to come and enjoy all it had to offer. Although Elle remembered hearing about the Sierra Madre from one of the holotapes from Big MT, she sought out the source of the radio signal. Once she found the source hidden deep in a bunker, she was gassed, and fell unconscious.

DLC: Dead Money

When Elle woke up, she found herself in a deadly city and wearing a bomb collar, being told to obey by a man called Elijah, who she recognized as Veronica's mentor. He told her that if she didn't do what he said, then he would set off the bomb collar and find someone else to do it. So, fearful and confused, she obeyed, and set off to collect the others who had been trapped, just like her. It wasn't as easy as it sounded, as she had to contend with the vicious and very difficult to kill "residents" of the villa, nicknamed "the Ghost People," as well as the poisonous Cloud that filled the air, various traps, and even her own bomb collar. The frequencies used by the radios and speakers around the villa could begin to activate the collar, causing it to beep quicker and quicker until they went off, so they had to be avoided, turned off, or destroyed in order to proceed safely.

She pushed through the majority of Dead Money trying as hard as she could to focus on cooperation and survival. She didn't have a hard time winning over the support and budding friendships of Christine Royce and God/Dog, but she fumbled awkwardly with Dean Domino, initially going starry-eyed around him and trying to ignore how dangerous he was. (He was yet another person who subconsciously reminded her of her mentor, Errolyn.) As much as this her an easy target to manipulate -- and Dean certainly intended to -- she also went out of her way to look after him in a way that he hadn't experienced at least in two hundred years. It was less her dogged attempt at blind faith in him that grudgingly won over his trust, but her unfailing -- and honest, despite their circumstances, because she did want to work with him and be friends -- loyalty.

What Elijah wanted was to use the four of them to break into the Sierra Madre, the casino proper. In order to do so, they had to play a trick on the power system and set off the pre-programmed gala event, involving lots of fireworks and music, which would only attract the Ghost People. It took a lot of persuading and bonding in order for Elle to convince her friends to move into position, and she did whatever it took for her new friends to feel safe where she left them.

Once they were in the casino, the group was gassed again by the casino security itself and the others were moved to various locations within the building. When Elijah demanded that Elle take out her new friends because he had no use for them, she instead went out of her way to make sure that everyone who wanted to walk out of there could in one piece. This was taken almost literally in the case of God/Dog when the two minds sharing the one body finally came to a head where they could not accept each other. Elle, unable to bear the idea of encouraging one of the personalities to fade away when they both needed each other so much, managed to convince them via impromptu therapy session to merge back into one being again. It would mean that they would completely forget her, making this a more difficult decision than it otherwise would've been, but Elle knew it was more important for them to be whole and at peace again, so she told them to go through with it anyway.

Elle sought Christine next, and though she was relieved to find that she was also alright, she was surprised to find out that not only Christine could speak again (though with the voice of the long-dead Vera Keyes), but just how deep her hatred for Elijah ran. Christine had been hunting Elijah for a long time, and sought to put him down as an end to his madness. For the first time, Elle and Christine fell into an argument. Elle wanted to believe that it was still possible to reason with Elijah, that there was a way to snap him out of his obsessions so that he could come home to Veronica -- that there was a perfect happy ending at the end of all of this. Christine knew Elijah better, and knew the lengths to which he would go in order to get what he wanted. After some blunt words and quick summaries of Elijah's track record, Elle eventually -- extremely reluctantly -- conceded. But she didn't want to Christine to continue to hurt herself by chasing Elijah. Her experiences with Benny here came in useful for once; she could see that if Christine killed Elijah herself, it wouldn't actually help her any. In the end they came to a compromise. There would be an end put to Elijah's madness, but Elle would be the one to do it.

The surprises weren't going to stop there. When she went to find Dean in the theater, he was actually outwardly happy to see her and greeted her as a friend... because she was his only hope of getting out of there alive. Elle had to sneak past more security holograms and radio mines in order to get backstage. In doing so, she ended up stumbling across a holotape of Dean talking to Vera Keyes. It was clear from the beginning not only that Dean was blackmailing her, but that she was terrified of telling him "no." After reuniting properly with Dean, Elle confronted him about the holotape, but cautiously. She wasn't sure how he would react to it, and she wanted to hope that she could trust him, to give him a chance to explain himself. Dean confessed easily to using Vera's drug addictions against her...

