Mr. House is an Objectively Horrible Planner/Strategist:

MrHouse.txt | Fallout Wiki | Fandom

Behind the Bright Lights & Big City | Fallout Wiki | Fandom

Mr. House loves to portray himself as being some hyper-intelligent 5D-chess player and master strategist that takes every possible variable into account and has contingency plans for practically ever feasible/possible scenario well in advance of them ever playing out. Suffice it to say that he's in all actuality a massively egotistical imbecile with immense delusions of grandeur and I can prove it. Let's start from the very beginning going into the Great War.

The Great War:

Mr. House prides himself on predicting that the Great War was imminent and thus made all manner of preparations to ensure that he could preserve his own life over the course of centuries and protect the only place on Earth that he truly loved/idolized, that being the city of Las Vegas. The end result: Mr. House was off on his prediction for the precise time of the Great War breaking out by 20 hours, resulting in him not receiving the Platinum Chip in time to utilize it in his defense of Las Vegas. While that doesn't seem all that bad on the surface, believe me when I tell you that it was nothing short of catastrophic for Mr. House, almost fatally so.

By his own admission, 9 out of 77 Chinese nuclear warheads targeting the city successfully managed to penetrate his defenses, dealing a great deal of damage to Las Vegas and its immediate surrounding areas with the nuclear fallout immediately killing off almost the entire population of the city according to the Official F:NV Game Guide. Oh but it gets better as because of the fact that Mr. House was forced to rely on the vastly inferior Mk.I OS due to not receiving the Platinum Chip on time. The end result: repetitive system crashes, frequent power outages, the Lucky 38's nuclear reactor nearly going into meltdown (forcing Mr. House to shut it down, accordingly; definitely not going to bite him in the ass later, or anything) and a wholesale reboot of his entire mainframe followed by Mr. House going into a coma for decades.

Truly amazing planning there, chief. It's almost as if "perfect plans" require everything to go perfectly with literally zero margin for error. This definitely isn't going to be a constant problem in regard to Mr. House's future plans and totally won't jeopardize his grandiose ambitions in even the slightest sense of the word, or anything.

Everything Pre-Fallout: New Vegas:

VFSBeatrixRussell.txt | Fallout Wiki | Fandom

According to the Official F:NV Game Guide, Mr. House awoke from his coma in the year 2138. Why is this particular year significant, you might ask? Simple. That means that Mr. House emerged into the broader wastes 23 years before the events of Fallout 1. Meaning that this is long before the NCR and the Legion were ever even thought of all while the Master was only just starting to create the Unity, the Enclave was in total seclusion from the outside world and the Brotherhood of Steel was almost entirely confined to Lost Hills. In essence, Post-War North America is literally an open book and a blank slate that Mr. House could very literally do whatever he wants with all while having to fear absolutely nothing in the form of consequences from any potential outside aggressors. He also very clearly has enough emergency power reserves to last centuries in addition to the means to acquire enough bottle caps to hire salvaging teams to search for the Platinum Chip over the course of literal centuries, at least. So what does Mr. House choose to do, you might ask?

Was it:

A. Mobilize and deploy your Mk.I Securitrons into the ruins of Las Vegas, conquer/subjugate and indoctrinate the local tribes akin to what Caesar would do over a century later (something that he will definitely not regret failing to do, to be sure) and conscript said tribes into an army/labor force that can rebuild/defend the city from outside aggressors as well as restore critical infrastructure (i.e. Hoover Dam) for his own benefit.

B. Waste entire centuries worth of emergency power and bottle caps searching for the Platinum Chip and allow the surrounding wastelands to recover and rebuild from the Great War under the banners of actual nations that will eventually become too powerful for him to handle alone all while doing absolutely nothing to restore Las Vegas and prepare for the eventuality of hostile foreign powers coming in to conquer it for themselves until it's far too late.

If you chose A., then congratulations. You are far more intelligent and infinitely more farsighted than Mr. House clearly is despite being quite wrong.

