E-mail to Marc Laidlow

[AJ Rimmer]

I think it's Riomhaire's e-mail program that's distorted the formatting of it. But, yeah, if you think about it, Xen is a borderworld, touching all places at once. It'd make sense if the species are all from different worlds. In a weird way.
Which might be why you never see anything on Xen headcrabbed.

-Angry Lawyer

But the factories in HL1 still implies that the "xenians" inhabitated Xen for quite some time, so how come certian species decided to inhabit that world? When the Vorts did it certaintly didn't work out too well for them, they became slaves, so what was the attraction for these species? Close to school? Quiet Neighbourhood? Or were they unable to leave once they got there? (however they managed to get their in the first place)
Oh my god, this opens up the possibilites of an infinite amount of new threads of speculation!!!

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Well, the race X things don't seem to be well adapted for jumping in low gravity, nor do they seem proficient at feeling on plant life and bacterial nutrition.

The Combine apparently use a seperate way of getting to Earth, through tunnelling directly, hence the reason it takes so much energy. Other races are using Xen (and presumably other planes) as their 'borderworld'.

Of course Laidlaw is making it up - but you're learning how he thinks.

And, for certain species like your traditional Vortigaunts inhabiting the world, maybe they just figured out place-Xen-place teleportation, like we did, and decided to set up camp there?

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Asknoone]

Interesting. Very interesting.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

And, for certain species like your traditional Vortigaunts inhabiting the world, maybe they just figured out place-Xen-place teleportation, like we did, and decided to set up camp there?

-Angry Lawyer

Bad career move...

 

[Laivasse]

A place you have to go through to get to other places, this would seem to imply that the Combine have had to come through Xen to get to Earth.

It still seems to me that the fact the Combine can't local teleport means that they just don't know about Xen. The Combine teleportation tech seems to be slow and cumbersome, but also massively powerful, if they can teleport in mile high citadels all at once. Maybe it's also a sign of this power that they don't need the borderworld to teleport around, but it means they just have to do it slower and bigger.

Also, I agree that the whole borderworld being colonised by non-native species makes sense, and actually is quite a cool idea, but... just when was Laidlaw planning on letting us know this?! I would never have guessed it from just playing HL. To me stuff from Xen was just "Xenian". It makes me wonder a lot about what other non-hinted-at story we haven't guessed at.

 

[Jandor]

Hmmm

Vortigaunts go to Xen, think it looks quite nice and decide to stay.
Controllers turn up and say, hmm, Vortigaunts, lets enslave them.
Controllers build Nihilanth to make it easier to control the Vortigaunts.
Controllers get sick of people teleporting into there world, they develop the Grunts.
Humans start to mess about with Xen.
Nihilanth gets angry and starts killing the theiving explorers.
Humans make a mess of there teleports and start a resonance cascade.
Nihilanth uses the cascade to send troops to Earth, to shut down the facility.
U.S. government responds, they begin sending troops to Xen.
Race-X come to Xen and start to get a piece of the pie.
Black Mesa personnel use the sattelite to gain some control for themselves.
Gordon is sent to Xen, Black Mesa is a complete mess.
Gordon kills Nihilanth and control of the cascade is lost, it slowly grows out of control.
Sheppard kills the Gene-Worm, Race-X retreat.
Portal Storms ravage Earth, teleporting random things to Earth from Xen.
The Combine notice the "stuff" going on there "stuff-o-meter" and invade Xen and Earth.
Xen is conquered, Earth presence on Xen is eliminated.
7-Hour war begins, total loss for Humanity.
yada yada yada

I just made this up right now.

EDIT: I would imagine the Combine teleporters work sort of with the planets as circles, they can go in a straight line anywhere, but not through the circle to the other side. So they have to go to another circle first, then back to a new spot on the old circle, which is incredibly innefficient for little things, but good at long distance big things.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

I'm thinking it was more that the Controllers went to Xen, bringing their Vortigaunt slaves with them, and their technology for growing Grunts.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Asknoone]

I'm thinking it was more that the Controllers went to Xen, bringing their Vortigaunt slaves with them, and their technology for growing Grunts.

