Mr. House

Robert Edwin House is the self-styled president, CEO and sole proprietor of the New Vegas Strip in the Mojave Wasteland in the year 2281. House is foremost responsible for founding RobCo Industries and civilizing the New Vegas casino tribes.

Biography
Born on June 25, 2020 (261 years old) to a wealthy Nevada tool magnate, Robert Edwin House was orphaned at an early age when his parents died in a freak accident involving an autogyro and a lightning strike. Cheated out of his inheritance by his half-brother, Anthony, he nevertheless attended the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and later went on to found RobCo Industries in his hometown of Las Vegas at the age of 22. It would soon become one of the most profitable corporations in the world, owing mostly to House's considerable technical genius and business acumen. He used the wealth and power to gain controlling interests in a myriad of other businesses. These included REPCONN Aerospace, the Lucky 38 Hotel & Casino on Las Vegas Boulevard, and perhaps, most personally, the H&H Tools Company, the family business usurped by his greedy half-brother (although, the factory on the outskirts of Vegas was still under his brother's control in 2077). But along with his fame came a look into his peculiar personality. A scandal emerged when House was dating a starlet, but only wanted to scan her brain and make her dress in different outfits.

A staunch pragmatist by nature, Mr. House would regularly design and run mathematical paradigms based on global political and socioeconomic conditions in an effort to predict future events. By 2065, these projections led him to the inexorable conclusion that the world would be engulfed in a nuclear war within fifteen years. Worse still, his contacts within the military informed him that seventy-seven Chinese warheads were aimed at his beloved Las Vegas. Armed with this knowledge and his projections, House went to work on a secret plan to ensure the city would survive this apocalypse and that he would live to see the world after the War. He programmed multiple mainframes with satellite links meant to disable the vast majority of the Chinese missiles while in flight, then designed an array of high-powered laser cannons, which he had installed on the roof of the Lucky 38, to deal with any missile his program had missed. To preserve himself, he took equally drastic steps: his body was permanently connected to an extremely sophisticated life support device named a "hibernation chamber" to take care of his physiological needs, while his brain was wired directly into his vast information network via an enormous supercomputer. Essentially, he became a one-of-a-kind humanoid brain bot, with the Lucky 38 and an army of Securitrons serving as his "body."

An integral element of his plan was the platinum chip, which in reality was a combination access card and high capacity data storage device, containing a vital OS upgrade for his Securitrons and the laser defense network. The chip was to be delivered in the afternoon of October 23, 2077. However, about 20 hours before it could be delivered, the Great War happened. The chip was lost and not rediscovered until over 200 years later by some of the multiple scavengers hired by House. Forced to work with an inferior version of the OS, he suffered numerous system crashes and was even forced into a coma by one of the failures before being able to reboot an earlier, stable version that only allowed him to save Las Vegas from 68 out of the 77 warheads, 59 disarmed and 9 destroyed, aimed at the city. But due to using an inferior software, numerous system crashes occurred and the Lucky 38's main reactor had to be shutdown. For five years, House fought power outages and more system crashes until he rebooted his system in an old version of his operating system, but was put in a decades-long coma.

Post-war status
House regained consciousness in 2138. Biding his time, he entered the world stage once again in 2274, when Securitrons under his command emerged from the Lucky 38. This action was prompted by the arrival of New California Republic scouts at Hoover Dam. In order to establish his rule, he enlisted the help of tribes living in New Vegas (later known as the Three Families) and rebuilt the city just in time to welcome the arrival of the New California Republic Army's advance forces. In exchange for help with Hoover Dam and permission to use the McCarran Airport as its headquarters, House signed the New Vegas treaty, ensuring cooperation from NCR and, for a time, protecting the Strip from annexation.

House resides in the Lucky 38 and is in charge of the Securitrons that roam New Vegas. At some point after emerging from stasis, House won the leadership of Vault 21 in a bet, stripped it of all useful technology, and then planned to permanently seal the Vault away by filling it with cement. At the pleadings of Sarah Weintraub he left the top section of Vault 21 as it used to be, and she converted it into a hotel (all the casino equipment was already there from the vault experiment).

