The McClellan family townhome (called Townhome ingame) is a house located on 2026 Bradley Place in Georgetown in Washington, D.C., now inhabited only by a dormant Mister Handy.
Background
The townhouse was previously home to the McCellan family, made up from the parents, a baby, a child, the dog Muffy, and the family's Mr Handy. Only the fates of the last three are known: the boy died in bed, the dog died in the backyard, and the robot lies dormant but still fully functional at its station.
Layout
Exterior
The home is located in the first floor of a three-story brick building. By the small backyard is a centaur and a leveled super mutant wielding a melee weapon. There also the family's dog, Muffy, can be found dead beside a full bottle of whiskey.
Interior
The home is remarkably small, consisting of the main living room (in which a derelict baby carriage can be found), the kitchen, the children's bedroom, the room with the dormant Mr. Handy, and the master bedroom upstairs. Inside the children's room is the remains of the family's oldest son, lying in bed still holding his teddy bear, along with an assortment of toys. In the adjacent room is the dormant (but still working) Mr. Handy, beside which is the unprotected terminal that can be used to control it. Lastly, the master bedroom upstairs consists only of a couple-sized bed, a chair, and a ceiling light.
Notable loot
Lying, Congressional Style can be found on a table in the first room.
Notes
- In a small room on the first floor there is a rather moody Mister Handy robot that can be manipulated with a nearby unprotected terminal. There are five options to choose from:
- Deactivate Unit: This recalls the Mister Handy to its base.
- Walk Muffy: This will instruct the Mister Handy to walk the family's dog, Muffy. The Mister Handy will travel outside, find the dog's body, and try to convince it to stand up. If the player approaches the dog, however, it will turn hostile.
- Pick up Grocery Order: This option directs the Mister Handy to the nearby grocery shop. Assuming it isn't destroyed en route by super mutants, it will just stop at the door and come back home.
- Read Children Bedtime Poem: This instructs the Mister Handy to go to the children's room and begin reciting a poem. Curiously, despite its rather violent reaction to the dog being dead, it does not seem to care or notice that the children are clearly deceased. After telling the bedtime poem, it will return to the pad and deactivate itself again.
- Home Security Mode: Sets the unit to patrol mode, searching out any enemies outside.
- For some unknown reason, if the Mister Handy goes to look for Muffy near the river, it will call out "<whistle> Here Doggy, Doggy.", then express happiness toward the fact that "..at least that's taken care of."[verification needed]
- This house can be used for player housing as the containers do not respawn. Although it should be noted that the Super Mutants in the area do respawn.
Appearances
The McClellan family townhome appears only in Fallout 3.
Behind the scenes
- The name of the family that used to live here is a reference to Ray Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains", about a robotic house in Allendale, California that still works after a nuclear war, not knowing that its owners have perished in the atomic blast. The address is a reference to the story, which is set in August, 2026. Also worth noting is that the McClellan last name was used in Ray Bradbury's book "Fahrenheit 451", and the address "Bradley Place" seems to be a play on words for Ray Bradbury's last name.
- The poem that the Mister Handy recites is There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale, a post-apocalyptic poem from 1920, which also inspired Bradbury's story of the same name. In Bradbury's short story, the main computer of a robotic house reads the same poem, not knowing that the person who's supposed to be listening is long gone.
- "Only one living thing makes an appearance in the [Bradbury] story: a wild dog (though a family dog in later versions), which had been slowly dying from radiation poisoning. It makes its way back to the house only to die; its corpse is then swiftly removed by the house's automated cleaning robots." The dead body of the McClellans' dog Muffy can be found in the vicinity of the house exterior.[1]
Sara Teasdale - There Will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, and swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pool singing at night, and wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire, whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one, will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself when she woke at dawn, would scarcely know that we were gone.
Verse recited by McClellan Mister Handy
Gallery
2026 Bradley Place
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