Phineas Vernon Welles | The Outer Worlds Wiki

Phineas Vernon Welles
Faction:	???
Location:	???

Phineas Vernon Welles is an NPC in The Outer Worlds. NPCs are not able to be controlled by the player, but interacted with and are often a part of Quests within the game. Some will play a larger role than others, and some can even be recruited as Companions.

Phineas Vernon Welles Information

Phineas is the scientist that steals the Unplanned Variable -the player character- from cryogenic storage on the lost Hope at the beginning of the game. Initially he hired Alex Hawthorne to chaperone the Unplanned Variable around the system but after an accident the player is left to their own devices, able to choose whether or not to help Phineas or alert the Board of his location to collect the bounty.

A former Board scientist, Phineas has spent the last thirty five years in hiding. Upon learning the Hope was not lost but the occupants were going to be left there forever Phineas requested to attempt to revive the colonists but as it was believed that ten years was the longest the frozen passengers could survive, his request was denied.

Unaccepting of the Board's decision and believing that scientific progress shouldn't be held back by bureaucracy, Phineas began stealing colonists and attempting to create a formula to revive them with little success. At some point he was caught and fired, eventually moving to the abandoned Auntie Cleo Orbital Lab to continue his research.

Phineas Vernon Welles Location

• Phineas' Lab

Phineas Vernon Welles Related Quests

• Passage to Anywhere
• Radio Free Monarch
• Long Distance
• The City and the Stars
• Kept Secret But Not Forgotten
• Brave New World

Phineas Vernon Welles Dialog

Dialog of NPC

Phineas Vernon Welles Notes & Trivia

• English voiced by: Piotr Michael 
  
  Phineas retrieves the Unplanned Variable from the Hope on May 15th, 2355. 
• According to Gladys Culkelly, Phineas was 'quite the dancer in his prime, very light on his feet'.
  
  He keeps one cystypig named Bubbles alive in his lab as a renewable source of food. If the player kills Bubbles Phineas laments he was saving it for a special occasion then remarks the tumors are probably still good.
• He once injected himself with raw caffenoid.
• The notes in the terminals aboard the Hope heavily imply Phineas suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. He dictates to the terminal that he's slept maybe four hours in a 72 hour period and is plagued by nightmares of his subjects screaming.
• When explaining the Holographic Shroud if the player asks why can't they just steal a uniform, Phineas dismisses the idea as foolish, a  possible subtle nod to Fallout New Vegas where the player can wear an opposing faction's uniform to disguise themselves.
• Phineas' character is based off Rick Sanchez from Rick & Morty as well as Walter from Fringe. He is also somewhat reminiscent of Doc Mitchell from Fallout New Vegas.
• Phineas is apparently the only unkillable character in the game. He never leaves his glass room until the very end of the game -if you do his ending- but the player is locked into speech with him. Should the glass room be bypassed with console commands he reacts to pickpocketing like any other NPC and will become hostile but should one try to fight him he takes no damage.
• His name seems to be an amalgamation of various steampunk icons: Phineas (Phineas T. Barnum from Rocket to the Moon by Jules Verne), Vernon (Jules Verne), and Welles (writer H.G. Wells)