Robert Edwin House, typically known as Mr. House, is the enigmatic ruler of New Vegas and a central character in Fallout: New Vegas. He also briefly appears in the Fallout TV series' first season and is confirmed to be appearing again in its second season.[4]
Quick Answers
Who is the voice actor for Robert House in Fallout: New Vegas?
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What is the backstory of Robert House's relationship with his half-brother, Anthony?
What is the significance of Robert House's cameo in the Fallout TV series?
Background[]
Pre-War[]
Robert House was born on June 25, 2020,[3] and grew up around Las Vegas, Nevada,[5] but was orphaned at the age of two when his parents died in a freak accident involving an autogyro and a lightning strike.[3] Cheated out of his inheritance by his half-brother, Anthony,[Non-game 1] he nevertheless managed to achieve attendance to the Commonwealth Institute of Technology and later went on to found RobCo Industries in 2042, at the age of 22. Under Robert's leadership, it soon became one of the most profitable corporations in the world, owing mostly to the young House's considerable technical genius and business acumen, regarded by his peers with envy and by the tabloids as the nation's most infamously eccentric businessman.[3][6] House himself claims that at age 30, just eight years after his company's founding, he had amassed a net worth of at least 30 billion dollars.[7]
Through his considerable wealth and power, Robert gained controlling interests in a myriad of other businesses, among them REPCONN Aerospace,[8] the Lucky 38 Hotel & Casino on Las Vegas Boulevard, and the H&H Tools Company, the family business that would have been his before being usurped by his half-brother (although the factory on the outskirts of Vegas was still under the elder House's control in 2077).[9] However, along with Robert's fame came a level of scrutiny over elements of his peculiar personality. A scandal emerged when he dated a starlet, but their private time was only ever spent with him scanning her brain and making her dress in different outfits, a story that captured the interest of foreign tabloids like El Periódico de las Aburridas.[10]
Another use of House's time while running his company was regularly designing and running mathematical paradigms based on global political and socioeconomic 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.[11]
His calculations of an inevitable nuclear exchange were later confirmed during a secret meeting with high ranking American corporate executives Barb Howard, Frederick Sinclair, Bud Askins, Julia Masters, and Leon Von Felden, where Howard indicated Vault-Tec was willing to detonate the bombs themselves to ensure their profits. House expressed that he had an issue with the Vaults, positing that people confined in tight quarters for a long time will destroy each other, and wondered whether Vault Dwellers would live longer than anyone who survived on the surface.[12]
Armed with his knowledge of the nukes, House devoted the duration of it making preparations to ensure the city of Las Vegas would survive the apocalypse and that he would live to see the world after the war.[11] While the primary goal of his countermeasures was to disable incoming nuclear warheads, House included contingencies for directly destroying any that managed to get through.[13] As for House himself, he took equally drastic steps to pave his way to the world of the future: placing his physical body, itself enhanced, within a life-support device, removing House the mortal man from the world permanently.[14] while his brain was wired directly into his vast information network via an enormous supercomputer.[15][16]
The Great War[]
Integral to the successful execution of House's plans was the platinum chip, containing a vital OS upgrade for his Securitrons and the laser defense network. The chip was to be delivered in the afternoon of October 23, 2077, but a miscalculation of mere hours by House prevented its arrival in time.[17] 20 hours before the chip's scheduled delivery, the Great War occurred, resulting in the chip being lost in the ruins for the next 200 years.
