I was thinking about this for a while now, and i had to ask, would robert house's government last long term?

Quite probably. The guy is nothing if not a master planner. The only reason he fails is because of the Wildcard that is the Courier. But then again, the only reason any of the sides fail is because the wildcard that is the Courier.

No.
He's basically running a city whose entire survival is based on a foreign superpower who he pissed off and all the while pissing off almost everyone who lives in the areas surrounding the strip.

Reeeeally?

After getting stiffed out of inheritance by his paranoid stepbrother, he manages to become a self-made tycoon and even subsumes the company his stepbrother inherited. He manages to predict the Great War down to a matter of days. He manages to salvage the wrench in his plans caused by this prediction uncertainty (IE: not getting the full L38 OS "Platinum Chip" in time) with quite a nice chicken bone defense against the NCR and Legion, and also saps the NCR to his own benefit with a constraining treaty.

Then, with the help of the Courier should he/she choose to, he gets the full OS (finally), gets the rest of his robot army, and really sets up. Like I said, the man is nothing if not a master planner. And failing because of the Courier isn't really his fault, all sides are subject to that peril unless the Courier chooses to side with them.

I don't doubt that he's taken into consideration the food/water situation.

House is the only one competant enough to keep things running.

That's some pretty back-story... it refutes the fact that House's economy is dependant on the gambling habits of an enemy because?

And for everyone saying he's "competant", he used his for-knowledge of the war and incredible resources to ensure that Las Vegas survived, not one of his centre's of industry or even a private Vault from which he could create and lead a new civilisation. No Las Vegas, nearly 200 years later is when he kicked into action... by recreating the Mafia because it made Vegas seem more authentic.

Some vision for the future, an amoral man entirely out-of-touch with what people want or care about; for all his genius he doesn't understand how people work and is certainly no leader.

What if the NCR stopped everyone from going to New Vegas? He would fail pretty soon after that.

They can't... because they want Hoover Dam. And that'd probably be in violation of the treaty that House cleverly yoked with them.

Except that he's essentially carved a tiny enclave wedged between the two superpowers of the known world. Even under a "master planner" which I don't really agree that House is, the geopolitical reality remains very tenuous, not to mention that House, really dosen't do much governing outside of Vegas and its evirons. He has a very laissez faire approach, which no doubt bleeds over from his business background, but that is not how a state is run. Plus, within the city walls, the three families are still very much a political force, two of whom have planned and/or attempted a coup against House. Even in the darkest days of the Afghan War, Karzai the "Mayor of Kabul" had more control over his country than House has from what we've seen in the ending slides. At least he had the capital somewhat secured, but House can't even say that of his kingdom.


House clearly dosen't give two [censored] about treaties, ever since he signed the original Treaty Of New Vegas he was trying to undermine it. I believe Moore knew something about his impending coup when she has you kill him in the NCR ending, and after he stabs them in the back in his ending, I highly doubt that the NCR would be in a diplomatic mood, considering that these are the people who have waged a relentless, century-long campaign against the Big Three raider tribes of the Core Region. An NCR embargo is not really a far-fetched notion considering they are a vengeful bunch. After stabbing them in the back, I highly doubt the NCR leadership would be thinking: "Oh, we can't authorize covert operations against this warlord, we have a treaty."

It's also a double-edged sword, House has some minor control over the NCR via their post-war treaty but House still remains dependant on the NCR tourists. House isn't calling the shots.

As long as House remains alive and in control of the securitron army then yes. The NCR might try to take Vegas eventually but would suffer extremely heavy losses and probably be defeated. House can live for hundreds of years so if everything goes right then his government could rule longterm and humanity would survive.

For a brief time, the N.C.R. would crush House though if they wanted the Dam bad enough.

House just wants his toys to play with, and to use it to follow whatever other whims he has.

Not much of a government, but it will last however long he does. The NCR might be able to take him if they commit a lot of resources in an assault, but I dont think the costs would be worth it.

What? House's government only comes about when he wins the dam and kicks out the NCR and Legion, at that point the treaty is broken.

House controls Hooverdam and the water from Lake Mead which the NCR desperately needs. House can leverage that to force the NCR to allow free-trade. The NCR didn't fight all these years losing thousands of men because Vegas had some minor resources of importance. So actually House is calling the shots as the NCR is more dependent on that water and power then House is on the income from the casinos. House can wait being over two centuries gives him that advantage the politicians have to keep the water and power flowing or they'd lose the next election.

