Half-Life all about time travel.

[Tycell]

Ok, I dont know if anyone else has tried this yet but at the final battle atop the Citidel tower, after I had shot down the two gun ships and removed all the armour plating from around the Universe tunneling portal. I decided to quick save and then see what happens if I let Breen get away. I assumed it would be death, because he said the whole area would be bathed in particles not yet named, but it wasn't.

When Breen got away I was still alive, however the screen faded and this came up;

"Assignment: Terminated
Subject: Freeman
Reason: Failure to prevent time critical sequence"

Time critical sequence? That would imply that whoever wrote that text knows what will and wont happen if you destroy that portal.

In Half-Life 1 there was a point in the large lambda reactor that had lots of portal "ports", one such port (number 7 or 6 I think it was) took you back in time, back to the very start of the resonance cascade.

And when you jump into the portal with Alyx in Nova Prospekt, it takes a week for you to emerge inside Dr K's lab.

The Gman talks about time a lot, weather it be indirect or not. It is my belife that the Gman is a time traveler and has hired Gordon to alter the time line for him.

Anyone else have any theories on the time travel subject?

 

[L337_Assasain]

what? where did you get these things? what teleporter in Nova Prospekt?

 

[DaFreak]

I do not recall a teleport that took you back to the beginning of the resonance cascade in hl1 :/

I think you are looking this a bit too far. I think this just means that you have to kill breen within a certain time limit or else your mission fails.

However I do think time will play an important role in hl3. Especially the slow teleport part where gordon and alyx arrived a week later is very intruiging. I have this feeling that something happened there during that week we were teleporting.

 

[Quelaar]

Lol, the one you escape from?

And yes, interesting note...I got the same message when I missed a jump in the buggy.

I think the g-man put you in at the right time in place, perfectly setting off a sequence of events that would lead you directly to the game's conclusion. Almost like a Minority Report/Paycheck type thing, and I think that helps explain that missions would end if you broke the chain of events.

Quelaar

 

[DaFreak]

what? where did you get these things? what teleporter in Nova Prospekt?

Have you played the game? He is talking about half-life 2. You know like in nova prospekt, the ex high security prison where the create combine soldiers now? Mossman made a teleport for the combine. She first used it to teleport herself and eli out of there. And a bit later you (Gordon Freeman) and alyx took it to get back to Kleiner's lab. When you arrive there you meet a suprised dr Kleiner who wasent expecting you anymore... You showed up a week later!

 

[Tycell]

The teleporter in HL1 that took you back to the beggining of the resonance caskade is in the top tier of the large Teleporter tower/reactor. The place you are just before you meet with barney and a scientist and have to defend the large portal while it opens up to xen. Look for the "Port" with the portal with red electicric arks flying out of it .

And yes you do have to kill breen within a certain time limit, My point is that you have to kill him to make the Timeline a certain way.
that is why the Gman has "assigned" you to that time and space.

 

[fantasiser]

I remember the portals in HL1 but i dont know why you think they send you back in time

 

[cleckmoon]

This deserves another posting.

 

[Speedkills]

I hope you all realise that changing past events is logically impossible: the infamous time travel paradox. Imagine time as a straight line i.e. A->B. If you are near to B and travel back to A, and change the sequence of events leading up to B, then B will not exist in the way it existed when you travelled back in time. But then you wouldn't (or might not) exist, because you were created in the timeline leading to B which does not exist anymore because it has been changed. Got me?

If this IS the point of the game then it's a bit of a crap storyline.

 

[Icarusintel]

but wouldn't your time travel be factored into time if time is predestined and all events have already been set, then your time travel will actually just make sure the events at B actually do happen

 

[Lanthanide]

The teleporter in HL1 that took you back to the beggining of the resonance caskade is in the top tier of the large Teleporter tower/reactor. The place you are just before you meet with barney and a scientist and have to defend the large portal while it opens up to xen. Look for the "Port" with the portal with red electicric arks flying out of it .

Sorry, I have never seen this, and I've finished HL1 8 times. I've never seen it mentioned in any walkthroughs or anywhere else on the net, ever. I think you're just making this up (probably by mistake). IIRC the faulty portal simply kills you if you enter it.

 

[Sean]

I hope you all realise that changing past events is logically impossible ...

Yeah, you know, because a Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator is totally realistic.

In all seriousness, though, you should do some reading on quantum physics. What's already been done may surprise you.

Edit: As for your paradox, keep this in mind - you can't change the past, but you can go back and change the future. (At least, in theory) No, you wouldn't stop existing. If you walked out of a building just before it collapsed, would you no longer exist? Same idea.

 

[BelisariusRomani]

Temporal mechanics don't exist! We don't understand them! We could make up a million theories about it, and they wouldn't mean anything - we just don't understand how time works, or, if we do, we don't know that we know! It's useless to debate!