... but he did not know something that Elle found out when she met up with Christine in Vera's old bedroom. Vera was very, very ill, and the drugs she took were to numb the pain. At this news, Dean seemed shaken, but he tried to brush it off and continue, insisting, "Never mind, doesn't change anything." (Dialogue taken from cut content accessed in the game files.) He then proceeded to tell Elle the details about his plan, including the secret of unlocking the way to the vault at the heart of the Sierra Madre. Though he frightened her with the intensity of his hatred for the man who had the Madre built -- deeper and darker than Christine's, having had two hundred years to stew and fester and grow -- she promised him that she would finish what he sent out to do centuries ago. With that, she parted ways with him and returned to Christine with the knowledge of how to reach the vault, where she was to meet Elijah... and put an end to this once and for all.

In order to convince Elijah to tell her his plan, Elle played meek and pretended that she could not serve as a threat to him, and he opened up. He intended to use the technology and all of the deadly hazards at the Sierra Madre to build an invincible army so he could destroy the world again and remake it as he saw fit. After hearing the entirety of Elijah's plan, Elle realized just how correct Christine was. It was at this moment, when faced with this reality with her back to a wall and no option to look away while protecting everything she valued (from her friends to her moral code), that her hold on her idealism broke. She'd spent her new life trying to see only the good in people, but her experiences all throughout the Madre forced many of humanity's persistent negative sides up in front of her face to the point that she couldn't turn her head away any more. She had wanted so much to believe that Veronica's mentor was indeed alive and still well, but she couldn't stomach what he was doing to other people, let alone to herself.

There would be no happy ending for Elijah. The happy ending he sought couldn't be allowed to come to be. She had two options for how to stop him: either lock him in the vault or kill him herself. Elle ultimately chose to kill him. Even after her idealism buckled under the weight of reality, she wasn't comfortable with the idea of leaving him to die in confinement. While it was true that either way, he would have some amount of control over how he died (as on one hand, he would be fighting for both his life and what he believed in, and on the other, the vault could sustain him for a great amount of time, if he so desired), there was also a part of her that was paranoid that he would find some way to escape even the vault. So, rather than leaving it up to "what ifs," Elle chose the concrete path of ending his life, even if it meant that she was killing the mentor and grandfather-figure of one of her best friends.

The lessons taught by the Sierra Madre were the importance of letting go of your obsessions and, of course, beginning again. Dog let go of his hunger; God let go of his obsession with control; Dean let go of the Madre; Christine let go of her revenge; Elijah let go of nothing, and paid the ultimate price for it. What did Elle let go of? Her tight hold on her impossible view of the world. In order to survive, help the people she loved, and truly leave the impact that she wanted on the world, she had no other choice but to accept life and humanity as they were instead of trying hopelessly to cram it into the black and white lines she childishly hoped they would fit into. Although she would insist to others that this hard-learned lesson was necessary and good for her in the long-run (and she'd be right), it also killed the innocence that she had carried since the beginning of her new life.

the Vanilla Game

Once again, Elle returned to find her friends, who were extremely worried she hadn't been heard of for near a week. This time, Elle was much more reluctant to talk about her experience, and for the first time started actively dodging their questions. She told Veronica that Elijah was dead at her hands and gave her a holotape he left behind for her, and later, when Dean Domino made his own arrival in New Vegas, she explained that he was one of the people who helped her survive, but otherwise she spoke very little about what happened.

Elle finally felt as though she couldn't run from the issue of Mr. House's mission to destroy the Brotherhood any longer. She took Veronica with her to go speak to the Brotherhood, but instead of destroying them like House wanted, she intended to win their loyalty and present that to House instead. After earning the Brotherhood's trust, she returned to House. She approached him to talk about it one more time, but instead of accepting the alternative that she found, House berated her again.

Elle began to grow afraid. House was starting to remind her, very strongly, of Elijah, and once she started seeing the similarities, she couldn't stop. Between the lessons learned from the Big MT that warned of clinging to the past, and the wool having been forcefully ripped from over her eyes by the events that took place at the Sierra Madre, she looked at her former idol in a new light. He was trying to get back a past that no longer suited the world that survived the apocalypse, and he wouldn't accept a future that wasn't exactly what he wanted. She could not turn a blind eye to House's fanaticism and dictatorship any longer.