House needs the income from the casinos to fund stage two of his master plan. If the NCR had been content with just Hooverdam and could be trusted to leave New Vegas to House he'd have been happy with that arrangement. But alias that peaceful resolution as cut from the game.

So in the short term they'd have to kowtow to House's demands and in the long term House can use the caps he earns to get Senators and such elected who'd push a Pro-independent Vegas platform. Plus any war would immediately cut off the supply of power and water to the NCR creating immediate unrest before any shots are even fired.

It would be a long time before the NCR would be ready for another war to try and claim the Mojave and by then they may be to dependent on one another to be anything bu allies. House can also claim credit for saving the NCR president and destroying Caesar's legion with his Securitrons.

Now here's the most important factor. WHICH ever side claims Hooverdam has the Courier. So if House claims New Vegas it was because the Courier was backing him.

Untrue among see the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Order_of_withdrawal House sets the terms for the new treaty.

As House will explain he'd have been perfectly happy letting the NCR HAVE Hooverdam if they weren't so determined to take all of Vegas from him. Seems to me the NCR doesn't give [censored] about treaties

True, just like an even more unstable "free" Vegas, the only way for too truly survive is to be worth as little as possible; that's all the securitrons are after-all, an army to defend with - not too attack.

And that "leverage" is hardly of any consequence to a country that has survived from their birth barbarian raiders, mutant armies, genocidal prewar tech hoarders, and the list goes on. They are waging a decades-long war with the BoS, who they have stomped into the ground, and are hunting down senile, elderly Enclave members with the persistance of Israeli commandos going Nazi hunting. They damn near lost the war with the BoS, and had to struggle just to not be wiped off the face of the earth, and you think a little electricity rationing is going to stir unrest? Considering the "late 19th century/early 20th century" state of their technology, I find it hard to believe that they are as dependant upon electricity as a 21st century first world nation, even though their demand for electric power is certainly increasing.

True, it might be a while before the NCR is able to retake the Mojave by force, but there are a lot of covert options available should the NCR choose to retaliate and undermine the regime, and House is not exactly in a position of strength internally. House still needs the Three Families to run his businesses, but they don't necessarily need him. He's just a TV screen to the average citizen, a "Big Brother" type figure, and they are the human face of the regime, and who do all the day-to-day work, while House does nothing and gets the lions share of the profits. And lest we forget, they are all businessmen when it really comes down to it, and if House's coup end up being bad for business, then they might not say no should a generous offer come their way. Then maybe an explosion collapses the Lucky 38, a tragedy with no survivors. You say House can wait two hundred years, but the NCR has a long memory too, just ask the Khans or any of the other people they've stamped out of the Core Region. I'm sorry, it seems rather out of character for them to accept a fait accompli, no matter who is in charge of the NCR. They respond to provocations and agression by stamping out the offending party, no matter the cost, no matter how much time it takes. That's how they've survived in a world where they are surrounded by nothing predators, traitors, and collaborators. In their mind, honor is reserved for allies and friends, enemies deserve no such thing.

Actually, the terms for the Ranger Unification Treaty were that in exchange for the NCR to absorb the Desert Rangers, the legitimate representatives of the Mojave who were protecting the Mojave long before House awoke from slumber, the NCR had to protect the Mojave from the Legion, which if I recall, includes both Hoover Dam and New Vegas. Vegas is not his to lose. Period.

lol i find it amusing that the NCR could have truly taken New Vegas if the Legion didn't come along...like literally if the Legion found Hoover Dam month or 2 later the NCR would have showed their true colors and tried to take New Vegas. All part of the Master Plan Mr.House...

and one thing i notice people missing is House doesn't want to rule the world. He only wants to rule New Vegas, he said it himself. He wants New Vegas to be the captial example of the Earth while everyone else wage pointless wars in the radioactive muck.

Actually, in his ending, he does. He has Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, the Lucky 38 with its main reactor online and a massive army of robots, each of which carries enough arsenal to wipe out a small town. His crucial asset is the Dam, which is the main source of power and water for Shady Sands and the core of NCR. All he has to do is flick a switch to starve the NCR of both. Furthermore, the NCR is a relatively small state, with only 700,000 citizens. It can field several thousand soldiers with common weaponry, but they're in no way a match for a pre-War army of robots toting rockets, grenades, lasers, and guns.

Second, the geopolitical situation is misrepresented consistently in this thread. The failure of Kimball's Mojave campaign and his fall from grace is going to be beneficial for House. As warhawks lose influence, more rational minds will prevail, who will appreciate the fact of having a buffer zone on their eastern flank. Basically, the NCR only has to pay for the water and electricity coming from Hoover Dam. Meanwhile it's House, not the Republic, who will carry the burden of protecting the east. No NCR lives or materiel will be wasted on a campaign described by Chief Hanlon as pointless. The only people who lose are Kimball, Oliver, Moore, and the rest of the warhawks that campaigned to take Afghanistan the Mojave for themselves.

