Quest Question - Diamond City Blues - *CONTAINS SPOILERS*

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

This quest doesn't sit right with me and I was hoping there is a way to pull it off in a way that I find satisfying.

You get sent to the bar to clear up Paul Pembrokes issue of his wife sleeping around with Henry Cooke. After threatening him and having him agree to stop the affair he casually asks you to get involved in a drug deal double cross.... considering you just came here to punish him it seems odd that he asks you for help.

I found that you can also invite Paul along and despite Henry Cookes claims of "no witnesses" he's a-okay with him tagging along and even okay with him living and getting his share of the stolen chems.


All I want to do in this quest is completely screw over Henry Cooke, but I haven't found a way to do it. I figured talking to Paul would allow me to get a double cross going against Henry Cooke, but that doesn't work.There doesn't seem to be a built in option in the quest dialogues to allow you to double cross Cooke himself.

If you attack Henry Cooke at any point then Paul will turn hostile to you as well which isn't a desired outcome since the whole idea would be to fulfill Paul's wish of making Henry Cooke suffer as well as getting a larger share of money for Paul.

Attacking Henry also pisses off all your goody goody companions! Sure, they are a-okay with killing people at a drug deal for a double cross but god forbid you decide to counter-double cross the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that was using a rich mans son for profit, sleeping with a good guys wife, and planning to steal from a drug deal.

After interogating Trish her and Henry get in a shootout. I've tried to "abuse" this situation and make it so that Trish kills Henry, but it never works out. She always ended up dying which is a shame because it was the only "safe" way I could think of to kill him off.


So does anyone know an official or at least non-penalizing way to screw over Henry Cooke on this deal? I'd really love to sell him out or slaughter him so any information would be appreciated.

[The Mark of Cain]

You could have had Paul kill him at the bar when he pulled the gun, that is the only thing I know off. But for killing him with the trade I don't know besides him getting killed by Trish.

[The Mark of Cain]

Originally posted by TheNamlessGuy:

I just ran in on the drug deal and everyone started shooting at me, and during the firefight Cooke died.

What happens when he stays alive?

He says that he is leaving the commonwealth I believe. I don't remember exactly what he said. A while later in game however if he leaves His daughter comes up to you in diamond city asking about her father and where he is.

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

Originally posted by The Mark of Cain:

You could have had Paul kill him at the bar when he pulled the gun, that is the only thing I know off. But for killing him with the trade I don't know besides him getting killed by Trish.

I had told Paul I'd go talked to Cooke alone so I didn't have him along with me. If I choose the dialog to attack Henry when he's trying to get you to join the drug theft it pisses off my companion.

I was really Trish would kill him but it just didn't work out. I even tried reverse pickpocketing some stimpaks and better guns and ammo on her prior to it occuring but it didn't work out. She didn't use any of it.

Originally posted by TheNamlessGuy:

I just ran in on the drug deal and everyone started shooting at me, and during the firefight Cooke died.

What happens when he stays alive?

Sadly Cooke survives the fight for me every time. I've had Paul die several times, but Cooke seems to have the devils luck on my end.

If he stays alive then he'll kill Trish after you finish talking to her and after that he'll tell you thats going to be leaving town since the only way this can't be traced back to him is if he's thought to have died in the incident as well.

All of your dialog options just allow him to walk away fine. You don't have any awesome responses like tell him you can't leave any witnesses or pointing out that it would be truly effective for him if he actually does die here.

Oddly Paul is just fine with letting Henry walk away. If anything you'd think that Paul would want him to die as punishment for sleeping with his wife. Also if Cooke is killed there then everyone who was supposed to be involved in the deal would be there and dead so it would look like they all killed each other and someone else came along and nabbed the goods. Paul would get his revenage, a bigger share, and no chance of the incident being traced back to him.

[The Mark of Cain]

The only companion I know of that didn't get pissed at killing Cooke during the confrontation is MacCready. I can assume some other would be fine too. I know that after the deal at least two people will talk to you in Diamond City at some point, Cooke's daughter and Malcolm Latimer and will confront you about their family members.

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

Good to know. Those two haven't approached me yet in the city. I assume they need a day or so to "realize" that they are missing. I tried directly speaking to Malcolm, but he didn't have anything to say.

May I can find a satisfying way to be ass towards Cooke when talking to them.

[LaserCakes]

I don't know if this is too late or not but you can get Henry Cooke killed in action during the chems shootout deal. If Cooke hid behind a wall close to the deal you can speak to him. He asks you to go around the corner and get a better angle. He says he'll join you once the shootout begins. One of the dialogue options I had was "You go first". He agreed but asked me to not screw him over and that he can't take them all by himself. I let him go in alone, he got killed, then I waltzed in and finished the job. Interrogated Trish, got the info I needed and she left unharmed. I hope this helps.

Note: One of my plays Cooke took a different route to get to the meeting and never initiated the dialogue mentioned above. I just reloaded and Autosave when I left the city with him and he took the right path.

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

Originally posted by DeadWhisper:

I don't know if this is too late or not but you can get Henry Cooke killed in action during the chems shootout deal. If Cooke hid behind a wall close to the deal you can speak to him. He asks you to go around the corner and get a better angle. He says he'll join you once the shootout begins. One of the dialogue options I had was "You go first". He agreed but asked me to not screw him over and that he can't take them all by himself. I let him go in alone, he got killed, then I waltzed in and finished the job. Interrogated Trish, got the info I needed and she left unharmed. I hope this helps.

