Fallout: The Frontier - Released!

Honestly, I love the way how House is written, because he's quite clearly a Narcissist, but most players will take his explanations as to why he does the things he does at completely face value, not realising how genuinely unsettling the way House acts is.

Like most of his explanations as to why he's doing the right thing come down to "I'm impervious to corrupting ambitions for money and power, you can see by my actions that I'm solely interested in human progress", "With my help mankind can be on the moon in 50 years", and it's like everyone takes that to be 100% true, but this is literally a man who wrote his own obituary calling himself the only hope for humanity. All of his arguements basically amount to him being a singular great figure, and everyone else being more corruptable than him.

He's implied to have literally dated an actress SOLELY so he could write a code to virtually simulate her behaviour in the event of an apocalypse, he literally created a massive ghetto for any of the Vegas locals that he couldn't intergrate in to his own society.

The game repeatedly shows you how blatantly abusive House is, and how he's willing to basically step over and manipulate anyone towards his own ends.

The great thing about New Vegas is that most players don't really examine it much beyond "What do these factions believe in?" and don't realise that there are multiple additional levels of subtlety: the people who tell you what they stand for and what they represent are not reliable narrators(Arcade literally points out that Caesar has basically abused Hegelian philosophy to feed his own megalomania about being the single most important figure in history), and a lot of the subterfuge done in the Mojave requires a lot of critical thought to realise what's actually going on.

 

I kinda take him at his word when he talks about technological progress and that's about it. But that's partly because many dictatorships have historically been very efficient throughout Europe and Asia. But at the same time, how many people would honestly like to live under that kind of paranoia and authoritarian hell? And you're right. Even when he says he's incorruptible, his wording makes him sound so full of himself. If you refuse to give him the platinum chip, his real nature is revealed: "It's MY invention, MY property. MIIIIIIIIINE". He sounds really petulant and childish there.

 

This video is insane, it feels like a parody.

 

nope he seriously thinks this. all because he played fallout 4 first.

and he made a video saying Bethesda can't replace their engine as their games are to complicated and if they change it everything will break.

basically he is a Bethesda shill that thinks only fanboys like new vegas and is overrated.

 

I'm not really sure why you people are wasting brain cells talking about this guy. He's got what, 15,000 views? Let him say what he wants, and stop giving him free publicity. There are many like him, and there will continue to be. We'll outlast them, because our reasons for our love for these games come from a greater understanding of what the games are about. I'll save my spite for an argument worthy of rebuttal.

I guess I should clarify what I mean when I say that House is more manipulative than Caesar... it's not intent, but rather the tactics that he uses. Clearly they have the same level of egomania, but Caesar actually gives you far more leeway than House to do as you see fit, and is quite a bit more direct and less patronizing, despite his motives being much more malignant. The only thing that he's absolutely firm about and will call you an idiot for questioning is the assassination of Kimball. House on the other hand is MUCH more paternalistic, and bristles at any questioning of his orders. Both are what you might call "hands-off" leaders. Caesar has a hands-off leadership style because he has a cadre of relatively competent individuals at his disposal. House is really only hands-off because he can't afford the risk of his best customers turning on him. That being said, House has much more of a personal relationship with the Courier, seeing you as almost a protege. In my view, Caesar never sees you as anything more than an exceptionally useful employee really.

 

I can assure you ma'am that is not happening.

 

yeah he barly gets any views unless it's drama related. he is a no body in terms of the yt world.

 

Yeah, this was one of the reasons why I never sided with House. He would always "pussy-foot" around any questions I have with an answer that basically was "Bro, just trust me". He was also very full of himself such as calling himself "Humanity's Only Hope". He is as arrogant as Caesar who is also full of himself and who called himself "The Son of Mars". If you think about it, there are a lot of similarities between Caesar and House. Both view themselves as incorruptible, both have a overblown view of themselves, both are egotist, both are indifferent to the suffering around them (House with the Outer Vegas residents and Caesar with the Legions slaves), both believe that only they can lead humanity to prosperity and, both view the people who work for them as nothing more then tools that they can use to further their agenda.

 

It might be just because I've known men like House in my own life but I always transparently saw him as an excellent businessman but not some kind of visionary utopian leader. He's a particular kind of businessman that has been given his dream opportunity of being a dictatorial CEO beholden to basically nobody and free to run things "My way or the highway".

