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DeltaBlast

DeltaBlast

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Anyone any clue what the graffiti means? like the one with the combine soldier holding a (combine?) baby? (and what does the text say.. caste?

or the one attached... when I saw it, my mind wandered to 1984 (the book) and the rhyme... oranges and lemons, say the bells of st. clements... but that's probably totally unrelated.
 

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Combine baby one? Post that one, I don't remember.

What's oranges and lemons? I dont remember that from 1984, it's been forever since I read it.


That one
looks like it also says XEN (with a greek pi sign for the 'x') and those are bombs falling beneath the fruit.

Nice find.
 
actually the reference to 1984 may not be so implausable, there are many other nods in that direction. It's been a while since I've read that Orwellian masterpeice, but perhaps I'll pick it back up.

I thought the combine baby one said caste too... I love the depth behind this game. It's even a game when you aren't playing.
 
Yeah, surely that is from 1984 (Someone somewhere else said that one of the resistance fighters was named Winston.)

I don't remember that from the book, but here's a big thing I googled:

'Oranges and Lemons' is a well-known English Nursery Rhyme. Of unknown origin, it is possible that the children of London made up the words to fit the rhythm of the ringing bells.

Please note, the last three lines do not appear in the earliest recordings of this rhyme.

Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St Clements
You owe me five farthings
Say the bells of St Martins
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney
I'm sure I don't know
Says the great bell at Bow
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head

Chop chop chop chop the last man's head!

The Actions

A group of children decide to play 'Oranges and Lemons'. Two children become the 'chopper' by holding hands and forming an arch. They secretly decide which one of them is 'Oranges' and which one is 'Lemons'.

The other children go through the arch in a line, circling round behind the arch, and going through again, singing the rhyme as they go. At the last line of the rhyme the 'choppers' bring their arms up and down in a chopping motion over each child that goes through. The game can get quite nerve-racking for the children at this point, and they often run through as fast as they can. The child caught in the middle at the last word of the rhyme is out.

The captured child secretly chooses to be Oranges or Lemons, and then moves around to stand behind that child forming the arch. When all the children have been captured, the teams have a tug of war. The winning team is the one left standing, but usually none of the children are by the end.

Where Are These Famous Bells?

Research shows that these are the churches associated with the rhyme:

Bells of St Clements

St Clements, Eastcheap, is a small church, only 64 feet long and 40 feet wide, and stands huddled between two office blocks. There has been a church on the site since the 11th Century; the present one is the third to be standing on the site. The original church was demolished in the 15th Century, and the second was destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren in 1687.

The church stands in St Clements Lane, in fact, the name of the street comes from the church. It was previously known as Eastcheap. The rhyme begins with this church because when the Thames was wider than it is today, the wharf where the citrus fruit cargoes from the Mediterranean were delivered lay just across the street. It is said the church bells pealed when a cargo arrived.


Find the 1984 passage, please someone..=p Or mebbe I'll go look.
 
Cool. Wonder what the things on its back are.

There's another one that shows a human woman holding the baby that says "Resist", I think. If i remember right, its on the way into Black Mesa East.

I found the 1984 text. It's just Winston remembering the rhyme:

Winston came across to examine the picture. It was a steel engraving of an oval building with rectangular windows, and a small tower in front. There was a railing running round the building, and at the rear end there was what appeared to be a statue. Winston gazed at it for some moments. It seemed vaguely familiar, though he did not remember the statue.

'The frame's fixed to the wall,' said the old man, 'but I could unscrew it for you, I dare say.'

'I know that building,' said Winston finally. 'It's a ruin now. It's in the middle of the street outside the Palace of Justice.'

'That's right. Outside the Law Courts. It was bombed in -- oh, many years ago. It was a church at one time, St Clement Danes, its name was.' He smiled apologetically, as though conscious of saying something slightly ridiculous, and added: 'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's!'

'What's that?' said Winston.

'Oh- "Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's." That was a rhyme we had when I was a little boy. How it goes on I don't remember, but I do know it ended up, "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, Here comes a chopper to chop off your head." It was a kind of a dance. They held out their arms for you to pass under, and when they came to "Here comes a chopper to chop off your head" they brought their arms down and caught you. It was just names of churches. All the London churches were in it -- all the principal ones, that is.'


Edit: Bombing the church is why the fruit is dropping bombs...

'Chop off your head'....cute Valve.. :afro:

..Props on the find Delta, btw.
 
To me i think its the new evolution of the human race, the humans are evolving into combine/humans, the baby represents new wave...

Did any of you see the spray underground where it has a picture of an ape, then a human head, then a combine head without the maskl... quite interesting.. if someone can find it post it.
 
Check this one out.
 

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Breen with RESIST...cool. Maybe I'll go look at my ss file, and see what I got.

That monkey-human-combine one, yeah. There's a thread on that pic somewhere..

It looks like a simplified evolutionary chart that is more Breen propoganda: apes evolve to humans and humans to the 'superior' combine. All that stuff about instinct Breen keeps talking about.
 
Well remember in the beginning if you watch Breens speach, the whole point of what he is doing is to stop humans from reproducing because immortality is almost possible. So the combine holding the baby could mean alot of things relating to that. Its opposite of what they are enforcing. Also the woman holding the baby and it says resist, some thing, dont follow Breen, resist, reproduce, have children. Just my two cents.
 