Forced to work with an inferior OS, House endured numerous system crashes yet ultimately was able to protect Las Vegas from most, but not all of the nuclear warheads aimed at the city. The strain on his systems however nearly ruined everything House had worked towards, but he persevered in the end.[13][18][19] Even so, still forced to rely on the downgraded software over the course of the coming 200 years, House was in almost constant battle with inefficient systems, frequent crashes, and even a long span of several decades left in a coma, allowing the remains of Vegas to be picked over by the wasteland it sat in. But Mr. House would not fall, instead fated to rise eventually.[18]
Post-War status[]
House regained consciousness from his coma in 2138.[Non-game 2] Instead of immediately revealing himself, he opted instead to wait for certain signs and bided his time. Eventually, 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 detection of New California Republic scouts arriving at Hoover Dam. In order to establish his rule, he enlisted the help of three of the raider tribes who had descended from Vault dwellers and were now living in the ruins of Vegas.[Non-game 3] These Vault tribes were later renamed as the Three Families: the Chairmen, the Omertas, and the White Glove Society, they rebuilt the city under House's guidance, establishing it as the Free Economic Zone of New Vegas and styling himself as its president, CEO and sole proprietor, 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 defunct McCarran International Airport as its headquarters, House signed the New Vegas Treaty, ensuring cooperation from NCR and, for a time, protecting the Strip from annexation. Those tribes who did not become the Three Families were scattered, some became the area's locals and later the Kings of Freeside, while the Great Khans were forced out of Vegas.[20][21][22]
By 2281, House's efforts led to the establishment of New Vegas as a major power in the Mojave Wasteland through lucrative treaties and trade deals with the nearby New California Republic, guided by his aims to use the Republic's conflict with Caesar's Legion to further expand his control of the region. In all that time, House continued to reside in the Lucky 38 and control the Securitrons that roam New Vegas as his envoys. At some point after emerging from stasis, House made an offer to the residents of Vault 21, a gamble for ownership of the Vault which he won, followed by stripping it of all useful technology, and had planned to permanently seal the Vault away by filling it with cement.[23] However, House was convinced by Sarah Weintraub to leave the top section of Vault 21 as it used to be while allowing her to convert it into a hotel (all the casino equipment was already there from the vault experiment) to serve visitors to the New Vegas Strip.[24]
Even after bringing some of Vegas' luster back to the wasteland, Mr. House's top priority remained re-acquiring the platinum chip from its decades-old resting place. For years before the NCR's arrival, House spent cumulative millions of caps on scavenger teams and prospectors to dig it out of the ruins of Sunnyvale.[25] This massive expenditure ultimately paid off in 2281 when the platinum chip was found after 204 years. Mr. House contracted the delivery of it to the Mojave Express, and to cover up the importance of the package, he arranged for a layered plot involving multiple couriers, most carrying packages with miscellaneous junk items to throw off potential risks,[26] additionally paying mercenary teams to screen the routes to be taken.[27]
Yet again, however, the platinum chip's delivery was halted. While being carried by Courier Six to New Vegas, they were intercepted by the Chairmen's leader, Benny around Goodsprings after he was informed of the chip's existence and the route by the modified Securitron Yes Man using a backdoor into House's datastream. Benny intended to leverage the chip as a means to gain control of the Strip and make it an independent power in the wasteland, free of his employer's machinations.[27] Though not initially aware of Benny's involvement, House learned the truth after a Securitron, Victor, he had planted in Goodsprings had reported back to him on the chip's theft.[28] Incensed at the betrayal, as he considered Benny a potential protégé as his right-hand man able to achieve tasks he alone could not, House nevertheless had to mask his knowledge of Benny's duplicity until the time came that he could act on it through a new agent.[29] After learning through Victor that the Courier had survived the ambush and was making their way from Goodsprings to the Strip. Mr. House began planning to invite them into the Lucky 38 in hopes of using their want for revenge on Benny to reclaim the platinum chip at long last.[30]
Personality[]
Mr. House is a very reclusive individual, although this is largely due to his fragile physical state, which forces him to remain sealed in the Lucky 38 control room. His unwillingness to allow his life's work to be ruined by the folly of what he perceives as an increasingly unstable world has cemented, in his mind, the fate of democracy and human civilization itself. His contempt for most post-apocalyptic institutions, from bottle caps[31] to the various factions, stems from what he perceives as humanity's inability to learn from its past mistakes.
Mr. House seeks to restore New Vegas to its pre-War glory as a crown jewel of technological innovation and a bright neon paradise of business and fortune. Having experienced pre-War Vegas first-hand, he has long been enamored with the city's beauty and grandeur. His vision of autocracy and disillusionment with democratic society stems from his resentment towards the attitudes and actions of the increasingly desperate pre-War United States, whose decline was precipitated by the failure to adequately research and develop alternative technologies. His ultimate goal is to guide civilization's progress and forge a new future for mankind, free of the corrupting influences of the past.
His own strategies and decisions are largely based on mathematical calculations, and he is confident in his own ability to succeed.[32] He styles himself as an "autocrat," viewing New Vegas as his rightful dominion, and is dismissive of other factions vying for control, comparing them to "two snarling dogs fighting over a curve of bone." 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" led by scheming leaders who wish to take Vegas out from under him, while showing disgust at the Legion's practice of slavery, technophobia and general brutality.[33] Nevertheless, he vastly prefers the NCR to the Legion, viewing the NCR as a possible longterm business partner while understanding that the Legion does not tolerate what they cannot control, and thus while maintaining a facade of neutrality, actively plans for an NCR victory in the Mojave: just one on his terms with an Independent Vegas.