I mean, seriously. Stop treating politics like kindergarten. This isn't a simple matter of "he took my toy, I'll beat him up with my pals."

So what your saying is they threw thousands of soldiers at the Mojave for a minor gain? BULL. If the Mojave's resources were hardly of any consequence then the NCR wouldn't have bothered fighting over it
So either
A: Its significant and the NCR can't risk losing access to it=House has Leverage
or
B: Its insignificant in which case its not worth throwing away anymore lives.

The fact is its stated in game the NCR needs the resources of the Mojave. Chief Hanlon mentions that they dried up all the lakes back east. And for five years the Hoover Dam has been providing the NCR with an abundant amount of electricity you try and take that luxury away you'll have riots from angry citizens and businessmen who've suddenly lost access to that, THAT is bad business and the cost of another war after the last disaster would be even worse for business.

Its also stressed again and again the NCR is over extended and you've just given a long list of reasons why the warhawks would be throne out of power and replaced with more diplomatic leaders.

*What mutant armies? the Master was defeated long before the NCR even existed.


The NCR is very good at pushing around small weak groups like The Khans. Or overwhelming an actively attacking enemy like the Brotherhood of Steel. The problem is the Khans and the Brotherhood never had leverage over them. House does. The Brotherhood of Steel as actively attacking them they didn't have much of a choice in that fight. House just wants them out of the Mojave they can still buy power and water from him at a cost which undoubtedly would be far lower then the cost in engaging in another costly war.

The Legion threatened to invade the NCR, so they had to be fought before they could grab a power base in Vegas. The Brotherhood of Steel was actively trying to take technology out of NCR hands, they had to be fought.

The NCR doesn't have to fight Independent Vegas inorder to get electricity and water, it isn't a threat for invasion so they don't need to protect themselves from that. They aren't raiders like the Khans. Also I've seen nothing to indicate the NCR is remotely competent at covert operations. How would they sneak a bomb anywhere near the Lucky 38 the Security would vaporize anyone coming close to the building.

Lastly House wins the Mojave it means the Courier backed him. The NCR has no counter for the Courier and for a historical reference plenty of countries fought and won wars of independence and when the dust settled turned around and engaged in peaceful trade with the former mother country because it was economically beneficial.

Even if the NCR sets its sights on retaking the Mojave it be years before they were ready decades even. By then House would probably have economic leverage on several prominent senators he helped get elected with campaign contributions. Making war impossible so long as the NCR remained democratic.

The NCR doesn't want to be in the Mojave, Kimball does. He doesn't want to lose the dam because it will shame him not because they will lose the precious resource. Sure they have the electricity but they don't absolutely need it.

And the water from lake mead is also just a bonus, if they really wanted large quantities of water then they would just move up into Oregon.

Plus a treaty of withdrawal doesn't mean the other country can't set up an Embargo or secure their borders.

They aren't a 21st century country where if you turn off the power, civilization implodes, they are just recently going through an industrial revolution, it's not like they've forgotten how to make things like candles or lamps or run a business without electricity in five years, most of the advlts were probably doing that for most of their lives. They've endured a lot, lot worse. If they didn't rise up when the Brotherhood was on the march, do you really think they will rise up just because they only have electricity for a couple hours a day? Hell, even steam power is just being reintroduced. Their need for electricity is growing, but it does not seem to be at a critical level yet.

You're missing the point entirely. Securing resources you're going to need in the future is not an unwise move, but saying that House's control of the Dam is like the Sword of Damocles from day one, is just frankly untrue. Your scenario makes sense 50 years down the road, but not in the short term. It is certainly in the interest of the NCR to control the dam in the long-term, and I would strongly support that course of action personally, but they'll survive short-term while they plan their next move.

You do realize that everybody around them used to be much, much stronger than them, hell, the Khans kidnapped the President's daughter and they had to fight their way from being a dusty little town beseiged by raiders into a modern nation-state, all of whom had the greatest kind of leverage, being able to physically wipe them off the map. And I think that the cost of kowtowing to a naked attempt at blackmail by a delusional warlord who's talking about building bases on the moon is a far greater price to any nation than any monetary value. Even viewing this issue through that frame of mind, in this case, the price of peace is infinitely greater than the price of war. If House is not dealt with as soon as possible, he will do nothing but drain wealth from the NCR like a common parasite, which is as great a threat as any of the NCR's foes, but in a different way. The threat of the Enclave, BoS, etc. is military, House's threat is economic.