If you chose B., then you're correct. Mr. House chose to piss away entire centuries searching for the Platinum Chip and deliberately left the blasted carcass of Las Vegas to rot as the local tribes squabbled amongst themselves for what little food, water and shelter they could find and were forced to subsist in a squalid barbarous state as a direct consequence of Mr. House's negligence. Predictably enough, the rest of the wastelands beyond the Mojave Wasteland eventually recovered, were gradually brought under the fold of rising civilizations (California, Oregon, the Baja Peninsula and parts of Nevada under the NCR to the west; Arizona, New Mexico and small parts of Utah and Colorado under Caesar's Legion to the east) and said rising civilizations finally decided to expand their borders in the direction of the Mojave Wasteland.

Only after the single largest military force in the entirety of the wastelands began to march on Las Vegas from the West did Mr. House finally decide to take action and deploy his Mk.I Securitrons into the ruins of Las Vegas and start recruiting local tribes 133 years too late. As for how Mr. House chose to go about recruiting these tribes, did he:

A. Forcibly subjugate and conscript all of them regardless of their consent or approval followed by intensely brainwashing and indoctrinating them to be fanatically devoted to your cause (something that Caesar did with remarkable efficiency and with far less resources, I might add).

B. Give them a choice, forcibly slaughter/expel any that refuse to go along with him (definitely won't lead to long-lasting bitterness and resentment from the survivors, but I digress) and just blindly trust whoever accepts your offer (absolutely won't have any kind of long-term consequences, whatsoever, I'm sure).

If you chose A., well then you're kind of an evil prick but an ingenious/brilliant evil prick with more brains than Mr. House and thus I salute you.

If you chose B., then you're correct. Mr. House chose the incredibly sloppy and lazy option which he'll soon come to regret big-time, as I'll explain in time.

In any event, Mr. House was still well and truly screwed, anyways, given that 1. even by his own admission, he didn't have enough Mk.I Securitrons or tribals to last long against the NCR Army and 2. by his own admission, he was right about to run out of power by that particular point in time.

But wait, what's this? Yet another massive army just randomly shows up from the East which also just so happens to have set its sights on Las Vegas and is also large enough to force the NCR to avoid outright seizing Las Vegas by force lest it leave itself vulnerable to the other army in question? Well wasn't that convenient? Even more convenient is that the NCR is now forced to sign a treaty with Mr. House that allows him to solve his impending energy crisis by forcing the NCR to share electricity production output from the newly-restored Hoover Dam. He sure is lucky that the Legion just happened to show up out of nowhere as the NCR would've had him dead to rights, otherwise.

Oops, nevermind. The NCR just smashed the Legion single-handedly in the Battle of Hoover Dam. It looks like his luck didn't last long given that the NCR just achieved a total decisive victory over the Legion is now free to seize Las Vegas by force and..... oh wait, nevermind. It turns out that the NCR's main supply line leading through a place called the Divide was just mysteriously nuked right before the Battle of Hoover Dam. Meaning that the NCR wasn't able to capitalize on their crushing victory over the Legion which, in turn, means that the Legion will receive enough time to recover and make preparations for a second battle for control of Hoover Dam. In other words, the NCR will be too distracted preparing for yet another clash with the Legion to worry about Las Vegas for the foreseeable future. Talk about an insane lucky streak on the part of Mr. House. I sure hope that his entire brilliant plan doesn't rest solely on blind luck and everything just randomly falling into place for him ahead of time.

The Actual Events of Fallout: New Vegas:

VMS21BigSal.txt | Fallout Wiki | Fandom

VMS21Nero.txt | Fallout Wiki | Fandom

VMQTopsYesMan.txt | Fallout Wiki | Fandom

Benny.txt | Fallout Wiki | Fandom

Lucky38FollowerEmily.txt | Fallout Wiki | Fandom

Mr. House has finally found the Platinum Chip after 143 years of searching for it. Now just to get it safely delivered to him back on what is now the New Vegas Strip. Now how does he go about it, you might ask? Does he:

A. Use a massive caravan that's teeming with heavily-armed mercenaries and would be entirely safe from the likes of the Mojave Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel (who wouldn't be able to do a damn thing to it post-HELIOS One, but I digress) and raiders (i.e. the Great Khans and the Fiends) despite what Mr. House likes to claim.