But he reminded her of more than just Elijah. He also made her think of the Think Tank, with his arrogance and the way he was clinging to a past that could never return. And yet, despite this, they still had a place in the world; they could still do good, just like they wanted. And House meant so much to her, she couldn't just give up. Hoping that if she could just speak with him in person, he'd finally listen to her, proving that she was right to have faith in him, Elle broke into House's secret chamber. But the meeting was not what she was expected. He hadn't met her in person because, in person, he was barely recognizable as human any more. As he lay exposed to the air, vulnerable, he berated her again, this time for betraying him. Elle tried to explain and apologize, and she said that she would put him back, but it was too late. The damage was done; House had no real immune system to speak of any more, and just his exposure to the air was too much. It would kill him, slowly. And when Elle told him that she couldn't allow him to have control any longer, even if she returned him to his life support pod, he almost literally begged her to kill him instead. With shaking hands and screaming in her head, she did.

This was, by far, the hardest thing that Elle had had to do, trumping even her decision to kill Elijah. It devastated her, to the point that it would be something she would carry with her unresolved all the way past the end of canon. Even setting aside the fact that House was her authority figure, her fill-in for Errolyn, she killed the first person who expressed belief in her. She killed the man who took her in under his wing without questions. He trusted her when he barely trusted anyone at all. So on top of the deep emotional attachment, it violated her morals, her loyalty.

So, it's not too much of a surprise that House's death blended with the recent traumas from the Sierra Madre, and for about a week, Elle did not leave the Lucky 38. She stayed close to home -- close to her friends -- as she shook herself to pieces. Their support is what helped her pick the pieces back up, enough so that she could put one foot in front of the other again. She had to acknowledge that, after all that had happened, she'd ended up as a key political player in the fight for the Mojave. She still felt like she was in over her head, she still felt directionless, still didn't know what to do without someone to decide her path for her -- now, moreso than ever. But she couldn't deny it any more. She had to take action. She had to be active.

The first thing that Elle did, though, was personal. She helped Veronica try to convince the Brotherhood to open up more and become less hostile to outsiders. When that failed, Elle convinced Veronica to leave the Brotherhood for the Followers of the Apocalypse.

After helping Veronica, Elle turned back to the NCR for temporary direction. They didn't trust her after giving so much help to Mr. House when he was still alive, but they couldn't turn down her assistance for everything. She completed several NCR-given quests during this time, starting with We All Go Together and An Eye For An Eye (but she didn't irradiate the Cove due to the slaves there, who she then helped in Left My Heart). She also began to hunt bounties for the NCR, but didn't go after the leader of the Fiends because she was reluctant to clear out their base when she thought there was still hope they could find help with their addictions. Elle also solved a mystery regarding missing water at the NCR sharecropper farms, but ended up helping cover up the fact that the water was being diverted to Westside. In all of her running around, Elle also finished wheedling Raul's story out of him, and convinced him to pick up his guns, as well as talked to Lily about how she should continue taking her medicine at half-doses.

While Elle worked for the NCR, the ending of the White Wash quest made her stop and think. From everything she'd seen about the NCR, there were a lot of good people in it, which is why she helped them in the first place? But they were spread thin. They couldn't really take care of the Mojave; they could barely take care of their people stationed there. It made her doubt whether or not they could do right by the Mojave if they won the war. And she certainly wasn't comfortable with the idea of the Legion taking the Mojave. Which meant that she had to stick with House's plan. But she didn't have access to his files, didn't know the full details of his plan. But she knew someone who would be able to access the information she needed, if she put them into position.

This is what led Elle to install Yes Man into House's mainframe. But after investigating the Ultra Luxe (and chasing out the cannibals) like Yes Man requested, Elle realized that he wasn't truly going off of House's plan. He was working off of Benny's. And the concept of having completed the plan of the man who took her memories away from her, even usurping House, when Elle had killed Benny because she didn't want to become like him... It didn't sit well with her. To be entirely honest, it freaked her out.

So when she picked up a broadcast from a caravan offering to hire people to help them travel to Zion National Park? She leapt on the chance, even though it would be a month round trip at least. She needed time to think, sort herself out, and figure out what the hell she's actually doing. That's what she told herself and her companions before she left.

DLC: Honest Hearts

It would turn out that Zion would give her exactly that chance. As soon as the caravan arrived in the national park, they were attacked by a tribe called the White Legs. Elle was the only survivor of the assault, escaping just narrowly with the help of a young man from another tribe, Follows-Chalk of the Dead Horses. He was a scout who witnessed the whole thing, and he told Elle that the war chief of the Dead Horses, Joshua Graham, would want to speak with her. Elle recognized the name as belonging to the man who used to be the right hand and general of Caesar, right up until after the Legion lost at the First Battle for Hoover Dam. There had been rumors that he survived Caesar's punishment, but Elle was surprised to hear confirmation. She worried about what all of this meant, but agreed to follow her new friend to his tribe's camp.

