The Protest

Start

Ask the bartender at The Happy Hour about the news. He'll ask you to stop the protest on the-quad-during-protest.
The quest can be completed without talking to the bartender, however.

Outline

• METHOD 1: Incite a Riot
  • 1. Use the Quad's choice encounters to incite the crowd. Equipping a protest sign helps.
    • Wave of Protesters: "Join in" with a protest sign equipped. If no sign is equipped, get a protest sign.
    • Protester Punk: "Add your voice" with a protest sign equipped. If no sign is equipped, has either no effect or a small effect.
    • Security Guard: "Ask how you can help" to learn that they need an excuse to beat back the crowds (probably no effect though); "Throw Down" might increase protest size, but we don't know for sure.
  • 2. Keep adventuring in the Quad and inciting the crowd until you get the Rowdy Crowd encounter.
  • 3. Continue until you get the Quad Crackdown encounter. The riot has been violently suppressed.

• METHOD 2: Subdue the Crowd
  • 1. Use the Quad's choice encounters to depress the crowd. Equipping a protest sign helps.
    • Wave of Protesters: "Depress them" with a protest sign equipped. If no sign is equipped, has either no effect or a small effect.
    • Protester Punk: "Beat him down" could potentially decrease the crowd's strength, but we don't know for sure.
    • Bored Guy: "Commisterate with him"
  • 2. Keep adventuring in the Quad until you get the Quad Dispersal encounter. Eh, change will come another day, man.

• METHOD 3: Deal with Dr. Myers
  • 1a. Adventure in the Quad without any etheric effect, find the Bored Guy and "ask him what's up" to learn that the crowd is protesting Dr. Myers' involvement in a Midgard experiment supposedly on an endangered species.
  • 1b. Alternatively, if you have access to the Tainted Shoreline, adventure there without etheric and talk to Andrea the grad student to find out about Dr. Myers (NOTE: the linked choice encounter page is not complete, but I believe you just ask her what she's doing and she'll refer you).
  • 2. Once you've heard about Dr. Myers, go to Combine Labs next to the Quad and talk to him in his office.
  • 3. Accept and complete the Dr. Myers Quest by equipping a Myers sampling kit and adventuring at the Waterfront while etheric until you defeat a lake serpent and return with a lake serpent sample. He will move out of the labs and the protestors will disperse after losing their reason to protest.

• METHOD 4: Give the Security an Excuse
  • METHOD 4a: Report the professor's beating
    • Join gang warfare, take control of the quad and set the agenda to Vigilante Justice
    • Find the Vigilante Justice encounter with 4 crowds of protesters and lose the fight.
    • Find the Security Guard encounter and "report the professor's beating"
    • Get the Quad Crackdown. After you gave them an excuse, the security has viciously suppressed the riot.
  • METHOD 4b: Report the hustler's beating
  • NOTE: This is a simultaneous solution to this and the Lost Watch quest, which also dovetails into the University Quest if you are working for Dr. Thomas.
    • 1. Get friendly with the Third Eye at The Happy Hour:
      • Drunk Poser: "Buy him a drink" for 5 creds - anecdotally and oddly, "Take the fight to him" might work as well. "Apologize to him" is possibly counterproductive. Effect of "Start a brawl" unknown.
      • Bartender: "I'm buying a round" for 100 creds.
      • Other encounters and/or options possibly have an effect, but you can definitely get through purely by buying posers drinks and/or buying round.
        • When you're about halfway there you'll start getting the A Round for My Friends! encounter
          • Eventually you'll meet a Drunk Third Eye. Choose "Buy him another", "Looking to join up", "I'll do it"
    • 2. Complete the Lost Watch quest in a particular way
      • Play pool games at the happy hour until you meet the pool-with-a-pro
        • "play to win" and (if you do), ask "how about that watch?" - he will flee to the quad
          • continue to chase him in the quad, making sure you have a protest sign equipped and a high enough will stat (hypothesized - if correct, 6 will is not enough. see the will page for ways to buff your will)
            • So long as you don't catch him before this (in a variety of ways), you can catch the fleeing pool shark by choosing "claim he's with midgard" in that encounter. If you meet the above requirements, the crowd will beat him to a pulp as you grab the watch.
    • 3. Inform security.
      • at the Quad: Security Guard: "report the hustler's beating"
    • 4. at the Quad: Quad Crackdown. After you gave them an excuse, the security has viciously suppressed the riot.

Finish

Talk to the bartender again.

Rewards and Results

Replaces the Quad (During Protest) encounters with a different set.
Grants access to the VIP Room in The Happy Hour (whether or not you talked to the bartender beforehand).
If you used Method 3, Dr. Myers will no longer be in the labs. However, you can still contact him via the contacts page, so this has no known effect.

Quest Log

Starting quest

You've been asked to help calm down the protests in the Quad by the bartender at the Happy Hour.

Looks like the protest is still in full swing. Lots of guards everywhere, but they seem to be holding back.

After inciting the crowd to riot enough

You've been asked to help calm down the protests in the Quad by the bartender at the Happy Hour.

Looks like the protesters are finally going in to all out riot mode. This can't sustain itself for long.

After Rowdy Crowd?

You've been asked to help calm down the protests in the Quad by the bartender at the Happy Hour.

Looks like the Midgard security forces are going to crackdown on the protesters pretty hard. Shouldn't be much longer.

After Quad Crackdown

You've been asked to help calm down the protests in the Quad by the bartender at the Happy Hour.

Looks good now, he should be pretty happy with the results. Lifetime VIP, here you come!

Completed quest

You subdued the riot in the University Quad.