...but so very, very fun.

 

[groovy]

ha, a very interesting point i guess we'll have to see in hl2

 

[Sean]

Actually, BelisariusRomani, physicits have a very good understanding of how time works. Have you ever used a GPS unit? If we had no functional model of spacetime, they would be impossible.

@groovy: Yeah, I guess we'll have to see. You know, like, when it comes out.

 

[Asknoone]

No, not tiem travel. Its been done so many times and its such a lame story idea that i know valve wouldnt use.

Half life i sall about science, lambda, dark energy, alternate universe's and so on, these all connect and such and interwine.

The time critical sequence is the same as failing to defuse a bomb, except the fact that breen escapes, which is a time critical sequence in which you must stop breen from teleporting.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

I hope you all realise that changing past events is logically impossible: the infamous time travel paradox. Imagine time as a straight line i.e. A->B. If you are near to B and travel back to A, and change the sequence of events leading up to B, then B will not exist in the way it existed when you travelled back in time. But then you wouldn't (or might not) exist, because you were created in the timeline leading to B which does not exist anymore because it has been changed. Got me?

If this IS the point of the game then it's a bit of a crap storyline.

Could be true, we don't know, but travelling FORWARDS in time would cause no problems. Which is what Gordon and Alyx has already done. Gordon going into stasis at HL and waking up in HL2, that's equivalent of time travel.
And, what's this about a teleporter going back in time in Half-life? That's not in there IIRC

 

[Sean]

I think, in the Lambda lab near the end of the game, there was a lot of random time travel involved with those portals.

@AJ: Yeah, but that's just time travel in the same sense that sleeping is time travel. (After all, it's always a few hours later when you wake up then when you went to sleep.) Seems like kind of a cop-out, eh?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

I think, in the Lambda lab near the end of the game, there was a lot of random time travel involved with those portals.

@AJ: Yeah, but that's just time travel in the same sense that sleeping is time travel. (After all, it's always a few hours later when you wake up then when you went to sleep.) Seems like kind of a cop-out, eh?

Yes, but when you sleep several years in a time, and instead of a bed, you sleep in a big chamber in a stasis field, then it's science fiction baby!

 

[tranes]

I think the war being waged is not inter-planetary or inter-dimensional, but inter-timeal.

 

[Tycell]

Ack, just went back to c3a2f in HL1 and now the damn portal doesnt work! I swear it did though, Port number 9, the one thats malfunctioning. It took me back to the beggining of the resonence cascade loads of times (I reloaded coz I was like "wtf?"), I'm not making it up, why would I?

Either it does work, but only when you play the game all the way through or I am having a major mental breakdown, Perhaps it loads the frist ever Saved game you have, because the first save game IS the start of the resonence casscade and when I jumped in it this time from loading the map via console it just loaded my previos save but it DIDNT kill me.

Bah, Port number 9 if anyone can be bothered to go through the whole game again.

Oh and Time travel is possible, its possible to travel BACK in time (in theory) but you cannot travel FOWARD in time because you cant go somwhere that hasn't been created yet. There was a documentry on time travel not long ago all about it and it explained it really well with this little green bouncing ball in a tube... I think you have to see it to understand.

 

[Speedkills]

but wouldn't your time travel be factored into time if time is predestined and all events have already been set, then your time travel will actually just make sure the events at B actually do happen

Well yes that's true, but then the Gman's motives cannot be to change the past, because he would simply be going back and repeating what has already happened.

Also Einsteins special relativity actually backs my argument up - it is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light (because light is necessarily intertwined with matter and space) and this would be required to travel in time. If you travel at 99% of the speed of light time would become distorted and there would be time travel of a sort (but only your personal time would be affected i.e. you would age differently) but according to Einstein you can never actually go back in time.

But then again...quantum physics says some very different things to special relativity. But they have both been proved (to a certain extent) to be correct. Which is why scientists are working towards a grand unified theory....er I don't know where this is going. But in conclusion, logic and Einstein say time travel is impossible. Damn that quantum mechanics, confusing everything.

 

[Rog]

That "time critical sequence" thing is just valves posh way of saying you were too slow at stopping breen and didnt stop him in time.

 

[Cpt_Spleen]

I hope you all realise that changing past events is logically impossible: the infamous time travel paradox. Imagine time as a straight line i.e. A->B.
If you are near to B and travel back to A, and change the sequence of events leading up to B, then B will not exist in the way it existed when you travelled back in time. But then you wouldn't (or might not) exist, because you were created in the timeline leading to B which does not exist anymore because it has been changed. Got me?

Sort of. The preconceived notion that time is a straight line is the flaw in your thinking.

