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 myriad 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 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 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.

Personality
Mr. House is a very reclusive individual, although this is largely due to his own machinations and technical ingenuity, allowing 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.

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. He views the NCR as a group of insidious politicians ruling over a herd of citizens in their aimless prospects of fortune and glory, something he has no problem with providing, as long as they pay. 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.

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.

Ideology
Mr. House, having lived a long and successful life, 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 New 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. In his youth, he attended the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and would soon earn his reputation as an industrialist and inventor. Although losing his inheritance to his half-brother, he would nevertheless go on to found RobCo Industries as his first company in 2042, in his hometown of Las Vegas, where he would use his scientific prowess and business acumen to turn it into one of the most profitable and innovative corporations in the United States. Among many of House's business projects, RobCo would become most famous for many commercially successful joint ventures with other companies such as General Atomics and Vault-Tec which would lead to the development of the Personal Information Processor (Pip-Boy), protectrons, sentry bots, eyebots and even Liberty Prime.

Due to his pragmatism and obsessions with equations and variables, he spent many years running mathematical diagnostics and calculations of world events to predict the probability of future outcomes, focusing specifically on the events influencing the contemporary global political and economic strife. By 2065, after receiving warnings of a potential catastrophe from informants within the US military and analyzing the results of his own projections, he would come to the mathematical certainty that the world would be devastated by atomic war within 15 years as a result of the United State's escalating involvement in the Resource Wars. He spent his remaining years prior to the Great War heavily investing his vast treasury of resources acculminated by his enterprise into constructing defenses and rebuilding his home into a fortress that would survive the breakout of war. To achieve his ambitious goal, House would secretly oversee the construction of many advanced technological defenses and weaponry although he later admits that without the vital software upgrades contained within the platinum chip, they had demonstrated a "sub-optimal performance." After redeveloping the Lucky 38 into a personal castle, he would preserve himself in a sealed chamber by using highly advanced life support technology, and connect himself to a vast computer database. Centuries later, he would emerge from the hibernation and establish himself as "chief executive" of New Vegas, uniting various tribes under his rule to become the Three Families, signing a treaty with an expanding NCR and paying sums for scavengers to launch expeditions in an effort to find the chip, repurposing his vision from mere business into rebuilding the known world.

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, with the result of much of the economy relying almost entirely on the steady supply on the rapidly dwindling deposits of crude oil well into the 21st century. This reliable supply was threatened when, in 2052, rising oil prices caused a major economic crisis as many small nations entered bankruptcy, which prompted military action as the world powers scrambled for the last remaining oil deposits, initiating the Resource Wars and escalating into the much closer to home Sino-American War. This would, in line with Mr. Houses' calculations, almost certainly spell doom for the city he had invested so much into as well as America as a whole. He fundamentally places a large amount of blame on humanity for what he sees as a lack of foresight in decision-making, 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 and assert control over the region. 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 and general brutality.

In retrospect, he views humanity's capacity for destruction as an obstacle for any sort of attempt at stability and future success, and sees democracy as an expired idea championed by the ignorant who fail to recognize his achievements in preserving not only the last place untouched by the devastation of the Great War, but also the rail in which human civilization can be transported into a new scientific era. As his short term strategy, he intends to attain the platinum chip which would allow him to upgrade and bolster his Securitron army and gather certain strategic allies to be called upon during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, in order to gain a numerical advantage when the time comes to push out the NCR and declare the "Free Economic Zone of New Vegas" as a sovereign entity. His long term plan requires a methodical approach to the NCR, theorizing that it's citizens would place the blame on President Kimball and General Oliver if they survived, rather than seeking vengeance against New Vegas. 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. Using his technical and scientific expertise, he spends much of his time perusing and analyzing his internal databases to conjure grand plans for developing and commercializing newer technologies, such as space travel, life extension and even plans for constructing colonial shipping to be used for the purpose of establishing human colonies on other planets. A brand of technofuturism he wishes to sell through his personal Securitron army, alongside intricately planned and calculated treaties and alliances with other factions vying for the Mojave, selectively terminating those deemed a threat.

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.

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 main 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 Hughes. His obsession with 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 'Hearst' in the beginning of the film as he utters the famously cryptic line "Rosebud."
 * Walt Disney is also a clear 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.