Did the rebels hire Gordon from the Gman?

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Banana_Bob

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At various points throughout the game we see the gman in contact with the rebellion. The vort and rebel watching Gman on tv during route canal, the amazingly suspicious encounter with Odessa after the Gman gives him the rocket launcher etc.

Several other off things happen in the course of the game, Dr.Breen's comments about Gordan's services open to the highest bidder, the somehow off way Eli says 'thats not possible' when he learns that Alex found Gordon in the rubble at the beginning of episode one. Did the contract expire?

Could it be that Eli and crew 'bought' Gordan's services from the Gman?
 
Nah, i don't believe in that. Gordon is doing the job that he must do.
 
Yes. It could be.

Wait, no. Who's Gordan? I don't recall Eli hiring a Gordan.

As for Gordon, it's a viable theory. It's believed that the contract expired at the end of Hl2, yes. Evidence which points to it includes the 'rescue' by the vortigaunts, the references by the Gman about your 'friends' being preoccupied and the information on the death screens.
 
I believe that Gordan was the guy that got a standard relocation coupon, just like everyone else.
 
I think it is possible that he was hired. Regardless, there is no doubt that Gordon is VERY united with the rebel's cause.
 
Guys, stop talking about me :D I wasn't hired i was just doing my job :LOL:
 
You're not funny.
 
nipples said:
I believe that Gordan was the guy that got a standard relocation coupon, just like everyone else.
Click to expand...
How? Gordon was in stasis held there by G Man, who gave him this coupon while he was floating around? The spaghetti monster?

When you are 'dropped' into the train carriage by G Man (once your contract begins in City 17, possibly organised through Odessa Cubbage who we see talking to G Man), a passenger says something like "I didn't see you get on". It's a pretty empty train, he didn't get on like the other passengers :)

Also what do you mean 'Just doing his job", Gordon is a scientist, I've not done many titrations during my time playing Half-life / HL2 / EP1/ EP2. The G Man at the end of Half-life 1 offers Gordon a job to work for him, and you have to accept or die. Gordon is hired. "SUBJECT: HIRED", remember?

Speculation time: Once G Man took Gordon away at the end of Half-life 2, the vortigaunts get involved and save you and Alyx. We see through the Episodes that the G Man isn't best pleased about this as he continues his work for the resistance against the combine. Has his contract expired? Are the combine bartering for Gordon's services? Why doesn't G Man put Gordon back in stasis? Are the vortigaunts keeping Gordon here and stopping the G Man? Did the G Man kill Eli by providing the combine with intelligence in order for the resistance / vortigaunts to give Gordon back to him, like blackmail? Is he threatening Alyx next or someone else important? Prepare for unforeseen circumstances.

Who knows :)
 
It's possible that the rebels hired Gordon, but I'm unconvinced. For one thing there's nothing that the rebels have that I could see Gman wanting, in material terms - certainly not anything he couldn't just take on his own.

It's not infeasible that they would have some knowledge, or advantage, or the ability to provide some favour that he might be after, but I'm 100% certain that it wasn't as simple as them spotting a 'FREEMAN 4 HIRE' advert and then contacting Gman about the asking price. For one thing, if they knew the minutiae of Gordon's situation after HL1, then why couldn't the rebels use the vorts to break Gordon out of G-Space like they did at the beginning of Ep1? Gordon is going to fight for the rebels for free whatever the circumstances - he's only a merc because Gman insists that he is - and getting the vorts to help out would have been easier than trying to find and contact the Gman, surely...

So yeah... maybe they 'hired' Gordon, but maybe it would be more accurate to think about it as having done something to negotiate for his release. Personally I'm of the opinion that Gordon's freedom in HL2 is less to do with the rebels wanting him to fight the Combine and more to do with the Gman wanting it to happen. Maybe the rebels just wanted Gordon freed (for his own benefit and the scientific benefit of the rebels); remember Eli suggesting you get "out of that hazard suit and back into a lab coat, where you belong"? That doesn't sound to me like he thinks of Gordon as some kind of war machine that he just hired. Later, when Alyx and Eli tell you not to listen to Breen's talk of contracts and bidders, I think it's because they don't want you to buy into Gman's spiel about you being his lapdog rather than out of some simple fear that Breen is going to 'outbid' them. Perhaps Gordon's rampage is all Gman's idea. Either way, between the motives of the rebels and those of Gman, it's Gman's motives which will turn out to be the more important, I'm sure...

