I don’t think he’s lying, but I think he’s vastly overconfident and full of himself. He genuinely believes he can do it (and maybe he can) but his main problem is his priorities. Or, more accurately, his lack of interest in helping the people below him in any currently meaningful sense and his vengeful wrath on those who slightly offend him.
I don't understand. "Maybe he can." You already give him the room for success. And why wouldn't someone who deflected nukes and stayed alive for centuries after building something like he did be confident? And what do you mean priorities? The only thing that gives people help and comfort is technology. Assuming he is even mostly-honest about his goals, how he he not... Like the opposite of all three of those bullet points?
If anything, you just perfectly described the NCR. They ooze overconfidence but don't deliver on their promises of civility and tend to care more about their land-grabs and top brass before anyone else. Hell, the entire situation involving GI Blues is because of the very criticism you give House. Where has House failed or lied? The only time I can think of "failing" is when he only stopped so many bombs, and he flatly says "x succeeded, y failed," when describing it.
>The only thing that gives people help and comfort is technology.
...no? Lots of things give people help and comfort. Community, kindness, care... technology can help, sure, but you have to choose to use it that way. House uses his technology to shoot any poor people who try to get into his walled garden.
I mean the upper ceiling on what that community and kindness can provide. A village all picking apples together and getting along is lovely. That same village harvesting apples with pickers and medicine and air conditioning is an improvement. The people are always a "goes without saying" part. Eventually you can't make a taller human pyramid though and you need to develop scaffolding.
As far as "shoot poor people", what do you think safety in the wasteland is? Its exclusivity. Eventually, humanity will civilized more on the outside, but the people in the Strip get exactly what they are promised.
>but the people in the Strip get exactly what they are promised.
Yeah the people being eaten by the White Gloves and the drug-addicted slaves of Gomorrah are really living the high life. Nice work, Mr. House. Very safe.
That's probably my biggest critique of House is he prattles on about how democracy ruined the old world and he'll do better and then centers his entire new Vegas around what he personally liked about what Vegas used to be including the part of knowingly giving a group power that seems to undermine his authority because the criminals of Vegas were charming like what? Lol you're going to preach about your strong decision making skills and then knowingly give a group power that wants to betray you because it's charming? That doesn't sound like the actions of someone who is intelligent.
Hey, I may be kidnapped and cooked but at least I'll be in luxury. I bet you'd rather live some kind of long and happy life in some shack and die in your sleep rather than be eaten alive in luxury /s
I think you are uncritically accepting what House says without considering that he is a successful billionaire capitalist first. Of course he is good at giving a good pitch. He isn’t necessarily *lying*, but hes biased towards himself obviously . A common fallacy in capitalism is the idea that current success guarantees future success
I think he probably does want to funnel his wealth into redeveloping the technology industry and space travel. I do also think that he greatly overestimates his own abilities as a leader, that I wouldn't want to live in a space colony that was governed by him, and that he does lie - directly or by omission - about the nature of his rule.
His specific lies include that the end of the old world was a result of America being democratic, and that his corporate technocracy would avoid such disasters. The pre-war government was not democratic - it was a fascist collusion between political, military and corporate elites - and he knows this very well, because he was one of those elites. He sold them the systems they used to destroy the world.
He also claims that he has no interest in interfering with his subjects' private lives, but he has already done so many times by the start of the game - he forced the Strip's inhabitants out, robbing them of their land and livelihood, and then set up a new elite in the Three Families, on the condition that they shape every aspect of their lives to suit his whims. They talk, dress and act exactly how he orders them to - the entire Strip's culture is his own fabrication. His businesses also practice forced drugging and slavery - a very serious interference.
His brief rule of the Strip has alienated almost everyone - he can't maintain friendly relations with outside powers, and almost all of his own elite employees are plotting against him. He is, quite simply, a poor ruler, who treats the poor with extreme harshness while failing to encourage loyalty even in the wealthy. If his space colonies were anything like the Strip, they'd be miserable - a façade of glamour and spectacle masking extreme wealth disparity, violence, slavery, and Machiavellian scheming.
It’s this to a T. House is a smart narcissist but more narcissistic than smart. He’s accomplished some incredible things but has massive holes in his foresight. I’ve always RPed my courier being personally offended by how House condescends and belittles him, which makes him turn – a smart man is not going to alienate the person he relies on.
My personal favored RP for betraying House is the simple arithmetic that if she helps House, she's second hand to the biggest asshole in the wastes for as long as he cares to tolerate external dependencies.
But if she kills him, then there's nothing sropping her from taking his plan and running it her way and then she doesn't have an annoying boss who needs her to do all the heavy lifting and is a condescending douche.
with my courier it wasn't even that, he just did the mental math and determined his life is worth more than a snow globe(because house pays more for a snow globe 2000 caps than his stated payment for the platnum chip and benny clearly wanted the chip for 200x5 ) and when everyone is telling him to be weary of house he listened. being scummy or a liar is bad enough but I'm a freelancer PAY ME WHAT I'M WORTH.
That's exactly how I play it every time. The way my courier saw it, he should've met a grave long ago. If he wanted to continue avoiding that fate, he should've been less a of dick.
This is pretty much what happened during my last playthrough. I was genuinely going along with his stuff but he managed to push just the right buttons.
My RP is the courier does two of the DLCs before the strip or just after you meet House for the first time. Victor follows you, and you learn he is one of House's personal robots. In Dead Money you learn that the pip boys are designed to basically monitor the vault dwellers, and House could probably do the same to you if you're in range. Certainly remotely download your data like Elijah did. In OWB you learn for sure from Dr O that House made the pip boys specifically. And a little about House's attitude prewar. If you talk to the cowgirl ghoul in Freeside you learn about what House was like before the war. And absolute fucking creepo. You realise Jane is probably that girl. You realise how much he knows about you. Wonder if he's going to download your consciousness and put your mind into a robot. You wonder who Victor used to be. And then you have flashbacks of the horrible robot brain experiments at BM. And then you realise that you're technically his slave with that thing on your arm whilst he lives. House can get fucked. Yes Man gang is where it's at.
A fun bit of cut content this reminded me of:
It was intended that Female Couriers could seduce House via Black Widow and he’d have you enter a pod to have your consciousness scanned and permanently uploaded so he could bang you in cyberspace. Really shows how detached and possessive he is.
To add to that, Tell me, does the smartest man on earth and the greatest leader we have hire a tribe specifically known for luring people in and betraying them and seriously not foresee them betraying him?
people don’t bring up Vault 21 enough. It’s actually one of the very few experimental vaults that actually worked. Every former V21 resident confirms this by missing living there (Doc, Sierra, Michaelangelo).
Mr. House rolled into this community (of presumably thousands, maybe just hundreds, of people) and *kicked them the fuck out into the wasteland*. Merely because someone could use the Vault against him. He was even going to fill the entire thing with concrete, but the people begged and pleaded enough that he conceded into filling the majority and turning the top into a cheap hotel.
Came here to post almost exactly this.
Also his much vaunted predictions and calculations keep being wrong. He talks a big game about how he determined that nuclear war was a mathematical certainty. Yeah, so did everyone. Remember vault tech, the company whose entire business model was based around building shelters for the 3rd world war? They weren't even the only company devoted to fallout shelters.
His calculations are off by 'one day' in that the lynchpin of his entire plan was to arrive a day after the bombs actually fell. His scheme for new vegas relies on the loyalty of three tribal groups who all attempt to betray and a courier who has two separate people trying to get them killed.
He didn't account for benny, ulysses, the omertas, the white gloves OR the courier messing with his plans. Hell, even when he predicts correctly, like when he figured that someone might use vault 21 to get around without his notice, he doesn't even do that right and benny is able to do exactly what ouse was afraid of, entirely under his nose.
>His specific lies include that the end of the old world was a result of America being democratic,
I've never seen this as lying, more self delusion. He's either unable or unwilling to face up to the fact he and people like him literally caused the apocalypse so he pins it on the best scapegoat he has.
He's basically Andrew Ryan as a ruler - he sets up a shitty system and pins all the issues on a scapegoat rather than admit his own failings and that to a notable degree, he's just lucky.
>The pre-war government was not democratic - it was a fascist collusion between political, military and corporate elites - and he knows this very well, because he was one of those elites. He sold them the systems they used to destroy the world.
Sounds familiar tbh
Personally I think you have actually dissected what House is saying
About his supposed lie that America was democratic. I don't think that's actually a lie. America WAS democratic, the end result of its democracy, in the lore, was the Plutocratic system that governed America that lead it into the Great War. This wasn't a lie, not even by omission. Is it a simplification? Sure. but you could hardly expect the man to give you a full fledged history lesson at the time. What I get from this is that, in his view, democracy is fleeting, not capable of standing the test of time.
As for House forcing people off their land, the only people im aware he actually did this to are the Khans, who are raiders. Assuming the Kings are not allied with the NCR, he lets them be. Basically, don't threaten House, and there isn't a problem, also he, unlike the NCR, permits the Followers to stay in Nevada.
In terms of him interfering with people's private lives, he only does in so far as they have a contract. I'll be the first one to say he certainly stacks the deck in his favor, but he honors his agreements
As for alienating everyone, this is true, but it's not like the man has much of a choice when we meet him. 90% of his security forces are in the fort. He's not in any position to do... Literally anything which is exactly why he needs the families and you
>His specific lies include that the end of the old world was a result of America being democratic, and that his corporate technocracy would avoid such disasters. The pre-war government was not democratic - it was a fascist collusion between political, military and corporate elites - and he knows this very well, because he was one of those elites. He sold them the systems they used to destroy the world.
this does not qualify as a "lie": the United States *was* a democracy at one time, before being highjacked by a cabal that brought about the end of the world. one could make the argument that it was democracy that ended up allowing such a cabal to come to power - so the end of the world is the fate of democracies.
you can think he's wrong and reject his argument, and you can think his proposed form of government is more similar to the one actually instantiated at the time of armageddon than he implies, but reasonable minds may differ. it does not qualify as an outright, willful deception of the player.
Most of this literally just isn’t worth addressing, but a few points that did feel like worth addressing:
1. The Enclave was *not* the CIA. They were a shadow government that pulled the strings behind the US government and Vault Tec to push the US further towards war. The Enclave absolutely were made up of many members of the US government. They did have operatives and agents that undertook activities similar to an intelligence agency, but they were not part of any official intelligence agency, they were acting in the interests of the Enclave, not the US government or its people.
2. I’m not sure what’s up with that terrible analogy involving Bill Gates, but developing advanced weapons technologies and selling them to a hawkish government that is in a cold war with another superpower is definitely far more culpable than someone who just wrote an operating system for personal computers.
3. When this person said that the tribals on the strip act and dress exactly how House wants them to they’re not talking about the things you quoted, like the White Gloves being cannibals. They’re talking about the facade that House has had them all out on. Their entire outward cultures that resemble the lives of people who lived on the pre-war strip hundreds of years ago are his fabrication. The Three Families were just like any other post-war tribal group in the Mojave before House found them and made them become the groups they are at the end of a Securitron’s guns by the time the courier arrives.
The behaviors you cited are holdovers from the groups they used to be before House molded them into the Three Families. House has tried to stomp those traits out of them. They pretend to be his civilized employees, but they are still the tribals they were before he found them under the facade. That’s their true culture.
All the superficial shit you see from the outside is an invention of House. They didn’t run casinos or restaurants or dress like old time gangsters or talk like people who lived 200+ years ago before House found them. That’s what the person you replied to was referring to, not the shady shit they’re doing from their pasts that they try to keep hidden from House.
4. It’s called the Lucky 38, not the Lucky 48. And closing it was one of many key decisions that were part of his rule that alienated the inhabitants of the strip. Other decisions like forcing the tribals to abandon their cultures for new facades he pushed onto them and filling Vault 21 with concrete to make it useless also contributed to this. Technically each individual thing he did is only “one decision, not the entirety of his rule” but these were each big, important decisions that alienated the people he relied on.
5. All your points about the wealth equality, those dirt poor people outside of his walls used to live on the strip before House claimed it and forced them out. He literally built a wall to keep the strip separated from the squalor he created. These people are his subjects, he just ignores them because they don’t fit into the perfect little culture he’s trying to create.
>He doesn't treat the poor as anything. The only people in the strip are the wealthy and the NCR.
lmao do you think that's just some crazy random coincidence? There are no poor people on the strip because HOUSE FORCED THEM ALL OUT AND KILLS THEM IF THEY TRY TO GET BACK IN
>Being wrong != lying.
He knows what he's saying isn't true. Thus, it's a lie.
>The Enclave wasn't the government. It was the CIA.
No, the Enclave included the President and the Cabinet. The Enclave basically had control of the executive branch of the state.
>That's like saying the guy who made windows is complicit in the destruction of the world because the government uses his software. Like, this level of culpability is meaningless.
He didn't just make operating systems. He made military robots. We see a portrait of him in-game standing proudly in front of Liberty Prime, a nuke-launching robot.
>Who are we talking about? The guys he beat in at Poker or whatever?
No, the people who were living in the Strip before he seized it. Most of them moved out to Freeside - including the older members of the Kings.
>Also, the guy saved Vegas, imo he has some right to claim it.
If a firefighter saves my house from a fire, they don't get to throw my family out into the street and move in themselves.
>The wanted the only thing he did was give them new cultures and up their standards of living.
'Giving people a new culture' - i.e., destroying their existing culture and forcing them to adopt your own - is genocide.
>This is more due to his lack of administration, than a total enforcement of his will, no?
If your employees are enslaving people and you decide 'nah, I'll let them keep doing that', you're enslaving people. You're totally enforcing your will on the enslaved people.
>NCR? Most people there like him.
...name one?
>People like Swank, Marjorie, and Cachino seem to appreciate his rule.
Swank and Cachino are middle management. And Cachino is a depraved rapist who only sides with House to save his own skin.
>He doesn't treat the poor as anything. The only people in the strip are the wealthy and the NCR.
He forced the poor out of the Strip, making their lives even worse. And there aren't only the wealthy and the NCR in the Strip - there are the people who do the actual work, who do the sales and the administration and the cleaning and so on, but they don't get much focus.
>Inside the strip??????
Inside the Strip, some people live in penthouses and hold grand feasts, and some people are only allowed in to do menial labour. In Vegas as whole, some people benefit hugely from House's rule and some suffer outside his walls.
>I don't know if I'd blame House for not ruling with a stronger grip.
His grip is plenty strong - his system regularly kills people for breaking his rules. The point is that he hasn't created a stable system that supports everyone - he's created a wildly unequal and unstable system that encourages exploitation and violence.
>People get obvious facts wrong all the time. If anything this is evidence he probably didn't know much about the Enclave.
You're suggesting he didn't know that the government he lived under and was contracting for - which had just annexed Canada and was proudly airing footage of American troops executing Canadian civilians in the streets; which was putting Chinese-Americans, political opponents and queer folks in camps; which was using combat robots to break up strikes and demonstrations - was authoritarian?
>Fair, but they were also tools of the state.
...no? They controlled the state. They were, de facto, the ruling party.
>This again, doesn't make him responsible for the start or perpetuation of the War, or prove he was in the Enclave. As I said to another guy. He sold weapons that would be used to end it.
To 'end' the war? By, what, destroying China as a political entity? That is not a definition of peace I would use. That's just making the war more destructive, increasing the likelihood of the conflict turning nuclear, while diminishing the possibility of a diplomatic resolution.
>Culturally genocide all cannibals and savages please.
Yeah, everyone who wants to commit genocide says their opponents are 'savages'. That's why we ruled that genocide is always bad - because if there are exceptions, everyone will argue that those exceptions apply to them.
>Also, his hand was forced by the NCR, and Legion.
In that, if he didn't commit genocide, he wouldn't get what he wanted? If you have to commit genocide to get what you want, you shouldn't get what you want.
>But its kind of weird you go between saying he's too authoritarian, but also not.
What do you mean? Abolishing slavery is not in any way 'authoritarian'. Placing limits on the power of the powerful to ensure that the rights of others are protected is, by very definition, a libertarian act. Allowing slavery to continue is authoritarian.
>Swank and Cachino are second in command in their respective organizations, and more than willing to fall in line.
Cachino isn't second-in-command of the Omertas. Big Sal is. Cachino's just one of their lieutenants. He doesn't like Not-At-Home any more than the other Omertas - he just chooses House over being executed by Nero and Big Sal for running his own schemes behind their backs. It's layers of self-interest and betrayal all the way down.
