Advisors

[blackout]

I wanna know what you people think about the advisors; are they the origional combine species?

 

[Barnz]

Yes, it's a fact.

 

[Kukaku]

Yes, they are. ._.

 

[Sledgehammer]

No way those fat things who look like the average hl2.net user could take over every universe. It's just not realistic.

 

[Darkside55]

You three people who voted no, I'm coming for you.

 

[jet_porkins]

I voted "yes," but is this proven?

 

[Barnz]

Yes, see Raising The Bar.

 

[Sledgehammer]

*goes to hide in cave*

 

[The Monkey]

Don't know, voted no. Seems hard for some fat hippo-like creatures to conquer the universe.

 

[blackout]

I think theyre a bit more than fat hippos(lol), e.g: telekinetic powers, drinking people's brains, cyborg implants, commanding a collosal universe conquering army of alien cyborgs, ect.


also, dont you think they were more like giant grubs?


ps- i've never been inside rasing the bar (although im the 1st person to vote yes. and at all) what does it say?

 

[Darkside55]

There are six of you "no" people now and I have your names. This is not an anonymous poll. I know who you are! And I'm very disappointed in some of you; you know better. You should know better.

And yeah, Blackout, they're grublike. The advisors were a race that developed extremely advanced technology that did everything for them. They became so dependent on that technology that, over centuries, their species became fat and sluglike. They could no longer use their limbs, and couldn't move under their own power--well, not without using their immense psionic ability. So with all that power and technology, they set about conquering other worlds.

They're almost a parallel of the human race, the way we use technology to make things easier for us. The advisors are a species like us taken to the extreme.

 

[Crawler]

In a way humans and Advisors are alike, they are both physically weak but have a strong mental side.

 

[The Monkey]

There are six of you "no" people now and I have your names. This is not an anonymous poll. I know who you are! And I'm very disappointed in some of you; you know better. You should know better.

How are you people so sure they're the original race?

 

[Darkside55]

Because establishing a villain with incredible technology, immense psionic strength, and who just committed an act that saddened/enraged most gamers, and then to say "No wait, there's an even BIGGER badguy out there in the Combine hierarchy!" is terrible writing.

You put a face to an evil only to bring out a bigger evil that players haven't identified with? Terrible writing.

 

[The Monkey]

Because establishing a villain with incredible technology, immense psionic strength, and who just committed an act that saddened/enraged most gamers, and then to say "No wait, there's an even BIGGER badguy out there in the Combine hierarchy!" is terrible writing.

You put a face to an evil only to bring out a bigger evil that players haven't identified with? Terrible writing.

I didn't really find the Advisors more "evil" than civil protection. Both of them murdered people. The only difference is that the hippos did it in a more sophisticated way.

 

[Lobster]

Quote from The Advisor page in Raising the Bar:

"In designing this character we wanted to suppose that an organism, not unlike humans, began to depend on the technology that was originally created to improve its quality of life. Over the course of its evolution, it became grublike, with limbs no longer able to support its own weight, eyes to feeble to see without aid, a body not incapable of movement, fully dependent on the technology that it created. It was, however, incredibly evolved in its ability to reason, invent, and dominate the minds and cultures of other beings. This design was also in part inspired by the writings of Frank Herbert." - Ted Backman

Its reasonable to assume that the entire combine race was spawned from the advisor, though its still open to speculation.

 

[Darkside55]

But they were established in Half-Life 2, and were referenced constantly throughout HL2. You knew you were eventually going to see these mysterious 'benefactors' Breen kept mentioning, and at the end you see an advisor--the most alien face the Combine has shown.

To come out now and say, "Those guys really weren't the benefactors, they were just intergalactic middlemen," would be a move I don't think Valve would make. I'd like to hold them to higher standards of writing given that they have in their employ an award-winning novelist.

 

[blackout]

I'm with you all the way darkside, shippi, and anyone else who aggrees the advisors tho be the origional combine.
the only characters that are probably/possibly more evil than them are the Gman and his employers.

and they're probably not the combine.

 

[Fiberawptic]

they most likely are. they pretty much founded the 'combine' empire which went around the universe, conquering civilizations and making them a part of the empire... They probably started out differently tthan the way they look now. now they are pretty much like grubs with mechanical arms, and their body is so simple because it has evolved to the point where it depends almost completely on technology to complete its tasks....

 

[Barnz]

Sounds like you read too much Saga Story bullshit.

 

[Asknoone]

Yes, they are. I find the idea of them not being the founders to be pretty cheap on Valve's part.

 

[Eejit]

Probably, but it's in no way certain.

Even if they are the Big Bad and current leaders of the Combine that doesn't mean they're the original founders. They could just be the current inheritors of the Empire.

 

[Asknoone]

But we know for sure that they are the founders. The Advisors are the ultimate representation of what the Combine empire is in actuality. They were a race that grew far too dependent on the technology they had built to improve their existence until it reached a point where they could not exist without it. Ultimately devouring them, they sought to inflict their technological nightmare on other species, other cultures, other planets.