-Angry Lawyer

Sounds pretty sound to me.

The whole of Xen is probably littered with numerous species and aliens.

 

[Jandor]

I dont know, the Controllers look very different to the Vortigaunts.

 

[ríomhaire]

Well, the race X things don't seem to be well adapted for jumping in low gravity, nor do they seem proficient at feeling on plant life and bacterial nutrition.

The Combine apparently use a seperate way of getting to Earth, through tunnelling directly, hence the reason it takes so much energy. Other races are using Xen (and presumably other planes) as their 'borderworld'.

Of course Laidlaw is making it up - but you're learning how he thinks.

And, for certain species like your traditional Vortigaunts inhabiting the world, maybe they just figured out place-Xen-place teleportation, like we did, and decided to set up camp there?

-Angry Lawyer

The Combine attacked Xen after the BM incident

Rather than fall under the command of the Combine the Vortigaunts fled to Earth

So that's probably how they got to Earth.

 

[Asknoone]

So that's probably how they got to Earth.

You quoted that wrong. "Rather than full under the dominion of the combine, those vortigaunts left stranded on earth joined forces with the humans"

And Jandor: They both have the third leg thing?

 

[Jandor]

I never noticed a third arm on the controllers, granted, they where flying around the room quickly launching energy balls at me.

 

[Asknoone]

I noticed when the Controller was lying dead on the conveyor belt, bieng pushed along by the grunt egg to his impending doom

 

[T.H.C.138]

I always thought of the controllers as mini-Nihilanths...big bulbous head,crazy energy ball attack...I do feel that the Nihilanth was the equivalent of Dr. Breen for Xen..

did the Combine enslave the Vorts or did the Nihilanth/Controller race enslave the Vorts first? who enslaved who dammit!!

just a random thought I had while reading through all these posts..not fully formed but the general outline is there

 

[Angry Lawyer]

You misquoted there.

Vortigaunts are a hive-minded, energy-wielding slave race, inadvertently liberated by Gordon Freeman when he destroyed the Nihilanth in the final battle of the Black Mesa Incident. Rather than fall under the dominion of the Combine, those Vortigaunts now stranded on Earth have joined with humans to fight for the freedom of all.

The Combine attacked Xen after the BM Incident? I see you're slowly turning away from the idea that the Nihilanth and things are Combine controlled, so I'm pretty happy. But the above quote mentions that of the Vortigaunts being stranded on Earth, not fleeing there - it's not like the Vortigaunts are here out of choice.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[ríomhaire]

You misquoted there.

.

The Combine attacked Xen after the BM Incident? I see you're slowly turning away from the idea that the Nihilanth and things are Combine controlled, so I'm pretty happy. But the above quote mentions that of the Vortigaunts being stranded on Earth, not fleeing there - it's not like the Vortigaunts are here out of choice.

-Angry Lawyer

I don't see how you came to that conclustion, I think they invaded twice

 

[Angry Lawyer]

And both games lack any evidence for any contact

Oh, and I managed to get Vortigaunts working in my mod. I have a feeling you'd appreciate a video of them being commanded in an RTS style, to pwn some Stalkers.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[ríomhaire]

Marc's responce explained Xen's f**ked up eco-system, everything (except the chumtoad) is a carnivore

 

[Sloth]

Meat eating meat, simple!
AL: Do you have any media for your nameless MOD, or are you waiting till the time is right??

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Still beautifying it before I release anything. Although, I do have a short 10second video of the code in action - it looks ugly, but the stuff that's happening is kinda cool. PM me if you really want to see it.

Oh, and Bullsquids are omnivores - you see them sifting plankton from a pond at the beginning of HL1.

-Angry Lawyer