Grand Unified HL2 Theory (the end of all Questions)

Samon, unfortunately I can't seem to find it. Funny enough, when I searched for it the only hit that popped up was this thread on the forums. It's dated February 5, 2004, so I went looking through all the Gabe interviews around that time, all the hands-on previews in March from places like Gamespy and IGN, and I went through the Valve info thread in General Discussion here, but didn't turn up anything. Honestly though you're not missing much; that's all he said. No more, no less about the subject.

Also Eejit I really doubt that portions of Xen will be appearing on earth because spores were allowed to germinate. No offense, but think of it from a story prospective...it's much more dramatic to say that something has once again triggered the merging of Xen and Earth, rather than "a couple seeds flew through a portal, and oh noes!" :p
 
its ok darkside, i have just seen it here and there on the forums and wasnt sure whether it was true, i just wanted confirmation but it doesnt matter. makes sense anyway
 
Well, I see Darkside's point on "bringing Xen to the player" and I agree that something must have happened. But not another resonance cascade, I believe that whoever control s teleportation wouldn't allow it to happen again.

I wold think that as someone said b4, generalized Xen fauna/flora all around Earth should be enough.
 
And I won't have the time to compile ver 2.0 till next weekend due to the fact that yesterday Portugal lost to Greece, and that this whole week is filled with exams for me.
 
Ah well...

Does anyone else believe the Resonance Cascade was fixed by the G-man (yes, we know this part for sure), himself knowing Nihilanth would see it as an attack and invade, thus giving him, and whoever he works for, an excuse to counterattack and occupy the alien world?

And if so, do you think that the Controllers have struck back at the occupying humans and driven them right back into their homeworld - invading Earth?

Certainly seems as good a theory as any. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were arge sections of Xen merging with Earth, if that didn't already happen at the end of HL2. Maybe it's been happening constantly and gradually since the first game, and the latest alien invasion wasn't deliberate after all because it's only now, in HL2, that the merging has reached catastrophic levels; only now that Xen flora, fauna and even goegraphy have started pouring through rips between the dimensions. If the Xen invasion was actually that - an invasion - were they forced to set off another 'resonance cascade' type scenario to strike back at Earth? I'm sure all, some or none of these questions will be answered when the game comes out.
 
I just want the damn game to come out...

I always thought that the GMan was merely a "messenger" for his employers.
 
Sulkdodds said:
Ah well...

Does anyone else believe the Resonance Cascade was fixed by the G-man (yes, we know this part for sure), himself knowing Nihilanth would see it as an attack and invade, thus giving him, and whoever he works for, an excuse to counterattack and occupy the alien world?

And if so, do you think that the Controllers have struck back at the occupying humans and driven them right back into their homeworld - invading Earth?
Click to expand...

I totally agree. But that's HL1 storyline, filled in by the site linked. I'm not here to speculate about that.

Sulkdodds said:
Certainly seems as good a theory as any. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were arge sections of Xen merging with Earth, if that didn't already happen at the end of HL2.
Click to expand...

Neither would I. But until there's some indication of it, I'll just include a reference to this theory.
 
Kouler said:
I always thought that the GMan was merely a "messenger" for his employers.
Click to expand...

me too, but with the hl community's response to Gman it's likely Valve would have made him into more than he originally was supposed to be.
 
Firstly, I haven't played the leaked version, everything in this post is speculation.

I think the G-Man fixed the resonance cascade as well, against the Administrator's wishes. I think we have already seen the Black Mesa Administrator, and it is not Dr. Breen. The G-Man is not particularly an enemy or ally of Freeman, and the twist is that Gordon is working with the G-Man's former enemies - but the G-Man is not associated with the Combine either. I think he is now a free agent as it were, working against those who have taken power in place of the old government. I don't want to compare him to "Smith" in the Matrix, but basically the G-Man is against everybody.

I thought the G-Man's smile after the "ashes" sentence indicated that he would just as easily abandon Freeman as he had employed him. If everything goes wrong, he will blame Freeman, who was supposed to have died in Black Mesa but has strangely reappeared just as the Combine is in trouble. I believe Sulkdodd's theory is that you arrive shortly before a system failure allows aliens into City-17, somehow orchestrated by the G-Man.
 
dæmon said:
I think we have already seen the Black Mesa Administrator, and it is not Dr. Breen.
Click to expand...


Valve has said the Black Mesa Admin. was Breen, and that you never saw him.....
 