I was actually surprised to learn that people took his spaceship thing literally. It always came off as a sales pitch to court the courier over, delivered with the believable zeal of a successful businessman who's had a lifetime of spin and risky projects that needed to win the right people over.

I definitely agree that Vegas has that aspect of Caesar and House claiming to be one thing but the reality showing them as another. For Caesar it's the Hegelian dialectics and the grand purpose contrasted with a swarming army of cultish psychopaths who just want to annihilate NCR completely and view the Legion as already the superior ultimate form of civilization. For House it's the utopian beacon of futurism contrasted by a man who doesn't give a shit about humanity in a meaningful sense and chose Las Vegas and the fundamentally exploitative casino tourism industry as the backbone for his revival.

 

Maybe it's because the game actually shows that House has been interested, invested and actually working to achieve the whole space exploration/mining resources thing even before the bombs fell.


Here's an old post I made about this same topic:
https://www.nma-fallout.com/threads...vault-social-experiments.219215/#post-4378904

 

Well, because post WWII Autocracies HAVE often been good with the expansion of research and development. It COULD be a sales pitch, but more than likely, he's very serious about that part because he's an inventor and tech giant who demonstrated the ability to resurrect Vegas, reinstate capitalism and get it to actually working again. Meanwhile, NCR is failing with the same thing. House unnaturally fast at organizing and educating people as seen with the three families and he turned Vegas into a honey trap for the mighty NCR in record time. As Shu says "we came here to annex Vegas, but they annexed us". But whether he's serious or not his development plans is probably the wrong question to ask because it assumes that House's grand vision is worth it, and this assumption throws away the need to think. Mr. House's pitch is "Look dummy, I'm a certifiable super genius who's entire life is defined by near constant success, innovation and corporate survival and that gives me more right to rule than anyone you can elect". Perhaps the better question regarding House is "what would an advanced society look like under the influence of an immortal, paranoid dictator who cares more about progress than lives? Could such a thing be worth it in the first place?"

 

To me, Caesar is a Self Mark who fell for his own Hype, which is a big no-no. Nobody likes marks and self marks are the worst. House reeks of that Ayn Randian self absorbed Gazillionaire hero who will make all the sacrifices he needs to save the day at any cost, especially so since those sacrifices and costs are paid by others, you just got to trust the plan, he is smarter than you after all.

 

See, this is where the real meat and bones comes in: how you view human history.

Whether House's "I was a billionaire 20 times over, I singlehandedly created the tech of the oldworld" shtick is actually convincing depends on how you view the powerful: are the Mr House's of the world actually singular inventors and visionaries, and is RobCo what it is because of him alone, or are they just those who have the power and connections to sell the idea to others, and take all the credit?

Whether or not you take a Great Man of history approach, or a more co-operative view of human history matters intensely to how much faith you put in House's abilities.

Is Mark slang for something I don't know about?

Anyway this struck me as funny because there was a guy in my Philosophy Undergraduate course called Mark who was a member of the Socialist Worker's Party and ALWAYS had hot takes and interpretations of Marx that he sounded 100% reassured of, but were obviously wrong to anyone who had actually read any Marx. He was bald too.

So replace "Marx" for "Hegel" and Caesar quite literally is a Mark.

 

Though it shouldn't really mean anything, it's worth noting that in the GECK, House's Luck is a lot higher than his Int. No doubt the guy is actually a technological innovator though. They make it pretty explicit in his backstory that he didn't coast off of generational success.

 

It's a wrestling term i believe.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Wrestling Mark

 

Speaking of Caesar and bad understandings of philosophy, I almost feel like Hobbes would have been a REALLY good fit for Caesar. My understanding of Hobbes is shallow and just enough to skate through my class (much like Caesar in the Boneyard) but I feel like pre-Legion Arizona is very analogous to the "State of Nature" and I feel like justifying himself and the Legion as the sovereign/leviathan would have been a perfect puzzle piece fit.

 

But it's a bit boring and doesn't really jive well with the game's themes on the whole

 

Holy fucking shit partner, his brain has to be the smoothest thing in the planet.

 

I meant as in addition to Hegel rather than replacement.

 

I never thought this thread would reach 40 pages, considering how we got bored at the point of discussing other things, the frontier is basically a dead horse that was stepped on, mutilated, burned and disintegrated.