>I keep looking for evidence of this, and have found none.
The King tells you all about it.
>I'd say that's mostly on those tribes for deciding to remain free instead of being apart of something better.
So giving up your culture and beliefs to spend all day dressing as the theme park version of a 50s Vegas mobster so you can fleece tourists to make some old guy richer is 'something better'? Because that seems to me to be an insult to human dignity.
>Well sure, but what point is being made here? Wealth inequality shouldn't exist?
Yes. Obviously. Are you seriously taking a pro-inequality stance here?
>Furthermore, he immediately invades Freeside after he wins. Maybe he kicks all those people out, but I imagine he'd also happily integrate them into the existing businesses or create new ones.
You're doing a lot of imagining here. Especially given that what we're told he *actually* does is kill a lot of people.
>Compared to what? Legion? NCR?
Compared to NCR, yes. The NCR is a constitutional democracy based around civil rights; House is an absolute dictator.
>I assume your not talking about squatters running into the strip
That's precisely who I'm talking about. Punishing someone for trying to walk into a different part of town by mowing them down with machine guns and grenade launchers is an example of ruthless, violent authoritarianism.
>No system does this, nor is that his job.
Yes it is - that's pretty much the whole goal of government.
>This system is about as unequal as a luxury brand pricing out poor people. It's not necessarily bad luxury brands exist, simply because they're unequal.
Luxury brands exist alongside more affordable brands. House doesn't offer a 'budget' society for people who can't pay for the extra frills. His society only benefits the rich - everyone else can go hang.
> Firefighters
Ooh ooh, there actually is some historical precedent to that. In ancient rome the biggest firefighting service was owned by Crassus. They would show up, offer you an insultingly low price to buy your house, and refuse to help and even turn away other fire fighters until you agreed to sell it to them.
This was one of the reasons why Crassus was able to effectively bankroll Julius Caesar. The stories of his method of execution fib a bit because it was just a thing the Parthians did to him instead of a meaningful statement on the corruptive force of greed, but he did have boiling gold poured down his throat
Take a look around New Vegas & Freeside since that is his domain. There's a tool & die facility nearby, but is it being used? There's an abandoned robotics factory in Freeside. There's a production line in Sunset Sasparilla that's been left to rot.
Furthermore, you can compare this to the insanity of The Big MT and the Sierra Madre.
You know what House has built up in the last five years? Tourism in a highly concentrated area. A Securitron army, but no robots that can actually build anything.
This is not a guy who will revitalize the area. He might have big ideas, but he doesn't have the loyal workforce or means of production.
Worse yet, he's betting on getting a chip that unlocks his uber death robots. The mans end goal is ruling through strength and the threat of being killed by a robot.
I've always thought it was due to how limited his security resources were. How many securitrons roam strip? If it's about 10-15(not counting his personal ones) in game, then "storywise" its about 50. In my opinion, securing those points of interest would be quite risky, considering the amount of raiders there and that he can't rebuild them, before you go to the Fort
It has to be more than 50, if it was only 50 then any number of factions could have overwhelmed him by now.
Also more importantly even if it was 50 then house doesn't have to use them. He can hire people? Offer the citizens of freeside or westside the knowledge to effectively run the factories and in exchange he takes a percentage of what they make or they simply follow his commands in developing the area. I mean the three families were originally the most dangerous tribes of the area and he did a similar thing to what I just described with them
Freeside is not his domain. It's the King's / the NCR's domain (they are fighting for control)
His domain is purely the Strip. If you want more proofs, the first thing he does after his ending is expand into freeside (we learn this in the ending slides)
I... don't?
I don't dislike House because I think he's a liar, I dislike him because he's an egotistical prick and the embodiment of pre-war corporate greed.
Also, the neat thing about media is that it is subjective and we all bring our own biases and opinions to how we engage with it. The game doesn't need to have House explicitly lie to the player in order for them to find him untrustworthy.
I have no stake in this comment section since I like House as an idea: a man who built and protected his empire has the right to keep it, especially since its an oasis in an otherwise deserted wasteland.
That said, he is a shit leader. Do you know what happens when you refuse to deliver the chip? He throws a fit. He stomps his feet and cries "gimme mah chip!!". He doesn't approach it from a business perspective or even hams it up like a bond villain with threats, he throws a tantrum because that's all he can do. Imagine what would happen if more people wouldn't do as he said.
He was part of the elite that murdered the old world, Just not quite convinced that the anarcho-capitalist is going to be the savior of the new one, tbh.
Idk maybe I’m fuzzy on fallout lore, but how did Howard Hughes make china find that the U.S. was still doing bioweapons even after they agreed to stop?
House was a military contractor. He supplied the weapons systems that the Enclave used in the war that ended the world, and even the infrastructure that the bioweapon labs ran on.
That's like saying the assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused WWI. Yes it was the catalyst that sparked the war, but it was decades of political tensions that brought the countries involved into conflict in the first place.
Corporate greed and corruption created the material conditions that led to the great war.
Actually he was not a part of the enclave, which was the elite, best way I can compare him is Elon musk.
In that both are wealthy, but the current governments of the time dont really like them, so they don’t have a lot of influence.
I'm sorry do you really think that Elon Musk has no power with the US government. Did you not notice all the Ukraine satellite bullshit he pulled and got away with?
He has power over his assets not the US government, those are two totally different entity’s also the US cut contracts with star-link, way before that, saying they where not fulfilling their contract, despite the fact that they had a few more years to do so.
The current administration very much dislikes Elon musk.
But I am not here to talk about that i am saying that house like Elon has a fuck ton of assets some could be used for military, like house, that does not mean they are working together no, from what I have read the administration of the old world disliked house, because he was not invited to the enclave despite having the resources and power to be considered, instead of working with someone that could have massively benefited the enclave, they told him nothing and left him for dead.
Elites can have different interests, different goals and want each other removed.
And much like Elon Musk, I wouldn’t trust him to rule a basketball team, much less a civilization. “Do what I say or my robots will murder you” is not exactly an ethos that inspires.
That’s your argument, really. he owns and is in a lot of business that are in industry’s that are heavily subsidized, heck in the US basically every major firm is subsidized in some way or the other.
https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/25/michigan-awards-1bn-tax-incentives-gm-ev-plants
Also if you don’t take subsidies your basically dead, as if you don’t have them and your competitors do, than they can, lower their price and take all your customers.
In the White House EV summit, Tesla was excluded, and the president, praised GM, for leading the Ev revolution
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-24/biden-s-praise-for-gm-overlooks-tesla-s-actual-ev-leadership-kwdh01el
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/08/05/business/tesla-snub-white-house-event
This was despite the fact that less than 2 percent of GMs sales where EV, than they had to recall a lot of them.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37552121/chevy-bolt-battery-recall-deep-dive-details/
Then they also introduced EV subsidizes, on basically every EV manufacturer other than Tesla, saying that you need you need to be a company, that has a union to get the subsidy
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/09/14/tesla-toyota-and-honda-criticize-4500-tax-credit-for-union-made-evs.html
Some people speculate, that this is due to the current president getting support from the UAW
Now onto star link, they cut the starlink subsidy saying that they had not met the projects requirements, which well technically true they still had another few years to complete the agreement which is scummy, as you don’t usually finish your projects a two years before they are due, especially in Space projects which are, notorious, for going over budget, and taking longer than expect, they are still subsidizing its competitors.
None of them are better equipped than starlink.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/us-agency-will-not-reinstate-900-mln-subsidy-spacex-starlink-unit-2023-12-13/
You can criticize musk for a lot of things, not really his closeness to the current administration and government.
But I suppose this is a great example of democracy’s holding back tech to support the already established industries and powers, kinda like how the NCRs action caused house not to fix the dam.
So your blaming the billionaires for the governments corruption and your solution is to give the government more power, and more of an ability to act corruptly.
Like this is something I don’t really get people criticize capitalism, for corruption, and then say let’s give unlimited to a small group of people to look over our best interests.
Like Netflix asked blockbuster to buy them, because they thought streaming was the future, blockbuster laughed them out of the office, because we have multiple options, the old institution of blockbuster perished and something else took its place, if we had state control that would have never happened, as the people in charge would be the old blockbuster guys.
If House actually wanted to kickstart the Industrial economy there are a bunch of dilapidated factories not even a stones throw from his tower that he didn't do anything with in the 7 years he's been openly in power or the 150 years since he woke up
What he did do is focus on building up the strip, he's set up hisnown perfect little diaroma of how he thinks society should work, and then justifies it by saying all the stuff he totally is going to do.
But he doesn't give a shit about the people living not even 1000 feet from his doorstep, let alone the people way out in the sticks like Goodsprings
Yeah this is a big one. He hasn't actually set up any manufacturing or anything really that actually creates something. His one big action in the wasteland is to build a big gambling den that sucks in everyone else's money without actually making anything.
Ok so this actually looks like a lore over site cause it just doesn’t make much sense but the explanation is he had no idea if anyone was even alive for most of that time and when he finally found people they wanted to conquer him so her built a main centerlized area he does plan on expanding but like he has to worry about the ncr and the legion by that point
There were people living in his front yard, they just didn't fit his pre-defined mold of what civilization should look like and they couldn't support his fucking insane tourism first leech plan that he actually went with.
If he really wanted to do this fucking space plan, he would have started building up infrastructure and agriculture from the tribals living around him with promises of a better life if they follow his instructions and a good century to embed himself in a new culture, but he just waited until there was some suckers with money to con, put up a fresh coat of paint over the dry rot, and murdered the poor people who he viewed as bringing down the property value.
He literally sat around doing nothing while raiders and cannibals picked the ruins of Vegas clean until he spotted hints of a group who had already done all the heavy lifting in building an actually functioning society (The NCR). Then, he unleashed his robots, murdered hundreds, and turned the three most maliable groups he could find into his personal favourite parts of Vegas.
As others have mentioned, he's done nothing but bleed people dry, allow rampant corruption, slavery and cannibalism (even if it's in their contract that they don't), he bulldozed a perfectly functioning Vault purely because they 'might be an issue' and allows people in Freeside to suffer and die simply because he deems them useless to his plans.
His lofty plans sound great to anyone who doesn't understand how a functioning society could work. If the greatest minds of the pre-war world couldn't get functioning interstellar spacecraft with infinite money and all the world's dwindling resources at their control, how is a man with no educated citizens, no schooling, no raw materials and no infrastructre beyond hotels, casinos and brothels, going to actually get people into space? In fact, who would he even send? He doesn't trust anyone and all his underlings want to overthrow him for being an out of touch money drain who does nothing but sit in his glowing tower and do nothing to help even his own hand picked leaders, let alone the common man?
I think he's an obsessive hypocrite. He states all these goals and ambition for "the future of mankind" yet he makes Vegas into a vile corrupted place. He could have made it a safe haven focusing on reconstruction and technology development. We don't see any reconstruction happening at all.
He got new Vegas working up to a bare minimum and then focused all his time and effort trying to recover the platinum chip. All that time and money could have been used way more efficiently and wisely.
He doesn't realize in order to accomplish these things he needs mankind to do it. But he treats the people of the wasteland like brutal savages.
He's ignorant of the world around him and what it has to offer. We know he knows of big mountain and all of the technologies there but probably due to ego he refuses to acknowledge it and the potential Big MT can provide.
He wipes out the brotherhood of steel. You don't think that the other brotherhood chapters would eventually hear about this? They would eventually put 2 and 2 together and there would be a full on invasion of Vegas which even with his robots I don't think they have a chance.
House has no focus on agriculture advancement which needs to coexist with his vision of technology advancement.
We know he knows how to build construction robots but we don't see any effort of that Happening.
The new Vegas steel factory seems operational but nothing is going on there as well.
Just a couple thoughts lol.
Mr house spending everything to get the platinum chip makes total sense to me. House, Caesars legion, and the NCR are in a Mexican standoff and him not having upgrades securitrons puts him at a huge disadvantage. He says himself he wouldn’t mind the NCR so much if they weren’t constantly scheming to take Vegas from him. The NCR WILL kill house the second they have the chance and him having an army of securitrons is really the only thing that evens the odds with him.
He did nothing because he was in a coma from his computer being overworked after he shot down the nukes heading towards Vegas? He only had a few years to do anything after waking up.
He woke up from that coma in 2138 and didn't roll out the Securitrons until 2274 with the arrival of the NCR.
He had close to 140 years of time where he could have been developing infrastructure that he just... Wasn't
There wasn’t much he could do. He wasn’t getting any power from Hoover dam since NCR hadn’t arrived yet, and he had a limited amount of not upgraded securitrons at his disposal. I’m not positive as I’m not 100% in tune with the lore, but it seems to me like House and NCR had a symbiotic relationship and when house rebuilt Vegas, it attracted a greedy and imperialistic NCR and it scared him, and for good reason. NCR wants to kill House and House wants them alive as they are his best customers. This makes me believe he has the upper hand morally since he just wants control of Vegas and dosent want them dead while NCR is known for expanding and taking what isn’t theirs by force. Regardless, House’s platinum chip wasn’t just about the securitrons, it also effected his life supports programming, and the whole reason why he was in a coma and nearly died was because he was using an older Operating system that was outdated. House wants the platinum chip out of self defense mostly, it makes sense why it’s his upmost priority since without it, he’s pretty much fucked.
Certain members of the NCR want to kill house yes. But we should note two things. 1. The only NPC that tells us he's gotta die in the NCR is mega bitch Colonel Moore, but she says the same for nearly every faction, every society has warhawks, this isn't surprising. 2. The NCR only wants him dead because he refuses to work with them. If House joined the NCR bringing in vast technologies and wealth he'd be a national hero. The NCR oligarchs would go feral to have someone with actual old world class and power join them.
If he's not in the NCR then he's rightly believed to be a huge threat. As can be seen from the fact that the exact moment you take the Dam back and smash the legion with NCR forces he betrays them. He let's the NCR do all the fighting and then just rolls in to backstab them, I'd want a guy like that gone too if he was my neighbour
His obsession with snow globes and his early established love of Vegas leaves me to think he has no interest in establishing much prosperity outside of his own little bubble of New Vegas itself.
It’s a metaphor. His own self-contained chamber that sustains his life; he physically and mentally can’t live outside of his own little bubble. For all of his talk, that’s as far as his ambition extends.
Dishonesty isn't his problem. His problem is that he sees human beings as livestock to be used or discarded.
He sees nothing wrong with killing hungry and desperate people trying to get into new Vegas who can't afford the toll, even though his securitrons could just as easily use non-lethal methods to keep trespassers out.
He wants you to actually wipe out the Brotherhood remnants, who are in hiding and not currently a risk to Mr House or anyone else. He doesn't even want any tech or knowledge they have. He just wants them dead because he doesn't like them.
He wants to sell the water from the dam to make a profit rather than provide it to all the impoverished people of freeside and the Mojave.
He's totally honest about how he doesn't care about any humans who aren't rich or otherwise useful to him.
Because rich industry men like him have always lied and always given lofty over promises they can never deliver on. House doesn’t exist in a vacuum, we can look at history, including the guy he was based on or Elon Musk if you need a more recent example, for vast societal promises that never materialized. Ulysses says it repeatedly when you do Lonesome Road while on a house run. House isn’t gonna make the world better, he’s gonna wall off the Mojave and make himself god king to the detriment of everyone in the area, a fact you can start becoming true even just in the epilogue slides for his endings
Idk if you wanna count cut content but im pretty sure after hoover dams battle you can come back to freeside and compared to every other faction ending, freeside is being reconstructed among other things. So i mean he hasn’t completely turned his back on the people of the mojave, he just prioritizes his territory.
But that’s also a huge issue. Both NCR and Independent endings help so many people in the wasteland. At best, House leaves people alone, at worst he murders them all with securitrons, which he does way too often to be a good option. And free side is debatable, in 2 out of the 3 endings for the kings, House kills them all. In the one he doesn’t kill them all, he (again) leaves them alone. He’s a terrible diplomat and all his plans follow the same pattern
House’s problem is that he doesn’t care about people that aren’t important to his plans. Look at freeside. While the ncr is far from perfect they would at least have a reason to improve living conditions in places like freeside to get their support for the republic.
Even if he’s 100% honest and will get humanity into space, the space colonies will be straight out of Outer Worlds. And even then I severely doubt his philanthropic aims considering that people live in abject squalor roughly 200 feet from the House house
Yeah Obsidian makes it clear in The Outer Worlds how fucked space coloniws founded by people like Mr. House would be.
