John Henry Eden

John Henry Eden was the President of the Enclave from 2242-2277 after the death of President Dick Richardson during the destruction of the Oil Rig. He assumed power over surviving Enclave forces and ordered them to relocate to Raven Rock on the East Coast.

Biography
John Henry Eden is an AI based on the ZAX supercomputer, located in Raven Rock and loaded with data about American history, past presidents, etc. His personality is based on an amalgam of the personalities of all the past US presidents. . Before the destruction of the Enclave Oil Rig, Eden was a presidential advisor to the former leaders of the Enclave.

After the Enclave's defeat on the West Coast, John Henry Eden contacted the surviving troops, which were led by a high-ranking scientist called Autumn, and ordered to relocate to the Raven Rock military base on the opposite end of the country, he obeyed the order. Autumn gathered his troops and their equipment, and led his men through the post-nuclear United States. Upon the Enclave's arrival in the Capital Wasteland, he became the only person privy to the fact that Eden is actually a ZAX unit that had achieved self awareness. Prior to his death, he passed that knowledge onto his son, Augustus Autumn, who would eventually become the leader of the Enclave's military.

Eden started as a monitoring system for the Raven Rock base. He slowly became self aware and began to study the extensive archives left to him, mainly those of the U.S. government. His favorite were about the presidents, so he modeled himself from the information based in those archives.

The player eventually meets Eden in person, and is given the option to put a modified FEV into the purifier at Jefferson Memorial. Eden also promises the PC a position in the Enclave, replacing the position Colonel Autumn held, though this is an empty promise seeing as how Raven Rock is decimated by Liberty Prime in the Broken Steel DLC. Through a successful Speech option, as well as some choice dialogue, the player can convince Eden to initiate a self-destruct sequence (after the AI "realizes" what horror it is trying to unleash) which will destroy the Raven Rock Enclave base, including Eden himself. Alternately, they may either find and enter Eden's self-destruct code or use their science skill to show him that his reasoning is circular and thus fallacious, and again convince him to self-destruct himself and the base. Or, the player can just accept his request, which will end in the base being sealed off forever.

This, however, was only meant to happen because the player dies at the end of the storyline, meaning he would not witness the events of Eden's survival. With the Broken Steel DLC, this has been corrected.

Character
Eden speaks in a highly personable, charismatic tone of voice and has a generally optimistic attitude; when confronted with the truth that there is no real "United States" anymore, he merely says, "That's a bit of a bleak outlook, don't you think?" and insists that as bad as things are, the United States can still recover. His propaganda broadcasts are similarly optimistic, promising to restore life and old-fashioned American values and institutions. He is seen to be able show or least mimic anger. Particularly in one rather brief speech when he begins to rant about incompetence in the pre-war American government.

It is likely that this last facet of his character is the reason why he and Colonel Autumn had a falling out; Eden briefly explains it as Autumn feeling Eden's methods were "too extreme," and that he "allowed his humanity to cloud his judgment," meaning that he refused poisoning the water which he intends to use 'merely' as an asset for power. Therefore, Eden gives the Lone Wanderer, not Autumn, the directive to place the modified FEV into Project Purity (which in theory would kill every Human, Ghoul, Super Mutant or anything else that had been born in the Capital Wasteland to "purify" it).

Behind the scenes

 * Eden's recordings on Enclave radio are a reference to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous "Fire Side Chats" during his presidency.
 * John Henry Eden's name also could be a direct reference to John Henry, who in American folklore proved he could drive railroad spikes faster than the best steam engines of the time, at the cost of his own life. Humorously, John Henry Eden is a computer who believes he can be a better president than any human.
 * In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, an artificial intelligence by the name of John Henry is created, and has unlimited access to the Internet and everything connected to it.
 * It could be a reference to the movie "Tank Girl," where a megalomaniac played by Malcolm McDowell battles the protagonist for the world's water supply. This may be part of the reason they hired Malcolm McDowell to voice John Henry Eden.
 * The name could also be a reference to Senator John Henry Eaton, an early nineteenth-century politician who later served as Secretary of War to President Andrew Jackson.