She met Joshua Graham face to face, and he explained the situation. There were four tribes in total active in Zion: in addition to the White Legs and the Dead Horses, there were a couple of survivors of New Canaan, Joshua himself and a missionary named Daniel, who looked after the other tribe, the Sorrows. The White Legs sought to join the Legion, and the task they were required to fill was to eradicate the New Canaanites and all they sheltered. New Canaan itself had already been sacked, and now the White Legs were out to specifically take out the Sorrows, who were a peaceful tribe who had never fought human opponents before. Daniel wanted to take the Sorrows and leave Zion, which is where they had lived ever since shortly after the Great War.

This meant that though Daniel could help Elle find her way back home, they didn't have the time to help her. But since that Elle knew about the conflict, she wasn't comfortable with just leaving without doing anything, anyway. She offered to help, and so she was first sent out to gather up tools that would help Daniel and the Sorrows navigate safe passage out of Zion. While she was at it, she also helped a bighorner calf find its way back to its mother at Follows-Chalk's request. When he confessed to her that he wanted to leave to see the world for himself, she encouraged him to follow his feet, but cautioned him to be careful because of how harsh the wasteland could be.

After she delivered the items to Daniel, she was assigned a Sorrows guide, Waking Cloud, to help her with her next tasks. Waking Cloud served as the midwife for her tribe, and her own husband and children had already evacuated to safety with the most of the rest of the tribe. But she had grown worried, because Daniel dodged her questions about her husband. Elle went to speak to Daniel for her, and was shocked to find out that Daniel had been keeping the truth, that her husband had died protecting their children, away from Waking Cloud. She argued with him over his treatment of the Sorrows, then went to tell Waking Cloud the truth. But she also explained Daniel's reasoning for keeping it from her, with the hopes that an open and honest communication could come out of it, one that would bring them all closer.

Before Elle set out, Joshua came to speak with her about the war with the White Legs. Even though Daniel wanted the Sorrows to retreat, Joshua wanted them to stand their ground and fight, and they had been at a standstill in this argument for too long. Elle was an outsider, but she was the most neutral between Daniel and Joshua, so they wanted her to decide. Elle told Joshua that she needed time to think about it, and so she deliberated while she worked to undermine White Leg war efforts. It was very difficult for her to make up her mind, so, she took the time to slow down and learn. She talked with Joshua about his experiences in the Legion and the New Canaanites, and learned from him what she could of the tribal languages so she could speak with the Sorrows and Dead Horses herself. From them, learned about their cultures and beliefs. She then turned to Daniel to learn about the New Canaanite religion and what happened during the White Leg attack on his home.

Daniel wanted to preserve the Sorrows' innocence by keeping them away from the war. Joshua thought that the White Legs would simply follow them, that the massacre would not stop there. Elle deliberated deeply. She disagreed with the way Daniel treated the Sorrows, but she did agree that preserving the spirit of their pacifistic culture was important. But Zion was their home, and she worried about the precedent it would set for the Sorrows if they were taught to pack up and leave any time any conflict arose. By this point, she had seen how harsh life in the post-War world was and she herself had to come with grips by leaving behind her own innocence, so she believed (feared) that adaptation was necessary. But, she also couldn't agree with Joshua's mindset, which troubled her; what he wanted, after all, was to slaughter the White Legs in their entirety.

This was reminding her more and more of the situation back home, where she had been handed such a heavy decision that would influence such a large amount of people, and she still didn't feel like she was important enough of a person to be trusted with such a thing. So, she took the time to explore Zion in order to buy herself more time to think. In doing so, she unraveled the story of a "spirit" that the Sorrows called their Father in the Caves (cw: description of apocalypse, suicidal ideology, implied sexual abuse, child death). The Sorrows revered him as a god because he helped their ancestors survive, but from afar. And he had, in his last message, told those ancestors to stand and fight for themselves if anyone tried to hurt them. His story inspired Elle on a very deep level, a testament to the lasting effect a single person could have, and she took him on as a personal hero.

