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 the founding of 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 of his inheritance by his half-brother, Anthony, he nevertheless attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later went on to found RobCo Industries in his hometown of Las Vegas at the age of just 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 Tool Company - the family business usurped by his greedy half-brother (although curiously, the factory on the outskirts of Vegas was still under his brother's control in 2077).

A staunch pragmatist by nature, Mr. House would regularly design and run mathematical simulations based on global political and socio-economic 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 massive OS upgrade for his Securitrons and the laser defense network. The chip was to be delivered in the afternoon of October 23, 2077. Unfortunately, about 20 hours before delivery, the Great War began. The chip was lost and was rediscovered over 200 years later in Sunnyvale by some of the multiple scavengers hired by House. Forced to work with an inferior version of the OS, he has 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.

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.

Post-war status
House lives 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).

Mr. House is also extremely interested in the collectible snow globes found in the game, and he will pay handsomely for each. The snowglobes can be given to Jane in exchange for 2000 caps each. Snowglobes 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's inventory and replaced with 2000 caps (except for snow globe - Sierra Madre Casino, it adds 2000 Sierra Madre chips.) Once the Courier has sold a snowglobe to Jane it is placed on display (on a mantle) in the Lucky 38 presidential suite. However, if you kill Mr. House the snow globes will stay in your inventory and Jane will disappear.

Health
Mr. House is extremely physically decrepit and can only live inside a self-contained life support unit. 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.

Quests

 * The House Always Wins: Mr. House gives the player the quest, which leads to one of the final quests, All or Nothing. In this case, player 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 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 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 he/she is invited by House, himself, to visit him in the Lucky 38. There, House gives the player vital information about Benny and the platinum chip. Also, he allows the Courier and his/her companions to use the Lucky 38's presidential suite as a safehouse.

Appearances
Robert House appears only in Fallout: New Vegas.

Behind the scenes

 * Mr. House was written by John Gonzalez.
 * One of the challenges in the Gun Runner's Arsenal, A Slave Obeys, requires you to kill House with a 9 iron or Nephi's golf driver, which is a reference to BioShock's Andrew Ryan, who suffers a similar fate.
 * 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 Hughes. His obsession with snowglobes is a reference to another work of fiction, Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, itself based on the life of William Randolph Hearst. A snowglobe falls from the hands of the dying 'Hearst' in the beginning of the film as he utters the famously cryptic line "Rosebud".
 * Jane, House's computer companion, is likely an allusion to the filmstar Jane Russell, who was under contract to Howard Hughes and also his lover for a time.


 * Mr. House had another Securitron gal named Marilyn (based on Marilyn Monroe) that was apparently cut. However, she appears alongside with Jane in a card from the deck of card 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 has 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.