Hmm, I don't recall seeing that. I thought he was the Administrator of City-17, but someone else was in charge of Black Mesa.
 
dæmon said:
Hmm, I don't recall seeing that. I thought he was the Administrator of City-17, but someone else was in charge of Black Mesa.
Click to expand...

1st they said he was in charge of City 17, then they said that the BMRF Admin. and him were actually the same person
 
That throws my little theory out of the window ;)

Breen must know of the G-Man then, but he doesn't know the G-Man employed Freeman. Breen isn't too pleased about being the Combine's puppet leader, so he turns to the ruthless G-Man to find a way to bring them down. What sort of man might be useful for doing that?
 
We won't be able to speculate after the game is out, except perhaps about Half-Life 3, but who saw City-17 coming from the way Half-Life ended? It's more interesting to consider wild theories than constantly discuss release dates.
 
Stop speculating and wait for the f****** game to come out!
Click to expand...
Right, I guess I'll stop speculating in the speculation forum then.
Thank you for showing me the light! :rolleyes:
 
Brian Damage said:
Fairly good summary... I'd say Striders are way taller than five meters, though...
Click to expand...
fifty feet
 
Does the fifty feet figure come straight from VALVe? I've also heard anywhere from 30 to 100 in the previews...
 
Doesn't really make much difference to me how big it is. All I know is that it's a lot bigger than Gordon. :O
 
Don't start discussing the damn height of the Striders. They're tall, that's about all I need to know.

And this is it- my exams are over, I might bring you the 1st big review of the Grand Unified Theory as early as today.
 
I believe there are two different enemies in this. The combine and the xen.
The Xen don't seem to be much of a threat anymore for I have not seen any organized xenians in the HL2 videos. There's just the head crabs/zombies barnacles... just the dumb ones... except the vortagaunt which are on the resistance side. I think the combine are a much more advanved race than the humans and xenians, that is seeing the striders, gunships and the citadel. The combine police are probably just corrupt humans taken by the combine and then converted. Maybe the true combine don't have a physical form and somehow make machines out of them selves, looking at the striders and gunships. We'll see....
 
That reminds me, PatPwnt, I was wondering the other day, after seeing M. Crichton's (Sp?) book "Prey" in the bookstore, whether the Combine could be some sort of nano-scale lifeform?

Like the little bastards in XCom: Apocalypse*. That could be one way for them to keep control of their human soldiers... Maybe they insinuate themselves directly into their biomechaniods, too... And it'd explain a lot of their technology (Like that wall that's somehow eating the city)... Maybe the citadel is made of trillions of actual Combine?

It could even explain the name... They could "Combine" in order to perform different functions...


*On another note, has anyone noticed that the... what was it... Brainsucker, or whatever it was called, from X: A looks incredibly similar to HL's Headcrab?
 
..... jesus christ..... why do people think such stupid stuff...

THE COMBINE ARE HUMAN! 110% FLESH AND BLOOD EARTH HUMAN!!!! THE STRIDER IS MECHANICAL, THE NAME "Combine" COMES FROM THE WALL EATING ITS WAY ACROSS THE CITY, LIKE A COMBINE WOULD IN CORN...

*eye twich*
 
Once again I must bring up the voiceover reference to the "Alien Combine" in one of the bigger vids...

Oh, and I still reckon the Strider and Gunship are biomechanical...
 
a·li·en
adj.

1. Owing political allegiance to another country or government; foreign: alien residents.
2. Belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange. See Synonyms at foreign.
3. Dissimilar, inconsistent, or opposed, as in nature: emotions alien to her temperament.


n.

1. An unnaturalized foreign resident of a country. Also called noncitizen.
2. A person from another and very different family, people, or place.
3. A person who is not included in a group; an outsider.
4. A creature from outer space: science fiction about an invasion of aliens.
5. Ecology. An organism, especially a plant or animal, that occurs in or is naturalized in a region to which it is not native.


It could be any of these things, and yes this was taken from dictionary.com, god bless 'em.
 
This being the sequel to a game in which offworld aliens were a rather large part of the mythos. A sequel in which we know there are already loads of offworld aliens.
 
heh. shhh , i realised that half way through my post, but i thought i would i would anyway!
 
OK, it's ready, I'll post it here for feedback b4 editing the 1st post.

_________________________________________________________________________

WTF is going on with the World? And Xen?