Focused only on achieving his goals, he has little interest in monitoring or controlling the lives of others. He allows the casinos autonomy, and is largely reliant on the few information networks at his disposal and his Securitron patrols to maintain order. He takes great pride in his achievements, seeing himself as a visionary and his own life as the embodiment of great leadership. He takes great interest in the Courier, seeing them as a valuable asset to be utilized for overcoming obstacles too challenging for his other agents. Though their relationship is mainly professional, Mr. House comes to regard the Courier with respect and shows appreciation for their services, should they choose to help Mr. House. The Courier's success equates to his own success in judging them capable, inviting them to continue aiding him in his increasingly ambitious goals.[15][34]
Relations with other factions[]
Interactions with the player character[]
Interactions overview[]
Interactions | ||
---|---|---|
This character starts quests. | ||
This character is involved in quests. |
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.
Effects of player's actions[]
- Upon his death, the quest The House Has Gone Bust! will simultaneously trigger and fail, and the note A tragedy has befallen all mankind will appear in the player character's inventory.
- If the player character takes Mr. House out of his stasis chamber, he will ask them why they have ruined his plans and he will react differently depending on what they tell him.
- If told they did it in the name of the NCR, he will belittle them for working for them, declaring them "snakes," and call the Courier a "sad, misguided whore."
- If told they are acting on behalf of Caesar, he will be horrified at the prospect of slavery being humanity's future.
- If told they did it for Yes Man, he will tell them their "vanity project" is doomed for failure.
- If saying it was "just business," he will retort by saying that they should have worked for him if what they wanted was personal gain.
- Finally, if the player character says they did it just because they didn't like him, he will call them a fool for letting their feelings about him jeopardize humanity's future.
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 via Victor to visit House in Lucky 38. There, he provides vital information about Benny and the platinum chip and allows the Courier and their companions to use Lucky 38's presidential suite as a safehouse.
- Mr. House has an interest in the collectible snow globes found in the game, and will pay handsomely for each.[35] The snow globes 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 (with the exception of the Sierra Madre snow globe, which adds 2000 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 the player kills Mr. House, the snow globes will stay in their inventory and Jane will disappear.
- The Courier can also attempt to pickpocket Mr. House, but he does not yield any items.
- Mr. House counts as an abomination for the Abominable challenge. Because he is considered an abomination, shooting him with the flare gun results in the "The abomination panics and flees!" message, but nothing else happens.
- House is one of the characters that the player character must eat in order to earn the Meat of Champions perk.
Endings[]
Narrated by Ron Perlman
# | Slide | Voice-over narration | In-game condition |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Mr. House's Securitron army took control of Hoover Dam and the Strip, pushing both the Legion and the exhausted NCR out of New Vegas. Mr. House continued to run New Vegas his way, a despotic vision of pre-War glory. The streets were orderly, efficient, cold. New Vegas continued to be the sole place in the wasteland where fortunes were won and lost in the blink of an eye. |
Complete The House Always Wins for Mr. House. |
Notes[]
- Another portrait of Robert House, similar to the one in the House Resort, is found in House #00 of Higgs Village in the add-on Old World Blues. It was punctured by several knives, most likely by Doctor 0, who has an intense hatred for House.
- If Mr. House is disintegrated by an energy weapon, the stasis chamber disintegrates with him. The same event occurs when using a plasma weapon.
- From information contained on the terminals in the H&H Tools factory, it is gleaned that Robert House's half-brother, Anthony, used underhanded means to wrest his inherited share of the family business from him after the death of their father.
- In one entry, Anthony calls Robert his "bastard half-brother." It is unclear whether he is insinuating Robert was a bastard child (a child born outside of marriage) or if he is simply using the term as a broad insult.
- Mr. House is given the nickname "Not-At-Home" by the Omertas for his tendency to remain ostensibly neutral in Strip affairs.[36]
- Raul Tejada recounts hearing "weird stories" about Robert House before the Great War. In one article from El Periódico de las Aburridas, a Mexican tabloid, House was the subject of a tell-all from a starlet he allegedly dated. He was implied to have no interest in regular sex with women, as he instead wanted to "scan" the starlet's brain and "make her dress up in different outfits."[10] This connects to the presence of Jane, a flirtatious securitron at the Lucky 38 who provides House with companionship in the post-War period. House's relationship with women would have been expanded upon in cut content (see below).