The more I think about it, the more I feel that Laidlaw & co. won't be able to conclude this story without employing some serious artsy-fartsiness. I just hope that it's artsy-fartsiness I can chew on.
 
It's pretty obvious that they did. We know the resistance has contacts with the Gman. And when you first meet Alix she tells you "funny that you show up this day in particular", obviously, she was expecting you. And who would still expect Gordon to mysteriously reappear after 15 years in suspended animation if not that they knew the Gman had him and managed to get in contact with him.

Let's also remember Breen's "your contract is open to the highest bidder" speech.

But it seems that at the start of Ep1, the vortigaunts "steal" you from the Gman.
 
Well, obviously Gordon's not aware of it, and I also doubt the gman had a 'FOR SALE' sign out there. But the scientists from Black Mesa had developed a teleport technology that outstrips the combines, and that seems to be something that the Gman would bargain for. Also, Alyx is a potential bargaining chip.

I have to bring up the beginning to episode 1 again. Eli acts for a split second as if he knew that Gordon would be pulled away after the citadels destruction.


lol GordAn
 
Hectic Glenn said:
How? Gordon was in stasis held there by G Man, who gave him this coupon while he was floating around? The spaghetti monster?
Click to expand...

Haha I know, I was just poking fun at his spelling. Since Druckles asked who Gordan is.
 
Banana_Bob said:
But the scientists from Black Mesa had developed a teleport technology that outstrips the combines, and that seems to be something that the Gman would bargain for.
Click to expand...
Gman appears and disappears mysteriously in a way that puts the rebels' teleport tech to shame. If he was interested in the tech, he could just take a G-peep at Kliener's notes as easily as anything. Let's not forget, also, that the BM scientists developed that tech a decade or two before HL2. If Gman wanted it so bad, or at all, why not just nab it when he was in the position of power he was in at the end of HL1? Just generally the idea that he desires anything the rebels possess seems patently ridiculous.

Like I say, the only way a bargain really works, knowing what we know so far, is if it's negotiated in terms of unrecorded (and hitherto unreferenced) knowledge, favours, obligations, whatever... Even then, the idea that the rebels wanted Gordon as a hired gun, as opposed to just wanting him freed for his own benefit or to help in the lab, is pure speculation. And when all's said and done, the deciding factor in Gordon being let loose is probably that Gman wanted him to be let loose since it served his agenda, not because the rebels had something shiny to give him.
Banana_Bob said:
Also, Alyx is a potential bargaining chip.
Click to expand...
'Bargaining chip'?? You think Eli's pimping out his own daughter?! :|

I know what makes you say this: Gman's apparent interest in Alyx in Ep2. That's ostensibly because she's beneficial to Gman's plans. She keeps Gordon alive, she can be used to manipulate Eli's behaviour and decision making, and she's a thorn in the side of the Combine (against whom Gman has decided to align himself against for whatever reason). Quite how you make the leap from there to thinking that she can be used in a bargain with the Gman, I have no idea, unless you want to take the story in a whole new (fairly dumb) direction.
Banana_Bob said:
I have to bring up the beginning to episode 1 again. Eli acts for a split second as if he knew that Gordon would be pulled away after the citadels destruction.
Click to expand...
He shows disbelief that Alyx found Gordon, which suggests that he knew what happened to Gordon after the explosion. That doesn't prove he was complicit in it. He does seem to know a lot about Gordon's situation after all, but how much of that could merely be informed guesswork based on his knowledge of Gman's methods? He's been aware of the Gman since the time of HL1 or before.

And again, if the plan all along was that Gordon was to rage against the Combine and then vanish into Gspace as the citadel reactor exploded, then why did Eli want Gordon in a lab coat where he 'belongs'? The idea that Eli would have had prior knowledge of exactly how everything would turn out is a bit much... It's entirely possible that he's just sussed some things out based on his own knowledge of Gman.
 
Why is the Gman in constant contact with the rebels and why are they hiding it from Gordon?
 
*shrugchar*

And although they don't seem eager to discuss it - let's face it, 'OK Gordon, about this interdimensional stalker whose lapdog you've involuntarily become...' is kind of an awkward conversation point - they're not necessarily hiding anything from Gordon. There are a few points in the game where it's suggested that you're about to all sit down and have a nice cup of tea together and hear a bit of exposition, but the narrative is constructed so that the shit hits the fan every time before you hear anything of real substance.
 
