Is House good or bad?... or both?

[kedikat]

House seems too vain to be good enough for the majority of folks to live in his world. With a powerful and conscience free army to enforce his every moral and social ideal, he would be totalitarian. I suspect he would try to create his perfect world, where he would despise all the imperfect humans that kept messing it up. Eventually humans would be replaced by perfect robots.

[eLucifer]

I'd say he's a good guy. He might be forcefully controlling the Strip, but we can easily see he does it for the benefit of the mankind. Nevertheless, noone is supposed to be that old and he had to die.

[frank lee]

I think Mr. House is good. He really cares about New Vegas, and humanity. He may be a dictator, but he wants to be an invisible hand, someone who works for the good of his people, but doesn't need to be worshiped.

 

Just obeyed!

 

Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.

Benito Mussolini

[CryptorX]

Thanks for your replies...

 

Guess i was kinda right to kill him then, taking into consideration the most of you that is, still, i liked Victor =)... Well, life sucks!

[marharth]

I didn't think victor went away when you killed mr.house...

 

He was still there for me anyways, maybe because I went in with a stealth boy.

[RE0305]

In my opinion Mr. House is neither good or evil, in fact i don't think the simple good, evil or neutral applies in this game. It is more about deciding which philosophy you as the player most relate to, or which in your opinion has the best chance of benefiting humanity in the long run in the harsh conditions of a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

 

And as far as leaders go, in reality i don't believe in the idea of a benevolent ruler. The first and most important task of the ruler is to provide peace, stability and order for the people and as long as we humans suffer from the "human condition", the ruler is often limited to means that are perceived harsh at the very least, to achieve the task of providing peace, order and stability.

 

The question is, do we actually need a ruler or is democracy the way to go in the post-apocalyptic world?

I started my first playthrough as a firm NCR supporter, given my previous experiences in the fallout world and perhaps being a bit younger and a bit more idealistic at the time of fallout 2, but after speaking with Mr. House and Caesar my convictions quickly eroded to doubts and long cigarette breaks where i would contemplate over human nature and the future of the Mojave wasteland on saturday nights when i should have been woking on my research paper.

 

The point of my rambling is, i think, that perhaps you should look past the usual restrictions of a good or bad system and think about what you think would truly benefit the future of New Vegas in the long run, in its entirety and pack the player you think most likely would achieve that outcome.

 

Or perhaps think about which faction is the least to achieve that outcome and work against it, in case you find no appealing faction to support for their agenda, at least make sure the other guy doesn't win.

 

Or perhaps say f*** all and take what you can, since humanity is doomed anyway.

 

In case you are wondering, in the end i went the easy way and backed myself in the endgame since i actually still have not really found out for myself which of the factions i support, they all have appealing qualities alongside with their unappealing qualities.

 

(On a side note, i think it is a brilliant game that makes you go heavy on philosophy and doesn't give you an answer. It is for me at least)

[Rossum]

I think that House is more or less neutral. He basically wants to stay alive and have a presence on the world at large, kind of like what Doctor Braun would be like if he wasn't psychotic and stuck in a VR simulation. I haven't beaten the game (having lots of trouble with Steam lately) but here is my stuff so far...

 

Pros:

 

1. Saved Vegas from incoming nuclear missiles during the Great War.

 

2. Has access to pre-war knowledge, technology and infrastructure.

 

3. Is a genius... and a businessman. Being a businessman is good but not so important to give him another point (I'll explain more later).

 

4. He doesn't like the Legion.

 

5. He doesn't mind getting his hands dirty and has knowledge of warfare. Okay, not a really good point in his favor but his way of dealing with the Legion seems a lot better than my idea of "Just keep killing them until I level up and get better at killing more of them... also get lots of companions on my side and save often." He's not a pacifist and knows how to not only pick his enemies but works on a large scale.

 

6. He got the NCR to protect his place for him instead of just using his own Securitrons and the Families under his control... that's just slick.