- In the G.E.C.K., there is a version of Mr. House as a human before the war, although he has no mustache and his hair is gray, rather than black as it looks on his computer.
- In the script notes accessible through the G.E.C.K. during the ending where House takes control of New Vegas, Mr. House does(Or at least was planned to) think of the Courier as "the daughter/son I wish I'd had.". It is unclear however if it is an alternative line, or glimpse into Mr. House's thoughts during that ending.
- House cannot be targeted in V.A.T.S.
- If the player character kills him using the Ranger Takedown with any kind of displacer glove, Mr. House and the stasis chamber will flip over, causing a lag or freeze.
- When killed, the player character loses Karma, despite House's Neutral Karma.
- While Mr. House's stasis chamber is being opened, the Courier has the option to speak with him before it is finished opening. Doing so will drastically speed the process up, with the chamber opening and Mr. House being propped up in under a second, rather than the 10-15 seconds it normally takes.
- If the player character speaks to Ulysses after the end of Lonesome Road, they can tell him if they have killed House. At first he is indifferent and wonders what will happen to Vegas and the Three Families now that House is gone, but soon after he states that it's for the best.
- House is alluded to several times in Fallout 4.
- House is mentioned in the RobCo Auto-Cache terminal in the Fallout 76 update Wastelanders.[38] Additionally, the H&H Tools logo can be seen on the default texture of the Auto-Axe added in Expeditions: The Pitt.
- In Fallout 76's Mutation Invasion update, the cultist Brother Scarberry mentions that an elder of the church implied the man behind RobCo to be "lacking in the soul."[39]
- House appears smoking a cigarette at a meeting with many major CEOs in the Fallout TV series, with a nameplate clearly labeled "RobCo" in front of him.
- Mr. House is similar to the original version of Gizmo from the first Fallout in a multitude of ways:
- Both are scheming businessmen who are morally questionable but ultimately plan to turn their resident cities (Junktown and New Vegas respectively) into flourishing trade centers and tourist traps, yet are unable to do so as someone/something (Killian Darkwater and the NCR, respectively) stand in their way.
- Both are immobile (Gizmo due to his sheer weight and body mass, House due to the fact he is connected to a life support system) and heavily depend on guards to defend them; killing the guards may be tedious, but House and Gizmo are unable to properly protect themselves and will thus easily die to the player character.
- Both's cities may diminish and never advance or progress if they are killed in support of their rivals.
Notable quotes[]
- "Sorry to deny you a moment of primate triumph, but you'll have to go elsewhere to sound your barbaric yawp."
- "You see that you and I are of a different stripe, don't you? We don't have to dream that we're important. We are."
- "Success depends on forethought, dispassionate calculation of probabilites, accounting for every stray variable."
- "Nothing to impede progress. If you want to see the fate of democracies, look out the windows."
- "I like to think you have enough sense to do the right thing. The rewards for doing so are immense... as are the punishments for not doing so."
- "To your untrained eyes, it may look as though mankind is making a comeback. In the NCR, you have something that resembles a nation state. Savage as it is, in Caesar's Legion, you have an organized society. But neither of these offer a future. They're regurgitations of the past."
- "From what I hear, I'd want to eat at the Gourmand every night... if I were ambulatory."
- "But autocracy? Firm control in the hands of a technological and economic visionary? Yes, that Vegas shall have."
- "I offer many benefits, but vacation time isn't one of them."
- "You don't see them raiding hospitals to cart away Auto-Docs or armfuls of prosthetic organs. No, they greatly prefer the sort of technology that puts people in hospitals. Or graves, rather, since hospitals went the way of the Dodo."
- "We're talking about a coterie of bulging-eyed fanatics who think all Pre-War technology belongs to them."
- "Because they're ridiculous! Because they galavant around the Mojave pretending to be Knights of Yore. The world has no use for emotionally unstable techno-fetishists. Just wipe them out, will you?"
- "Ideological purity and shiny power armor don't count for much when you're outnumbered 15:1."
- "Goodbye? Is that some kind of joke? You barely understand what I want you to accomplish down there."
- "I can't reach through this monitor and compell
- "Are you a child? The Platinum Chip was taken from you, obviously."