The story of Randall Clark is what ultimately tipped the scale in Elle's mind, and she made her decision. She believed that the Sorrows should stay and fight. But the decision wasn't made without selfishness on Elle's part. She'd also found, inwardly, that she could not abandon Joshua, even after a heated argument with Daniel about her decision. After getting to know him better, her concern (and affection) for him grew. She admired him and the way that he strove to use his life and terrible decisions as a lesson for those he meets in hopes that he can help them avoid the mistakes he made. She also found herself strangely relating to him, even in the way he was a reluctant leader, but she felt ashamed for it because she felt her experiences didn't nearly match up with the severity of his. He spoke of a fire that burned within him, one that he claimed was love and kept him alive, but then drew from to pursue an obvious, if ruthless, path of revenge. This was what made Elle realize they were more similar than it seemed, considering her history of trying to deny the darker side of herself and trying to convince herself that her motivations were pure.

And she knew that, if she had sided with Daniel, Joshua would not have found resolution. But, on the flip side, if Joshua got what he wanted, he would be losing himself to that fire. Which meant that she may have chose to align herself with him, but she couldn't let him entirely have his way. So, when they made the final push into the White Legs' main camp, and Joshua was about to kill their leader, Elle interfered. She stepped between them, and she persuaded Joshua to see that he was trying to use this to find resolution in what Caesar did to him, more than anything else. She talked him out of killing the leader of the White Legs, and in doing so, saved him from himself in what is canonically called his darkest hour. At last, it was over.

And it was time for her to go home. But when Elle finally returned to the Mojave, it wasn't without reluctance. She loved Zion, and she wanted to stay with Joshua, but she was needed -- by the Mojave itself, and by the friends waiting for her there. And she finally felt like she was ready to step into the role that was also waiting for her. Something in her had finally settled.

In Randall Clark, Elle found someone who survived despite all odds, like she did, and held on to life even though he didn't know why, and in the end, had a lasting, profound, good impact on the people he looked after. In Daniel, she found someone who clung to his ideals of good and intended the best, but let it cloud his views of others and keep him from connecting with them like he wanted. In Joshua Graham, she found someone who had also had a profound impact on people following him, but a negative one. But he still held on to life and, with the love of his tribe, he was able to go on to still be able to do good. Joshua was absolute, living proof of what she'd been trying to believe in for so long, that a person's failures and bad decisions didn't mean they couldn't change and go on to do good in the future. And, more important than human examples, she found faith, if not in herself, then in her decision-making ability. Dead Money had filled her with fear, and the loss of House meant the loss of her stability, but Honest Hearts helped her find her feet again. It helped her believe in her own independence. She didn't feel quite as lost any more.

the Vanilla Game

Elle's return to the Mojave was much more cheerful compared to her previous journeys. Her head was clear and she finally felt like she was ready to step up into the role she'd stumbled her way into. It would always bother her on some level that she made use of Benny's plan, but it was the best one that she had available to her. She knew she had to set her biases and fear aside in order to do what she thought was best for the Mojave, even if it meant that she agreed with the very plan she killed him for making.

She picked up the next task Yes Man recommended, and persuaded the Great Khans to break their alliance with the Legion, find inspiration in their namesake, and leave the Mojave. While she was out in that direction, she also helped the Khans in other small ways. At Yes Man's suggestion, Elle spoke to Julie Farkas and convinced her the Followers should give their full support to New Vegas. She also finally completed her last bounty for the NCR, clearing out Vault 3 of the Fiends in the process, and took care of the Powder Ganger problem by assaulting their base.

She decided, around this time, too, that she would continue helping the NCR where she could. It would be possible to negotiate with the NCR once the battle was over; it would not be possible to negotiate with the Legion. Elle believed it was vital to keep the NCR on her side so she could fight parallel to them at the upcoming decisive battle, the Second Battle at Hoover Dam, and push the Legion out of the Mojave. So, she helped around at Camp Golf, Camp Forlorn Hope, and Bitter Springs.

When she investigated false ranger reports and traced them back to the leader of the NCR rangers, she actually chose not to turn him in. His end game goal was to destabilize the political reputation of the NCR general, Oliver, who put the rangers at risk out of spite. But it wasn't just a political fight; the chief wanted to do this with as little loss to life as possible. He knew that he made an awful decision before, but at this point, Elle was focused on the Second Battle. She knew that if she reported him, it would only destabilize the NCR further. So, she told him her intentions of winning the dam for the Mojave's independence to set to ease his troubles about the NCR trying to hold the region in the future, and went on her way.

