Combine and Xen Connection (A long, Comprehensive Theory of evererything HL)

At first I thought the poison headcrabs were engineered, mainly because they rattle like a rattle snake. It seems unlikely that an animal that has to pounce on a human would naturally evolve a rattle, which is used by snakes to warn humans and other big animals to stay away. I assumed that, when the combine spliced rattler DNA with the headcrabs to give them a venom, they gave them the rattle DNA aswell. But then I saw this;

scorpion_mother.jpg


Seems like theres some scorpian in them too.
 
The Poison Zombies spawn with four Headcrabs on them.

Interesting that you say that Fast and Poison Zombies are engineered - neither have mouths, so they'd starve quite quickly - the perfect biological weapon.

The things in the pictures are fungus; they're probably just Xen plants.

-Angry Lawyer
 
I don't think the poison and fast headcrabs/zombies are engineered - dragging it back into the whole Combine Involvement thing again, it just doesn't seem like their style. I think they just bag themselves a few headcrabs, loads them into a shell, point and fire - I don't think they particularly care exactly what type of zombies will result from it. If anything, the Combine would end up having to deal with the zombies afterwards, a la the houses on the coast, so it makes no sense that they'd deliberately engineer tougher zombies, when the ordinary headcrab does it's job OK.

On the wall of Kliener's lab there's a little sketch of a headcrab (presumable one of the new types) with some notes legible above it, saying something like "Mutation? Evolution?" So it seems Kliener doesn't think they've been enhanced. Personally it makes sense to me that they're evolved headcrabs, but evolved perhaps along a different path than that which would take them to the Gonarch stage. They could be attempting to become "warriors" in order to protect another Gonarch.

Or you could even say that these different headcrabs/zombies are stages along the route to becoming a totally different type of Gonarch. With the mouth sealed up it could mean that they've already taken in all the sustenance they need.

Just like to add that the fast/poison headcrabs/zombies were great ideas for enemies, and really mentally sick...it's like the fast crab is so hyper and full of beans that if it latches onto you it will wear your body out at such a rate that you'll be practically skeletonised, while still retaining the crab's vigour. And the Poison Mawlessman...I don't think it produces ToxCrabs, I think it is created by lots of ToxCrabs jumping on one person, turning their body into one gigantic agonising coldsore. Which to me is a suitably sick idea, and it fits with the fact of one single ToxCrab not being able to kill Freeman.
 
Agreeing with you there.
Also, to negate the Combine Occupation thing, they had concepts in raising the Bar, or somewhere, where a large Gonarch sac was wired up to machinery - presumably where the Combine were getting their crabs from. The one on Xen is free-range. The Combine prefer efficiency over all things - having a free roaming Gonarch on Xen, rather than a life-support machine hooked to a severed sac, seems rather un-Combine.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Any good ideas for new crabs.
molecrabs

I also want to see a mawvort.
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Agreeing with you there.
Also, to negate the Combine Occupation thing, they had concepts in raising the Bar, or somewhere, where a large Gonarch sac was wired up to machinery - presumably where the Combine were getting their crabs from. The one on Xen is free-range. The Combine prefer efficiency over all things - having a free roaming Gonarch on Xen, rather than a life-support machine hooked to a severed sac, seems rather un-Combine.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...

We have to understand that that is half life 1, where the Combine did not exist. Its clear to me that in half life 2, they have made several connections to show the xen/combine enslave thing, yet you can't explain everything.

Also, its quite possible that that Gonarch, was just a random gonarch, on its own, stranded on a floating rock. Like say the wasteland, i bet theres a few gonarchs roaming the wastelands of earth.
 
someone should make a mod with Gonomes in. and a Gonarch in. Hell, as many headcrab variations as possible.
 
We have to understand that that is half life 1, where the Combine did not exist. Its clear to me that in half life 2, they have made several connections to show the xen/combine enslave thing, yet you can't explain everything.
Click to expand...

In my eyes they haven't made any connection at all. A single Garg attacking alongside Combine troops, for example, would have been enough to make me believe utterly.
 
resist urge to.....comment....on......NOOOOO!!!!

This is a headcrab thread now ;)
 
Laivasse said:
I don't think the poison and fast headcrabs/zombies are engineered - dragging it back into the whole Combine Involvement thing again, it just doesn't seem like their style.
Click to expand...