- "You laid the foundation for my victory, so fine - I'll permit some latitude in how you schedule your work."
- "Absolutely not! Caesar is of great use to me. I don't want you harming a hair on that man's head - assuming you can find one."
- "I much prefer working with robots..."
- "What of it? I enjoy them. There's something about a little diorama set inside a glass dome that I... find pleasing."
- "Until you do this, consider yourself suspended... without pay."
- "Marvellous" work ethic, bravo.
- "Kimball may be a grandstanding boor, but I want him protected."
- "An opinion you expressed with supreme subtlety and finesse. Moving on..."
- "Do you have any idea how prodigious is the opportunity you're casting aside here?"
- "Why would I want to go to war against the NCR? They're my best customers."
- "Not interested? Not interested? You have an interest in this even if you're too stupid to know it. If you have an interest in breathing, you have an interest in this."
- "I haven't shown my hand - I've shown one card. I've given my enemies a single, provocative datum upon which to fixate. They have no idea what other cards I'm holding. It's a strong hand, believe me - I dealt it to myself."
- "Consequently, I have to "wait and see" what happens. It's... grotesque."
- "You're making me question your usefulness, you realize."
- "Had I used an armed caravan to transport the Chip, I might as well have been announcing to the world "this is important. Attack this!""
- "You are the first person to step foot inside the Lucky 38 in over 200 years. It was not an invitation I made lightly."
- "I'm not offering you an incentive as crude as money - though there'll be plenty of that. What I'm offering you is a ground-floor opportunity in the most important enterprise on Earth. What I'm offering is a future - for you, and for what remains of the human race."
- "If you find Caesar's Legion so frightening at this remove, imagine them rampaging across the Strip. We have a chance to see them detroyed, to see New Vegas become the harbinger of a new age."
- "Don't let the video screens and computer terminals fool you. I'm flesh and blood, not silicon."
- "You needn't be afraid of me. It's my Securitrons that are going to kill you."
- "By the time I was 30 years old, I was a billionaire 30 times over. I founded and ran a vast economic empire. Do you really think I'm going to let an upstart come into my home and ransom my property to me? I spent two centuries searching for the Platinum Chip. It's my invention, my property - mine. Now be a good courier and deliver it!"
- "I invite you to think carefully about what you do next... standing alone before me, surrounded by my heavily-armed Securitron guards."
- "I'm sure the assassins will wait for you to show up."
- "New Vegas is more than a city - it's the remedy to mankind's derailment."
Appearances[]
Robert House appears in Fallout: New Vegas and the Fallout TV series. He is mentioned in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76.
Behind the scenes[]
- In Fallout: New Vegas, House is voiced by actor René Auberjonois (1940–2019), also known for his role as Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- In localized versions of the game, his voice is dubbed by Frédéric Cerdal (French, also the dubbed voice of Victor), Masashi Hirose (Japanese) and Roberto Encinas (Spanish, also the dubbed voice of Raul Tejada).
- ^ (Note) In the Fallout TV series season 1 episode 8, the actor who plays Robert House was initially miscredited as Anthony Misiano. On April 21, 2024, the credits were corrected, now showing that House was portrayed by Rafi Silver, who had already been credited in Prime Video X-Ray.
- Mr. House is the King of Diamonds in the deck of Vault playing cards included with the Collector's Edition of Fallout: New Vegas.
- In casino parlance, "the house" refers generally to the gambler's opponent, the casino itself, as in the idiom "the house always wins."
- The challenge A Slave Obeys requires the player character to kill Mr. House with the 9 iron or Driver Nephi's golf club. This is a reference to the video game BioShock, where the player beats the 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 and share other traits.
Developer quotes[]
He's also authoritarian on economic issues within certain boundaries. In the same way that a fascist government would exert authority on the various production/capital resources involved in a market, Mr. House exerts his authority on The Strip's operation. Ultimately, he wants The Strip to be (extremely) profitable and to retain independence from NCR/CL. However, he does not want the families to be independent from his authority, so he does what he can to keep them under his thumb. He doesn't want to micromanage what they do, but he also knows that allowing them to do whatever they want could eventually lead to the downfall of his authority or fighting between the families (which would also undermine his authority).