After the Black Mesa incident, the World had suffered from a small resonance cascade. That is, Earth & Xen came close and started merging, but two ladies (Gina Cross and Colette Green), stopped it from reaching "no return" point. So, we had several teleportation around the world of Xenians and so on, which if given freedom could reproduce.

After the fall of the Nihilanth, Xen fell into Human control or at least of the G-man’s “employers”, in cooperation with the genetically engineered army that Nihilanth had made, maybe to protect Xen from things like this (alien control of Xen).

If Xen is the mid-point in any teleportation, and subsequently absolutely required for successful long-range interplanetary teleportation, that makes it a major military-strategic point of control in the Universe/galaxy.
Therefore, I do not believe Human control lasted long before other races started competing with them. “War is coming….”

After the loss of Xen, it seems that the conflict that doomed it spread to Earth.
Whichever other races have expelled us from Xen for whatever reason, they don’t seem to have travelled all the way to Earth to wipe us out for good. Instead, it seems that some minor races were allowed to come to Earth to finish us. The Antlions seem too primitive to have single-handedly annihilated the Xen army, so they must be one of those races that the race in control of Xen allowed or even encouraged to come to Earth, or they just took advantage of the anarchy reigning and tried to expand their dominions. The Xenians seem to have been kicked off Xen as well, with some of them coming to Earth.

There is an alternative theory, that another resonance cascade has happened, result of abuse of Xen teleportation.

Now Earth becomes a “no man’s land”, with aliens’ teleporting in mass, anywhere, anytime.
Possibly some last remaining specimens of the human race are saved on "numbered cities".

These cities are militarily controlled for protection against the apparently unstoppable wave of alien fauna that keeps coming to Earth. One of them, numbered 17, goes under control of a new faction that I shall discuss later on....



Gordon Freeman & the G-man - Allies or enemies?

10 years in stasis after the incident in Black Mesa Research Facility. Possibly a technology acquired by the G-man from his employers - still unknown. Not even going to speculate about them, we are in the total black zone on that.

But after 10 years in total time freeze, Freeman is back into activity. The G-man gives him a mission, still unclear if it is to go against the forces in City 17 or help them. In the 1st case, it would look like Freeman betrays the G-man later in the game, since he goes against the Combine. Note : it is apparent from the E3’04 video that the G-man is not happy with the situation on Earth, so he would most likely send in Freeman against the Combine. But we never know with him, he might be leading you the wrong way, knowing that you shall fail, but still achieving his initial objective.

Since the Combine authorities swiftly take him into an interrogation/execution room, it doesn't look like his objective is to help them, but maybe the Combine just don't know what his objective is and do it anyway.

After that, he escapes the Combine authorities and joins the Resistance against them. Still unknown whether that was his initial, primary objective, or he is going against G-man orders.

Freeman presumably meets Dr. Breen after a few conflicts with his forces in his Citadel (the BIG tower remember?).

The G-man, after Freeman completing the mission, presumably gives him another dose of stasis for some time, until he is needed again, or he is immediately sent into another mission in another point of the globe, or even the Universe.....


Combine & Breen: The Neo World Order or just "a few bad apple"?


Dr. Breen is confirmed to be the former Administrator of the Black Mesa Research Facility, and presumably an accomplice or even the leader on the planning of the BM incident. He was probably one of the top dogs regarding the Nihilanth Fall and subsequent Human control.

The Combine are known to be his acolytes, a Collective of biomechanoid beings, ranging from small "converted" humans posing as security forces (metrocops & general Combine Armed Forces), flying Gunships and 3-legged, and insanely tall Striders.
While the infantry can be easily explained as simple humans “assimilated” (the Borg reference had to be here…) the Striders, Gunships and maybe more that we haven’t seen yet are increasingly difficult. But the most likely is that they are the product of the extensive alien specimen research that must have been conducted during the short-span Human control of Xen. The Gunships, in example, seem to be quite rare and/or expensive, since the Combine also utilizes helicopters for air support. The Striders seem to be the Combine version of tanks, with extreme firepower and near invulnerability, and not so rare, although, again, the Combine uses an alternative to them (check the videos for the armoured vehicle). And the Combine Armed Forces & the Strider-Gunships don’t seem to work as close as one would think. They rarely appear on the same battlefield together, and in case of the Striders, we can see them with utmost disrespect on an infantry APC and we never had a sight of cooperation between these and the infantry.
How Breen did come across that technology? Xen looks like a nice scenario for extraterrestrial technology exchange. I believe that whoever supplied him are also his "benefactors" that also deployed his Citadel into City 17. They must have some sort of interest on Earth and are using Breen as their link.