B. Use a lone courier that is in grave danger of becoming Cazador food, Deathclaw shit or a victim of the likes of the Powder Gangers and the Fiends.

If you chose A., then you get a gold star for excellence.

If you chose B. then you're correct. Mr. House was indeed stupid enough to gamble everything on a single courier being able to make it safe and sound to the New Vegas Strip without dying or being robbed of the package. Sure he had other couriers to use as dummies all while he screened all of the avenues of approach to New Vegas with mercenary teams. But he also failed to account for random detrimental events taking place out of nowhere (i.e. the NCRCF Prison Break and the Deathclaw infestation at Quarry Junction shutting down the I-15), the obvious fact that groups such as the Great Khans and the Fiends would still be an obvious danger to the courier in question and the fact that his own protege/right-hand man would betray him.

The end result: the courier in question gets kidnapped, has the Platinum Chip stolen from him/her and then gets shot in the head. Now hold on a second. How did his protege, who is supposed to be loyal and faithful just because according to the future of humanity himself, even know about the Platinum Chip? Nevermind where to find it and where/how to ambush the Courier transporting it?

The answer: his not-so-loyal but incredibly ambitious protege Benny was able to successfully disable one of Mr. House's Securitrons and reprogram it to be the font of all of Mr. House's secrets with the assistance of a Follower of the Apocalypse named Emily Ortal. All without Mr. House even being aware of it (by his own admission, mind you), at that. Almost as if going the Caesar route from the very beginning would've allowed you to avoid this whole mess of a situation, huh?

But that's ok, because the courier in question managed to survive by nothing less than a total miracle and will just magically be the answer to all of Mr. House's prayers. Sure, he has no guarantee that this courier will even give enough of a shit to try and get the Platinum Chip back for him or that said courier would even survive the journey to the New Vegas Strip even if they decided to want to honor their contract for whatever reason. And there absolutely is no chance at all (definitely not a 75% chance) that this random person won't just decide to betray and kill him for any particular reason, whatsoever. What could possibly go wrong with this plan? It was made by humanity's best hope for a proper future who definitely hasn't made mistakes or miscalculations in the past.

But what about the New Vegas Strip itself? Surely Mr. House runs a tight ship and a truly immaculate operation with all of his other employees who aren't Benny being loyal and faithful to a fault, right? Let's go check in on them, shall we?

1. The Omertas, owners/operators of the Gomorrah Casino: literally actively conspiring with a foreign hostile power (the Legion, to be exact) to use a combination of chlorine gas and a shitload of guns acquired from sources in New California to massacre every single person on the New Vegas Strip who isn't one of their own as part of a broader attempt to conquer the New Vegas Strip for themselves and overthrow you. Who would've thought that recruiting a tribe that was literally infamous for being deceitful, deceptive, manipulative and treacherous slaver/betrayers to run one of your casinos was a bad idea?

2. The White Glove Society, owners/operators of the Ultra-Luxe Hotel & Casino: rehabilitated cannibals who are only one eaten human away from relapsing back to their old habits and are perfectly willing to conspire with a hostile foreign power (the Legion, yet again) with but a mere suggestion once they've relapsed. Why the fuck would you think that recruiting fucking CANNIBALS with no actual loyalty to you personally was a good idea?

3. The Chairmen, owners/operators of the Tops Casino and Resort: their leader is already actively trying to overthrow you not to mention that, by your own admission, the rest of the Chairmen won't turn against one of their own without overwhelming proof of guilt being acquired against the guilty party in question. Almost as if you should've been every bit as ruthless as Caesar when it came to recruiting your employees.

Is it any wonder why Mr. House always seems to rely purely on raw, blind luck and random conveniently-timed last-minute contrivances to save his skin rather than any actual "genius", "foresight" or actual ability to plan ahead? Good lord is he the most short-sighted moron in the entirety of the franchise.

I could keep going but I honestly do feel that this is more than enough to get my point across. Say whatever you want about the NCR and the Caesar, but at the very least they've actually managed to accomplish a massive deal on their own without having to be baby-sat 24-7 by the protagonist unlike Mr. House. You honestly have to wonder how he's managed to survive as long as he given how ridiculously dependent on chance that he is. Cheers.