I do remember seeing baby dolls lying around at some point in the game. Close to the beggining I think. In the play yard where the two citizens are standing together.
 
I like the retro look of the combine and baby one. It looks like it could have been tagged in the 70's.

The baby's eyes kinda freak me out.
 
I loved the graffiti because it certaintly could've been real.
The baby & Caste thing I think is just meaningless rebellion, fighting on every front you know?
 
You think that CASTE refers to the Indian Caste system?
 
ascii said:
You think that CASTE refers to the Indian Caste system?
Click to expand...
I thought about that but I don't think so, I mean, you can discuss it for a hundred years and it still wouldn't make any sense.
 
dekstar said:
That's very funky. I think it might be saying the combine are us from the future, and we (the combine) might have gone back in time to save our selves from doing something... but that leads to implications if you ask me...
Click to expand...
No I think it just shows what the combine wants to do, evolve us to the next stage, ie removing for example the urge to mate and enhance us with biomechanical implants.
 
"The Combine" doesn't refer to the entire enemy, it only refers to the overwatch soldiers. The combine are combined man/machine, Breen talks about how the combine are the finest humanity has to offer, and it's clear thay the combine consists of genitically enhanced humans. but they're all in service of the 'benefactors'.
 
I don't think it's "genetically" enhanced, more like mechanically enhanced, since at one point in the game, one of the resistance fighters (was it barney?) suggests he is ready to join the overwatch if this struggle keeps up. But in any case, i think the Combine soldiers are just citizens who have joined the cause of the invaders rather than choose to suffer under their rule.
Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven and all that...
 
Yes, it means Caste, as in the Indian caste system. It's resistance-drawn graffitti that shows what the combine is doing; that's why the baby looks scared-- its supposed to make you feel how bad combine control of humans is, and that it is a kind of Caste system in which the combine are at the top and the humans are at the bottom, and it is bad, bad, bad.
 
the evolution graffiti obviously represents that humans need to take the next evolutionary step and become combine, biomechanical implants and whatnot.

The caste graffiti is harder to decipher - it's certainly resistance graf, but as to what it means your guess is as good, or probably better than, mine.

For the RESIST graffiti, the one with Breen means resist Breen I assume, the one with the woman might just be generic.
 
Daegon said:
914642_20041112_screen066.jpg
Click to expand...

The adult figure is simply a combine depicted with a certain degree of artistic license. The baby is human (combine do not produce offspring).
The way the combine holds the baby indicates that there is an emmotional bond between them. That bond could just be the bond between most normal human beings, or it could indicate an actual relation (father/son being the most likely).

Obviously this situation (combine cradeling a human baby) is completely unrealistic, so the piece is mostly the artist expressing a desperate hope. "The combine were human once, they can become human again."

Supporting this is the fact that the combine display human traits when they suppress the populace of c17. They beat people up as if they do it for fun, not because they are machines being told to do it. This indicates that the combine have lost their sense of right and wrong, but still have basic feelings intact. To themselves they feel like they do what they do because they have to, but subconsiously they take pleassure in it. One way to easilly accomplish this would be to let adrenaline-flow be a stronger than normal kick for them (ie making fighting a way to get high). Engineering their reponse to adrenaline in this way would also make them fearless (albeit not stupid) warriors, which they seem to be.

Basically the combine are controlled in two ways, fear of punishment (whatever that might be), and love for violence.

A last point to back this up would be
how well barney is able to infiltrate the combine
That indicates that they are indeed human because
they don't see a problem with having another human in their ranks

Ofcourse, they could be machines with really good ai, but why would you need that? Unthinking machines that can be controlled from one (or preferably more) mainframes is much more likely and that is surely not the case.

.bog.
 
This one was very well hidden in the Canals level. It was in the middle of a very fast part with the hoverboat. Don't think i've seen this graffitti in any other level. What does it say/mean?

d1_canals_02.jpg
 
DeltaBlast said:
"The Combine" doesn't refer to the entire enemy, it only refers to the overwatch soldiers. The combine are combined man/machine, Breen talks about how the combine are the finest humanity has to offer, and it's clear thay the combine consists of genitically enhanced humans. but they're all in service of the 'benefactors'.
Click to expand...

The humans that work for the Combine are called Combine Overwatch.

The actuall aliens are I beleive called Combine. Because of what Breen sais when you, Alyx and Eli are captured. He sais something like: "Now that I have all of you I can get what I want from the Combine" (not an exact quote)
 
I love this game! So much mystery.

Good find fury... dont know what it says though...
 
im not really sure this is just speculation i cant read that crap for nothing but it looks like hi gf that is considering the last letter is a F maybe a weird cursive F but Hi gordan freeman seems pretty lame, so im stareing at it flipping it around in paint (thought it weird the last letter being capitolized (still cant detirmin the letter think its a G now So i played pink floyd dark side of the moon and it totaly synked up with the wizard of oz
 
That's neat fury, I haven't seen that one before.

New to me. No idea what it is tho.
 
I did some research on the word "caste" it means the god of small things, originating from hindu religion
 
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