Health
Mr. House is extremely physically decrepit and can only live inside a self-contained life support unit. Along with the life support chamber, House further modified himself with several artificial enhancements to replace or supersede basic life functions. The most visually observable enhancements include a food pump to deliver nutrients directly into his stomach, an enhancement around his heart (likely a pacemaker or artificial heart), and what can be assumed as solid and liquid waste removal pump around his crotch. The Courier has the opportunity to break through his security and see his true form. However, opening his isolation chamber, even for a second, means that Mr. House will not live more than a year due to exposure to outside contaminants.

Personality
Mr. House is a very reclusive individual, although this is largely due to his own machinations and health status, forcing himself to be sealed in his own Lucky 38 control room. His inability to allow all his life's work to be ruined by what he sees as the wrath and folly of a jingoistic and increasingly unstable world has cemented, in his mind, the fate of democracy and human civilization itself. His contempt for most post-apocalyptic institutions is a result of what he sees as humanity's inability to learn from its past mistakes, instead putting blind faith in reckless expansionism and excessive warfare to bring back the Old World.

Mr. House sees it as his mission to return New Vegas to its former pre-War glory as a crown jewel of technological innovation and the bright neon paradise of business and fortune. Having lived in the Las Vegas Strip prior to the Great War, he was taken in by what he saw as the unstoppable technological progress and an economic boom unimpeded by the problems and unrest that plagued much of pre-War America. His vision of autocracy and disillusionment with democratic society stems from his resentment towards the attitudes and actions of the increasingly desperate and jingoistic pre-War United States, whose decline was precipitated by the failure to adequately research and invest in alternative technologies.

His own strategies and decisions are largely based on mathematical calculations, giving him a high sense of confidence and self-importance in carrying out his plans. He sees himself as an autocrat, viewing New Vegas as his rightful property with the various factions in (or trying to gain) control as irrelevant or, at worst, treacherous, referring to the war between the Legion and the NCR as "two snarling dogs fighting over a curve of bone" due to their repeated attempts to take Hoover Dam. He further disparages both groups as nothing more than "regurgitations of the past," drawing parallels between the two as attempts to revive past civilizations rather than offer a palpable future. He derides the NCR as a "society of customers" lead by scheming leaders who wish to take Vegas out from under him, while showing disgust at the Legion's practice of slavery, technophobia and general brutality. Failure or unknown variables tend to frustrate him greatly, not so much as the fear of losing power, but with the attitude of an employer having to deal with unfaithful employees.

Although ambitious and fairly ruthless, he is not sadistic and takes no pleasure in ordering the extermination of his enemies, merely viewing their deaths or otherwise neutralization as the completion of a contract. He holds little genuine hatred of NCR or even the tribals inhabiting New Vegas, tolerating the existence of those he otherwise sees as no threat or a boon to his tourist economy, even allowing NCR and Legion currency to be used at casinos, and allowing shady business practices as long as they reside within the remit of his contracts. However, he is extremely disapproving of the Brotherhood of Steel and insists that the Courier eliminate the Mojave chapter, leaving no room for alliances or even negotiation.

He takes little interest in monitoring or controlling the lives of others beyond established rules and generally allows the casinos to run themselves, and is largely reliant on the few information networks at his disposal and his Securitron patrols to exert order. He takes great pride in his technical achievements, seeing himself as a visionary and seeing his own life as the embodiment of great leadership. He takes great interest in the Courier, although they share largely a business relationship, he nevertheless sees the Courier as an agent that could successfully aid him in overcoming obstacles normally too much for the average Securitron, entrusting his new employee with a great deal of information and responsibility. If aided in his work, he will eventually begin to see the Courier as more of a lieutenant than a mere employee, even becoming proud of himself for his selection should his takeover be successful. Should he succeed in his plans, he would establish an "autocracy," invest in the Strip's burgeoning tourist economy thus galvanizing his newfound independence and economic growth to embark on a series of grandiose scientific projects, echoing his pre-War business ventures as CEO of RobCo industries.

