One for My Baby

About

One for My Baby is a quest in the 2010 role-playing video game Fallout: New Vegas. The quest involves the player finding the person responsible for the kidnapping of Carla, the wife of the character Boone, and bringing them in front of a dinosaur statue so Boone can take his vengeance on them. One of the best-known quests from New Vegas distinguished by several memorable elements, "One for My Baby" has been a subject of numerous references in memes starting in 2017, with memes often involving editing the quest message and Boone's beret onto images of snipers standing on vantage positions.

Origin

On October 19th, 2010, role-playing video game Fallout: New Vegas was released. In the game, the quest "One for My Baby" can be initiated upon talking to the character Boone, a potential companion, in the town of Novac. Upon talking to the player, Boone asks him to find the person responsible for the kidnapping of his wife Carla by Legion slavers.

An experienced sharpshooter and the night watchman at Novac, Boone comes up with a plan that requires the player to bring the culprit in front of a dinosaur statue that serves as a vantage point for him during his watches and putting on a red beret, signaling to Boone that he can shoot that person (playthrough video shown below).

On January 2nd, 2017, Tumblr^[1] user flowerkidnena posted a still image from the Pokémon anime in which character James of Team Rocket is shooting a tranquilizer gun from the mouth of a mecha, captioning the image, "Fallout New Vegas." The post (shown below) received over 15,900 likes and reblogs in six years.

Spread

On June 4th, 2017, Tumblr^[2] user mywaifupinochet posted an image of a cat sitting atop a cat tree with a rifle next to it captioned with the in-game message "Quest added: One for My Baby" (author unknown; shown below, left). The post received over 20,300 likes and reblogs in six years. On June 5th, Tumblr^[3] user vonisv replied with a color-corrected image in which Boone's red beret was edited onto the cat's head (shown below, right).

Both images saw viral spread in the following years, inspiring more memes referencing the quest. For example, on September 6th, 2017, Tumblr^[4] user glutko posted one such meme based on an image of The Simpsons character Ned Flanders shooting a rifle from a rooftop, with the post garnering over 2,100 likes and reblogs in six years (shown below, left). On May 2nd, 2019, the Facebook^[5] page Fallout News posted a What If We Kissed meme that received over 270 reactions and 2,300 shares in four years (shown below, right).

On October 1st, 2020, animator Krimpai uploaded a fan animation dedicated to the quest that received over 638,000 views on YouTube^[6] in three years (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References