Button Gwinnett (robot)

Button Gwinnett was the second of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence. In Fallout 3, he is a Protectron robot with a memory malfunction that has locked down the basement section of the National Archives, believing himself to be the real Button Gwinnett, still living in 1776. Built for the purpose of impersonating Gwinnett in the museum's reenactment gig, he is one of the three robots to have remained intact. The other two are one built as Thomas Jefferson and a backup bot, both to be found in pods in the room with the elevator. He has total control over all the robots in the National Archives and addresses them with a heroic tone as the player progresses through the basement levels and gets closer to his quarters.

You can choose to deal with him in one of four ways:
 * Assist him in forging a fake Declaration, to give to "King George."
 * Convince him (Must pass speech check) that you are Thomas Jefferson, and have returned to claim the document.
 * Disable him via the Robotics Expert perk during dialog.
 * Destroy him.

It should also be noted that, unlike the other Protectron voices, Button Gwinnet has a human sounding voice. You can also find his wig in the corner of the room he is guarding, which may aid in passing the speech check with him, as it has a 10+ speech ability. If you convince him that you're Thomas Jefferson, he mentions that you should give his regards to Sally Hemings. Ms. Hemings was a slave with whom Mr. Jefferson had relations.

Killing Button Gwinnett will make you lose Karma, after succeeding the speech-check to make it convinced you are Jefferson, Button will rest by shutting himself down.

Jefferson
Whilst the Protectron identified as Jefferson is offline for maintenance (due to someone replacing its voice software with a radio broadcast as described in the maintenance logs), the personality can be transferred over to the backup. If activated, it will wander around and start broadcasting Galaxy News Radio, though it cannot be interacted with. The Recall signal does not function, but activating the Shutdown causes it to explode. Unusually, the activation of this robot doesn't seem to bother Gwinnett and doesn't open any additional dialogue options. Considering the admiration Gwinnett holds for Jefferson, the designers likely intended the robot to serve as an alternative solution for convincing Gwinnett into handing over the declaration; obviously, it was never fully implemented.

Related Quests

 * Stealing Independence

Appearances
Button Gwinnett only appears in Fallout 3.

Button Gwinnett was also the Second signer of the Declaration of Independence.