When she decided to help the NCR take back Nelson, she chose to charge the town center in order to rescue the troopers who had been held hostage there by the Legion, instead of mercy killing them from a distance. It was at this point that Boone finally told Elle about his participation at the Bitter Springs Massacre. After a return to Bitter Springs upon his request, she talked him into trying to make up for his involvement by living a good life. (Ironically, she was drawing inspiration from Joshua when she spoke to Boone about this, though she never told him, due to Boone's deep hatred of the Legion and anyone connected to it.)

The war was right on the horizon, and the president of the NCR was going to be at Hoover Dam to make a speech. There would undoubtedly be an assassination attempt made by the Legion, so Elle went to stop it. She succeeded in discreetly disarming the bomb on the president's vertibird and kill the Legion's sniper.

With the war literally right around the corner, Arcade approached Elle and confessed to her the truth about his family. She agreed to help him unite the Enclave Remnants to help her at Hoover Dam, and convinced him that he should follow in his father's footsteps and fight alongside them.

Another radio signal reached Elle, but this time, this one was meant specifically for her. It was a message from another courier, and she recognized the voice as the man from the Big MT holotapes. He knew who she was, and he knew something of her history... the history that Elle didn't remember. Even with the Second Battle looming, Elle couldn't keep herself away. She had to go. The loss of her memories was an obsession she had never been able to let go, and she was going to chase down anyone who knew her, before. Even if it was dangerous. Even if she had to go alone.

DLC: Lonesome Road

Elle may have been prepared for the Divide equipment-wise, but she was not emotionally prepared for what she was walking into. The man who contacted Elle intended for her to walk the length of a canyon called the Divide. Inside a facility, she found an exact replica of her eyebot friend, ED-E, but with his memory archive complete. The man hacked ED-E's frequency and spoke to Elle through the robot, introducing himself as Ulysses. He challenged her convictions, and he accused her of causing the Divide to be what it was. Elle's first reaction was to deny it, because she had no memory of such thing, until it hit her that this must've happened before Benny attacked her. Still, this was nothing that she would've done. She would've never chosen to destroy what used to be a town, create this kind of destruction. But if she wanted more answers, she had to meet him at the end of the Divide.

The Divide was full of hostile, hateful ghouls as well as deathclaws and strange, new creatures called tunnelers. In addition, the weather of the Divide was harsh and unforgiving, and the ruins were dangerous to navigate because of how prone they were to falling apart. She was grateful to have ED-E by her side, and she treated the clone no differently. As they trekked the Divide, she learned about the history that the ED-E from Primm had lost due to his damages. She promised to him that she wouldn't let anything bad happen to him. She also found holotapes that Ulysses left behind, and as a result, learned about his history, too. She began to understand him, at least partially.

As Elle traveled the Divide, she spoke to Ulysses when he repeatedly took control of ED-E's speaker. He told her about how the Divide became what it was, and he told her what it used to be: a town that flourished because she passed through it, bringing business, supplies, and information as a courier. She did not walk that road alone, but she was very hands-on in the growth of the town. And it was a place that Ulysses began to consider home. But then, one day, she carried an Enclave package from the NCR to the town, one that had markings like those in the old world wreckage. What she didn't know is that it was a detonator for all of the nuclear warheads lying underneath the ground. After she left the town from that delivery, the warheads activated, creating the giant rift in the earth and changing the growing, peaceful town into the hostile, dangerous Divide Elle had been walking.

Ulysses blamed Elle for the senseless destruction of this home. Just as she had been shown by others the kind of impact a single person could have, Ulysses had learned that message from Elle. He learned that she had survived the destruction of the Divide in Primm, when he saw her name on a list of couriers. He was originally meant to carry the Platinum Chip, but he backed out so that she would do it instead, knowing it would likely get her killed. He had traveled to the Big MT, and learned of more missile silos underneath the Divide. Ulysses, for all his fixation on history, wanted to burn away the old world. And he wanted Elle to know that the message that he learned, that one person could do such a thing, he learned it from her. He wanted her to know, in full, what she was responsible for. He cared a lot for the messages people carried, cared a lot for history, and he hated that she continued on as she did, never knowing of the consequences of her actions.