No, one cannot alter an event that has already happened on a particular line, however, if you take it a step further, and extrapolate that time is not one straight line, but an infinite series of lines (like a highway with thousands of lanes, all going the same direction) where each yes or no choice or decision has taken place, to an infinite number of conclusions, then while it's not possible to change an outcome on the line that you are on, it *might* be possible to "jump" to a different "lane", thereby altering your own perception as to what happened.

(It's wayyyyy to early in the morning to discuss quantum mechanics, dammit!)

 

[Tycell]

That "time critical sequence" thing is just valves posh way of saying you were too slow at stopping breen and didnt stop him in time.

No it isn't, when you lose the buggy off a cliff for example it comes up with the same thing, And why the hell would they say "time crirical Sequnce?", Its not vavles style.

It is reffering to time travel, the Gman makes many motions towards time and being able to travel through time and infact freezes time at the end of the game.

Alyx: "Common, maybe we still have enough-"

Gman: "Time, mr freeman. Is it really that time again?"

Your telling me thats all coincidence? That the "Time Critical Sequence" is reffering to being too slow?!

"Failure to PREVENT time critical Sequence". Not, 'you have failed the time critical sequence'. You failed to stop Dr Breen and hence the timeline is now ***ked is what its saying.

 

[Sean]

Sort of. The preconceived notion that time is a straight line is the flaw in your thinking.

No, one cannot alter an event that has already happened on a particular line, however, if you take it a step further, and extrapolate that time is not one straight line, but an infinite series of lines (like a highway with thousands of lanes, all going the same direction) where each yes or no choice or decision has taken place, to an infinite number of conclusions, then while it's not possible to change an outcome on the line that you are on, it *might* be possible to "jump" to a different "lane", thereby altering your own perception as to what happened.

(It's wayyyyy to early in the morning to discuss quantum mechanics, dammit!)

It's never too early for physics!

@Tyclell: IMHO, you're putting too much significance in those words. However, I do think time playes a very big role in the story. Maybe, if only Gordon hadn't been 30 minutes late, none of this would have happened in the first place.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

I do not recall a teleport that took you back to the beginning of the resonance cascade in hl1 :/

I think you are looking this a bit too far. I think this just means that you have to kill breen within a certain time limit or else your mission fails.

However I do think time will play an important role in hl3. Especially the slow teleport part where gordon and alyx arrived a week later is very intruiging. I have this feeling that something happened there during that week we were teleporting.

Gordon doesn't realise, but during that time (the missing week), Gman was talking to Alyx about a possible opening, when they both teleported back in to klieners lab, alyx had already done a weeks worth of work for the Gman, but she doesn't tell anyone.

 

[CMG]

Time travel sequence - obvious

Hello - I'm new here - but I've been lurking for a while - Muhaahahahhahah - i love that lurking thing...

But hey - I think you all lost the point of the teleporter scene - That scene where they teleport and lose a week of time serves one of the following purposes :

A. It creates a gap in time in which they can create an expansion pack in which you play as Alyx. I think this is the most likely because of "Dog" - Let's face it "Dog was awesome and yet he played such a small role in HL2. An expansion featuring Dog and Alyx is ideal in my mind and more than likely.
B. The gap in time gives the GMAN a chance to recall Shepard for a reprised role.
C. The Gap in time creates an opportunity for an expansion with Barney as the starring character.
D. The quote from the doctor about having to look into before unknown properties of the teleporter in the form of time travel is a set up for moving the games characters other than Gordon into the future. (NOT BACK IN TIME). This is probably necessary because the final scene of HL2 points to a cataclysmic devastation of an already beat up earth. The Dark Matter reactor explosion was not played out because the impact of the reaction plays a big role in HL3 - this is a total guess. Pulling out of my butt so to speak - but I like it.

The whole time traveling Gman thing is not making sense - it's very unlikely. I'm starting to read some of LaidLaws books prior to 1996 to see some of his inspirations of the past. I'm focusing on a particular title that dealt with people being "wired" into a sort of entertainment network that works like TV but you actually "experience" the actor's feelings as it happens. See where this is going. I am trying to understand something about half life that I cant express yet - but it has to do with a line by Dr. Breen about host bodies.........it has to do with Gordon but I haven't figured it out yet........lol - this is silly - I keep telling myself it's just game - but I haven't been this into a story since i read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

I think the war being waged is not inter-planetary or inter-dimensional, but inter-timeal.

Thats one ****ed up shit, but I see that a story can be made outof that.

Think of an Epic "Back to the future" ;(

Xen is a destroyed Earth

 

[Spencer]

What is a slow teleport, if not time travel?

Think about it. What if the slow teleport took years, generations, anything? To Gordon, he arrived back at the lab in a split second.

I assume this is the same concept that brought freeman directly from the end of HL and into the begining of HL2 by the Gman.
He did not look older, nor show any signs of weak muscles, etc after he arrived.