Note: One of my plays Cooke took a different route to get to the meeting and never initiated the dialogue mentioned above. I just reloaded and Autosave when I left the city with him and he took the right path.

Well damn. I wish I had gotten to do that. I think in mine he took a different route or just never went to the wall. I never got that conversation to occur despite trying to talk to him when were at the location.

Thanks for the information though.

[The Crosshare]

My character doesn't like to be "left out of the loop" so to speak. So when the kid pulled a gun in the bar, all bets off. Cooke seemed like a snake too, so a plan started hatching. "Sure i'll join ya. Sure let's do this. No witnesses? Sounds great!"

When you near the place and he tells you the plan of "Go in, i'll join in on the fight", choose "you first" and let the numpties head out.

You won't be joining the fight, but instead sneak aways a bit, sit behind a corner with dogmeat(or whoever you're with) and wait for the fireworks to stop. Finish off the goons and bobs your uncle.

EDIT: Just saw Dead post a similar. Scieving minds eh :p

[lafeyesclave]

I have another question and problem for this mission. After Henry leaves, since he didn't die in the shootout, then when everyone comes looking for him they all seem to think he's dead and there's no option for me to say he's alive. This leads to problems down the road. Is this a glitch since it seems that I should be able to tell his daughter he left the Commonwealth rather than get accused of killing him?

[NecroMaster]

Also there's a certain character who is the son of one of the wealthy diamond city characters in that drug deal.

If you kill him the next time you enter diamond city he may try to approach you trying to find answers.

If you don't pass a speech check or pay him off he'll hire thugs to kill you.

[The Mark of Cain]

Originally posted by lafeyesclave:

I have another question and problem for this mission. After Henry leaves, since he didn't die in the shootout, then when everyone comes looking for him they all seem to think he's dead and there's no option for me to say he's alive. This leads to problems down the road. Is this a glitch since it seems that I should be able to tell his daughter he left the Commonwealth rather than get accused of killing him?

Unfortunately there isn't an option to tell her he is alive. You need to pass speech checks to shift the suspicion away from you.

[lafeyesclave]

Thank you, Cain. It has always annoyed me that Henry is perceived to be dead when he isn't and I can't say differently.

[FlabberBapper]

Bethesda just isn't good at creating stories, they're great at making FPS games, but that isn't Fallout. That is why you can't double cross Henry. If Oblivion took control of the Fallout franchise, you being able to double cross Henry could have been possible.

[Fr3sh_M3at]

Originally posted by FlabberBapper:

Bethesda just isn't good at creating stories, they're great at making FPS games, but that isn't Fallout. That is why you can't double cross Henry. If Oblivion took control of the Fallout franchise, you being able to double cross Henry could have been possible.

I just had to say there is a LOT of content here and it's easy to call out a few missed opportunities for extra dialogue as 'not good at creating stories'. The overall story and experience are pretty good - and this is NOT an FPS. I totally agree there are plenty of missed opportunities in this game for more dialogue options and/or paths to take with how to run settlements, your character, even the main quest... but to say this isn't a decent story or that this one thing would definitely have been covered by someoen else is just not being fair to the developers. A LOT of work went into all the conversation options here. Note I'm not saying there couldn't be better/more in depth options to this.... or lots of other minor quests that happen. I'm just saying with all the content that's here, it's impossible to account for every single possible choice a human could possibly ever make with the limitations on developing software, etc.
There are MANY things (including this quest) I'd like to see done differently, but I'm not going to knock the game as a whole because of these minor points - even though there are quite a few of them... they are still just that - minor.
Yes - I know.. necro thread... blah, blah... I have this thing called a job so I didn't get to this game for a few years.
A note about this scenario - (if you're just getting to this) I played it multiple times (just the gunfight portion) and if you pause to loot before interrogating Trish (or maybe if it's just pausing to switch to Charisma bonus gear), she gets up and gets in a shootout with Cooke, so you miss your opportunity to chat with her. If you walk away from the results of that shootout with Cooke/Trish before talking to Paul, he just 'assumes' the 50/50 split. I know this because the one time Trish won I tried to chase her down and talk to her before she left the scene and Paul said - ok, 50/50 it is.... Not my intention... but since this is a game and developers can't account for any possible scenario and program it in, I simply restart from the last save instead of complaining about how it's a bad story because <insert favorite name here> didn't work on it. Incedentally I feel the same way about self driving cars - they aren't 'smart' - they're programmed by people (worse... a Committee* of people) arguably no smarter than you and me... they (meaning the programmers NOR the programming) can't account for every possible scenario on the road, so good luck with that... sorry, /endrant. *Committee: an animal with 6 or more legs and no brain.

[The Collector]

Too late to post?? I do not think so!! This game is still epic.. Anyways.. There is a way to betray Cooke without upsetting your companion or getting Paul dead.. Step one.. tell Paul you will sort it out yourself.. Step two agree to do the drug deal from henry.. Step 3 tell paul Henry will back off and have a job to do.. Step 4, follow them up to the corner where Henry want you to ambush them or go in blazing.. This is where you tell you he go first and you will "have his back"... just stand and see how Henry die and then go guns blazing without getting Paul killed.. Talk to Trish and done.. Live or die for her does not matter, Henry got what he deserved and no one els got upset or hurt.