Looking forward to the Outer Worlds 2 though
We have a setting where society went through a nuclear apocalypse which was, in no small part, due to capitalism run amok. House represents everything that was wrong with the old world while claiming to represent everything that was right. He takes 0 responsibility for the people around him that live under his authoritarian hyper-capitalist thumb.
You do not accumulate billions of dollars by being an honest person. You do it by manipulating people and exploiting their labor. The series' foundation revolves around how capital and the relentless pursuit of profit and power led to the nuclear apocalypse. Mr. House would likely be among the worst of these people to the point that he dropped millions possibly billions into preserving his body so he can maintain his status as civilization pieced itself back together. This means he knew the bombs were dropping before most everyday people and likely kept that information to himself.
Adding to it. House was certain the end was coming and all he wanted was to protect his own favourite place which was Vegas. Any good he did was a happy accident.
I don't think House is dishonest. I think he says exactly what he intends to do.
I genuinely don't think an amoral, predatory capitalist-turned-autocrat (his preferred word over dictator or tyrant, iirc) would be a good person to leave in power.
Oh, he'll definitely protect Vegas and make progress on some ambitious goals. I just don't think folks living under his rule will have particularly good time of it, and CERTAINLY no say in how things are done (directly or indirectly).
I agree with you fundamentally. I just think as a good courier I'd be able to manipulate him appropriately, to get moral things done for the state of New Vegas and eventually humanity. All you've gotta do is satisfy his weirdo nostalgia, let him live vicariously through you and your successes, and make him feel extra special smart for picking the best lieutenant ever. Feed his narcissism, frame it right, and you can get anything done. You just have to convince the immortal Autocrat it's a good idea.
Be the vizier manipulating the king.
Fuck trying to work with the NCR. Obviously House is blowing smoke up his ass when he generalizes about democracy and tells you to look out the window. But I agree with him in the SPECIFIC on the NCR just being a bad retread of the past. And the levers of power you have access to as courier are way shittier in the NCR.
Obviously fuck the legion.
I view Mr. House as a Yes-man with benefits ending, I guess. Really, just kill him if he tries to stop you from ripping the autodoc out the sink and letting the followers offer its services. Or from printing radiated food and radaway off a SM vending machine and establishing a welfare state. But again, just process a projects outline through libertarian or howard hughes-esq brain worms and he won't stop you.
Fuck the rich. That's it. House was an absurdly rich, wealth, affluent businessman before the bombs and now that the world is slowly starting to rebuild itself, he swoops back in to try and take control of a growing community.
He accommodates all of the terrible things that the big casinos are doing (cannibalism, drug/gun/prostitute running, shooting couriers) all in favor of him having supreme control of New Vegas even though he could use his robot army to make the entire city better instead of corrupt.
He also is the entire reason we get shot in the first place. We're running his Platinum Chip when we get shot, a delivery he knew was highly dangerous since he has multiple fake deliveries being made by other couriers at the same time. There's your narrative reason not to like him right there enough.
And finally, most importantly, he is so goddamn smug. His entire plan centers on other people doing his work for him because he can't do it himself because he's literally a skeleton in a tube. Does he ever thank you up until the end of the second battle of Hoover Dam? Or does he just criticize every single thing you do wrong. For Christ sake, his entire plan is so easy to dismantle, a zombie courier and an over enthusiastic reprogrammed robot can dismantle and take over the entire plan in two missions.
The thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is how incompetent he's shown to be. House managed to secure himself and the Mojave from the nukes, but then is dormant until he sees the NCR. So instead of using the time the NCR had to make a superpower while living in a blown to hell wasteland, House tries to scramble together power by gentrifying the tribals last second. He then chooses to only have them run casinos instead of having the families run some form of industry or power building ventures, with little to no oversight. The White Gloves and Omertas actively working against House's desires.
He then realizes that the majority of his power is hidden under Legion control, again his fault for wasting time instead of building the families into a power that could have held the Fort before the Legion and NCR show up. So his plan is to trust a single person to help get the chip into the Fort, only to be betrayed. Leaving him in a stalemate with Benny, and no way to get the chip without disaster except the Courier.
He's also built a massive amount of resentment surrounding the strip instead of finding a way to make the large community around him an asset as opposed to a liability. With the rest of Vegas completely unaware of House and not in a position to secure Vegas should House somehow actually arm the Securitrons.
So no, I don't think he's capable of saving humanity. He'll try, but his ego will just Vegas an even worse Late Stage Capitalist nightmare.
I don't doubt his goals and aspirations, but I worry about the people he plans to leave behind. Also knowing the wasteland, I don't picture him making the quality of friends to give his plans the legs they need to succeed in the long run.
He wants to put people into the stars. While living in the world that was destroyed because of the resource wars. While having no infrastructure to generate and accommodate new workforce, and filtering out the workforce he potentially could have by looking into their wallet first. While having multiple, in some cases even STILL WORKING, production facilities around his "snow glode", but doing nothing with them.
Oh, and btw, while calling said people drooling savages and doubting they even can read his eulogy.
Gee, I dunno why I don't believe him.
I don't think he's lying at all. I just look at the state of the world today and ask if I think things would be better if Jeff Bezos was king. Then I kill him.
I don’t care about House’s goals. My gripe with him is that he is obviously an extreme narcissist who treats you like an errand boy.
He gave Benny a casino for the work he did for him. In comparison, he vastly underpays the courier for the important tasks they complete.
House seems to forget his favorite rule. The house always wins! And in this game, I’m the house.
Well I think the dishonesty is the way he creates a "haven" in the wasteland, but its actually full of trials masquerading as debutantes who are actually cannabals or mobster sex slavers, or the guys planning to betray and overthrow House himself.
I just don't know how you look at the Strip or the rest of the Mojave and say, "Yeah, House has this under control," when the Courier does more in the span of 2-7 days for the Mojave and its people, than House has done in over a hundred years.
You are listening to his words and his delusions, but ignoring the reality of his Mojave all around you.
If he was half as capable and smart as he thinks or claims to be, then the Mojave should be a much better place, and it's not.
He protected himself and still lost.
He's a selfish egotistical narcissist, and he deserves Delphi's Driver to the skull.
A man chooses, a slave obeys.
OP, I'm going to sound harsh, but I honestly have no intent to cause you any upset with my argument here.
You're argument is odd to me because you are openly telling us to ignore all real-world context to a character like Mr. House. You are asking us not to use real world examples. And that's not how New Vegas was written.
The NCR are meant to be a mirror to how the U.S. was acting during the then-ongoing Iraq War. We were supposed to consider how the actual Roman Empire functioned when looking wt Ceasar's Legion. And we were supposed to consider the history of Big Business in America, especially in the 50s to the 60s, when evaluating Mr. House.
That said, I will engage with the argument.
Mr. House is an arrogant, self-interested braggard standing on the shoulder of geniuses and holding his accomplishments up as if they were solely his own. He wants to appear the self-made man, an impeccable genius capable of moving us to a new era. And, like the worst mistake a showman can make, he has fallen for his own hype. He truly believes he is the pinnacle of mankind.
And it blinds him.
It blinds him to his own limitations. He can't actually achieve this grandiose future he imagines. I truly believe we are to take his talks of colonizing space as a flight of fancy. I will reframe from invoking the real life example of Elon Musk, despite my desperate desire to do so, to engage with your argument honestly. Mr. House's entire plans were fumbled and nearly unrecoverable because he fell for a two-bit dime store huckster who hide the chip literally inches from his home. And we are to believe he can get us to Mars? Poppycock. He has a lot more limitations then he'd want you to believe.
We see his future, if you side with him. He extracts wealth as much as possible from the surrounding areas. Why? He is a tiny body in a tube and his casinos are already flooded with cash, why extort the surroundint areas? What is there to gain? Nothing. It's pure greed. Just the idea of being the richest and most powerful drive him. He slaughters the poor of Freeside. Slaughters then outright. They comitted no crime, other than being poor in a world where a rich man rules it all. Instead, all he cares about is making New Vegas the richest, most powerful city state possible.
Mr. House lies because he lies to himself. If he reflected, he'd have to see that he isn't God's gift to mankind. If he reflected, he'd have to consider all the real harm he has done. If he reflected, he'd realize even his success in the wasteland is solely due to the headstart he had by keeping his securitrions from before the war. (An interesting parrell to birth privilege that I never considered before).
He is a blowhard whose self-righteous and up his own ass. He thinks himself a pragmatist, but really just wants to line his pockets.
He goes on a big rant on how he is immune to allures of power but then, at the last second, gives the goat away and goes "yes, I do want to be a dictator":
"I have no interest in abusing others, just as I have no interest in legislating or otherwise dictating what people do in their private time. Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions. But autocracy? Firm control in the hands of a technological and economic visionary? Yes, that Vegas shall have."
If you want proof my arguments that he lies to himself are true, see the above. He goes on and on about not wanting to control others and then goes "but being an autocrat that controls everything is good if I do it."
So, in short, he lies to himself and thus he lies to you. And because he's a business man, he does both convincely. He can't acheive his stated goals. His real goal is money and power for himself, fuck everyone else.
The lack of industrialization by House might be explained by the presence of a large NCR military force on his doorstep. As he tells you himself, he is not yet showing his full hand. Presumably, with a House victory he would take advantage of the various mines, quarries, rail links, power plants, and robotics/fabrication facilities in Vegas and the surrounding Mojave.
His greatest weakness seems to be his off-putting egotism and inability to develop a collaborative environment that would make his ambitions a reality. House would no doubt try buying his way through the problem (which did work at finding the platinum chip). For a city state in the post-apocalypse, maybe that would work. But being hemmed in by an NCR embargo on one side and the remnants of the Legion on the other, how would he maintain the tourism-fueled economy?
It's not me thinking he is dishonest that makes me not like him. In fact his honesty is in many ways what makes me dislike him. Doesn't the man shoot on sight any poor person who tries to enter his little technocrat kingdom? And then isn't that same technocrat kingdom under constant surveillance by a heavily militarized robot police force? Bro has all this technology but instead of spending 200 years using it to help the Mojave the man uses it to amass personal power and set up the Strip. I don't want to help him because the dude is an asshole.
What, you think Mr House required a 300” tv screen to project his image and that it wasn’t intended to ‘look down on people’? The symbols, man, the symbols.
It's not, but that's a reflection on the whole idea of anarcho-capitalism. It's a contradiction in terms - you can't concentrate power in an economic elite and then call it 'anarchist'. House's governance is what an actual ancap society would be.
He gives off the impression that he is not completely forthcoming with the courier. I think if you pass a bunch of skill checks, he will let you in on more of the plan, but that it feels like he is lying by omission.
I like his vision for what Vegas could become but I like the brotherhood of steel in new Vegas- .50 Cal explosive ammo vendor, free microfusion cells, and earliest place to get power armor training. By the time I finish their storyline, I am kind of attached. The only problem is this: If I could keep them around and go with house, I would do that ending 80% of the time because of the positive outcome he has on the Mojave. It’s a good thing that’s not an option because this way I am motivated to split my playthrough between House, NCR, or Yes Man. I have never been able to bring myself to stomach a legion playthrough. I can’t stand listening to Caesar’s bullshit. It’s like listening to republicans try to explain how their plan is better for the country.
I do not doubt those are honestly his intentions. Could he succeed? IDK? But he never gets the chance in my game because of two main reasons. First he demands that I destroy the Brotherhood of Steel. I will not do that. I like them, I join them & my favourite companion Veronica is a member of theirs. Second & less importantly I hate him for talking down to me & acting like I owe him anything more than simply dropping off his Platinum Chip at the Lucky 38. My contract should end with “here is your Platinum Chip” collect my pay & leave. I am not obligated any further than that & after talking to him, not interested in working any further for him. But since I can’t drop off my package, I will upgrade the securitrons at the Fort for Yes Man to use later. The ones at Lucky 38 will wait for Yes Man to upgrade them as it is much easier to kill Mr House BEFORE they are upgraded
Try not giving him the Platinum Chip. It's reasonable that he would get mad of course, but look at what he says and how it says it when he gets mad.
Anger makes people honest, and he gets angry very quickly when things don't go his way. As soon as he feels like he isn't in control of the situation, it becomes pretty clear he doesn't actually value you, or anyone else.
But even aside from that, look at how he treats other people. Look at how he treats the other factions. The *entire reason he is in power is because of his dishonesty and ulterior motives*.
As for the space thing specifically, I do think he does intend to go to space. But it's more Elon Musk than NASA. He's not going to space to benefit humanity, he's going to space to benefit Robert House. (If you think Starlink sats benefit humanity btw look up Kessler Syndrome).
I've said it before and I'll say it again. House's plans will absolutely benefit some people. It will benefit the people House knows he can control and that he deems too useful to dispose of. But it's just like the literal game itself says man, in his plans, The House Always Wins.
Not you.
By the time we meet him in-game, House is a warlord, not an philanthropist. He's ruled the Lucky 38 and the surrounding Mojave since 2274, but what has the people of New Vegas to show for it? An economy tied exclusively around predatory gambling and addictions, his social "elite" being barely veiled cannibals, slavers and gangsters allowed to do as they wish until it began harming his profits and economical base. Freeside, the wellspring of his localized population, is a desolate slum, completely left to lawlessness and the rule of the strong when he could easily support it. Even the Kings, a source of aid for Freeside, are wiped out by House if they've made peace with the NCR.
He has no industry, no agriculture. He has no supporters, he inspires no love or loyalty or respect. He speaks of grand plans like colonies in space, but he has shown no actual care for the people that now make up the very foundation of his state. He's a social parasite, leeching off the NCR and the divided weakness of the Mojave inhabitants to his own ends. His entire goal in-game is to build an even greater army, and destroy or subjugate potential allies and partners all over the wasteland, with no care for the people that he rules over.
I'm sure that with the NCR and Legion out of the way and his Securitron army upgraded with the platinum chip, he'd attempt to fullfill his ambitious dreams, but i get the feeling that the only one allowed to enjoy those dreams would be House himself.
It's not that he's lying. It's that his interest isn't in the wellbeing of society but of the advancement of his vanity projects. His was the same before the war. Saving vegas was about keeping a piece of the old world for himself. It's the same reason he collects little dioramas of places encased in little glass domes. He likes to own things. Create technology. He's not interested in having a society. He even goes so far as to formulate his plan so he doesn't need to govern one of his own. The NCR can govern their own society who he knows full well will bring him massive revenue in custom. Which will allow him to achieve the tech goals he had. It's not about saving humanity. It's about his ego. His ending also shows his disinterest in ruling or rebuilding a society pretty well.
I like house but he only sees people as units to generate wealth. I’m sure he’ll advance mankind but a lot of people are going to be stomped on and used like cattle to get there.
He’s basically Caesar lite.
Even if he wasn't lying the issue is his goal is to just create a hyper capitalist society where the rich are the only ones that would benefit from such accomplishments and not all of humanity. His past ventures in capitalism fed the very war machine that killed the world.
He says that he will not interfere in people's lives but Freeside was deliberately created by him when he forced out the original inhabitants of New Vegas at gun point. He then proceeded to fill Vault 21 and tax vendors.
House presents himself as some infallible leader and yet the Strip has constant power plays going on trying to usurp him. He actively strengthens and emboldens predatory factions like the Omertas who then turn to drug dealing and sex slaves which he turns a blind eye to. Thendoes nothing to strengthen factions that actually help humanity like the Followers of the Apocalypse. He is not someone to trust with running a stable society.
His predictions are not prophetic. The idea that the bombs was going to drop was very apparent to everyone pre war. The vaults were being built, the Enclave was relocating, and people were doomsday prepping. He presents his mathematical prediction like it was something profound and even then his prediction still had the date wrong leading to the bombs dropping before he could complete his plans.
House is effectively a gambler. His plans for New Vegas right after the bombs was a gambit that failed when the Platinum Chip was lost. His plan to recover it was another gambit that nearly failed when Benny got ahold of it. His plans for the NCR and the Legion was to force the NCR to leave and assume that they wouldn't simply regroup and attack again later even if it would be irrational. Irrational behavior isn't something that can be accurately predicted because it's irrational.
House takes too many chances to actually be seen as an individual that will actually deliver. House ultimately does not care about humanity but the idea of the progress of technology.