I agree, too. At least on the point that they're not engineered by the Combine. My whole stand has been (unless it's a co-incidence) that those crabs turning humans into zombies is carefully pre-arranged; ie, Xen (or the authority that controls it) has been building up toward the Earth invasion for a long time.

Samon said:
We have to understand that that is half life 1, where the Combine did not exist. Its clear to me that in half life 2, they have made several connections to show the xen/combine enslave thing, yet you can't explain everything.
Click to expand...

I've been wondering about this, too. What I think is that the original Half Life was created with the intention of providing great gaming moments with a somewhat consistent story to tie it all up. I don't know this for sure, but I strongly suspect that Valve, when they released HL1, had no idea they'd ever be making a sequel--although we can speculate about whether Laidlaw had already started writing the next part.

In HL2, they tried to tie it all up, but it's not really possible; hence the decision to just scrap a lot of monsters from the original.

Another co-incidence: how can that water monster (its name is Ichytosaur, I think) from the original survive in Earth water (H2O)? And how, for that matter, do these creatures from Xen which are used to a different gravitational atmosphere adapt so easily to Earth's gravity? I could go on and on like this.

The point, I think, is to examine these ambiguities once or perhaps twice in search of a unified theory, and then discard them as pure gaming decisions made by the developers made with no intention (or forethought) of ever having to explain them in a consistent story.
 
let's face it, Xen animals are touch bastards, they could survive on a planet made entirely of acid :)
 
Well, headcrabs can. In HL1, they were coded to completely resist acid. Not sure about HL2 though.

-Angry Lawyer
 
The secret vort in Water Hazard is acid resistant aswell

You should make a mod with them as enemies. Maybe their melee attacks do electrical damage.
Click to expand...
I am absolutly crap at that stuff, I can't even get my head around tiggers.

Maybe vortigaunt anatony is similar to human anatomy, explaining why headcrabs can turm humans into mawmen
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Well, headcrabs can. In HL1, they were coded to completely resist acid. Not sure about HL2 though.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...

In Power up, if you lure a headcrab into the toxic pool in the chasm, it will kill them.
 
Maybe human anatony is similar to human anatomy, explaining why headcrabs can turm humans into mawmen
Click to expand...

I'm 100% sure that human anatomy is similar to human anatomy ;).
 
Maybe Gohnarch (sp?), or Nihilith "learnt" from the scientists that the Lamba team sent through before the resonance cascade, how to make a human killing headcrab.
 
Da Funkey Gibbon said:
Maybe Gonarch, or Nihilanth "learnt" from the scientists that the Lambda team sent through before the resonance cascade, how to make a human killing headcrab.
Click to expand...
I fixed you spelling mistakes.
I dought it.
 
Samon said:
In Power up, if you lure a headcrab into the toxic pool in the chasm, it will kill them.
Click to expand...

The damage type in that pool is radiation, not acid.

-Angry Lawyer
 
I see Mawman coming back into more common useage. I am pleased by this turn of events :).
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Well, headcrabs can. In HL1, they were coded to completely resist acid. Not sure about HL2 though.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...

Then shouldn't Bullsquids be resistant to acid too? I mean, they shoot acid at you a la Alien, right?

Da Funkey Gibbon said:
Maybe Gohnarch (sp?), or Nihilith "learnt" from the scientists that the Lamba team sent through before the resonance cascade, how to make a human killing headcrab.
Click to expand...

In such a short period of time? It's not practically possible to adapt those headcrabs so fast. Unless we're willing to abandon science, like I said (which is a strong possibility, of course).
 
AIDisabled said:
Then shouldn't Bullsquids be resistant to acid too? I mean, they shoot acid at you a la Alien, right?
.
Click to expand...

The stuff they shoot at you i would think is more of a substance not on earth, but in likeness to acid.
 
In Headcrab.cpp, in HL1:

Code: 
int CHeadCrab :: TakeDamage( entvars_t *pevInflictor, entvars_t *pevAttacker, float flDamage, int bitsDamageType )
{
	// Don't take any acid damage -- BigMomma's mortar is acid
	if ( bitsDamageType & DMG_ACID )
		flDamage = 0;

	return CBaseMonster::TakeDamage( pevInflictor, pevAttacker, flDamage, bitsDamageType );
}

And in HL2's NPC_Headcrab.cpp

Code: 
int CBaseHeadcrab::OnTakeDamage_Alive( const CTakeDamageInfo &inputInfo )
{
	CTakeDamageInfo info = inputInfo;

	//
	// Don't take any acid damage.
	//
	if ( info.GetDamageType() & DMG_ACID )
	{
		info.SetDamage( 0 );
	}

-Angry Lawyer
 
But thats just for quickness, they arn't going to put down *insert alien substance* are they?

