I just did my favorite quest in any videogame, ever. In Starfield. I have to share. There's no tldr.
If you jump down to the pit at the bottom of the Mars settlement, you meet a miner foreman called Trevor. He gives you a quest: his crew need new mining equipment because they have a hard time meeting their quotas with the broken stuff they're using. So he has you mine iron for him. What better way to demonstrate broken equipment to management than employing an outsider off the books to boost productivity? This foreshadows the brilliance of things to come.
When you deposit the iron. he tells you about his actual plan: he has a request pending for the new equipment with management, and he wants you to go and click the thing on the manager's computer so it gets approved. We forget about the iron and quotas and whatever.
Hacking then? Not an option. Trevor says you have to get yourself hired as the manager's assistant to access his computer. There's no other way. The office with the manager and his computer is 2 flights of stairs from where Trevor is, so naturally you have to go to the Deimos space station to apply for the job.
Now, you might think that a trip to a space station is pretty cool, what with you piloting your fancy spaceship, and maybe having an unexpected adventure on the way. In Starfield, this is streamlined to bringing up your starmap while standing next to Trevor and selecting Deimos. After the loading scren, select the space station floating in front of you, press [Dock], watch an unskippable docking cutscene then press [X] to get another loading screen and be inside the space station.
The kiosk for job applications is 20 feet from where you entered. You walk up to it, click a few things that have no bearing on the outcome. Quest update: Return to Trevor. He's just 2 loading screens away.
He informs you of the next step of the plan: go to the office, and hack a computer to delete every other job application to ensure you get the job. I'd much rather hack the computer 20 feet away that has Trevor's request on it, but the game says that's not an option.
After the job applications are deleted, you need to return to Trevor, which takes 10 seconds. He tells you that you've been hired, and you should go back to the office to report for work. Things move fast on Mars!
In the office you meet your boss who thinks you're his old assistant with a new face. He then forgets what he was talking about mid-sentence. Middle-aged white male managers, amirite?
Before he has you do his daily chores on his computer, he sends you on to the Governor of Mars to solve an issue he has. The Governor needs you to do a thing for him before he's willing to consider your request. This sub-plot is almost a normal quest so I'm not elaborating other than to say that in interacting with the Governor, we learn more about why we don't like old white men.
When all that's done, you report back to your boss. He orders you to do his email, great! Amongst the pending requests are things like "can we get 5 extra paid time off days after 10 years of service". (Denied, commie scum.)
You approve Trevor's request, Quest updated: return to Trevor.
Trevor tells you that he heard you approved his request. In fact, one of his miners - Hank - was eager to go pick up the new equipment that you approved 10 seconds ago so he let him go do that; but he's worried because Hank's not back yet.
Trevor suggests you speak to the ship technician in the spaceport 1 loading screen away, so you go do that. The ship technician says Hank's actually back, but he did not land in the spaceport. I am told to return to Trevor.
Trevor says that he doesn't know what's going on, but miners hang out in the bar, maybe I should look there. I do that, and Hank is indeed where the quest pointer said he was going to be.
He says he stole the equipment because the others had been making fun of him while mining, and if *he* steals from the company *they* will all get fired or something. But he doesn't want to go to jail; he'll return the equipment.
So you and Hank walk to his spaceship on the other side of the settlement.
Literally. You slow walk to the airlock, exit the base, and walk around the complex to the ship.
Following Hank means pressing W for a second every 5 seconds. This goes on for a while.
He blathers on about how his plan was actually brilliant, because people would have been fired or something. This does not make the walk more enjoyable.
When you get to his ship he pulls a gun on you. [Persuade] or [Attack]? I shot him in the face. This is not a bossfight; he's level 1 and dies to 1 bullet. Quest update: return to Trevor.
You tell Trevor that you killed Hank. He expresses a tinge of sorrow but is happy to get his new gear. He rewards you with 8000 credits and 50 units of iron. (Iron is worse than vendor trash, but heavier.)
As you slow-walk away under the burden of the unexpected gift of iron, Trevor does this thing that Bethesda NPCs do, which is to say random and sometimes contextually relevant things to nobody in particular:
"Prison is a good place for Hank."
?