ED-E would be the key to setting off the missiles, much like the package Elle had first carried to the Divide. So, he had Elle bring the robot to him, and once they were within range, he triggered something in ED-E's programming that made ED-E run from her, towards him. Elle was enraged by this, fearful for what would happen to ED-E. She chased after Ulysses harder than ever, struggling to come to terms with everything she had learned, and with the responsibility in general. This ED-E wouldn't be in danger if she had been able to let go of her memories. The Divide wouldn't be what it was if it hadn't been for her.

It was hard for her to stomach, but she came to the conclusion that it was because she was afraid. She was still afraid of being a leader, and still afraid of the consequences of her actions. But, this time, in the face of her fear, Elle just became more determined. She could do great good, too, just as much as she could accidentally cause great destruction; the Mojave was proving that. Her friends were proving that. Her experiences at the Big MT, the Sierra Madre, Zion... It proved that she was more than the destruction at the Divide. And she wanted Ulysses to see that.

To Ulysses, Elle had become a symbol of the great change each person was capable of, good or bad. And when she came to meet with him, after rescuing ED-E (who was unharmed), she had with him a battle of words, not weapons. She spoke to him of his history, reminded him how symbols could change. How the world they lived in could still change, that it wasn't doomed to become an echo of the old world. And, in the end, her convictions won him over.

But there was a problem. The launch sequence for the nuclear missiles had already started. ED-E was capable of disabling them, but it would likely destroy him in the process. As Elle and Ulysses fought off the waves of enemies that charged the building, ED-E hacked the launch system. ED-E successfully disarmed the missiles, but didn't survive like Elle had hoped. This rocked Elle to the core, but this ED-E sent to the other ED-E logs of everything that had happened, including his lost memory files. She hadn't truly lost him, but the fact that ED-E made that sacrifice to put an end to a sequence of events that started with her? It made a definite impact.

As did Ulysses himself. The Big MT challenged Elle, the Sierra Madre tore her down, Zion built her back up... and Ulysses was the test of who she had become. And Ulysses was someone who had been as impacted by Elle herself as she had been impacted by the people in her own journey. As someone who is naturally insecure about whether or not she's making a difference, this mattered greatly to her. But here was irrefutable proof that she mattered. And as much as Ulysses showed her the horrible things she was capable of, even on accident, he was also her redemption. She was still able to remind him that change could be good. She was able to reach him in time and change his path, again.

Ulysses chose to stay at the entrance to the Divide, keeping the threats inside from traveling outside, and Elle came back to him for advice. He had traveled widely and possessed a unique perspective on the war, and he knew a lot about the way the Legion worked. He advised her on how to handle Legate Lanius, the current general of Caesar's army. He taught her recipes for tribal remedies, and he gave to her a coat, specially made to represent the road she walked.

the Vanilla Game

Elle came straight home and hugged ED-E, to the confusion of the rest of her friends. She explained to them the basics of what happened at the Divide, but didn't go into too many details, knowing how most of the group wouldn't respond favorably to Ulysses being ex-Legion (especially after the argument they had about Joshua, when they'd found out how she felt about him). But she told them that Ulysses was a new ally, and he provided her intel about the Legion in the end, and she fully intended to use it.

The last thing Elle had to do before the Second Battle was upload the Platinum Chip into a substation. She snuck inside solo with the help of Stealth Boys, so as to avoid a conflict with the NCR soldiers stationed there. Once that was done? It was time. The Second Battle was upon her, and it was time to mobilize all of the allies she had made over the past year against the Legion.

Elle, with a lot of help and wearing the coat Ulysses gave her, fought her way across Hoover Dam into the center of the Legion camp. There, she faced down Legate Lanius, and with words alone she managed to get him to back down by reminding him that they were going to lose the Dam, and about what happened to the last Legate who lost the Dam. After the Legion retreated, the NCR general Oliver approached Elle. He thought that she had been fighting on his side, so he was surprised when she told him that the NCR was not going to remain in control of the Mojave. He argued with her, but when she reminded him not only of the army she held at her control, fresher than the weakened NCR, but also of the political problems he'd deal with in going to war with her... He begrudgingly backed down.

The Second Battle of Hoover Dam concluded with the Mojave an independent region and New Vegas its seat of power. And, though Elle would be left sitting in the highest seat of power, she would be ruling with a loose fist, compared to House's strict autocracy. She intended to step in to solve problems when necessary, such as making sure that there were still capable workers to take care of Hoover Dam and HELIOS One after the NCR withdrew, but she would do no more than that. Like Christine with the Madre and Ulysses with the Divide, Elle wanted nothing more than to play warden for the Mojave, and make sure that it was not abused.