Really, the main area in which Mr. House is "liberal" is in personal consumption and behavior. As long as it makes him money and doesn't create instability or feuding on The Strip, he allows it.”— Joshua Sawyer's Formspring on Robert House's ideologyDeveloper context[]
- Mr. House was created and written by John Gonzalez.[Non-game 4][Non-game 5]
- Joshua Sawyer stated that the platinum chip was carried by the Courier from southern NCR through the Hub, at Mr. House's behest.[Non-game 6]
Historical and political context[]
- The lore of Robert House is a pulpy, folkloric satirization of the esoteric legacies of Howard Hughes and Walt Disney, critiquing these figures' politics and ambitions while indulging in urban legends pertaining to them. House's portrait resembles both men, and Hughes had a habit of raising his left eyebrow in photographs.
- Hughes was a reclusive millionaire with ties to the real world Las Vegas Strip.[Non-game 5]
- On the first floor of House Resort hangs a large portrait of Mr. House standing in front of an enormous, bipedal robot. The portrait is based on a real-world photograph of Howard Hughes standing in front of a Boeing 100A aircraft in 1934.[Non-game 7]
- Jane, House's Securitron companion, is a reference to real world actress Jane Russell, who worked for Hughes' production company for several years.
- House's demise due to "microbes" is an ironic fate in light of Hughes' infamous germophobia.
- His mummy-like appearance in the life support chamber is based on Hughes' radical change in appearance later in life, when he was photographed with long, sharpened index fingernails. Hughes grew a wild beard, which became whispy and white, resembling House's cobweb-like facial hair.
- House's project of preserving the Strip as an autonomous city-state parallels Disney's vision of EPCOT as a self-sustaining "city of tomorrow." EPCOT ultimately became a very large amusement park.
- House's life support machine parallels the urban legend that Disney's brain was cryogenically frozen.
- The Nuka-World character John-Caleb Bradberton is based on the same legend.
- House's life support machine parallels the urban legend that Disney's brain was cryogenically frozen.
- Hughes was a reclusive millionaire with ties to the real world Las Vegas Strip.[Non-game 5]
- When asked about the political ideology of Robert House, Chris Avellone deferred a more definitive answer to John Gonzalez, as he was the main writer for House. However, Avellone did say that while he "wasn't aware of any [particular] ideology, we didn't usually lean on any specific real world ideologies when crafting characters - although [people] have interpreted them as such."[Non-game 8] However, in the "Behind the Bright Lights & Big City" section of the collector's edition Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide, he is described as "a libertarian dictator".[Non-game 9]
Cut content[]
The following is based on Fallout: New Vegas cut content. |
- Mr. House had another female programmed Securitron named Marilyn who is based on the real world Marilyn Monroe, but the character was cut. However, she appears alongside Jane in a card from the deck of cards of the Collector's Edition, as in real life, Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe were contemporaries. 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."
- There is evidence in the game files suggesting it was at some point possible for a female Courier to "seduce" Mr. House.[Non-game 10] This situation would involve the Courier getting into a pod to have her brain scanned, corresponding to the rumors Raul mentions.[10]
- There is a cut compromise with House to convince him to not destroy the Brotherhood of Steel in The House Always Wins V. Joshua Sawyer stated that this route was cut because it made no sense for Mr. House to spare the Brotherhood. He and John Gonzalez discussed the situation, and agreed that it would be in-character for Mr. House to not tolerate the Brotherhood. Additionally, it would be a more difficult and compelling choice for the player to make.[Non-game 11]
End of information based on Fallout: New Vegas cut content |
Bugs[]
- A Medicine check of 35, gaining XP each time, can be accessed in Mr. House's dialogue repeatably. [verified]
- setally 1267AB 0001B2A4, resetquest 00147885, setstage 00147885 5, setobjectivedisplayed 00147885 1, prid 001264c5, setdestroyed 0. [verified] 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 is finished talking. [verified]
- The stasis version of Mr. House will sometimes break, turning invisible. [verified]
Gallery[]
References[]
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Non-game
- ↑ Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collectors Edition p.305: "[2.06] H&H Tools Factory
Long before the war, H&H Tools Company provided Nevada and California high-quality robotics equipment. Owned by the half-brother of Robert Edwin House (the founder of RobCo, and—were it not for the 200 year gap—the same man who lives in the Lucky 38 Casino). When their father was killed in an accident, the elder brother swindled Robert out of the family fortune, and assumed control of the company.