That dosen't mean they won't be back, because given their history, the chances are good that they will. And as their need for electricty grows, the less inclined (if that's actually possible) the NCR leadership with or without Kimball will be willing to leave a hostile foreign power holding the keys to their economic livelihood. Some will argue that as soon as the war with the BoS is finished, the NCR should turn its attention to reclaiming the Mojave before they become dependant on an enemy, and it's not an unconvincing argument, either. There's a good chance that those voices will be heard. Will it be costly if it comes down to that? Of course. Will the public get behind the war? That's a mystery,but I think a sizable portion will relent when the full effects of House's "peace" begin to hit home. They might not support it, but they won't shed a tear over a robber baron getting some old-fashioned payback. In the end, this is a rough neighborhood, and such sacrifices are necessary to prevent House from gaining the kind of power you want him to have of the NCR.

I wasn't saying the NCR should engage in that sort of business, but one of the families did manage to sneak in a small arsenal from a secret patron once before, and in Vegas, you luck can change just like that. I think it would be a rather befitting end to a man who came to power by betraying others to be betrayed himself, don't you?

Why would the NCR be back if House continues to supply water, electricity, and defend their eastern flank? War is bad business, especially when you are going to face an enemy who controls a large part of key resources and oh, has a massive army of pre-War robots that cannot be bargained with, reasoned with, or broken through morale loss?

Seriously, your point doesn't make sense. The NCR would have no interest in invading the Mojave under House's control, just like House would have no interest in fighting the NCR. As House repeatedly explains, he would have no quarrel with the NCR if it wasn't trying to steal Vegas from under him. That's also why the ultimatum demands only the withdrawal of NCR military forces from the Mojave. NCR civilians are explicitly stated to be welcome in New Vegas at all times.

Really, the only thing the NCR loses is Kimball's face. The Republic and its people lose nothing. Funds that would normally go towards the military campaign are instead allocated to importing water and energy from House. Nothing changes, except for the fact that troopers will no longer die trying to hold on to a patch of desert (which is something the core NCR really hates).

As a side note, the NCR was founded in 2186. In 2161 it was a small farming village in the middle of nowhere. No President back then.

I have to agree here.

House appears to get a misrepresentation which I don't think is deserved. For the reasons you just stated, House does indeed "win" during the course of his ending.

The biggest thing I always find undervalued in House's considerable assets is the Securitron Army. We aren't privy to exactly how many are in this force, but appear to be enough for General Oliver to take the threat of a House offense into the NCR as a credible and viable threat. Given that, I see no reason to assume that the New Vegas Economic Zone is going to be some sort of proverbial pushover. The chips are considerably in House's favor.

Right, because countries like having to pay for [censored] they used to own. Please. You don't understand why the NCR would not want to deal with a man who just stabbed them in the back? Even when third world countries steal nationalize assets owned by foreign companies, they at least compensate them in some form. House strong-arms them out of the region and then charges ridiculous rates on water and electricity, how do you expect that to go down with the upper echelons of the NCR security establishment? Just because they might not all be thrilled with the the Mojave War dosen't mean they will happily accept being blackmailed.

You say House has no interest in fighting the NCR, but it seems to me that he has done everything in his power to humiliate and infuriate them. Maybe he can't help it, maybe he's just a pompous ass who can't turn off his arrogant, condescending demeanor, but he's a fool if he thinks he hasn't just made a whole lot of bitter enemies in the NCR security establishment with his blatant power grab. Like with much of what House does, it's not what he does, but how he does it.

Right, he wants to let in the NCR citizens because he wants to exploit them, plain and simple. Gambling and tourism do not create wealth, they merely siphon it off from elsewhere. New Vegas is a capital sink which wouldn't be a problem if it were not capable of creating capital flight from the NCR into the hands of a hostile foreign power. Trade agreements are generaly mutually beneficial, but this is not the case between the NCR and House. The costs of peace with House far outweigh the costs of war, and the divide only grow greater as time passes. War is bad for business, but a unfavorable peace is even worse.

Yeah, the only change is they are getting swindled by a warlord on a TV screen. Quite a good deal, there. Because the whole world exists to meet House's demands, isn't that right? People might not be fond of the Mojave war, but they tend to not like being betrayed and blackmailed, too.

Well, excuse me, let me rephrase then, community leader and *future* President of the New California Republic.