Logically, the only direction this time jumping teleport can go is into the future.

 

[Speedkills]

But hey - I think you all lost the point of the teleporter scene - That scene where they teleport and lose a week of time serves one of the following purposes :

A. It creates a gap in time in which they can create an expansion pack in which you play as Alyx. .

But Alyx was in the teleporter with you at the time....

lol - this is silly - I keep telling myself it's just game - but I haven't been this into a story since i read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov.

Don't say "just" a game - many modern games are able to have an immersive storyline with similar effects to reading the greatest novels and seeing the best films. They can even be better in many ways, because of the added factor of control that a game has. For example, I don't know if you played TES III: Morrowind, but I always saw that as an interactive novel I see HL2 in a similar light.

 

[jamespow]

No it isn't, when you lose the buggy off a cliff for example it comes up with the same thing, And why the hell would they say "time crirical Sequnce?", Its not vavles style.

Actually, it says "Failure to preserve mission-critical resources.", nothing with time.

 

[Mr.Wotsit]

You run out of time, you lose the game. It's a gameplay mechanic, get over it.

 

[smacky]

its just a video game people.. not science, lets blast some ant lions and forget about it

 

[WARLORD]

I hope you all realise that changing past events is logically impossible: the infamous time travel paradox. Imagine time as a straight line i.e. A->B. If you are near to B and travel back to A, and change the sequence of events leading up to B, then B will not exist in the way it existed when you travelled back in time. But then you wouldn't (or might not) exist, because you were created in the timeline leading to B which does not exist anymore because it has been changed. Got me?

If this IS the point of the game then it's a bit of a crap storyline.

i'll quote something from startrek for that one:
"why human beings have to be so linear?" ^^

maybe time is not just "from A to B"
maybe WE are just seeing it that way.
great.. my head hurt now...

 

[tranes]

The inter-timeal war scenario is a likely one I think, and it would consist of three factions: the Overlords, the forces of G-Man, and present day Earth.

The factions also come from three homo-generational time periods that I will, for the purposes of this post, compare to Xen, which I beleive is simply the last time period of Earth. The Early Pre-Xen would of course be our time, with our flora and fauna. Also, it is the first generation to create the teleportation technology that allows time travel.

The Middle Pre-Xen would be the time period of the G-man (if the G-Man is in fact human) and could possibly be the begining of the evolutions of present day humans into the several species you encounter (into Vorts., whatever the hell G-Man is, and eventually the precursors of the OverLords). This also likely the first generation that uses the very essence of the earth (like with the citadel) as a resource.

The Late Pre-Xen is the time of the OverLords and also the generation where the Earth starts to erode into Xen. This is a generation with little resource, which caused the OverLord to go to the Early Pre-Xen to either migrate permently or send the resources they harvested back to the Late Pre-Xen.

Also of import is Xen itself, which I concure with Darth eVader being a destroyed Earth. This is the only generational time period that it is possible to travel forward to (from Pre-Xen Periods), as it occurs regardless of what happend in the Pre-Xen periods. This theory requires that it is only possible to travel forward within a generational period, but not between generational periods. For example, the OverLord/OverWatch could travel to Early Pre-Xen, but not from the Early Pre-Xen to the Middle or Late Pre-Xen, becuase by traveling to an earlier time generational period they would be changing the other periods to an extent to where they would not exist in a similar enough form for them to return. They could however return to Xen, as it is always occurs in the exact same form.

This being given, the reason for this conflict would be resources. In the Early Pre-Xen, human society has not learned how to use the resources to the extent that the other time periods have. However, in the Middle Pre-Xen, they have become quite profeiceint in doing so. So profeiceint in fact that they have almost drained the planet of resource in the time of the Late Pre-Xen causing them to travel back to the Early Pre-Xen, as ealier stated, to try to procure the resources needed for them to survive. This would of course take away resources from the Middle Pre-Xen, cuasing them to send G-Man and people like him back to the Early Pre-Xen to help install a base of operation to combat the OverLords.

What do you guys think?

 

[WARLORD]

err...
earth being xen?
that contradict the sattelite launching in halflife1 witch help to actually teleport TO xen (if i remember correctly)

 

[tranes]

Maybe that was needed to pin point the, um, time co-ordinates for the Xen Period? lol

 

[CMG]

But Alyx was in the teleporter with you at the time....

Damn.......that's right - Aly was with Gordon - so it's Shepard, Barney or Dog for the expansion pack......It could just be that the teleport thing was just a good way to fast forward in time and skip to the end of the week...........but the intervening time is going to end up in the expansion pack - that's the perfect play and I think "Dog" is going to play a major role......I hope they didn't take the time to develop dog only to use him so little.........= (

 

[Dan]

I think the best argument against time travel is that we haven't met any time travelers from the future. (minus John Titor)