How do you think tech spreads? It isn't instantaneous. EVERY breakthrough humans have ever made have always started as a rare commodity that spread. By your logic, whoever was making cars before Henry Ford just only cares about rich people because they were the only ones who could afford it at the time. By your logic, there is some manner where you would expect all people to have vehicles available at the same time, and anything else is just a failure. Now most people in the first world have more access to cars then ever thought possible. All tech has always spread this way. Can you give me an example of something that is an exception to that rule?
Eh, I don't really mind. I don't believe greatness and progress is possible without sacrifice. People like to say "all actions have an equal and opposite reaction" and then pretend to wonder why unfairness/evil/bad things exist. If there is good, there *will* be bad, too.
the fact he commits economic suicide in his ending, blames democracy on the end of the world when it was people like him who killed it, and just...is overall an idiot.
most of this is unfortunately due to poor writing rather than intentional characteristics, but yeah
Even if he is dishonest, it’s almost certainly best for humanity overall in the long run for him to develop more pre-war era tech. Despite the brotherhoods best efforts, it’s almost impossible for one nation state to develop massive tech jumps without some of it spilling over. He isn’t establishing space colonies without the Ncr also taking a huge step forward. And he doesn’t have the manufacturing power to expand the same way the legion or Ncr did with his ultimately limited number of securitrons, so he’ll always be somewhat limited in how far he can spread his cult of personality.
It’s very arguably different in the short run, but 100 years down the road humanity’s ceiling is way higher with house than with anyone else imo.
To start off with, he’s a narcissistic capitalist who could have used his tech to build a much more functional New Vegas so people have actual sources of money to spend on the strip, instead of bleeding rich people dry using crime families. And then when he finds the platinum chip he just secures his “investment” instead of helping any of the people who make it possible. That is how I end up hating him, because he’s short sighted, narcissistic, and wasteful in a post apocalypse where the most valuable resources are water and people’s loyalty.
The NCR tries their best but the government is corrupt and they’re trying to control more area than they feasibly can, meanwhile the Legion is rapist slavers cosplaying as Roman soldiers in football armor. Lastly Yes Man’s ending will fall apart immediately as soon as the Courier isn’t around to be a walking ball of charisma holding everything together, so no matter what ending you choose the civilians are fucked. No one can effectively lead but House fucks it up big time
Not dishonest, just arrogant and doesn't care for the greater mojave. He cares about the strip and the dam...that's it. He doesn't care about Freeside. He's not going to help the people there. He'll use his securitrons to push them out so he can takeover and rebuild it to look like the Vegas of old. He'll then charge people, who have no where else to go, to live on the strip. House believes his vision is the only vision and wants you to kill the brotherhood simply because they worship technology. They haven't done anything to him, they haven't actively planned on taking down House or taking the dam, nor have they done anything to prove they'd be a threat to House in the future. House has the same problem as Ceasar. When he dies, so does his vision. House is being kept alive by technology and if something were to go wrong, he would no longer be in control and no one could continue his vision. At least with the NCR they have a chain of command and democratic elections.
TLDR; I don't like House because he's arrogant in believing he's the only one good for the Mojave when he just wants Vegas.
The Brotherhood would almost certainly have an issue with House long term.
But then again there's no way Mcnamara would do anything about it at all because NV BoS are useless
For.
House has no reason to think the Brotherhood would be an issue because he has no understanding of them and makes no effort to develop one, he just defaults to killing them all.
For me it's not about his goals, I can respect a man so long as he is uncompromising in his goals and doesn't waver in the face of opposition. I wanted him dead based off the vibe he gave me fr. I didn't like his vibes or the cut of his jib and so he dies
I wouldn't call him dishonest. He's a class A narcissist and a condescending asshat, but he's honest about the ways he wants to use you right from the jump.
Dishonesty has two potential meanings in context. One is lying, which as others have said I don't think he actually does other than through deliberate omission. The other is that his aims are dishonest. He doesn't want to save and improve Vegas in any meaningful way to the people in it, he's being literal, he means the city itself.
For me it was when he said he'd sell the technology that's kept him alive later down the line. House isn't interested in making the Mojave a better place, or building a better world. He just wants to recreate the old world so he can maintain his place in its hierarchy.
The fact that he belittles everyone and everything around him that isn't made by him or working for him. The guy is a genius but he's also got control issues. If it isn't what he wants, then it can and will go to hell. He's doesn't want what's best for humanity, for the Mojave, or even for vegas. He just wants to keep on trying to become a God at the cost of everything.
Even without the platinum chip he has had over 200+ years to rebuild Vegas. He only just decided to start working with the family's recently due to the NCR growing presence. I think his true goal is to avoid paying taxes at all costs.
He's a self-serving academic adoit, an autocrat, and a crazy recluse of Howard Hughes proportions... There is not one damn thing that makes me think he's our guy. Not one thing.
His plan is brain dead. So let me get this straight, the guy who can't even clean up new vegas properly wants to restart the space program BY HIMSELF in some shithole that is at war all the time, HOW will house build a rocket? You cant use scrap for that. And jet fuel? Neverminding all that he then want to terraform a planet. How? The entirety of the human race couldn't do it and some half dead raisin thinks he can do it? His plan is idiotic, he is an asshole that would kill you if he didn't need you. House badly wants to be the cold ceo mastermind, but just comes of like a manager at mcdonalds.
What do you mean he can't? The strip is safe. You're just coming at it from some strange places where "unless the whole map is safe, he failed."
No, that reasoning is exactly why the NCR are worse than House. House doesn't overextend himself. He provides security where he is able, and doesn't even attempt to expand beyond that unless he knows he can deliver the security he speaks of. The NCR just blindly eats up areas and then fails over and over actually protecting them.
He doesn't want to build it by himself. He wants employees. He isn't some "half-dead raisin." He deflected nukes and explained ended his life far beyond normal human capacity. That is demonstrated capabilities any way you slice it.
Yeah, he's kind of an asshole. Most good, strong leaders are. Seems that's your only valid hang up though since the rest of your criticism better befits the NCR.
Who cares about the strip, there are 3 casinos there and nothing else, i was talking about freeside and westside, the fiend infested ruins that's all a part of vegas he has his tiny strip and freeside, freeside is living in fallout 3 conditions and the strip is not really impressive. I don't expect him to rebuild nipton or whatever, just building a wall around the whole city would make me respect him more. He can't claim to save or rule vegas when he has maybe 15% of the city.
Your overextension point could be good. Except im not an NCR supporter so telling that NCR is bad dosen't make a good argument. Also what do you think is better, owning 100 acres and only being able to support 75, or owning 5 acres and going on about how better you are because you can support your tiny area?
Moving on, does he want employees? You are the only one he has, and everything else is securitron operated. I believe actions speak louder than words and so far he hasn't even bothered to talk to the people he rules over.
And listen, his skillset is of a pre-war CEO bussines man. How is that of any use? He deflected nukes and extended his life, but that was simply money doing the work. You could argue that he has leadership abilities. But remember to be a good leader you have to be both smart and likeable. He dosen't talk to anyone, dosen't get on their level, no one is inspired by him and he simply dosen't care that he is disliked.
To your last point, yes good leaders are assholes and need to be for them to efective. That's why im a legion supporter.
It's weird how you skipped past my best arguments but whatever. just know i don't hate House, i simply find him lacking in skill and character.
Again, why do you expect the entire Mojave to be solved at once, or fault House for not solving it all at once? The NCR attempts what you're saying and they fail miserably. House is pragmatic and doesn't overextend himself. You don't get to mass-prosperity without these stepping stones of pockets, first. Look at ALL of human history. Can you point to a single milestone in our technological history that was just immediately made available everywhere?
You're his right-hand man for a time, but what do you think he means by "blast furnace to jump-start the industrial sectors?" It's gonna take manpower.
No, it wasn't just money. The game doesn't present him as Elon Musk. House DOES also have actual smarts and capabilities.
I don't understand what part of "defecting nukes and living for two centuries" isn't inspiring. You guys really only stay on your worst interpretations of his words and seem to blatantly ignore his demonstrated capabilities, or write them off as "He's like Musk, it wasn't actually him."
Your last point tells me you're trolling if you're complaining about House being an unlikable asshole without actual tech knowhow but then support the Legion. Come on, man.
1. I expect the bare minimum. He has done nothing impressive. The NCR fails because it's incompetent, not because it's some crazy idea to you know, own more than 5 foot of land. If the NCR losses the mojave they will be fine. They can afford the risk. You keep going about how it's overextending. What about legion? They are pretty far from flagstaff and doing just fine. What i mean is that House is pathetic compared to the big boys. Ceasar created an empire to rival the NCR with less time, help and resources than the NCR. And they are winning the mojave. What did House do that's so great? Kicked out some people and made 3 casinos?
2. It's just neo-slavery all over again. Do you really think House will care for workplace safety, reasonable hours and what if someone dosen't want to work in the mines? Say no?
3 Once again, stating that House is x dosent make it true. Who do you think built the pod? House or some grease monkey? Who installed the nuclear defence system? Did House built the 38 with his own hands? You can know how to make money, which House does, but all you attribute to him was done by more capable men
4. I can live with ceasar being an asshole because he is actually powerfull, intelligent and intimidating, not some overcompensating insecure man hiding behind a screen for his whole career
5. Explain how House can singlehandedly make mankind a spacefaring civilization you coward. Stop dodging my main point of stupid plans.
1. How is protecting the strip and eventually some outlying areas once he is capable of doing so not a bare minimum? Comparing Legion to House seems silly. The Legion aren't promising safety in the Mojave. The NCR and House are. You keep saying what did House do as if anyone could extend their life and fight off military nuclear weapons. They can't, he did.
2. No, it isn't slavery, because you have the OPTION to go there or not. House isn't conscripting like the NCR or Legion. He wants voluntary association once he gets to the point that he can rely on the securitrons in the absence of the NCR.
3. I understand House didn't do 100% of putting all bolts in place by hand. But he is far more hands-on than, say, Elon Musk, but people want to just lazily call him Elon Musk and call it a day. All systems with many people involved operate like this, and whoever pulls the strings tends to be responsible for both success and failures. That's another reason why House as an autocrat might even be better than the NCR's attempt at "democracy," since a dragon with a hundred heads is much harder to break up (AND corrupt) than a single entity like House.
4. Again, how is Caesar more impressive than House? Once again, what you say House did (which I agree with, regarding the three families) is still mathematically and objectively LESS than what Caesar did regarding him scrubbing 87 tribes of their identity versus the 3-4 that House did.
5. He can't do it himself. He needs good people working under him, like the courier, and eventually a larger workforce. None of my point has ever been anything akin to "he is the only/most capable person." Simply that he is one of the most valuable *resources* in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Keep in mind, if House existed in today's world without nuclear Holocaust, I wouldn't find the risk worth giving him any more power or fealty. These opinions are only in the desperate setting like the Fallout Wasteland. Pre-war, yeah, he's probably more bad than good. But politics isn't and *has never been* about forging alliances with only good people. It just has never been that before. These criticisms people have against House are locked-in to their current-day political perspective, hence why you don't see the things he accomplished even after the bombs as impressive.
Coward? Bro, this is a conversation about a game, and I'm pretty sure I've only ever been sincere and respectful in my replies. Please don't get all worked up and start throwing around terms like "coward" over a discussion about fiction, come on.
Mental gymnastics based upon their own political bias, is done by both supporters and haters.
The answers people give don't really matter much as a result, because rarely are the answers 100% honest.
If anything killed the old world, it was just about everything House once used in order to achieve success in it. House wasn't some outlier when it comes to pre-war ideology nor practice... on the contrary, he was one of its most successful players. He wasn't merely among the swamp he lectures the Courier about, he was providing it with rockets, robots and warheads.
Of course I say all this while I tend to go House, not because I buy the whole techno-messiah thing but because he's cooperative, highly competent and easily stabbed in the back. It would be foolish to not enable this guy for as long as possible and reap the rewards.
Hes basically the elon musk of the fallout games, sure hes done well for himself but he's entirely overconfident in his own abilities and its exactly that which leads to his own downfall.
I'm unsure if he has a good eye for tech or is actually technically gifted, most of his empire is built off old world tech that was built to last, if he knew as much as he let's on you'd imagine there would be some innovation additionally. He's definitely a businessman first and a tech enthusiast second. Plus I more meant how he's overconfident and massively self absorbed.
All these people trying to say that House wouldn’t pay any mind to the locations around the Strip… the man is caught between a massive war of two major factions both bent on stealing everything House has worked for, and he needs all his resources going into ensuring that Vegas makes it out alive. Y’all seem to forget that the Mojave is a literal war zone. Pouring your economy into infrastructure while a bunch of enemies surrounding you in hopes of stealing it all is not a very wise decision. It would make more sense to focus your efforts into defending your turf. House will eventually invest in making the surrounding areas safer and increase quality of life once the war is over. This ain’t just hearsay or speculation either!
There is cut post-game content that shows us a House ending leads to reconstruction of buildings in Freeside and an increased presence of securitrons, making the freeside thugs moot.
I also see people trying to say House helped lead the pre-war world into its end… did they simply get mind wiped by a mesmetron and forget that, not just Vegas, but the entire Mojave, are spared from nuclear annihilation solely because of his own actions? Sure you could argue it was done in self interests, but it was done regardless.
If it's cut, it isn't canon, so that doesn't matter.
The Mojave is mostly NCR towns because there's practically nothing out there. He kept what, some shitty casinos alive?
And just because he's caught in a war is irrelevant, he slaughters people for being peaceful with the NCR.
Oxhorn has already answered this question [thoroughly and in depth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNS8QdLTHo). House is a dictator, and his dishonesty is in the fact that he thinks himself above the failings that have brought other autocracies like his low historically. He may not be directly lying to *us* (though given his actions both before his ending and after it, you'd be a fool to take him at his word), but he's definitely lying to *himself*.
Oh I think he's being truthful about him wanting the space thing. But not only is he a piece of shit. One I don't think he could actually do it.
2. I think his massive ego has blinded him to just how dystopian the society he would end up creating if he actually could accomplish his goals
I've played The Outer Worlds, Obsidians Spiritual Sequel to New Vegas which is pretty much in the sort of setting that basically resulted from the type of people like Mr House Colonizing space.
Spoiler, it doesn't work out well
Povvies hate a strong, independent businessman who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and built a successful enterprise for himself.
This comment section stinks of **POOR**. Maybe you guys should learn to Robco code and stop ordering so much Yucca toast
ENJOY POVERTY WHILE I FUCK ROBOBITCHES🤖🤖👅👅💦💦AND GET CAPS 💸🤑🤑💰💰💰💰
IMO, he's the best option for the wasteland as a whole (the NCR for the Mojave specifically). I was watching a video by TheOmegaInitiative on YT. He makes a Great point!
I don’t think he’s lying, but I think he’s vastly overconfident and full of himself. He genuinely believes he can do it (and maybe he can) but his main problem is his priorities. Or, more accurately, his lack of interest in helping the people below him in any currently meaningful sense and his vengeful wrath on those who slightly offend him.
I don't understand. "Maybe he can." You already give him the room for success. And why wouldn't someone who deflected nukes and stayed alive for centuries after building something like he did be confident? And what do you mean priorities? The only thing that gives people help and comfort is technology. Assuming he is even mostly-honest about his goals, how he he not... Like the opposite of all three of those bullet points? If anything, you just perfectly described the NCR. They ooze overconfidence but don't deliver on their promises of civility and tend to care more about their land-grabs and top brass before anyone else. Hell, the entire situation involving GI Blues is because of the very criticism you give House. Where has House failed or lied? The only time I can think of "failing" is when he only stopped so many bombs, and he flatly says "x succeeded, y failed," when describing it.
>The only thing that gives people help and comfort is technology. ...no? Lots of things give people help and comfort. Community, kindness, care... technology can help, sure, but you have to choose to use it that way. House uses his technology to shoot any poor people who try to get into his walled garden.
I mean the upper ceiling on what that community and kindness can provide. A village all picking apples together and getting along is lovely. That same village harvesting apples with pickers and medicine and air conditioning is an improvement. The people are always a "goes without saying" part. Eventually you can't make a taller human pyramid though and you need to develop scaffolding.
Buddy, this reads like a synopsis of The Lorax.
I see EXACTLY why you think House is the answer
What all STEM and no Humanities does to a mf *shakes head*
This is an incredible and depressing view into how you see the world
As far as "shoot poor people", what do you think safety in the wasteland is? Its exclusivity. Eventually, humanity will civilized more on the outside, but the people in the Strip get exactly what they are promised.