 

Cons:

 

1. He's not really building anything. I might have missed something but I don't see Mr. Genius getting any factories running again or training the populace to build robots for him or even mass-producing Mr. House brand soda or something. He's just got his old supply of Securitrons driving around and monitoring a bunch of casinos... if I was an ambiguously morally aligned genius with an army of robots and a Strip full of money factories while society uses freaking bottlecaps for money then I'd be setting up medicine and food factories with my evil logo slapped on the front of them! I'd have the robot factories set up next or at least get some troops of minions armed with friggin laser beams.

 

2. He's not helping Freeside. I dunno what his deal is or why he only allows rich people in through the gates... you'd think he'd let in poor people to use as cheap labor but noo. Besides, The King has a gang of Elvis impersonators and the Followers have scientific and medical knowledge (not to mention the Gun Runners and Van Grafs have weapons). If he made friends with them then he could do all sorts of stuff. Who knows, maybe he doesn't know much about them or his deal with the NCR prevents him from acting openly but even that counts against him.

 

3. He killed a lot of people when he took over. Okay, I'm not really going to count that against him because he needed to control the Strip to have a fighting chance against the NCR (also I'd probably have killed at least some of those people anyway if I was there). If he didn't take over the place quickly then the NCR would have taken over and House would have been just an interesting mummy in a pre-war bunker. I'll give him this because it was basically self-preservation.

 

4. He filled half of that one vault with concrete. ... alright for some reason this bugs me even more than him killing all those people. He took a (seemingly) perfectly good vault and destroyed most of it to get everyone out. Unless the thing was radioactive or something then there is no good reason to destroy a perfectly good underground lair like that. I suppose it did get people out who were agoraphobic but there's better ways to go than that.

 

5. He's using the same stupid caps as everyone else... seriously, if this guy is actually trying to rule Vegas then you'd think he'd try to get some actual currency going on. Maybe have New Vegas Chips be the new currency, anything would be better than having jagged metal in your pocket. From what he's done so far, Mr. House doesn't seem to really plan on changing anything.

 

6. He might ask me to kill some people later on. I haven't gotten far enough to really be bothered (didn't even make it to the Boomers yet) but if he asks me to kill anyone in Goodsprings, the Followers of the Apocolypse, or the King then I'm bailing out on him if I can't convince him otherwise.

 

7. Come to think of it... he doesn't have anyone else frozen with him! He's just one guy with a few robots to keep him company (and they don't even clean up the main gambling floor). Why doesn't he have some employees frozen in capsules with him like Braun had in the Capital Wasteland?

 

Quirks:

 

1. He's a technician - Okay, I'm not sure if he really is an engineering genius or he's more of a businessman but I'm getting that he's more concerned with the money and the machines than the people he's dealing with. In pre-war times then he probably had other people dealing with PR, marketing, and the other people skills. Right now he's just one guy against the world and doesn't have a modern day diplomat to work with him.

 

2. He's in glass tube - In his current state he can't see how the world is first hand, he may see things through his Securitrons but thats not likely to let him really understand the average persons plight. 200 years in a tube isn't going to help his sanity either.

 

 

 

 

In short... I think he's probably a decent guy but I wouldn't make him absolute ruler of the area. He's likely more of a problem solver who needs someone else to handle the nitty gritty diplomatic and political stuff while he concentrates on building spaceships and the like. If I or the NCR were to rule Vegas wile House went back to being a businessman running RobCo then that would be perfect.

 

The NCR or myself would run the armies that keep the gangers, legion, and fiends at bay (notice how House doesn't use his robots or mercenaries to fight the fiends nearby... he could be doing it to conserve his own resources but it could be that he just doesn't have the patience for that level of stuff) and generally look after peoples well being while letting House/RobCo get pre-war factories running again. If he wants to play with casinos then so be it, he can totally have them as long as some of that gets taxed and put into the economy. I'd love it if House got some more robot factories set up and the NCR could just buy robots from him to supplement their forces.