Banana_Bob said:
Why is the Gman in constant contact with the rebels and why are they hiding it from Gordon?
Click to expand...

Well, in EP2, eli seemed like he was gonna tell you something really big about "our mutual acquaintance" (the GMAN). However, he cut it off when alix came into the room and never got a chance to tell us again.
 
Speculation time: Once G Man took Gordon away at the end of Half-life 2, the vortigaunts get involved and save you and Alyx. We see through the Episodes that the G Man isn't best pleased about this as he continues his work for the resistance against the combine. Has his contract expired? Are the combine bartering for Gordon's services? Why doesn't G Man put Gordon back in stasis? Are the vortigaunts keeping Gordon here and stopping the G Man? Did the G Man kill Eli by providing the combine with intelligence in order for the resistance / vortigaunts to give Gordon back to him, like blackmail? Is he threatening Alyx next or someone else important? Prepare for unforeseen circumstances.
 
if the rebels did hire gordon from the gman, why did the vorts take him away at EP1?

the vorts might be the evil ones....gman said he had to wait until our 'friends' were occupied, which might imply there not what they seem.
 
The Vorts may be good and view the G-man as evil, thinking that saving Gordon will be beneficial. Either way, we won't know for a long ass time.
 
Why do you keep bringing up HL2: Ep. 1's beginning? There's a piece just as important at the beginning of HL2. When you're in the Combine interrogation room with Barney, Kleiner mentions: "I didn't expect him until later". So, you haven't been seen for at least 10 years, and you walk off a train no one saw you enter, but Kleiner expects that? It's obvious that he knew you coming, probably because he was negotiating with the G-Man to buy you for the rebels, so that's how he and Barney knew you were coming.
 
Da Mad Dok said:
Why do you keep bringing up HL2: Ep. 1's beginning? There's a piece just as important at the beginning of HL2. When you're in the Combine interrogation room with Barney, Kleiner mentions: "I didn't expect him until later". So, you haven't been seen for at least 10 years, and you walk off a train no one saw you enter, but Kleiner expects that? It's obvious that he knew you coming, probably because he was negotiating with the G-Man to buy you for the rebels, so that's how he and Barney knew you were coming.
Click to expand...

Exactly, it's pretty obvious.
 
Well for a start that's not what Kleiner says. He says 'I expected more warning.' Secondly that doesn't give any hint as to the rebels' relationship with Gman or for what purpose they may have had Gordon freed. He doesn't, for instance, say anything like 'now we can really turn things around against the Combine!' or 'now to live up to our end of the bargain...'

No one's saying there is no evidence for the rebels being in contact with Gman at some point. I'm saying that 'the rebels paid Gman so that Gordon would fight the Combine' sounds like too simplistic an interpretation to me. It at least needs some qualifying statements. And thus far the 'rebels hired Gordon' idea is no more strongly supported than the idea that the 'rebels just wanted Gordon freed,' which seems just as logical if not more.
 
Laivasse said:
And thus far the 'rebels hired Gordon' idea is no more strongly supported than the idea that the 'rebels just wanted Gordon freed,' which seems just as logical if not more.
Click to expand...

Not really.

Think about it, as much as Gordon is their esteemed colleague, they are fighting a war with a universal union. He is worth WAY too much to be freed completely, so they could have bargained to free him for a week or two? I'm sure that some of the technology that the former Black Mesa personal have would be worth as much.

Gordon is massively valueable. He fought his way through large amount of elite HECU, Black Ops, alien fauna, an alien army and killed an interdimensional being that was more powerful then the Gman (the Nihilanth enslaved the entire species of vortigaunts before Xen, Which is much more then the handful that completely suppressed the Gman). On top of this it is hinted that his skills were further enhanced during his stasis (Doctor Breen's speech to the overwatch at Nova Prospect) It took him under a month to essentially free a planet from a Trans-dimensional empire.

...

Clearly the rebels are involved with the Gordon's release, or at least some MASSIVELY fishy business is going on between the Gman and the rebels. Clearly it is impossible for them to have anything valuable enough to completely release Gordon from the Gman's grip.

How is Gordon being completely freed more logical or strongly supported then the services purchased from the Gman?
 
This post carries a WALL OF TEXT warning.
Banana_Bob said:
How is Gordon being completely freed more logical or strongly supported then the services purchased from the Gman?
Click to expand...
Because it makes little sense that the rebels, who are seemingly able to arm an entire city's worth of people, would put themselves in any kind of debt to the Gman just to gain the services of one scientist with an MP7 for a week.