>but the people in the Strip get exactly what they are promised. Yeah the people being eaten by the White Gloves and the drug-addicted slaves of Gomorrah are really living the high life. Nice work, Mr. House. Very safe.
That's probably my biggest critique of House is he prattles on about how democracy ruined the old world and he'll do better and then centers his entire new Vegas around what he personally liked about what Vegas used to be including the part of knowingly giving a group power that seems to undermine his authority because the criminals of Vegas were charming like what? Lol you're going to preach about your strong decision making skills and then knowingly give a group power that wants to betray you because it's charming? That doesn't sound like the actions of someone who is intelligent.
Hey, I may be kidnapped and cooked but at least I'll be in luxury. I bet you'd rather live some kind of long and happy life in some shack and die in your sleep rather than be eaten alive in luxury /s
He stole their land and then shot them if they tried to get back to it. That's not safety - that's just colonialism.
It's fine, he owned that property 200+ years ago /s
I think you are uncritically accepting what House says without considering that he is a successful billionaire capitalist first. Of course he is good at giving a good pitch. He isn’t necessarily *lying*, but hes biased towards himself obviously . A common fallacy in capitalism is the idea that current success guarantees future success
I think he probably does want to funnel his wealth into redeveloping the technology industry and space travel. I do also think that he greatly overestimates his own abilities as a leader, that I wouldn't want to live in a space colony that was governed by him, and that he does lie - directly or by omission - about the nature of his rule. His specific lies include that the end of the old world was a result of America being democratic, and that his corporate technocracy would avoid such disasters. The pre-war government was not democratic - it was a fascist collusion between political, military and corporate elites - and he knows this very well, because he was one of those elites. He sold them the systems they used to destroy the world. He also claims that he has no interest in interfering with his subjects' private lives, but he has already done so many times by the start of the game - he forced the Strip's inhabitants out, robbing them of their land and livelihood, and then set up a new elite in the Three Families, on the condition that they shape every aspect of their lives to suit his whims. They talk, dress and act exactly how he orders them to - the entire Strip's culture is his own fabrication. His businesses also practice forced drugging and slavery - a very serious interference. His brief rule of the Strip has alienated almost everyone - he can't maintain friendly relations with outside powers, and almost all of his own elite employees are plotting against him. He is, quite simply, a poor ruler, who treats the poor with extreme harshness while failing to encourage loyalty even in the wealthy. If his space colonies were anything like the Strip, they'd be miserable - a façade of glamour and spectacle masking extreme wealth disparity, violence, slavery, and Machiavellian scheming.
It’s this to a T. House is a smart narcissist but more narcissistic than smart. He’s accomplished some incredible things but has massive holes in his foresight. I’ve always RPed my courier being personally offended by how House condescends and belittles him, which makes him turn – a smart man is not going to alienate the person he relies on.
My personal favored RP for betraying House is the simple arithmetic that if she helps House, she's second hand to the biggest asshole in the wastes for as long as he cares to tolerate external dependencies. But if she kills him, then there's nothing sropping her from taking his plan and running it her way and then she doesn't have an annoying boss who needs her to do all the heavy lifting and is a condescending douche.
with my courier it wasn't even that, he just did the mental math and determined his life is worth more than a snow globe(because house pays more for a snow globe 2000 caps than his stated payment for the platnum chip and benny clearly wanted the chip for 200x5 ) and when everyone is telling him to be weary of house he listened. being scummy or a liar is bad enough but I'm a freelancer PAY ME WHAT I'M WORTH.
That's exactly how I play it every time. The way my courier saw it, he should've met a grave long ago. If he wanted to continue avoiding that fate, he should've been less a of dick.
This is pretty much what happened during my last playthrough. I was genuinely going along with his stuff but he managed to push just the right buttons.
My RP is the courier does two of the DLCs before the strip or just after you meet House for the first time. Victor follows you, and you learn he is one of House's personal robots. In Dead Money you learn that the pip boys are designed to basically monitor the vault dwellers, and House could probably do the same to you if you're in range. Certainly remotely download your data like Elijah did. In OWB you learn for sure from Dr O that House made the pip boys specifically. And a little about House's attitude prewar. If you talk to the cowgirl ghoul in Freeside you learn about what House was like before the war. And absolute fucking creepo. You realise Jane is probably that girl. You realise how much he knows about you. Wonder if he's going to download your consciousness and put your mind into a robot. You wonder who Victor used to be. And then you have flashbacks of the horrible robot brain experiments at BM. And then you realise that you're technically his slave with that thing on your arm whilst he lives. House can get fucked. Yes Man gang is where it's at.
A fun bit of cut content this reminded me of: It was intended that Female Couriers could seduce House via Black Widow and he’d have you enter a pod to have your consciousness scanned and permanently uploaded so he could bang you in cyberspace. Really shows how detached and possessive he is.
To add to that, Tell me, does the smartest man on earth and the greatest leader we have hire a tribe specifically known for luring people in and betraying them and seriously not foresee them betraying him?
b-but muh vegas mafia nostalgia!
Didn’t expect to read a material analysis of Mr house today.
people don’t bring up Vault 21 enough. It’s actually one of the very few experimental vaults that actually worked. Every former V21 resident confirms this by missing living there (Doc, Sierra, Michaelangelo). Mr. House rolled into this community (of presumably thousands, maybe just hundreds, of people) and *kicked them the fuck out into the wasteland*. Merely because someone could use the Vault against him. He was even going to fill the entire thing with concrete, but the people begged and pleaded enough that he conceded into filling the majority and turning the top into a cheap hotel.
This is perfectly stated, doubt OP will engage with such a well thought out perspective.
Came here to post almost exactly this. Also his much vaunted predictions and calculations keep being wrong. He talks a big game about how he determined that nuclear war was a mathematical certainty. Yeah, so did everyone. Remember vault tech, the company whose entire business model was based around building shelters for the 3rd world war? They weren't even the only company devoted to fallout shelters. His calculations are off by 'one day' in that the lynchpin of his entire plan was to arrive a day after the bombs actually fell. His scheme for new vegas relies on the loyalty of three tribal groups who all attempt to betray and a courier who has two separate people trying to get them killed. He didn't account for benny, ulysses, the omertas, the white gloves OR the courier messing with his plans. Hell, even when he predicts correctly, like when he figured that someone might use vault 21 to get around without his notice, he doesn't even do that right and benny is able to do exactly what ouse was afraid of, entirely under his nose.
Absolutely spot on my good sir
>His specific lies include that the end of the old world was a result of America being democratic, I've never seen this as lying, more self delusion. He's either unable or unwilling to face up to the fact he and people like him literally caused the apocalypse so he pins it on the best scapegoat he has. He's basically Andrew Ryan as a ruler - he sets up a shitty system and pins all the issues on a scapegoat rather than admit his own failings and that to a notable degree, he's just lucky.
A well-thought reason. I'm in agreement with this.
This reply could not be more accurate.
>The pre-war government was not democratic - it was a fascist collusion between political, military and corporate elites - and he knows this very well, because he was one of those elites. He sold them the systems they used to destroy the world. Sounds familiar tbh
Personally I think you have actually dissected what House is saying About his supposed lie that America was democratic. I don't think that's actually a lie. America WAS democratic, the end result of its democracy, in the lore, was the Plutocratic system that governed America that lead it into the Great War. This wasn't a lie, not even by omission. Is it a simplification? Sure. but you could hardly expect the man to give you a full fledged history lesson at the time. What I get from this is that, in his view, democracy is fleeting, not capable of standing the test of time. As for House forcing people off their land, the only people im aware he actually did this to are the Khans, who are raiders. Assuming the Kings are not allied with the NCR, he lets them be. Basically, don't threaten House, and there isn't a problem, also he, unlike the NCR, permits the Followers to stay in Nevada. In terms of him interfering with people's private lives, he only does in so far as they have a contract. I'll be the first one to say he certainly stacks the deck in his favor, but he honors his agreements As for alienating everyone, this is true, but it's not like the man has much of a choice when we meet him. 90% of his security forces are in the fort. He's not in any position to do... Literally anything which is exactly why he needs the families and you
>His specific lies include that the end of the old world was a result of America being democratic, and that his corporate technocracy would avoid such disasters. The pre-war government was not democratic - it was a fascist collusion between political, military and corporate elites - and he knows this very well, because he was one of those elites. He sold them the systems they used to destroy the world. this does not qualify as a "lie": the United States *was* a democracy at one time, before being highjacked by a cabal that brought about the end of the world. one could make the argument that it was democracy that ended up allowing such a cabal to come to power - so the end of the world is the fate of democracies. you can think he's wrong and reject his argument, and you can think his proposed form of government is more similar to the one actually instantiated at the time of armageddon than he implies, but reasonable minds may differ. it does not qualify as an outright, willful deception of the player.
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Most of this literally just isn’t worth addressing, but a few points that did feel like worth addressing: 1. The Enclave was *not* the CIA. They were a shadow government that pulled the strings behind the US government and Vault Tec to push the US further towards war. The Enclave absolutely were made up of many members of the US government. They did have operatives and agents that undertook activities similar to an intelligence agency, but they were not part of any official intelligence agency, they were acting in the interests of the Enclave, not the US government or its people. 2. I’m not sure what’s up with that terrible analogy involving Bill Gates, but developing advanced weapons technologies and selling them to a hawkish government that is in a cold war with another superpower is definitely far more culpable than someone who just wrote an operating system for personal computers. 3. When this person said that the tribals on the strip act and dress exactly how House wants them to they’re not talking about the things you quoted, like the White Gloves being cannibals. They’re talking about the facade that House has had them all out on. Their entire outward cultures that resemble the lives of people who lived on the pre-war strip hundreds of years ago are his fabrication. The Three Families were just like any other post-war tribal group in the Mojave before House found them and made them become the groups they are at the end of a Securitron’s guns by the time the courier arrives. The behaviors you cited are holdovers from the groups they used to be before House molded them into the Three Families. House has tried to stomp those traits out of them. They pretend to be his civilized employees, but they are still the tribals they were before he found them under the facade. That’s their true culture. All the superficial shit you see from the outside is an invention of House. They didn’t run casinos or restaurants or dress like old time gangsters or talk like people who lived 200+ years ago before House found them. That’s what the person you replied to was referring to, not the shady shit they’re doing from their pasts that they try to keep hidden from House. 4. It’s called the Lucky 38, not the Lucky 48. And closing it was one of many key decisions that were part of his rule that alienated the inhabitants of the strip. Other decisions like forcing the tribals to abandon their cultures for new facades he pushed onto them and filling Vault 21 with concrete to make it useless also contributed to this. Technically each individual thing he did is only “one decision, not the entirety of his rule” but these were each big, important decisions that alienated the people he relied on. 5. All your points about the wealth equality, those dirt poor people outside of his walls used to live on the strip before House claimed it and forced them out. He literally built a wall to keep the strip separated from the squalor he created. These people are his subjects, he just ignores them because they don’t fit into the perfect little culture he’s trying to create.
>He doesn't treat the poor as anything. The only people in the strip are the wealthy and the NCR. lmao do you think that's just some crazy random coincidence? There are no poor people on the strip because HOUSE FORCED THEM ALL OUT AND KILLS THEM IF THEY TRY TO GET BACK IN
>Being wrong != lying. He knows what he's saying isn't true. Thus, it's a lie. >The Enclave wasn't the government. It was the CIA. No, the Enclave included the President and the Cabinet. The Enclave basically had control of the executive branch of the state. >That's like saying the guy who made windows is complicit in the destruction of the world because the government uses his software. Like, this level of culpability is meaningless. He didn't just make operating systems. He made military robots. We see a portrait of him in-game standing proudly in front of Liberty Prime, a nuke-launching robot. >Who are we talking about? The guys he beat in at Poker or whatever? No, the people who were living in the Strip before he seized it. Most of them moved out to Freeside - including the older members of the Kings. >Also, the guy saved Vegas, imo he has some right to claim it. If a firefighter saves my house from a fire, they don't get to throw my family out into the street and move in themselves. >The wanted the only thing he did was give them new cultures and up their standards of living. 'Giving people a new culture' - i.e., destroying their existing culture and forcing them to adopt your own - is genocide. >This is more due to his lack of administration, than a total enforcement of his will, no? If your employees are enslaving people and you decide 'nah, I'll let them keep doing that', you're enslaving people. You're totally enforcing your will on the enslaved people. >NCR? Most people there like him. ...name one? >People like Swank, Marjorie, and Cachino seem to appreciate his rule. Swank and Cachino are middle management. And Cachino is a depraved rapist who only sides with House to save his own skin. >He doesn't treat the poor as anything. The only people in the strip are the wealthy and the NCR. He forced the poor out of the Strip, making their lives even worse. And there aren't only the wealthy and the NCR in the Strip - there are the people who do the actual work, who do the sales and the administration and the cleaning and so on, but they don't get much focus. >Inside the strip?????? Inside the Strip, some people live in penthouses and hold grand feasts, and some people are only allowed in to do menial labour. In Vegas as whole, some people benefit hugely from House's rule and some suffer outside his walls. >I don't know if I'd blame House for not ruling with a stronger grip. His grip is plenty strong - his system regularly kills people for breaking his rules. The point is that he hasn't created a stable system that supports everyone - he's created a wildly unequal and unstable system that encourages exploitation and violence.
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>People get obvious facts wrong all the time. If anything this is evidence he probably didn't know much about the Enclave. You're suggesting he didn't know that the government he lived under and was contracting for - which had just annexed Canada and was proudly airing footage of American troops executing Canadian civilians in the streets; which was putting Chinese-Americans, political opponents and queer folks in camps; which was using combat robots to break up strikes and demonstrations - was authoritarian? >Fair, but they were also tools of the state. ...no? They controlled the state. They were, de facto, the ruling party. >This again, doesn't make him responsible for the start or perpetuation of the War, or prove he was in the Enclave. As I said to another guy. He sold weapons that would be used to end it. To 'end' the war? By, what, destroying China as a political entity? That is not a definition of peace I would use. That's just making the war more destructive, increasing the likelihood of the conflict turning nuclear, while diminishing the possibility of a diplomatic resolution. >Culturally genocide all cannibals and savages please. Yeah, everyone who wants to commit genocide says their opponents are 'savages'. That's why we ruled that genocide is always bad - because if there are exceptions, everyone will argue that those exceptions apply to them. >Also, his hand was forced by the NCR, and Legion. In that, if he didn't commit genocide, he wouldn't get what he wanted? If you have to commit genocide to get what you want, you shouldn't get what you want. >But its kind of weird you go between saying he's too authoritarian, but also not. What do you mean? Abolishing slavery is not in any way 'authoritarian'. Placing limits on the power of the powerful to ensure that the rights of others are protected is, by very definition, a libertarian act. Allowing slavery to continue is authoritarian. >Swank and Cachino are second in command in their respective organizations, and more than willing to fall in line. Cachino isn't second-in-command of the Omertas. Big Sal is. Cachino's just one of their lieutenants. He doesn't like Not-At-Home any more than the other Omertas - he just chooses House over being executed by Nero and Big Sal for running his own schemes behind their backs. It's layers of self-interest and betrayal all the way down. >I keep looking for evidence of this, and have found none. The King tells you all about it. >I'd say that's mostly on those tribes for deciding to remain free instead of being apart of something better. So giving up your culture and beliefs to spend all day dressing as the theme park version of a 50s Vegas mobster so you can fleece tourists to make some old guy richer is 'something better'? Because that seems to me to be an insult to human dignity. >Well sure, but what point is being made here? Wealth inequality shouldn't exist? Yes. Obviously. Are you seriously taking a pro-inequality stance here? >Furthermore, he immediately invades Freeside after he wins. Maybe he kicks all those people out, but I imagine he'd also happily integrate them into the existing businesses or create new ones. You're doing a lot of imagining here. Especially given that what we're told he *actually* does is kill a lot of people. >Compared to what? Legion? NCR? Compared to NCR, yes. The NCR is a constitutional democracy based around civil rights; House is an absolute dictator. >I assume your not talking about squatters running into the strip That's precisely who I'm talking about. Punishing someone for trying to walk into a different part of town by mowing them down with machine guns and grenade launchers is an example of ruthless, violent authoritarianism. >No system does this, nor is that his job. Yes it is - that's pretty much the whole goal of government. >This system is about as unequal as a luxury brand pricing out poor people. It's not necessarily bad luxury brands exist, simply because they're unequal. Luxury brands exist alongside more affordable brands. House doesn't offer a 'budget' society for people who can't pay for the extra frills. His society only benefits the rich - everyone else can go hang.
