John Henry Eden

John Henry Eden was the President of the Enclave 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.

He was an AI based on the ZAX supercomputer, located in Raven Rock and loaded with data about American history, past presidents, etc. His personality was based on an amalgam of the personalities of all the past US presidents. Initially, the only person who knew that Eden was an AI was Colonel Autumn (only Autumn could meet Eden in person for security reasons). Before the destruction of the oil rig, Eden was a presidential adviser to the former leaders of the Enclave.

John Henry Eden was the chief antagonist of Fallout 3. He wished to use Project Purity to achieve the Enclave's stated mission of purifying the Capital Wasteland. In fact, President Eden was a highly intelligent AI, which was gradually revealed through the course of the game.

The player eventually meets Eden in person, and is given the option to put a modified FEV into the purifier at Jefferson Memorial. Through a successful Speech option, as well as some choice dialogue, the player can convince Eden to initiate a self-destruct sequence which will destroy the Raven Rock Enclave base, including Eden himself. Alternately, they may either find Eden's self-destruct code or use their Science skill to convince him that his reasoning is faulty.

If you successfully take the diplomatic path you convince the supercomputer to abandon his plans and destroy himself and his followers by merely asking him where the destruction will end rather than offering any hard evidence of a flaw in his plan as in Fallout 1.



John Henry Eden also bears a similar resemblence to the Master, in that he believes his people should survive, and that the FEV is their ticket to domination. More importantly he is based on a conglomerate of previous presidents, essentially a build up of multiple personalities, much like the Master.

John Henry 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.

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, isn't it?" 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. His charisma and optimism mask his ruthless nature; he is even willing to order the robots in the facility to gun down his own troops to aid the Vault-Dweller's escape (should the player choose to help him) and murder nearly every living being in the Wasteland to achieve his goals.

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" without going into detail, and most telling is the fact that Eden gives the Vault 101 Dweller, not Autumn, the directive to place the modified FEV into Project Purity (which would kill nearly every human or once-human being in the Capital Wasteland to "purify" it.)

YouTube video about John Henry Eden:
 * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlBvZMBnK_4