Sprafa
Tank
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- Sep 9, 2003
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Where to start?
Well, let's start on the original HL story. I'm basing everything from here, excepting the fact the G-man is not the Administrator, as is wrongly stated in that site.
I'm doing this so when anyone ask anything about the HL2 storyline, I'll just link this instead of having all the work to write it all again.
*WARNING - FOLLOWING CONTAINS SEVERAL ASSUMPTIONS*
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.
Well, let's start on the original HL story. I'm basing everything from here, excepting the fact the G-man is not the Administrator, as is wrongly stated in that site.
I'm doing this so when anyone ask anything about the HL2 storyline, I'll just link this instead of having all the work to write it all again.
*WARNING - FOLLOWING CONTAINS SEVERAL ASSUMPTIONS*
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.
