Half Life Fauna Study

ranmafan

ranmafan

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Hi there!

After recently coming across Dark55's excellent headcrab study document, I remembered that I'd done something similar for Half Life to celebrate Half Life 2's announcement all those years ago. ;) (feels like it anyway)

I shared this with the GameFAQs community but never got around to sharing it with the HL2.net forums. I guess this is part fic too, due to the manner in which it is written, but anyways, here you go:

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=4AF1425E4A47DCDF

It's in PDF format so get Adobe Acrobat Reader if you can. I have a .doc version I could share though.

P.S - Excuse the crappy sketches. I've gotten better since then.

Premise:
The setting is just before the events of the original HL. A forward team has been sent to the newly discovered Xen. Leading the Xenobiological Research Arm is Prof. Walter P. Smith, a lowly research associate handpicked for his excellent track record for this assignment. His mission: To study and classify the fauna and flora of Xen for possible exploitation by the BMRF and its employers.

It's recommended you read it in the order numbered, because of its fictitiously chronological nature. =P

Cheers!

P.P.S - Kudos to the people who did the HL vortigaunt mod. (Sorry, I forgot who they were, but kudos!) I remember using their explanation for healing pools to back up some of my 'study notes', so thanks to them too!
 
After reading this through again, I realize how many typos I made. -_-
 
I really must congratulate you on all this. I've only read the headcrab one thus far, and skimmed along through it (when I have enough time I will give your works the thorough reading they deserve), but really, it's good. Really good; great, actually.

I'm finding it funny how great minds think alike. As I said in my headcrab thread, I'd wanted to do this for a few years now--ever since before I signed up on these forums, which is over three years now. What's funny is, the original idea I had for doing these studies was to be written like the research of a former Black Mesa scientist. :laugh:

Also interesting is how we came to almost the exact same conclusions. We even use the EXACT same language; sensory cluster, for example. That boggles my mind. I've never seen your work and you've never seen mine, but we drew the exact same theories and the exact same terminology. Freaky. But that's all to the good, because it almost PROVES what we're saying is correct. Two completely different "scientists" ;) conducting the same experiment in different places, each unaware of the other, and drawing the same conclusions. Your drawing is exactly how I assumed the whole thing would look, as well. I like your drawings, btw. I don't find them crappy.

Anyway yeah, I'm going to give this a real good look over, compare it to some of my theories, not only the headcrab ones but some of the others...I've already got two new articles being written, but I've plans for a bullsquid and an ichthy one, so I'll see where we differ (if at all) on those. I see you did the hivehand too; you win an internet from me 'cause that's my favorite weapon of all time. I wrote a lighthearted article on its use for an old site called GotLag many years ago, entitled "How to be a bee jerk"...just replace jerk with a more offensive word. :laugh:
 
Haha, that's cool. Thanks for the praise man. I do apologize for the Barnacle though, I swear when I looked it up on PlanetHalfLife I never saw Valve's explanation for it (it never moves, it'll die if detached and the base dries, etc. etc. etc.) but hey, guess it makes for interesting reading.

I wanted to do the HL2 headcrab variants, but then conscription came around and after that College, so I guess I'll let it sit a bit longer.

Oh, if you'll notice, every security member is a member of the 'Bar' (Barney, Bart, etc.) family. =P
 
Very cool! I love the research note layout!
 
This makes me want to do some myself.(That is of course, i will do it based on the ones the writer hasn't done and some of the HL2 creatures, but with his strict permission of course.)
 
I don't mind. =P More stuff to read. My only regret is that I still can't upload this to the forum proper. ;) *hintRARhint*

If you're doing it, here's something to get you started -
I'd originally intended to do the HL2 studies with the story as such: Dr. Smith has been brought out of a temporal warp after performing various studies across Xen, and then being 'iced' like Gordon. The period of his research is a year before Gordon arrives and ends just after Gordon reaches the train station.
He is considered VIP personnel and has access to expertly trained staff, equipment and bodyguards, all selected via the same process as that used for Gordon Freeman. The general idea is for him to study the headcrab/zombie variants that have appeared, the combine's work on humans, and anything else that may prove useful. (Note that the G-Man's employers are apparently unaffected by the Combine's takeover.)

