A tragedy has befallen all mankind

**A Tragedy Has Befallen All Mankind** is a paper note obituary in *Fallout: New Vegas*.

## Location

It is automatically given to the Courier after killing Robert House in the Lucky 38 casino's control room at any time.

## Transcript

Robert Edwin House, 261, President, CEO, and sole proprietor of the New Vegas Strip, industrialist and technologist, founder, President, and CEO of the multi-billion-dollar pre-war robotics and software corporation, RobCo Industries, has died.

Generally recognized by Mr. House to be mankind's only hope of long-term survival, Mr. House's passing may well sound a death knell for the entire human race.

Lost forever is his bounty of knowledge concerning human longevity, the depth and breadth of which could, as he was apt to say, "fill several text books." He was not exaggerating. Though he did not achieve his goal of functional immortality, let us not forget that he died at the age of 261. How many people do that? I mean, come on.

Also lost forever are House's singular personality, force of will, vision, and leadership ability. The probability of an equally capable figure emerging from the current human population to lead mankind to a future of equivalent quality is less than 0.000112% by objective measures too complex to detail in this obituary.

Personality and force of will: Born June 25th, 2020, House was orphaned at an early age when his parents died in a freak accident (auto gyro, lightning). Though cheated of his inheritance, House attended the prestigious Institute in Massachusetts and founded RobCo Industries on his 22nd birthday. Within five years, it was one of the most profitable corporations on Earth.

Vision: By 2065, House was certain that an atomic war would soon devastate the planet. At great personal expense, he developed technologies to ensure the structural integrity of the city of Las Vegas (as it was known at the time). On the day of the great war, 77 atomic warheads targeted the city. Mr. House defeated them all. Talk about vision!

Leadership: Mr. House survived the war, of course, and would later recruit the Three Families, negotiate the Treaty of New Vegas, and rebuild the Vegas Strip. While these achievements yielded many immediate benefits, they were all part of House's master plan to re-ignite mankind's quest for technological advancement, a plan without which the human race has nowhere to go, and nowhere to turn.

/// Will revise and finish this up later. Have set the age at death to update automatically. Obit makes salient points but "pearls before swine," of course. Let's hope the ingrates never have cause to read it. Who knows how many of them are even literate!

## Notes

* In the FNV storyline, Mr. House's defense systems defeated only 68 of the 77 incoming nuclear warheads. The note states that he destroyed all of the nuclear warheads, not only 68. This could just be poetic license on his part, however.
* Based on unused voice lines, it can be assumed that the player would have originally retrieved this note from a Securitron after House's death.

## Behind the scenes

The note pays homage to Vladimir Nabokov's novel *Lolita* by saying "House was orphaned at an early age when his parents died in a freak accident (auto gyro, lightning)." In *Lolita*, the main character Humbert nonchalantly mentions the death of his mother by saying "My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three."

## References

1. ↑ Cut content Robert House: *"If this statement is being broadcast, I am deceased. Please approach a Securitron and take one of the printed obituaries."*
(Robert House's dialogue) Cut content
2. ↑ Cut content Robert House: *"I, Robert Edwin House, am deceased. Please approach a Securitron and take one of the printed obituaries."*
(Robert House's dialogue) Cut content