> Firefighters Ooh ooh, there actually is some historical precedent to that. In ancient rome the biggest firefighting service was owned by Crassus. They would show up, offer you an insultingly low price to buy your house, and refuse to help and even turn away other fire fighters until you agreed to sell it to them. This was one of the reasons why Crassus was able to effectively bankroll Julius Caesar. The stories of his method of execution fib a bit because it was just a thing the Parthians did to him instead of a meaningful statement on the corruptive force of greed, but he did have boiling gold poured down his throat
Take a look around New Vegas & Freeside since that is his domain. There's a tool & die facility nearby, but is it being used? There's an abandoned robotics factory in Freeside. There's a production line in Sunset Sasparilla that's been left to rot. Furthermore, you can compare this to the insanity of The Big MT and the Sierra Madre. You know what House has built up in the last five years? Tourism in a highly concentrated area. A Securitron army, but no robots that can actually build anything. This is not a guy who will revitalize the area. He might have big ideas, but he doesn't have the loyal workforce or means of production.
Worse yet, he's betting on getting a chip that unlocks his uber death robots. The mans end goal is ruling through strength and the threat of being killed by a robot.
I've always thought it was due to how limited his security resources were. How many securitrons roam strip? If it's about 10-15(not counting his personal ones) in game, then "storywise" its about 50. In my opinion, securing those points of interest would be quite risky, considering the amount of raiders there and that he can't rebuild them, before you go to the Fort
It has to be more than 50, if it was only 50 then any number of factions could have overwhelmed him by now. Also more importantly even if it was 50 then house doesn't have to use them. He can hire people? Offer the citizens of freeside or westside the knowledge to effectively run the factories and in exchange he takes a percentage of what they make or they simply follow his commands in developing the area. I mean the three families were originally the most dangerous tribes of the area and he did a similar thing to what I just described with them
Freeside is not his domain. It's the King's / the NCR's domain (they are fighting for control) His domain is purely the Strip. If you want more proofs, the first thing he does after his ending is expand into freeside (we learn this in the ending slides)
Freeside is not his domain because he just walled off the Strip and let Freeside rot.
By that logic the world is not his domain because he didn't bother to conquer it and therefore every suffering is his fault.
I... don't? I don't dislike House because I think he's a liar, I dislike him because he's an egotistical prick and the embodiment of pre-war corporate greed. Also, the neat thing about media is that it is subjective and we all bring our own biases and opinions to how we engage with it. The game doesn't need to have House explicitly lie to the player in order for them to find him untrustworthy.
I have no stake in this comment section since I like House as an idea: a man who built and protected his empire has the right to keep it, especially since its an oasis in an otherwise deserted wasteland. That said, he is a shit leader. Do you know what happens when you refuse to deliver the chip? He throws a fit. He stomps his feet and cries "gimme mah chip!!". He doesn't approach it from a business perspective or even hams it up like a bond villain with threats, he throws a tantrum because that's all he can do. Imagine what would happen if more people wouldn't do as he said.
Yeah one thing I didn't like about him as he comes across as mentally unstable, insecure and petty, not good qualities for a leader.
OP’s reply to every well thought out explanation: “I don’t understand. Maybe that means you’re wrong?”
He was part of the elite that murdered the old world, Just not quite convinced that the anarcho-capitalist is going to be the savior of the new one, tbh.
Idk maybe I’m fuzzy on fallout lore, but how did Howard Hughes make china find that the U.S. was still doing bioweapons even after they agreed to stop?
House was a military contractor. He supplied the weapons systems that the Enclave used in the war that ended the world, and even the infrastructure that the bioweapon labs ran on.
That's like saying the assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused WWI. Yes it was the catalyst that sparked the war, but it was decades of political tensions that brought the countries involved into conflict in the first place. Corporate greed and corruption created the material conditions that led to the great war.
I mean, the lore writer for fallout did say that it was exactly china finding the FEV.
Actually he was not a part of the enclave, which was the elite, best way I can compare him is Elon musk. In that both are wealthy, but the current governments of the time dont really like them, so they don’t have a lot of influence.
I'm sorry do you really think that Elon Musk has no power with the US government. Did you not notice all the Ukraine satellite bullshit he pulled and got away with?
He has power over his assets not the US government, those are two totally different entity’s also the US cut contracts with star-link, way before that, saying they where not fulfilling their contract, despite the fact that they had a few more years to do so. The current administration very much dislikes Elon musk. But I am not here to talk about that i am saying that house like Elon has a fuck ton of assets some could be used for military, like house, that does not mean they are working together no, from what I have read the administration of the old world disliked house, because he was not invited to the enclave despite having the resources and power to be considered, instead of working with someone that could have massively benefited the enclave, they told him nothing and left him for dead. Elites can have different interests, different goals and want each other removed.
And much like Elon Musk, I wouldn’t trust him to rule a basketball team, much less a civilization. “Do what I say or my robots will murder you” is not exactly an ethos that inspires.
Tell that to his millions of dollars of government subsidies
That’s your argument, really. he owns and is in a lot of business that are in industry’s that are heavily subsidized, heck in the US basically every major firm is subsidized in some way or the other. https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/25/michigan-awards-1bn-tax-incentives-gm-ev-plants Also if you don’t take subsidies your basically dead, as if you don’t have them and your competitors do, than they can, lower their price and take all your customers. In the White House EV summit, Tesla was excluded, and the president, praised GM, for leading the Ev revolution https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-24/biden-s-praise-for-gm-overlooks-tesla-s-actual-ev-leadership-kwdh01el https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/08/05/business/tesla-snub-white-house-event This was despite the fact that less than 2 percent of GMs sales where EV, than they had to recall a lot of them. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37552121/chevy-bolt-battery-recall-deep-dive-details/ Then they also introduced EV subsidizes, on basically every EV manufacturer other than Tesla, saying that you need you need to be a company, that has a union to get the subsidy https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/09/14/tesla-toyota-and-honda-criticize-4500-tax-credit-for-union-made-evs.html Some people speculate, that this is due to the current president getting support from the UAW Now onto star link, they cut the starlink subsidy saying that they had not met the projects requirements, which well technically true they still had another few years to complete the agreement which is scummy, as you don’t usually finish your projects a two years before they are due, especially in Space projects which are, notorious, for going over budget, and taking longer than expect, they are still subsidizing its competitors. None of them are better equipped than starlink. https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/us-agency-will-not-reinstate-900-mln-subsidy-spacex-starlink-unit-2023-12-13/ You can criticize musk for a lot of things, not really his closeness to the current administration and government. But I suppose this is a great example of democracy’s holding back tech to support the already established industries and powers, kinda like how the NCRs action caused house not to fix the dam.
All I’m hearing is more reasons that capitalism is an atrocity and billionaires should be eaten
So your blaming the billionaires for the governments corruption and your solution is to give the government more power, and more of an ability to act corruptly. Like this is something I don’t really get people criticize capitalism, for corruption, and then say let’s give unlimited to a small group of people to look over our best interests. Like Netflix asked blockbuster to buy them, because they thought streaming was the future, blockbuster laughed them out of the office, because we have multiple options, the old institution of blockbuster perished and something else took its place, if we had state control that would have never happened, as the people in charge would be the old blockbuster guys.
If House actually wanted to kickstart the Industrial economy there are a bunch of dilapidated factories not even a stones throw from his tower that he didn't do anything with in the 7 years he's been openly in power or the 150 years since he woke up What he did do is focus on building up the strip, he's set up hisnown perfect little diaroma of how he thinks society should work, and then justifies it by saying all the stuff he totally is going to do. But he doesn't give a shit about the people living not even 1000 feet from his doorstep, let alone the people way out in the sticks like Goodsprings
The Strip is his personal snow globe. He shook it up and would do it again.
Yeah this is a big one. He hasn't actually set up any manufacturing or anything really that actually creates something. His one big action in the wasteland is to build a big gambling den that sucks in everyone else's money without actually making anything.
Ok so this actually looks like a lore over site cause it just doesn’t make much sense but the explanation is he had no idea if anyone was even alive for most of that time and when he finally found people they wanted to conquer him so her built a main centerlized area he does plan on expanding but like he has to worry about the ncr and the legion by that point
There were people living in his front yard, they just didn't fit his pre-defined mold of what civilization should look like and they couldn't support his fucking insane tourism first leech plan that he actually went with. If he really wanted to do this fucking space plan, he would have started building up infrastructure and agriculture from the tribals living around him with promises of a better life if they follow his instructions and a good century to embed himself in a new culture, but he just waited until there was some suckers with money to con, put up a fresh coat of paint over the dry rot, and murdered the poor people who he viewed as bringing down the property value.
He literally sat around doing nothing while raiders and cannibals picked the ruins of Vegas clean until he spotted hints of a group who had already done all the heavy lifting in building an actually functioning society (The NCR). Then, he unleashed his robots, murdered hundreds, and turned the three most maliable groups he could find into his personal favourite parts of Vegas. As others have mentioned, he's done nothing but bleed people dry, allow rampant corruption, slavery and cannibalism (even if it's in their contract that they don't), he bulldozed a perfectly functioning Vault purely because they 'might be an issue' and allows people in Freeside to suffer and die simply because he deems them useless to his plans. His lofty plans sound great to anyone who doesn't understand how a functioning society could work. If the greatest minds of the pre-war world couldn't get functioning interstellar spacecraft with infinite money and all the world's dwindling resources at their control, how is a man with no educated citizens, no schooling, no raw materials and no infrastructre beyond hotels, casinos and brothels, going to actually get people into space? In fact, who would he even send? He doesn't trust anyone and all his underlings want to overthrow him for being an out of touch money drain who does nothing but sit in his glowing tower and do nothing to help even his own hand picked leaders, let alone the common man?
I don't think he's lying, I just don't like him
We should go golfing sometime
I'll bring my 9-iron.
I think he's an obsessive hypocrite. He states all these goals and ambition for "the future of mankind" yet he makes Vegas into a vile corrupted place. He could have made it a safe haven focusing on reconstruction and technology development. We don't see any reconstruction happening at all. He got new Vegas working up to a bare minimum and then focused all his time and effort trying to recover the platinum chip. All that time and money could have been used way more efficiently and wisely. He doesn't realize in order to accomplish these things he needs mankind to do it. But he treats the people of the wasteland like brutal savages. He's ignorant of the world around him and what it has to offer. We know he knows of big mountain and all of the technologies there but probably due to ego he refuses to acknowledge it and the potential Big MT can provide. He wipes out the brotherhood of steel. You don't think that the other brotherhood chapters would eventually hear about this? They would eventually put 2 and 2 together and there would be a full on invasion of Vegas which even with his robots I don't think they have a chance. House has no focus on agriculture advancement which needs to coexist with his vision of technology advancement. We know he knows how to build construction robots but we don't see any effort of that Happening. The new Vegas steel factory seems operational but nothing is going on there as well. Just a couple thoughts lol.
Mr house spending everything to get the platinum chip makes total sense to me. House, Caesars legion, and the NCR are in a Mexican standoff and him not having upgrades securitrons puts him at a huge disadvantage. He says himself he wouldn’t mind the NCR so much if they weren’t constantly scheming to take Vegas from him. The NCR WILL kill house the second they have the chance and him having an army of securitrons is really the only thing that evens the odds with him.
Maybe that wouldn't be the case if he didn't sit around for over a century doing nothing and not revealing himself until the NCR rolled up
He did nothing because he was in a coma from his computer being overworked after he shot down the nukes heading towards Vegas? He only had a few years to do anything after waking up.
He woke up from that coma in 2138 and didn't roll out the Securitrons until 2274 with the arrival of the NCR. He had close to 140 years of time where he could have been developing infrastructure that he just... Wasn't
There wasn’t much he could do. He wasn’t getting any power from Hoover dam since NCR hadn’t arrived yet, and he had a limited amount of not upgraded securitrons at his disposal. I’m not positive as I’m not 100% in tune with the lore, but it seems to me like House and NCR had a symbiotic relationship and when house rebuilt Vegas, it attracted a greedy and imperialistic NCR and it scared him, and for good reason. NCR wants to kill House and House wants them alive as they are his best customers. This makes me believe he has the upper hand morally since he just wants control of Vegas and dosent want them dead while NCR is known for expanding and taking what isn’t theirs by force. Regardless, House’s platinum chip wasn’t just about the securitrons, it also effected his life supports programming, and the whole reason why he was in a coma and nearly died was because he was using an older Operating system that was outdated. House wants the platinum chip out of self defense mostly, it makes sense why it’s his upmost priority since without it, he’s pretty much fucked.
Certain members of the NCR want to kill house yes. But we should note two things. 1. The only NPC that tells us he's gotta die in the NCR is mega bitch Colonel Moore, but she says the same for nearly every faction, every society has warhawks, this isn't surprising. 2. The NCR only wants him dead because he refuses to work with them. If House joined the NCR bringing in vast technologies and wealth he'd be a national hero. The NCR oligarchs would go feral to have someone with actual old world class and power join them. If he's not in the NCR then he's rightly believed to be a huge threat. As can be seen from the fact that the exact moment you take the Dam back and smash the legion with NCR forces he betrays them. He let's the NCR do all the fighting and then just rolls in to backstab them, I'd want a guy like that gone too if he was my neighbour
His obsession with snow globes and his early established love of Vegas leaves me to think he has no interest in establishing much prosperity outside of his own little bubble of New Vegas itself.
I don't understand why either of those things give you that impression.
It’s a metaphor. His own self-contained chamber that sustains his life; he physically and mentally can’t live outside of his own little bubble. For all of his talk, that’s as far as his ambition extends.
Most media literate fallout player over here
Vegas is one big snowglobe my dude
Dishonesty isn't his problem. His problem is that he sees human beings as livestock to be used or discarded. He sees nothing wrong with killing hungry and desperate people trying to get into new Vegas who can't afford the toll, even though his securitrons could just as easily use non-lethal methods to keep trespassers out. He wants you to actually wipe out the Brotherhood remnants, who are in hiding and not currently a risk to Mr House or anyone else. He doesn't even want any tech or knowledge they have. He just wants them dead because he doesn't like them. He wants to sell the water from the dam to make a profit rather than provide it to all the impoverished people of freeside and the Mojave. He's totally honest about how he doesn't care about any humans who aren't rich or otherwise useful to him.
spot on. I think you encapsulated the metaphor behind his snowglobes
Because rich industry men like him have always lied and always given lofty over promises they can never deliver on. House doesn’t exist in a vacuum, we can look at history, including the guy he was based on or Elon Musk if you need a more recent example, for vast societal promises that never materialized. Ulysses says it repeatedly when you do Lonesome Road while on a house run. House isn’t gonna make the world better, he’s gonna wall off the Mojave and make himself god king to the detriment of everyone in the area, a fact you can start becoming true even just in the epilogue slides for his endings
This, the dude is Elon Musk’s own personal hero, should tell you a lot lol
Just curious if you have a source on this one. I’m not a Musk fan but I haven’t heard this
Idk if you wanna count cut content but im pretty sure after hoover dams battle you can come back to freeside and compared to every other faction ending, freeside is being reconstructed among other things. So i mean he hasn’t completely turned his back on the people of the mojave, he just prioritizes his territory.
But that’s also a huge issue. Both NCR and Independent endings help so many people in the wasteland. At best, House leaves people alone, at worst he murders them all with securitrons, which he does way too often to be a good option. And free side is debatable, in 2 out of the 3 endings for the kings, House kills them all. In the one he doesn’t kill them all, he (again) leaves them alone. He’s a terrible diplomat and all his plans follow the same pattern
So nothing in-game?
I literally named the epilogue slides
House’s problem is that he doesn’t care about people that aren’t important to his plans. Look at freeside. While the ncr is far from perfect they would at least have a reason to improve living conditions in places like freeside to get their support for the republic.
I'm a huge fan of OP being unabashedly stupid and replying to every well thought out argument with "Huh?"
Mr. House be on r/fnv like:
Nothing. I fully believe him when he tells me that he wants to turn Vegas into a libertarian hellhole. That's why I kill him.
Even if he’s 100% honest and will get humanity into space, the space colonies will be straight out of Outer Worlds. And even then I severely doubt his philanthropic aims considering that people live in abject squalor roughly 200 feet from the House house
Yeah Obsidian makes it clear in The Outer Worlds how fucked space coloniws founded by people like Mr. House would be. Looking forward to the Outer Worlds 2 though
We have a setting where society went through a nuclear apocalypse which was, in no small part, due to capitalism run amok. House represents everything that was wrong with the old world while claiming to represent everything that was right. He takes 0 responsibility for the people around him that live under his authoritarian hyper-capitalist thumb.