Quests

 * The House Always Wins: Mr. House gives the player character the quest, which leads to one of the final quests, All or Nothing. In this case, the player character communicates with House only through the computer terminal in his office.
 * For the Republic, Part 2, Wild Card: Change in Management, Render Unto Caesar: However, if the player character decides to side with NCR, Caesar or fight for an independent New Vegas, Mr. House has to be killed or disabled.
 * The Moon Comes Over the Tower: Emily Ortal asks the player character to bug one of House's terminals for important medical information.

Other interactions
Mr. House plays a major role in the game. The Courier hears a lot about him while traveling, but upon reaching New Vegas they are invited by House, himself, to visit him in the Lucky 38. There, House gives the Courier vital information about Benny and the platinum chip. Also, he allows the Courier and their companions to use the Lucky 38's presidential suite as a safehouse.

Mr. House is also extremely interested in the collectible snow globes and he will pay handsomely for each. The snow globes can be given to Jane in exchange for 2,000 caps each. Snow globes found in Sierra Madre (Dead Money), Big MT (Old World Blues), Zion National Park (Honest Hearts) and the Divide (Lonesome Road) will automatically be removed from the player character's inventory and replaced with 2,000 caps (except for snow globe - Sierra Madre Casino, it adds 2,000 Sierra Madre chips.) Once the Courier has sold a snow globe to Jane it is placed on display (on a mantle) in the Lucky 38 presidential suite. However, if the player character kills Mr. House, the snow globes will stay in their inventory and Jane will disappear.

Appearances
Robert House appears only in Fallout: New Vegas and is mentioned in Fallout 4.

Behind the scenes

 * Mr. House was written by John Gonzalez.
 * The challenge "A Slave Obeys" requires the player character to kill Mr. House with the 9 iron or Nephi's Golf Driver. This is a reference to the game BioShock, in which the player character beats the game's current antagonist, Andrew Ryan, to death with a 9 iron while he repeats the words "A man chooses, a slave obeys." Both characters were based in part on Howard Hughes.
 * In casino parlance, "the house" refers generally to the gambler's opponent, the casino itself, as in the idiom "The house always wins."
 * Mr. House's personality is based on that of Howard Robard Hughes Jr., a reclusive millionaire with strong ties to the real world Las Vegas Strip.
 * His affinity for snow globes is a reference to another work of fiction, Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, itself based on the life of William Randolph Hearst. A snow globe falls from the hands of the dying Kane in the beginning of the film as he utters the famously cryptic line "Rosebud".
 * Walt Disney is also an influence on the character, given his use of robots (Disney was instrumental in pioneering animatronic technology during the 1960s) and his longevity (ultimately false rumors of Walt Disney being cryonically frozen or otherwise preserved have pervaded popular culture since his death). Disney was also well-known for sporting the same style of mustache as Hughes/House.
 * Jane, House's securitron companion, is an allusion to the film star Jane Russell, who was under contract to Howard Hughes and also his lover for a time.


 * Mr. House had another female programmed securitron named Marilyn (based on Marilyn Monroe) that was cut. However, she appears alongside with Jane in a card from the deck of cards of the collector version. The texture file for her "face" is still in the game's files, and there's a reference to her in the G.E.C.K. Also, after meeting Mr. House, Veronica will say she's "surprised he only had the two robot sex slaves." This was likely meant to reference Jane and the absent Marilyn, but the line was never removed or changed.

Bugs

 * A medicine check of 35, gaining XP each time, can be accessed as many times as you want.
 * Activating Mr. House fails to start dialogue, rendering him useless (the mainframe). This might be the result of resetting ally status of Securitrons when they are hostile due to a faction error with vault 11 robots. To fix this, enter the following commands into the console:, , , , ,.
 * The dialogue ending "at Fortification Hill" may cause a crash once he's finished talking.
 * The stasis version of Mr. House will sometimes break, turning invisible.