The Combine is an imperialistic conglomerate of assimilated and absorbed civilizations from, as Breen likes to put it, 'across the stars'. It operates as a single organism despite being made up of countless layers and sub-layers and so on. What it is now, or how it is structured and divided now, the Advisors are the originators of the Combine empire and they still, up until the Half-life 2 time frame, act as the highest hierarchy.

 

[blackout]

apparently tis' in rasing the bar.

 

[Eejit]

So do you have a quote to add to Lobster's ambiguous one from RTB that confirms this?

 

[blackout]

Yes, see Raising The Bar.

not exactly from RTB but at least i've got witnesses.

 

[Sledgehammer]

Well, the fact that in their current form they couldn't make it anywhere was right enough. Us no-voters will always be right in one way or another.

 

[jcool190]

I voted yes, So that Darkside55 doesn't come after me.

Darkside55 you are funny on page 1.

 

[amaranth]

It makes sense Advisors are the Combine starter species. Ep 3 better not say something like "OH LAWL, TEH COMBINE IS GMAN" or I will be pissed.

 

[jet_porkins]

It makes sense Advisors are the Combine starter species. Ep 3 better not say something like "OH LAWL, TEH COMBINE IS GMAN" or I will be pissed.

No matter what Valve does you'll find a reason to think it's the greatest possible ending ever. Just admit it.

 

[blackout]

LoL.if VALVe f**ks up episode 3, i will walk into their seattle headquaters with an uzi, shoot up the place, and then shoot myself. LoL

 

[Asknoone]

loooolzzz

 

[MJ12]

Lolololo!!

 

[Eejit]

not exactly from RTB but at least i've got witnesses.

Not good enough.

 

[mechanicallizard]

fine then . napalm should do the trick

 

[blackout]

fine ejit, but if I may direct your attention to the poll, most people agree that they are the original combine, and as they have said, if u think about it, there isnt going to be the big bad alien slugs, and then some big bad alien centipide or something, (excluding the g-man and his employers.

 

[mechanicallizard]

No matter what Valve does you'll find a reason to think it's the greatest possible ending ever. Just admit it.

whatever. we wont need a reason . you know it. i know it. everyone knows.
accept it or be destroyed by Darkside55 (hope you dont mind doing the dirty work)

p.s. i voted yes ( another rhyme! i should be a rapper or something)

 

[Eejit]

fine ejit, but if I may direct your attention to the poll, most people agree that they are the original combine,

Irrelevant.

and as they have said, if u think about it, there isnt going to be the big bad alien slugs, and then some big bad alien centipide or something, (excluding the g-man and his employers.

I already addressed that. Just because they are the Big Bad doesn't necessarily mean they're the founders of the Combine.

 

[altceva]

Let's think this...

In HL1, we thought G-man is the ultimate enemy. Throughout the game, we see him supervising Gordon, observing his fight for survival. G-man seemed the bad guy since no aliens were attacking him, and in the end he proves this by taking Gordon beyond his dimension, somewhere, leaving him no choice ( "cake or death?").

In HL2 series, we find out that G-man is not the bad guy, but the Combine is. Following the same pattern, Combine Empire could be just a pawn on a chessboard in G-man's employers plan. The picture gets bigger and more complex.

Let's think marketing now. Would you sell a HL3 game with a Gordon Freeman fighting the same Combine Advisors, old enemies we have seen 10 years ago, in the Episodes? If they are the ultimate enemy, HL3 would be boring by still letting us fight Combine troops, as new and different as they would be. If the Combine hierarchy ends with the Advisors, it sucks. Why? You get no determination, you already know who the bad guys are, you already know that Advisors send all kinds of troops to kill you and that's it. There's no bigger plan, there's nothing beyond. Just Gordon trying to reach them, probably with a little help from outside (G-man, vorts) to break their psychic powers.

I would say there's nothing like "terrible writing" as Darkside said. Combine may be defeated on Earth because of the lack of reinforcements, but "outhere" must be, HAS to be, something more powerful than this grubs who weren't capable enough to control and assimilate Earth's survivors, 10% of their initial number, and a few vorts.

I mean come on... This? These Advisors conquered the galaxy? Let me just say no...

 

[Darkside55]

So you think that the story should progress by ramping up the villains in each installment? That's really linear. You might as well be playing an NES game. "You defeated boss #1, now move onto the next boss who is much more powerful, and did I mention more evil?"

You're forgetting that these "grubs" absolutely decimated Earth in SEVEN HOURS. We have not even seen their full capacity, not even close. Not only are they powerful themselves, but they have this gigantic, universe-wide warmachine behind them. Keep in mind that the whole "assimilation" process was never intended to be; it was just Breen convincing them not to wipe out our entire species in one go, which they easily could have. You are seriously underestimating the advisors.