Robert went on, through his dealings with RobCo and their lucrative contracts, to become one of the wealthiest men on earth. His half-brother meanwhile, became increasingly paranoid, seeking to guard himself against a vengeance that never came, and inflicting all manner of strange HR rules on his workforce. The remains of this factory still stand, surrounded by husk-like remains of North Vegas' industrial area."
(Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition Tour of the Mojave Wasteland) - ↑ Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p.454: "2138: Mr. House regains consciousness."
(Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide/Behind the Bright Lights & Big City) - ↑ Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition p.42: "Freeside"
"Las Vegas wasn't heavily damaged during the Great War, but people didn't immediately "settle" into the remnants of the old city. The various Vault tribes that emerged years later, hunted and fought among the ruins, but it was not until the "return" of Mr. House that they ceased (most) of their hostilities. Mr House directed the tribes to use his sizable quantities of pre-war construction materials to build the crude (but effective) outer walls that separate The Strip and Freeside from the rest of New Vegas. While Mr. House valued the area around Fremont Street, he ultimately viewed it as secondary in importance to the Strip itself and he had a second, inner wall that separated the two areas. When NCR prospectors (and eventually the army) arrived in the region, people typically went straight for The Strip, leaving Freeside (as it had become known by locals) as an informal stopping point. Eventually Mr. House recognized that he could use Freeside as a filter for undesirables, and pulled his favored tribes and all Securitrons into the Strip, leaving Freeside to fend for itself."
(Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide faction profiles) - ↑ Joshua Sawyer on Twitter: "He created and wrote House, designed the families of The Strip, and wrote many major characters, including House, Caesar, Benny, Yes Man, and Vulpes Inculta. He also wrote Ricky and Stella in Honest Hearts as well as all of the Survivalist/Randall Clark logs. 3/8"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Question: "Was Ayn Rand by any chance part of the inspiration for Mr. House? He seems very much like her type of heroic businessman and laissez-faire capitalist."
Joshua Sawyer: "He was most heavily inspired by Howard Hughes. John Gonzalez created and wrote all of Mr. House's dialogue, so he might be able to offer more detailed insight."
(Joshua Sawyer Formspring posts/2011) - ↑ J.E. Sawyer: "The Courier carried his/her delivery from southern NCR, toward the Hub. We intentionally left the Courier's origins and the exact nature of the initial transaction vague."
- ↑ Hughes Boeing 100A photo
- ↑ Chris Avellone on Twitter: "John Gonzalez (lead writer) might be the best one to ask, as he wrote him. While I wasn't aware of any particlar ideology, we didn't usually lean on any specific real world ideologies when crafting characters - although ppl have interpreted them as such."
- ↑ "So long as Mr. House's basic rules are followed, his intentions are to take a "hands off" approach towards the subjects of his kingdom; he is effectively a libertarian dictator creating his own version of paradise rooted in the old world. If the player supports Mr. House, she is supporting the New Vegas libertopia, a place where the strong rule unfettered for as long as they stay strong and where the weak are continually trampled underfoot. But it's a place where Mr. House wants you to dream, that someday, you could be on of the strong."
(Behind the Bright Lights & Big City, Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide collector's edition, p. 463 - ↑ Spare Us the Cutter: "Originally it was planned that Mr House could be seduced (presumably only by female characters). If successful in some sort of speech challenge, the player would be told to enter the secret area of his penthouse and enter some kind of "scanner" (to perve over the player's body - or more likely according to Raul - brain?). It's not clear what would happen next, but presumably the idea would be that it would let the player enter his secret area (fnar!) without setting off the alarm like usual. This is detailed in Mr House's dialogue script:
int seduction ;1 = House has expressed interest, 2 = invited to secret area, 3 = has been scanned
There are also blank placeholder topics for this scene, but they contain no actual dialogue ("Scannerafter", "Scannerbefore"). This likely ties in with Raul's dialogue if you ask him about Mr House. He says House used to "scan women's brains" and "make them dress up in different clothes" in lieu of actual err, sexual acts - this is probably exactly what would have happened in this sequence.
There is also a cut VR pod called L38PlayerPod that contains seduction stuff. The "seduction" variable above is set to 3 by this object, so presumably the player would have gotten into a VR pod to be scanned by House.
Possible seduction dialogue: "Was it just me, or were there signs of attraction earlier?" (VDialogueMrHouseMrHouseTopic087), "Would you like to scan me again?" (VDialogueMrHouseMrHouseTopic211)" - ↑ Q&A session with Josh Sawyer during a live charity stream. (reference begins at 10:26:23)
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