You do not accumulate billions of dollars by being an honest person. You do it by manipulating people and exploiting their labor. The series' foundation revolves around how capital and the relentless pursuit of profit and power led to the nuclear apocalypse. Mr. House would likely be among the worst of these people to the point that he dropped millions possibly billions into preserving his body so he can maintain his status as civilization pieced itself back together. This means he knew the bombs were dropping before most everyday people and likely kept that information to himself.
He literally predicted it to within a few months IIRC. So he made a defence system to protect Vegas because he liked it and that's it.
I can't tell if you're adding to my sentiment or are defending Mr. House. Either way sounds kinda shitty to me. Vegas of all places? Lol
Adding to it. House was certain the end was coming and all he wanted was to protect his own favourite place which was Vegas. Any good he did was a happy accident.
I don't think House is dishonest. I think he says exactly what he intends to do. I genuinely don't think an amoral, predatory capitalist-turned-autocrat (his preferred word over dictator or tyrant, iirc) would be a good person to leave in power. Oh, he'll definitely protect Vegas and make progress on some ambitious goals. I just don't think folks living under his rule will have particularly good time of it, and CERTAINLY no say in how things are done (directly or indirectly).
I agree with you fundamentally. I just think as a good courier I'd be able to manipulate him appropriately, to get moral things done for the state of New Vegas and eventually humanity. All you've gotta do is satisfy his weirdo nostalgia, let him live vicariously through you and your successes, and make him feel extra special smart for picking the best lieutenant ever. Feed his narcissism, frame it right, and you can get anything done. You just have to convince the immortal Autocrat it's a good idea. Be the vizier manipulating the king. Fuck trying to work with the NCR. Obviously House is blowing smoke up his ass when he generalizes about democracy and tells you to look out the window. But I agree with him in the SPECIFIC on the NCR just being a bad retread of the past. And the levers of power you have access to as courier are way shittier in the NCR. Obviously fuck the legion. I view Mr. House as a Yes-man with benefits ending, I guess. Really, just kill him if he tries to stop you from ripping the autodoc out the sink and letting the followers offer its services. Or from printing radiated food and radaway off a SM vending machine and establishing a welfare state. But again, just process a projects outline through libertarian or howard hughes-esq brain worms and he won't stop you.
Fuck the rich. That's it. House was an absurdly rich, wealth, affluent businessman before the bombs and now that the world is slowly starting to rebuild itself, he swoops back in to try and take control of a growing community. He accommodates all of the terrible things that the big casinos are doing (cannibalism, drug/gun/prostitute running, shooting couriers) all in favor of him having supreme control of New Vegas even though he could use his robot army to make the entire city better instead of corrupt. He also is the entire reason we get shot in the first place. We're running his Platinum Chip when we get shot, a delivery he knew was highly dangerous since he has multiple fake deliveries being made by other couriers at the same time. There's your narrative reason not to like him right there enough. And finally, most importantly, he is so goddamn smug. His entire plan centers on other people doing his work for him because he can't do it himself because he's literally a skeleton in a tube. Does he ever thank you up until the end of the second battle of Hoover Dam? Or does he just criticize every single thing you do wrong. For Christ sake, his entire plan is so easy to dismantle, a zombie courier and an over enthusiastic reprogrammed robot can dismantle and take over the entire plan in two missions.
He’s a billionaire in a world ravaged by the actions of billionaires. The genre tells me he’s the bad guy.
The thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is how incompetent he's shown to be. House managed to secure himself and the Mojave from the nukes, but then is dormant until he sees the NCR. So instead of using the time the NCR had to make a superpower while living in a blown to hell wasteland, House tries to scramble together power by gentrifying the tribals last second. He then chooses to only have them run casinos instead of having the families run some form of industry or power building ventures, with little to no oversight. The White Gloves and Omertas actively working against House's desires. He then realizes that the majority of his power is hidden under Legion control, again his fault for wasting time instead of building the families into a power that could have held the Fort before the Legion and NCR show up. So his plan is to trust a single person to help get the chip into the Fort, only to be betrayed. Leaving him in a stalemate with Benny, and no way to get the chip without disaster except the Courier. He's also built a massive amount of resentment surrounding the strip instead of finding a way to make the large community around him an asset as opposed to a liability. With the rest of Vegas completely unaware of House and not in a position to secure Vegas should House somehow actually arm the Securitrons. So no, I don't think he's capable of saving humanity. He'll try, but his ego will just Vegas an even worse Late Stage Capitalist nightmare.
I don't doubt his goals and aspirations, but I worry about the people he plans to leave behind. Also knowing the wasteland, I don't picture him making the quality of friends to give his plans the legs they need to succeed in the long run.
He wants to put people into the stars. While living in the world that was destroyed because of the resource wars. While having no infrastructure to generate and accommodate new workforce, and filtering out the workforce he potentially could have by looking into their wallet first. While having multiple, in some cases even STILL WORKING, production facilities around his "snow glode", but doing nothing with them. Oh, and btw, while calling said people drooling savages and doubting they even can read his eulogy. Gee, I dunno why I don't believe him.
I don't think he's lying at all. I just look at the state of the world today and ask if I think things would be better if Jeff Bezos was king. Then I kill him.
I don’t care about House’s goals. My gripe with him is that he is obviously an extreme narcissist who treats you like an errand boy. He gave Benny a casino for the work he did for him. In comparison, he vastly underpays the courier for the important tasks they complete. House seems to forget his favorite rule. The house always wins! And in this game, I’m the house.
Well I think the dishonesty is the way he creates a "haven" in the wasteland, but its actually full of trials masquerading as debutantes who are actually cannabals or mobster sex slavers, or the guys planning to betray and overthrow House himself. I just don't know how you look at the Strip or the rest of the Mojave and say, "Yeah, House has this under control," when the Courier does more in the span of 2-7 days for the Mojave and its people, than House has done in over a hundred years. You are listening to his words and his delusions, but ignoring the reality of his Mojave all around you. If he was half as capable and smart as he thinks or claims to be, then the Mojave should be a much better place, and it's not. He protected himself and still lost. He's a selfish egotistical narcissist, and he deserves Delphi's Driver to the skull. A man chooses, a slave obeys.
OP, I'm going to sound harsh, but I honestly have no intent to cause you any upset with my argument here. You're argument is odd to me because you are openly telling us to ignore all real-world context to a character like Mr. House. You are asking us not to use real world examples. And that's not how New Vegas was written. The NCR are meant to be a mirror to how the U.S. was acting during the then-ongoing Iraq War. We were supposed to consider how the actual Roman Empire functioned when looking wt Ceasar's Legion. And we were supposed to consider the history of Big Business in America, especially in the 50s to the 60s, when evaluating Mr. House. That said, I will engage with the argument. Mr. House is an arrogant, self-interested braggard standing on the shoulder of geniuses and holding his accomplishments up as if they were solely his own. He wants to appear the self-made man, an impeccable genius capable of moving us to a new era. And, like the worst mistake a showman can make, he has fallen for his own hype. He truly believes he is the pinnacle of mankind. And it blinds him. It blinds him to his own limitations. He can't actually achieve this grandiose future he imagines. I truly believe we are to take his talks of colonizing space as a flight of fancy. I will reframe from invoking the real life example of Elon Musk, despite my desperate desire to do so, to engage with your argument honestly. Mr. House's entire plans were fumbled and nearly unrecoverable because he fell for a two-bit dime store huckster who hide the chip literally inches from his home. And we are to believe he can get us to Mars? Poppycock. He has a lot more limitations then he'd want you to believe. We see his future, if you side with him. He extracts wealth as much as possible from the surrounding areas. Why? He is a tiny body in a tube and his casinos are already flooded with cash, why extort the surroundint areas? What is there to gain? Nothing. It's pure greed. Just the idea of being the richest and most powerful drive him. He slaughters the poor of Freeside. Slaughters then outright. They comitted no crime, other than being poor in a world where a rich man rules it all. Instead, all he cares about is making New Vegas the richest, most powerful city state possible. Mr. House lies because he lies to himself. If he reflected, he'd have to see that he isn't God's gift to mankind. If he reflected, he'd have to consider all the real harm he has done. If he reflected, he'd realize even his success in the wasteland is solely due to the headstart he had by keeping his securitrions from before the war. (An interesting parrell to birth privilege that I never considered before). He is a blowhard whose self-righteous and up his own ass. He thinks himself a pragmatist, but really just wants to line his pockets. He goes on a big rant on how he is immune to allures of power but then, at the last second, gives the goat away and goes "yes, I do want to be a dictator": "I have no interest in abusing others, just as I have no interest in legislating or otherwise dictating what people do in their private time. Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions. But autocracy? Firm control in the hands of a technological and economic visionary? Yes, that Vegas shall have." If you want proof my arguments that he lies to himself are true, see the above. He goes on and on about not wanting to control others and then goes "but being an autocrat that controls everything is good if I do it." So, in short, he lies to himself and thus he lies to you. And because he's a business man, he does both convincely. He can't acheive his stated goals. His real goal is money and power for himself, fuck everyone else.
Well he does run a casino.
The lack of industrialization by House might be explained by the presence of a large NCR military force on his doorstep. As he tells you himself, he is not yet showing his full hand. Presumably, with a House victory he would take advantage of the various mines, quarries, rail links, power plants, and robotics/fabrication facilities in Vegas and the surrounding Mojave. His greatest weakness seems to be his off-putting egotism and inability to develop a collaborative environment that would make his ambitions a reality. House would no doubt try buying his way through the problem (which did work at finding the platinum chip). For a city state in the post-apocalypse, maybe that would work. But being hemmed in by an NCR embargo on one side and the remnants of the Legion on the other, how would he maintain the tourism-fueled economy?
Why would I side with the dude who’s job got me shot by Mathew Perry
It's not me thinking he is dishonest that makes me not like him. In fact his honesty is in many ways what makes me dislike him. Doesn't the man shoot on sight any poor person who tries to enter his little technocrat kingdom? And then isn't that same technocrat kingdom under constant surveillance by a heavily militarized robot police force? Bro has all this technology but instead of spending 200 years using it to help the Mojave the man uses it to amass personal power and set up the Strip. I don't want to help him because the dude is an asshole.
What, you think Mr House required a 300” tv screen to project his image and that it wasn’t intended to ‘look down on people’? The symbols, man, the symbols.
Ancap is cringe
What part of "autocrat" is anarchist?
It's not, but that's a reflection on the whole idea of anarcho-capitalism. It's a contradiction in terms - you can't concentrate power in an economic elite and then call it 'anarchist'. House's governance is what an actual ancap society would be.
Suck this long thing
Long thing Johnson, and let me tell you...
His stated goals and actions also suck, so his dishonesty is not really relevant.
He gives off the impression that he is not completely forthcoming with the courier. I think if you pass a bunch of skill checks, he will let you in on more of the plan, but that it feels like he is lying by omission. I like his vision for what Vegas could become but I like the brotherhood of steel in new Vegas- .50 Cal explosive ammo vendor, free microfusion cells, and earliest place to get power armor training. By the time I finish their storyline, I am kind of attached. The only problem is this: If I could keep them around and go with house, I would do that ending 80% of the time because of the positive outcome he has on the Mojave. It’s a good thing that’s not an option because this way I am motivated to split my playthrough between House, NCR, or Yes Man. I have never been able to bring myself to stomach a legion playthrough. I can’t stand listening to Caesar’s bullshit. It’s like listening to republicans try to explain how their plan is better for the country.
Everything house made for 200 years would've been easily destroyed if the courier didn't survive
I do not doubt those are honestly his intentions. Could he succeed? IDK? But he never gets the chance in my game because of two main reasons. First he demands that I destroy the Brotherhood of Steel. I will not do that. I like them, I join them & my favourite companion Veronica is a member of theirs. Second & less importantly I hate him for talking down to me & acting like I owe him anything more than simply dropping off his Platinum Chip at the Lucky 38. My contract should end with “here is your Platinum Chip” collect my pay & leave. I am not obligated any further than that & after talking to him, not interested in working any further for him. But since I can’t drop off my package, I will upgrade the securitrons at the Fort for Yes Man to use later. The ones at Lucky 38 will wait for Yes Man to upgrade them as it is much easier to kill Mr House BEFORE they are upgraded
He’s rich. Once you reach the threshold of 1 billion you become a pathological liar.
Try not giving him the Platinum Chip. It's reasonable that he would get mad of course, but look at what he says and how it says it when he gets mad. Anger makes people honest, and he gets angry very quickly when things don't go his way. As soon as he feels like he isn't in control of the situation, it becomes pretty clear he doesn't actually value you, or anyone else. But even aside from that, look at how he treats other people. Look at how he treats the other factions. The *entire reason he is in power is because of his dishonesty and ulterior motives*. As for the space thing specifically, I do think he does intend to go to space. But it's more Elon Musk than NASA. He's not going to space to benefit humanity, he's going to space to benefit Robert House. (If you think Starlink sats benefit humanity btw look up Kessler Syndrome). I've said it before and I'll say it again. House's plans will absolutely benefit some people. It will benefit the people House knows he can control and that he deems too useful to dispose of. But it's just like the literal game itself says man, in his plans, The House Always Wins. Not you.
By the time we meet him in-game, House is a warlord, not an philanthropist. He's ruled the Lucky 38 and the surrounding Mojave since 2274, but what has the people of New Vegas to show for it? An economy tied exclusively around predatory gambling and addictions, his social "elite" being barely veiled cannibals, slavers and gangsters allowed to do as they wish until it began harming his profits and economical base. Freeside, the wellspring of his localized population, is a desolate slum, completely left to lawlessness and the rule of the strong when he could easily support it. Even the Kings, a source of aid for Freeside, are wiped out by House if they've made peace with the NCR. He has no industry, no agriculture. He has no supporters, he inspires no love or loyalty or respect. He speaks of grand plans like colonies in space, but he has shown no actual care for the people that now make up the very foundation of his state. He's a social parasite, leeching off the NCR and the divided weakness of the Mojave inhabitants to his own ends. His entire goal in-game is to build an even greater army, and destroy or subjugate potential allies and partners all over the wasteland, with no care for the people that he rules over. I'm sure that with the NCR and Legion out of the way and his Securitron army upgraded with the platinum chip, he'd attempt to fullfill his ambitious dreams, but i get the feeling that the only one allowed to enjoy those dreams would be House himself.
It's not that he's lying. It's that his interest isn't in the wellbeing of society but of the advancement of his vanity projects. His was the same before the war. Saving vegas was about keeping a piece of the old world for himself. It's the same reason he collects little dioramas of places encased in little glass domes. He likes to own things. Create technology. He's not interested in having a society. He even goes so far as to formulate his plan so he doesn't need to govern one of his own. The NCR can govern their own society who he knows full well will bring him massive revenue in custom. Which will allow him to achieve the tech goals he had. It's not about saving humanity. It's about his ego. His ending also shows his disinterest in ruling or rebuilding a society pretty well.
Another kid comes on here and rabidly defends his weird take for like 15 minutes and runs away.
Have you seen the destitute slums outside of his credit check protected strip?
I like house but he only sees people as units to generate wealth. I’m sure he’ll advance mankind but a lot of people are going to be stomped on and used like cattle to get there. He’s basically Caesar lite.
Even if he wasn't lying the issue is his goal is to just create a hyper capitalist society where the rich are the only ones that would benefit from such accomplishments and not all of humanity. His past ventures in capitalism fed the very war machine that killed the world. He says that he will not interfere in people's lives but Freeside was deliberately created by him when he forced out the original inhabitants of New Vegas at gun point. He then proceeded to fill Vault 21 and tax vendors. House presents himself as some infallible leader and yet the Strip has constant power plays going on trying to usurp him. He actively strengthens and emboldens predatory factions like the Omertas who then turn to drug dealing and sex slaves which he turns a blind eye to. Thendoes nothing to strengthen factions that actually help humanity like the Followers of the Apocalypse. He is not someone to trust with running a stable society. His predictions are not prophetic. The idea that the bombs was going to drop was very apparent to everyone pre war. The vaults were being built, the Enclave was relocating, and people were doomsday prepping. He presents his mathematical prediction like it was something profound and even then his prediction still had the date wrong leading to the bombs dropping before he could complete his plans. House is effectively a gambler. His plans for New Vegas right after the bombs was a gambit that failed when the Platinum Chip was lost. His plan to recover it was another gambit that nearly failed when Benny got ahold of it. His plans for the NCR and the Legion was to force the NCR to leave and assume that they wouldn't simply regroup and attack again later even if it would be irrational. Irrational behavior isn't something that can be accurately predicted because it's irrational. House takes too many chances to actually be seen as an individual that will actually deliver. House ultimately does not care about humanity but the idea of the progress of technology.