A mythology might have grown up around the Freeman that he's some kind of godlike holocaust-on-legs, but that's among the general populace and not his former colleagues. You won't see Eli kissing Freeman's boots and calling him The One Free Man. Besides, the rebels have seemingly immortal individuals like Alyx and Barney who are capable of dancing rings around the Combine already.

Eli & co. probably attribute Gordon's successes, as they should, more to blind luck, the HEV suit and the interference of the Gman than to some godlike hidden property of Gordon's own character. To me it seems more likely that if the rebels wanted Freeman free at all, it was either because they learnt of his captivity and wanted to free a friend (and a hero), or because they wanted the expertise of another scientist to work on the local teleport experiments.

I decided to give it some serious thought and tried to flesh out the possible variations to that theory. Here are a couple:

#1 'Prison Break': The rebels pretended to negotiate for Gordon's services for a limited time, but had no intention of giving him back. They can only afford it in the first place because the Gman already has something against the Combine, or because one week is relatively cheap, or whatever. Then Gman simply reclaimed Gordon at the end, regardless of the rebels' intentions. I favour this idea over the simple 'hiring' theory, especially since in the absence of some twist like this it means the rebels are actually colluding with Gman in Gordon's continued servitude and they should be viewed in the same sinister light as he is. The one problem with this idea is that it requires the rebels to massively underestimate Gman (since they would have to be ignorant of the fact that he can just reclaim Gordon at any time) - perhaps they fancied that they could resist Gman in some way when the time came. In this scenario, it's the rebels' desire to bust Gordon out of prison which is the primary catalytical factor in starting the events of HL2.

#2 'G-Plan': The rebels negotiated for Gordon's full freedom and the Gman accepted because he planned to use Gordon to bring down the Combine anyway (also possibly because he fully intended to kidnap Gordon again once it was all over, although you'd think this would ruin his professional integrity with future 'buyers'). Gman's secret desire to set Gordon loose on the Combine anyway makes the asking price low. Without seeing Gman's pricing scheme, I don't think you can really state that 'the rebels could afford a week, but never Gordon's full freedom' - especially because in this scenario Gman is loosing Gordon mainly because he wants to, not because he's being reimbursed, and so the price is irrelevant. Even if Gman never got an offer from the rebels, he might have set Gordon loose anyway in this situation, although that is also possible in the case of theory #1. However it is Gman's pursuit of his own agenda which is the key factor in this scenario, followed by the rebels' desire to get their friend back. IMO the most plausible scenario. All it requires is for the rebels to be ignorant of the fact that, to an extent, they're being played.

In comparison, the only plausible 'hiring' scenarios IMO are as follows:

'Hiring' theory: The rebels purchased the 'Full Anti-Combine Autumn Supersaver Deal' - where Gman sells not only Gordon's services for a week but explicitly guarantees his own services too, so that the rebels know they're not just renting Freeman but that they're getting the full force of the Freeman/Gman combo. Confident (for whatever reason) that this is enough to topple the Combine, and believing that no sacrifice is too great, the rebels assent to the terms which dictate surrendering Gordon to the Gman at the end of it all. This is the only situation IMO where the rebels' desperation would outweigh their desire to help their old colleague/hero, to the degree where they would treat Freeman like a complete mercenary. However there are some problems with this. For one thing it suggests that the rebels' faith in the power of Gordon/Gman, plus the Gman's desire for what the rebels are offering him - not his own anti-Combine agenda - are the key factors in bringing their 'deal' into being. As such it implies that the rebels are capable of giving Gman something which, on its own, would persuade him to make enemies of a interdimensional empire, which I find hard to believe. It also begs the question of why Eli was happy to have Gordon around just 'in a lab coat where he belongs.'

Accepting that the Gman frees Gordon mainly for his own purposes (as in the other scenarios above) and that the rebels wanted Gordon freed completely, means that we can worry less about what the rebels offered in payment, and it eliminates the requirement for the rebels to believe in Gordon's (or indeed Gman's) godlike power.

Of course you could have a variation on the 'hiring' theory above which de-emphasises the importance of the price paid. You could say that the Gman released Gordon for the explicit purpose of destroying the Combine, that the rebels traded something valuable for the service, that they were aware Gordon would be back in his kennel afterwards, blah blah... BUT with the added conditions that the Gman wanted to turn Gordon loose; that his primary motivation is the destruction of the Combine and that the payment from the rebels is just a juicy bonus for him. The rebels don't need some awesome bargaining chip that we're yet to hear of. This seems to be the theory that a lot of people here settle on by default.