:p
 
There were something like 24 different damage types defined in HL1. Headcrabs only resisted acid. I think it's intentional.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Oh, i thought you were referring to the Bullsquid acid/thing. Sorry, I misunderstood.
 
Hey Pai-Mei, (sorry but) I was playing BS today and I realised something. One of your arguments is that the Combine teleport dose not use Xen. Dr Rosenburg gives a long speech about the teleporter and he says the origanal model used Xen but could not get proper cowardonates for Earth. Could this possibly be the something or other string based model that Mossman was blabing about?
 
ríomhaire said:
Hey Pai-Mei, (sorry but) I was playing BS today and I realised something. One of your arguments is that the Combine teleport dose not use Xen. Dr Rosenburg gives a long speech about the teleporter and he says the origanal model used Xen but could not get proper cowardonates for Earth. Could this possibly be the something or other string based model that Mossman was blabing about?
Click to expand...

What you have to remember, is that BS should be taken as mere cannon, nothing in it is confirmation on anything, nor is it completley false for that matter.
 
I'm very confused as to whether I should take OP4 BS and Decay as evedence.
 
The Combine are probably extremely old, on the order of hundreds of thousands or even millions of years old.

In Raising the Bar, it states that Combine evolution has led to them being totally and utterly dependant on technology that they created. If it were simple natural selection, it would take several million years to reach that state. Undoubtedly, they had technology to help them evolve, so a reasonable estimate is that they are several hundred thousand years old.
 
ríomhaire said:
I'm very confused as to whether I should take OP4 BS and Decay as evedence.
Click to expand...

What I'd like to know is whether Mark Laidlaw had anything to do with these spinoffs regarding the story at all. If he did, then we have to consider whatever they tell us to be true; a writer like Mark would know well not to contradict himself.
 
AIDisabled said:
What I'd like to know is whether Mark Laidlaw had anything to do with these spinoffs regarding the story at all. If he did, then we have to consider whatever they tell us to be true; a writer like Mark would know well not to contradict himself.
Click to expand...


Bah, I've deleted my pms yesterday, and it had the marc laidlaw email in that confirmed it was gearbox's idea to include race x, and everything in the game should be taken as cannon.
 
Then isn't most discussion about any of the spinoffs redundant? Then perhaps even talking about Adrian Shepherd as a future character in the game is not really logical. Because if Opposing Force didn't happen in Valve's Half Life universe, Adrian Shepherd cannot exist in it.
 
AIDisabled said:
Then isn't most discussion about any of the spinoffs redundant? Then perhaps even talking about Adrian Shepherd as a future character in the game is not really logical. Because if Opposing Force didn't happen in Valve's Half Life universe, Adrian Shepherd cannot exist in it.
Click to expand...

It happened, but its not substantial enough to be taking into consideration when looking at the whole story, as race x won't be continued.

And i doubt we'll be seeing Shepard either...unless valve gives into the massive amounts of requests they recieve.
 
Samon's right (and I hate agreeing with people who follow the 'Combine control Xen path), everything in the other games is part of the storyline, but not influential enough to affect the main storyline. For example, Race X did appear, probably just to get some revenge on the humans experimenting on their young, but as they likely came from somewhere totally different (they never stated if Xen was the only dimension touching Earth during the Cascade), they probably returned there, and had no reason to touch Earth again. The universe is a big place, big enough for mighty empires to exist without them noticing each other for a long time.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Samon's right (and I hate agreeing with people who follow the 'Combine control Xen path), everything in the other games is part of the storyline, but not influential enough to affect the main storyline. For example, Race X did appear, probably just to get some revenge on the humans experimenting on their young, but as they likely came from somewhere totally different (they never stated if Xen was the only dimension touching Earth during the Cascade), they probably returned there, and had no reason to touch Earth again. The universe is a big place, big enough for mighty empires to exist without them noticing each other for a long time.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...

The reason he hates agreeing, is because deep down he knows i'm right :P
 
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