 

I think House just wants to control Vegas and play with his casinos. The robots are the only 'loyal' forces he has because his old employees all died centuries ago and guys like Benny were just freshly recruited to his side (note that House didn't really care what was going on up on the surface till the NCR showed up... he probably would have left the people in Vegas alone if there wasn't the threat that a technologically advanced force/army might show up and take over everything). He's mostly doing his war games and building the Strip like it is to preserve himself and half-heartedly try to advance civilizaion... while cooped up in a tube with nobody he can trust.

 

Basically, he's a genius in some areas but not all that good with people and politics... particularly after being frozen and facing a whole new civilization arising alone without someone else to handle the nitty gritty stuff. If an actual democratic government (or hell, any government) was set up to handle the problem of warfare and public utilities while House went back to running a company then everything would be perfect. Its just that House is in a position where he feels he has to stay on top and beat everyone else or risk losing everything he has.

 

In a world where the two-headed bear is coming from the west and the legions of the lion are coming from the east, House is a turtle in the middle armed with a gun. He'd probably prefer to just be left alone, but he knows that isn't going to happen. He doesn't trust the NCR enough to really side with them, and by trust I mean forever. He spent two centuries in that tube and its likely that he'll have a few more if things go well. He doesn't want to place his trust in someone, get betrayed, and face an eternity of someone poking around at his life support while he's helpless to do anything. He might side with the NCR now and this regime might honor their deal but a few decades down the road things might change and House would have to work to beat them without the help of his robots or whatever.

 

 

Thus... House isn't a good ruler over people but he is good with technology and right now he's in a bind over self-preservation. I'd prefer it if I could get the NCR to rule the place with House as an ally, I'd even like to rule the place myself with House safe and maybe running a business or the like, but I think given the possible endings I'd go for siding with House (so he can win the War and stay alive without me having to open the tube) and then me being a good-aligned lieutenant and handle all the nitty gritty stuff in the wasteland while he makes robots and such. Hopefully in a few years we could mend relations with the NCR and work something out to keep everyone happy and House alive.

 

Oh... and if for some reason I get the chance to become immortal? I'd have my brain put in a Robobrain body... if I'm going to live forever I want to move around.

[CassiPie]

Also, the Brotherhood of Steel pose little or no threat to him, but he still wants them wiped out. Without a doubt, he'd have probably used to Boomer's Howitzers to eliminate both the Legion and the NCR.

 

 

I agree on the first point, there should have been a speech check to talk him out of it and convince the Brotherhood to stay out of the way. Perhaps a very hard check (100 speech and 100 barter both required), but it should exist.

 

The second point is just objectively incorrect. The NCR are (his own words) his best customers. If not for them wanting to take what he sees as his property away from him, he wouldn't have any problem with them.

 

I think Mr. House is grey, but more good than bad. I think that he's the second best choice for the region. Yes Man>House>NCR>A committee of deathclaws wearing top hats>Caesar. Of all choices, Mr. House is most likely to help humanity as a whole recover from their current state. The NCR is morally better in that they have more regard for individual rights and justice, but don't strike me as very effective leaders.

[Liquidacid23]

good/evil (like all morality) are perspective based so that question can not be answered with an absolute only an opinion... it all depends on your personal opinion, experiences and view point as to which side is good and which is bad.. I'm a complete moral nihilist . I don't see House as good or evil just as one side in a conflict.. Personally I didn't side with him because his plan basically sets him up as a dictator of the region and I prefer a republic and they strike me as the largest and most powerful faction in total so the best choice for stability of the region.. tho if House or even the Legion had been stronger and a better chance I would have sided with them Edited November 27, 2010 by Liquidacid23

[DocSeanson]

Mr. House represents the need for humanites survival no matter what needs to be done.

 

The NCR represents the need for organized control and the support from the people more then automated workers.

 

Caesar represents the desire to take all that you can, because the weak can not keep it themselves.

 

Chosing to go your own path shows ambition and the need to see true freedom released.

 

 

Thats how I seen the endings.