However in this scenario the rebels are Gman's dupes and they're being conned massively, because they're paying through the nose for a service that the Gman wants to perform - an act, therefore, that Gman possibly would have got around to performing for free at some point anyway - yet they don't even have the ulterior motive of helping Gordon get out from under Gman's thumb. That's a lonely reading of the story and it doesn't leave the rebels looking too good, IMO.


An unstated assumption in everything I'm saying, btw, is that Gordon doesn't want to be a merc for Gman and that it's a situation the rebels would naturally want to help free him from. This might be less of a pressing factor for those who enjoy playing Gordon as a kind of interdimensional James Bond after the events of HL1.

(EDIT: BTW I completely disagree with your other assertions that the Nihilanth was 'more powerful' than Gman and that Gordon was enhanced in stasis, but since this post is already so monolithic I'm not going to go into it here...)
 
I don't think they really intended to free Gordon. In ep1, when alyx saves you from the rubble and tells her father that she found Gordon, he does not believe her at first, as if he was expecting Gordon to, well, disappear after beating the combine.
 
How would the rebels pay the gman?what would the rebels have that the gman would want?
 
CombineHunter said:
How would the rebels pay the gman?what would the rebels have that the gman would want?
Click to expand...

Exactly. It's obvious that there's nothing the G-Man would want from them except maybe the destruction of the Citadel. And even then, that's not very likely.
 
The Borealis is not the rebels' to offer. At the time of HL2's beginning, when the location of the Borealis is still unknown, the Gman would have to be retarded to accept 'the Borealis' from the rebels as their payment for Gordon. The best they could offer in terms of the Borealis would be 'we might possibly discover where the Borealis is at some point (although there is no real reason to think we will), and at that time, if we manage to get to it before the Combine does and stop them from claiming it (easier said than done), we'll give you a share - that's only if you're not capable of helping yourself to it.'

Besides, Eli wants to destroy it, not give it to Gman.
 
He knows what it can do though, maybe he is reneging on the deal. Since it may be that Gordon wasn't supposed to survive the explosion anyway.

How do we know that the G-man doesn't have prophetic powers? Yes, the thing with the Vorts can prove this otherwise, but if they can stop him, what makes you so sure they can't stop him from seeing what will happen?
 
But maybe the G-man knew that they would and maybe he wants it.
 
nipples said:
The Vorts may be good and view the G-man as evil, thinking that saving Gordon will be beneficial. Either way, we won't know for a long ass time.
Click to expand...

The vorts are definitely on the side of the resistance and Eli.

Why?

There is no way that the vorts would have helped, rescued, aided, etc Eli after what he did to their race in HL1 if they truly were his enemy

But maybe the G-man knew that they would and maybe he wants it.
Click to expand...


If the G-man wanted the Borealis, he would have simply traveled there and taken possession of it at a time of his choosing. It's quite entertaining that so many of you think that the G-Man needs the rebels to help him find some outdated portal technology which pales in comparison to his own portal abilities. The G-Man is so far beyond anything the rebels, aperture science, or GlaDOS has..... it's nuts.

I personally believe that G-Man is part of some higher form of intelligence that likes to fiddle with conflicts between lower intelligences... whether it be for fun, personal gain, or straight up business.
 
None of the scientist's in HL are more intelligent than Gordon Freeman, but when i have to do comparison between Gordon and The G-man i think I'll choose again Gordon.
 
Andrew LB said:
If the G-man wanted the Borealis, he would have simply traveled there and taken possession of it at a time of his choosing. It's quite entertaining that so many of you think that the G-Man needs the rebels to help him find some outdated portal technology which pales in comparison to his own portal abilities. The G-Man is so far beyond anything the rebels, aperture science, or GlaDOS has..... it's nuts.

I personally believe that G-Man is part of some higher form of intelligence that likes to fiddle with conflicts between lower intelligences... whether it be for fun, personal gain, or straight up business.
Click to expand...

I never said I think he wants it or needs it, I was just throwing out ideas.

Wait...are you the G-man? Then how do you know what he is capable of? My point is, none of us know shit, we can only theorize. For all we know the G-man is a harmless ghost used to distract from a higher power pulling the strings.
 
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