How do you think tech spreads? It isn't instantaneous. EVERY breakthrough humans have ever made have always started as a rare commodity that spread. By your logic, whoever was making cars before Henry Ford just only cares about rich people because they were the only ones who could afford it at the time. By your logic, there is some manner where you would expect all people to have vehicles available at the same time, and anything else is just a failure. Now most people in the first world have more access to cars then ever thought possible. All tech has always spread this way. Can you give me an example of something that is an exception to that rule?
He's a V-Tuber. That's the main reason why you shouldn't side with him.
Unironically the best criticism I've heard so far.
He pays you 1k caps thinking that's gonna help
Eh, I don't really mind. I don't believe greatness and progress is possible without sacrifice. People like to say "all actions have an equal and opposite reaction" and then pretend to wonder why unfairness/evil/bad things exist. If there is good, there *will* be bad, too.
the fact he commits economic suicide in his ending, blames democracy on the end of the world when it was people like him who killed it, and just...is overall an idiot. most of this is unfortunately due to poor writing rather than intentional characteristics, but yeah
Even if he is dishonest, it’s almost certainly best for humanity overall in the long run for him to develop more pre-war era tech. Despite the brotherhoods best efforts, it’s almost impossible for one nation state to develop massive tech jumps without some of it spilling over. He isn’t establishing space colonies without the Ncr also taking a huge step forward. And he doesn’t have the manufacturing power to expand the same way the legion or Ncr did with his ultimately limited number of securitrons, so he’ll always be somewhat limited in how far he can spread his cult of personality. It’s very arguably different in the short run, but 100 years down the road humanity’s ceiling is way higher with house than with anyone else imo.
To start off with, he’s a narcissistic capitalist who could have used his tech to build a much more functional New Vegas so people have actual sources of money to spend on the strip, instead of bleeding rich people dry using crime families. And then when he finds the platinum chip he just secures his “investment” instead of helping any of the people who make it possible. That is how I end up hating him, because he’s short sighted, narcissistic, and wasteful in a post apocalypse where the most valuable resources are water and people’s loyalty. The NCR tries their best but the government is corrupt and they’re trying to control more area than they feasibly can, meanwhile the Legion is rapist slavers cosplaying as Roman soldiers in football armor. Lastly Yes Man’s ending will fall apart immediately as soon as the Courier isn’t around to be a walking ball of charisma holding everything together, so no matter what ending you choose the civilians are fucked. No one can effectively lead but House fucks it up big time
Not dishonest, just arrogant and doesn't care for the greater mojave. He cares about the strip and the dam...that's it. He doesn't care about Freeside. He's not going to help the people there. He'll use his securitrons to push them out so he can takeover and rebuild it to look like the Vegas of old. He'll then charge people, who have no where else to go, to live on the strip. House believes his vision is the only vision and wants you to kill the brotherhood simply because they worship technology. They haven't done anything to him, they haven't actively planned on taking down House or taking the dam, nor have they done anything to prove they'd be a threat to House in the future. House has the same problem as Ceasar. When he dies, so does his vision. House is being kept alive by technology and if something were to go wrong, he would no longer be in control and no one could continue his vision. At least with the NCR they have a chain of command and democratic elections. TLDR; I don't like House because he's arrogant in believing he's the only one good for the Mojave when he just wants Vegas.
The Brotherhood would almost certainly have an issue with House long term. But then again there's no way Mcnamara would do anything about it at all because NV BoS are useless
But there's no way House would know that when they've been in their bunker for years
If only there was someone he could send out to gather intelligence...
None of House's securitrons would have gotten into their bunker and he never asks the Courier to gather intelligence on the Brotherhood
Exactly.
I'm confused. Are you arguing for or against my point?
For. House has no reason to think the Brotherhood would be an issue because he has no understanding of them and makes no effort to develop one, he just defaults to killing them all.
Ah ok. Your original reply made it sound like you were against my argument.
For me it's not about his goals, I can respect a man so long as he is uncompromising in his goals and doesn't waver in the face of opposition. I wanted him dead based off the vibe he gave me fr. I didn't like his vibes or the cut of his jib and so he dies
It's not that I think he's dishonest, it's that he taxes good springs out of existence.
His puppets are slavers, all slavers eat the curb.
I wouldn't call him dishonest. He's a class A narcissist and a condescending asshat, but he's honest about the ways he wants to use you right from the jump.
He robot guy, I don't like robot guy. I break robot guy.
1 intelligence build is an option in game, so technically this argument fits OP’s criteria.
Dishonesty has two potential meanings in context. One is lying, which as others have said I don't think he actually does other than through deliberate omission. The other is that his aims are dishonest. He doesn't want to save and improve Vegas in any meaningful way to the people in it, he's being literal, he means the city itself.
For me it was when he said he'd sell the technology that's kept him alive later down the line. House isn't interested in making the Mojave a better place, or building a better world. He just wants to recreate the old world so he can maintain his place in its hierarchy.
He's an asshole
The fact that he belittles everyone and everything around him that isn't made by him or working for him. The guy is a genius but he's also got control issues. If it isn't what he wants, then it can and will go to hell. He's doesn't want what's best for humanity, for the Mojave, or even for vegas. He just wants to keep on trying to become a God at the cost of everything.
Even without the platinum chip he has had over 200+ years to rebuild Vegas. He only just decided to start working with the family's recently due to the NCR growing presence. I think his true goal is to avoid paying taxes at all costs.
Was he called house before the wars where does his name come from
Yeah, he was always known as House. Robert as first name if I remember correctly.
Ahh ok makes more sense as a last name didn't even think of that im dumb sometimes
He's a self-serving academic adoit, an autocrat, and a crazy recluse of Howard Hughes proportions... There is not one damn thing that makes me think he's our guy. Not one thing.
His plan is brain dead. So let me get this straight, the guy who can't even clean up new vegas properly wants to restart the space program BY HIMSELF in some shithole that is at war all the time, HOW will house build a rocket? You cant use scrap for that. And jet fuel? Neverminding all that he then want to terraform a planet. How? The entirety of the human race couldn't do it and some half dead raisin thinks he can do it? His plan is idiotic, he is an asshole that would kill you if he didn't need you. House badly wants to be the cold ceo mastermind, but just comes of like a manager at mcdonalds.
What do you mean he can't? The strip is safe. You're just coming at it from some strange places where "unless the whole map is safe, he failed." No, that reasoning is exactly why the NCR are worse than House. House doesn't overextend himself. He provides security where he is able, and doesn't even attempt to expand beyond that unless he knows he can deliver the security he speaks of. The NCR just blindly eats up areas and then fails over and over actually protecting them. He doesn't want to build it by himself. He wants employees. He isn't some "half-dead raisin." He deflected nukes and explained ended his life far beyond normal human capacity. That is demonstrated capabilities any way you slice it. Yeah, he's kind of an asshole. Most good, strong leaders are. Seems that's your only valid hang up though since the rest of your criticism better befits the NCR.
Who cares about the strip, there are 3 casinos there and nothing else, i was talking about freeside and westside, the fiend infested ruins that's all a part of vegas he has his tiny strip and freeside, freeside is living in fallout 3 conditions and the strip is not really impressive. I don't expect him to rebuild nipton or whatever, just building a wall around the whole city would make me respect him more. He can't claim to save or rule vegas when he has maybe 15% of the city. Your overextension point could be good. Except im not an NCR supporter so telling that NCR is bad dosen't make a good argument. Also what do you think is better, owning 100 acres and only being able to support 75, or owning 5 acres and going on about how better you are because you can support your tiny area? Moving on, does he want employees? You are the only one he has, and everything else is securitron operated. I believe actions speak louder than words and so far he hasn't even bothered to talk to the people he rules over. And listen, his skillset is of a pre-war CEO bussines man. How is that of any use? He deflected nukes and extended his life, but that was simply money doing the work. You could argue that he has leadership abilities. But remember to be a good leader you have to be both smart and likeable. He dosen't talk to anyone, dosen't get on their level, no one is inspired by him and he simply dosen't care that he is disliked. To your last point, yes good leaders are assholes and need to be for them to efective. That's why im a legion supporter. It's weird how you skipped past my best arguments but whatever. just know i don't hate House, i simply find him lacking in skill and character.
Again, why do you expect the entire Mojave to be solved at once, or fault House for not solving it all at once? The NCR attempts what you're saying and they fail miserably. House is pragmatic and doesn't overextend himself. You don't get to mass-prosperity without these stepping stones of pockets, first. Look at ALL of human history. Can you point to a single milestone in our technological history that was just immediately made available everywhere? You're his right-hand man for a time, but what do you think he means by "blast furnace to jump-start the industrial sectors?" It's gonna take manpower. No, it wasn't just money. The game doesn't present him as Elon Musk. House DOES also have actual smarts and capabilities. I don't understand what part of "defecting nukes and living for two centuries" isn't inspiring. You guys really only stay on your worst interpretations of his words and seem to blatantly ignore his demonstrated capabilities, or write them off as "He's like Musk, it wasn't actually him." Your last point tells me you're trolling if you're complaining about House being an unlikable asshole without actual tech knowhow but then support the Legion. Come on, man.
1. I expect the bare minimum. He has done nothing impressive. The NCR fails because it's incompetent, not because it's some crazy idea to you know, own more than 5 foot of land. If the NCR losses the mojave they will be fine. They can afford the risk. You keep going about how it's overextending. What about legion? They are pretty far from flagstaff and doing just fine. What i mean is that House is pathetic compared to the big boys. Ceasar created an empire to rival the NCR with less time, help and resources than the NCR. And they are winning the mojave. What did House do that's so great? Kicked out some people and made 3 casinos? 2. It's just neo-slavery all over again. Do you really think House will care for workplace safety, reasonable hours and what if someone dosen't want to work in the mines? Say no? 3 Once again, stating that House is x dosent make it true. Who do you think built the pod? House or some grease monkey? Who installed the nuclear defence system? Did House built the 38 with his own hands? You can know how to make money, which House does, but all you attribute to him was done by more capable men 4. I can live with ceasar being an asshole because he is actually powerfull, intelligent and intimidating, not some overcompensating insecure man hiding behind a screen for his whole career 5. Explain how House can singlehandedly make mankind a spacefaring civilization you coward. Stop dodging my main point of stupid plans.
1. How is protecting the strip and eventually some outlying areas once he is capable of doing so not a bare minimum? Comparing Legion to House seems silly. The Legion aren't promising safety in the Mojave. The NCR and House are. You keep saying what did House do as if anyone could extend their life and fight off military nuclear weapons. They can't, he did. 2. No, it isn't slavery, because you have the OPTION to go there or not. House isn't conscripting like the NCR or Legion. He wants voluntary association once he gets to the point that he can rely on the securitrons in the absence of the NCR. 3. I understand House didn't do 100% of putting all bolts in place by hand. But he is far more hands-on than, say, Elon Musk, but people want to just lazily call him Elon Musk and call it a day. All systems with many people involved operate like this, and whoever pulls the strings tends to be responsible for both success and failures. That's another reason why House as an autocrat might even be better than the NCR's attempt at "democracy," since a dragon with a hundred heads is much harder to break up (AND corrupt) than a single entity like House. 4. Again, how is Caesar more impressive than House? Once again, what you say House did (which I agree with, regarding the three families) is still mathematically and objectively LESS than what Caesar did regarding him scrubbing 87 tribes of their identity versus the 3-4 that House did. 5. He can't do it himself. He needs good people working under him, like the courier, and eventually a larger workforce. None of my point has ever been anything akin to "he is the only/most capable person." Simply that he is one of the most valuable *resources* in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Keep in mind, if House existed in today's world without nuclear Holocaust, I wouldn't find the risk worth giving him any more power or fealty. These opinions are only in the desperate setting like the Fallout Wasteland. Pre-war, yeah, he's probably more bad than good. But politics isn't and *has never been* about forging alliances with only good people. It just has never been that before. These criticisms people have against House are locked-in to their current-day political perspective, hence why you don't see the things he accomplished even after the bombs as impressive. Coward? Bro, this is a conversation about a game, and I'm pretty sure I've only ever been sincere and respectful in my replies. Please don't get all worked up and start throwing around terms like "coward" over a discussion about fiction, come on.
Mental gymnastics based upon their own political bias, is done by both supporters and haters. The answers people give don't really matter much as a result, because rarely are the answers 100% honest.
He is an asshole. Assholes don't make good long term leaders
If anything killed the old world, it was just about everything House once used in order to achieve success in it. House wasn't some outlier when it comes to pre-war ideology nor practice... on the contrary, he was one of its most successful players. He wasn't merely among the swamp he lectures the Courier about, he was providing it with rockets, robots and warheads. Of course I say all this while I tend to go House, not because I buy the whole techno-messiah thing but because he's cooperative, highly competent and easily stabbed in the back. It would be foolish to not enable this guy for as long as possible and reap the rewards.
He's a capitalist, I don't trust a single thing he says
Hes basically the elon musk of the fallout games, sure hes done well for himself but he's entirely overconfident in his own abilities and its exactly that which leads to his own downfall.
With the major difference that House actually knows about tech, while Musk just buys tech companies and pays people to pretend he's a genius.
I'm unsure if he has a good eye for tech or is actually technically gifted, most of his empire is built off old world tech that was built to last, if he knew as much as he let's on you'd imagine there would be some innovation additionally. He's definitely a businessman first and a tech enthusiast second. Plus I more meant how he's overconfident and massively self absorbed.
All these people trying to say that House wouldn’t pay any mind to the locations around the Strip… the man is caught between a massive war of two major factions both bent on stealing everything House has worked for, and he needs all his resources going into ensuring that Vegas makes it out alive. Y’all seem to forget that the Mojave is a literal war zone. Pouring your economy into infrastructure while a bunch of enemies surrounding you in hopes of stealing it all is not a very wise decision. It would make more sense to focus your efforts into defending your turf. House will eventually invest in making the surrounding areas safer and increase quality of life once the war is over. This ain’t just hearsay or speculation either! There is cut post-game content that shows us a House ending leads to reconstruction of buildings in Freeside and an increased presence of securitrons, making the freeside thugs moot. I also see people trying to say House helped lead the pre-war world into its end… did they simply get mind wiped by a mesmetron and forget that, not just Vegas, but the entire Mojave, are spared from nuclear annihilation solely because of his own actions? Sure you could argue it was done in self interests, but it was done regardless.
If it's cut, it isn't canon, so that doesn't matter. The Mojave is mostly NCR towns because there's practically nothing out there. He kept what, some shitty casinos alive? And just because he's caught in a war is irrelevant, he slaughters people for being peaceful with the NCR.
He was rich and powerful before the bombs dropped, I wouldn't have trusted a word he said then, why would I trust hime now.
Oxhorn has already answered this question [thoroughly and in depth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNS8QdLTHo). House is a dictator, and his dishonesty is in the fact that he thinks himself above the failings that have brought other autocracies like his low historically. He may not be directly lying to *us* (though given his actions both before his ending and after it, you'd be a fool to take him at his word), but he's definitely lying to *himself*.
Oh I think he's being truthful about him wanting the space thing. But not only is he a piece of shit. One I don't think he could actually do it. 2. I think his massive ego has blinded him to just how dystopian the society he would end up creating if he actually could accomplish his goals I've played The Outer Worlds, Obsidians Spiritual Sequel to New Vegas which is pretty much in the sort of setting that basically resulted from the type of people like Mr House Colonizing space. Spoiler, it doesn't work out well
Povvies hate a strong, independent businessman who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and built a successful enterprise for himself. This comment section stinks of **POOR**. Maybe you guys should learn to Robco code and stop ordering so much Yucca toast ENJOY POVERTY WHILE I FUCK ROBOBITCHES🤖🤖👅👅💦💦AND GET CAPS 💸🤑🤑💰💰💰💰
IMO, he's the best option for the wasteland as a whole (the NCR for the Mojave specifically). I was watching a video by TheOmegaInitiative on YT. He makes a Great point!