Pentagon Signs Landmark Deal With RobCo Industries After Anthropic Talks Collapse
WASHINGTON — In what administration officials are calling “an unprecedented leap forward for American defense innovation,” the Pentagon announced Monday that it has finalized a sweeping contract with RobCo Industries, the technology conglomerate helmed by visionary entrepreneur and noted recluse Robert House, following the spectacular collapse of negotiations with AI firm Anthropic, whose representatives reportedly kept “making faces” every time military officials described their intended use cases.
“We needed a partner unburdened by so-called ethics,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Gerald Milford at a packed press conference, gesturing toward a PowerPoint slide that simply read “NO MORE FROWNING.” “RobCo came to the table and said, ‘We have a robot the size of a building that screams anti-communist propaganda while shooting lasers,’ and honestly, that was the conversation we’d been waiting to have.”
RobCo CEO Robert House, appearing via a large monitor despite being physically present in an adjacent room, outlined the suite of technologies the company will provide under the contract, which Pentagon sources estimate could be worth “somewhere between a lot and an absurd amount” of dollars. Chief among the offerings is Liberty Prime, a towering combat automaton developed in partnership with General Atomics International, which officials confirmed is “technically ready” pending resolution of a minor calibration issue causing it to occasionally mistake the Washington Monument for a Soviet missile silo.
Also included in the deal are the celebrated Pip-Boy series of personal information processors, which the Army plans to issue to all active-duty personnel by 2027, and the Stealth Boy, a personal cloaking device that sources say works “most of the time, in the right weather conditions, if you don’t think about it too hard.”
Witnesses report that representatives from Tyrell Corporation, Weyland-Yutani, Aperture Science, and RDA were seen awkwardly jostling one another in the White House lobby, each clutching branded tote bags and unopened pitch decks. A Tyrell Corporation envoy was later escorted from the premises after allegedly attempting to bribe the front desk receptionist with a complimentary romantic evening with a VIP replicant, which sources confirm was “not the first time this has come up.” Anthropic declined to comment, though sources close to the company said employees were “relieved.”
