About Bess the brahmin

[Frank Horrigan@BIS]

So what's the deal with Bess the brahmin?

Was she planned to be a permanent follower in Fallout 2? It always seemed kind of odd to me that the cow would simply vanish after you had left Modoc. She is also included in the follower amount when she's in the party. Finally, I vaguely remember that she does have entries (as do Miria and Davin) in the file, whose name I don't recall , that contains the various lines that are used by your followers when they gain a level.
While Fallout 2 does have a variety of non-human followers, I think the developers in the end decided against to add a brahmin to the mix. Simply because it would seem silly to have an eventually overpowered brahmin follow you wherever you go.
If there is more concrete evidence in the game files (or elsewhere like the bible) regarding this subject, then please share it.

 

[McRae]

I checked in the bibles, and the only reference to the brahmin I could find was the following :

"If you have a Luck of 9 or 10, however, you start getting specific answers to your questions: "If you sell Bessie to the butchers in Modoc, you can set her free again."


You can also check the dialog files on the wikia :

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/McBess.msg
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ecbess.msg
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Rndbess.msg

My opinion is that, just like for the Pariah dog, the devs envisioned it more like a joke. But I may be wrong.

 

[Frank Horrigan@BIS]

Yeah, that's most likely the case. I guess it's just the file that includes all of the NPC's level-up quotes, that possibly indicates that they had something else in store for her. I've with been trying to locate it without success. I believe Bess did have some rather unsuitable quotes assigned to her ("I've learned some new things"). However, this may indicate that they at one point planned to make her improve during the course of the game.
It's actually possible to have her join you permanently without modifying your game all that much. Just fix her leg again after she has been turned into jerky or after you've encounter her herd in the wasteland. This can be done by temporarily reverting the state of Modoc Mainstreet back to a point where the brahmin is still injured. Simply replace your current sav-file of Modmain with one where you haven't begun to deal with her.

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