Now, he turns City 17 into a massive concentration camp with worldwide propaganda - "It's safer here”. His promises appear to attract many people, escaping from more “hot” zones. Selecting these individuals, Breen is allowed to have the “crème de la crème”, that is, only acceptable subjects for subsequent assimilation are allowed into City 17.

Why would he do that if his goal is other than Combine proliferation? With such great concentration camps as City 17, he gets a massive number of new assimilated Combines, preparing for his "benefactors" arrival and possible take over.

Breen simply erases long-term memory, suppresses any sign of rebellion with heavy weaponry and then, when the city is fully “assimilated” and totally empty with exception of Combine, he makes his own personal fortress to eat through it.

Now, to the main stuff.....

What it's all about - Genocide vs. playing around with the Time-space continuum or destroying Xen

The overall sense of the Combine seems to be to turn over the table on the alien invasion, and possibly even invade back, take Xen and all the worlds attached to it. I believe the true Combine, the ones that initially supplied the technology to Breen, are likely to just be playing Breen in a greater plan, of total galactic, or even universal domination. Although Breen may also be high in their ranks, I would say that that’s highly unlikely. To him, they are “benefactors”, not “friends”. He might even know their true goal, but uses their offers to pursuit his own personal agenda.

The scientist resistance, in cooperation with the freed Vortigaunts however, that were released from Xen and emigrated to Earth after the Human Fall in Xen are trying to make some "other way", *that I speculate * (I had to do this, due to that fact that people disagree with what that is said next) to be some good old time travel, and never allowing the BMRF Incident happening and so forth.

Other suggested option for the Scientist resistance is destroying Xen, therefore ceasing with teleportation for good, but also ending with the impending anarchy in the galaxy with the alien invasions.

However, Gabe stated that one faction was "wrong and that other is terribly wrong". That might mean that Time-space interference or taking out Xen may cause more problems than it solves, or the other way around. We'll just have to wait and see.....
 
if u ppl don't say anything, I'm going to edit the 1st post without the feedback!
 
hmm, i agree with some bits... i still dont understand how the combine are robots... but, i just prefer to kill living things! they are more squishy... robots arent a challenge cuz they have laser guided systems and hax :)
 
's fine, Sprafa. Give people longer than 17 minutes, eh?

[EDIT]: Where's he say they're robots?
 
Reaperman said:
..... jesus christ..... why do people think such stupid stuff...

THE COMBINE ARE HUMAN! 110% FLESH AND BLOOD EARTH HUMAN!!!! THE STRIDER IS MECHANICAL, THE NAME "Combine" COMES FROM THE WALL EATING ITS WAY ACROSS THE CITY, LIKE A COMBINE WOULD IN CORN...

*eye twich*
Click to expand...
hmm you are the first person who really got the point !!!
THE COMBINE ARE NO ALIENS OR OTHER STUFF !! THEY ARE FU..ING HUMANS !!!!!!!!
i already said this in one of these threads but i'll repeat it one more time again :
1.the combine look like humans (body,clothes,height)
2.they move like humans (speed)
3.they behave like humans
4.they have got human weaponry (machine guns etc.)
5.they have a lot of red blood in their bodies (watch the movies)
6.they speak english

if the combine soldiers were some kind of super race why would they use our dumb machineguns or wear such dumb clothes.
i see no reason for that the combine are much more dangerous than the military from h-l 1 they are easy to kill and seem to be much more intelligent .

only because they wear gasmasks and have strange voices doesnt mean they are aliens ,the gasmask belongs to their standart equipment and protects them from gasbombs and it also keeps them anonym same as their strange voices.

well the gunships and striders could be human technology too.
maybe they invented them at BMRF before the incident and after the fall of nihilanth they started to built them and tested them on xen.
 
Reaperman said:
..... jesus christ..... why do people think such stupid stuff...

THE COMBINE ARE HUMAN! 110% FLESH AND BLOOD EARTH HUMAN!!!! THE STRIDER IS MECHANICAL, THE NAME "Combine" COMES FROM THE WALL EATING ITS WAY ACROSS THE CITY, LIKE A COMBINE WOULD IN CORN...

*eye twich*
Click to expand...

If they are 110% human, than why are they pwning their own race?
 
.... that is the dumbest question of all time....


ever heard of wars?
 
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