Have fun with this. :)

Cheers!
 
Man that was interserting! It made me think more of Xen, which is sweet. Also what about this idea: that houdneyes were predators to antlions. If thumpers could scare antlions away, think of what the houndeyes attack would do to those poor buggers. It would most likely kill/immoblize them, making them easy prey. Just my thoughts on it.
 
THe pdfs you made are simply brilliant. And contrary to what you think your sketches actually add to the logs you created. They really do look like the sketches a simple scientest would scrawl in his notebook before he finished his shift or something. You've got a real talent for writing. Its a pity the world of HL2 doesnt really offer any opportunity to write in this sort of scientific fashion since presumably all the scientists are dead. Yet Id still like you to do something of this fashion on the world of Hl2.

Keep up the good work man.
 
I think the Antlions are from a Combine world. The Combine seem more familiar with their existence (although given the 7 year thing it shouldn't be a big issue). More likely it's because Xen is nothing but floating rocks, and Antlions can't seem to burrow through rock very well.
 
Remeber we only saw a little bit of Xen. And the Combine have occupied Earth for 20 years, in 20 years I would hope an interuniversal empire would develop a technology to deter simple antlions.


But houdneyes are most likely on Earth now, so they could be hunting antlions on Earth, regradless if someone proves antlions didnt come from Xen.
 
I'm about half way done with the headcrab chapter, and it's captivating. Good job.
 
ranmafan said:
I think the Antlions are from a Combine world. The Combine seem more familiar with their existence (although given the 7 year thing it shouldn't be a big issue). More likely it's because Xen is nothing but floating rocks, and Antlions can't seem to burrow through rock very well.
Click to expand...

Laidlaw said they came to Earth from Xen, so it makes scence that they orginated from the Nihilanth's origanal world.
 
Oh? Damn, I've missed out on a lot of HL canon here. Can someone give me a link?
 
A good place to start would be this thread on all the info Valve has given us through e-mails.

Man, it's nice to see more people are getting interested in creating these articles. I was kicking around an idea the other day, maybe we should set up a "Xenobiologist group" on the forums. Nothing official, just people who study all the Half-Life species and come up with theories on them.
 
I actually had the idea of making it a sort of sequel, with references to Dr. Smith and his Xen endeavours. Additionaly I am just now writing up the first page of it about the Fast and Black headcrabs, and considering that I am doing it around the time that city 17 has been leveled by the wave of darkmatter, so our new protagonist Dr. Adams(Spiffy for a Post-Apocalyptic PHD!) And his journy starts in the tunnel system.

And on the matter of the antlions, don't you think it be hard for them to fly in a near zero gravity enviorment like zen? And considering their relatively light body mass, I dont think they could possibly exist on such an enviorment. And another note, the Synth will be included in the journals.

At this point we know little of any of the origin of the original pre-combine synth forms so to avoid arguement, or for the sake of avoiding provocation in any form, lets just go on what we do know.
 
My theories on some of the aliens:

Darkside wrote that for the Fast Zombies, they discarded/removed most of the nonessential body parts to streamline the body for speed. However, I believe that the Fast Headcrab remained some of the original Headcrab's essential ability to metabolize and/or reconfigure the human body to suit its needs. Because discarding usable resources is an extremely wasteful action in a parasite that is essentially not guaranteed to find another host before its current one wears out, I believe the skeletal state of the fast zombie is actually an advanced state of the worn-out host's body. It may be the initial states are still covered in flesh, although it is quickly metabolized to fuel the zombie's mobile state. The ones that attack you are most likely those hosts about to succumb and require fresh hosts to survive. Their attacks are fairly weak, which probably means the muscles are severely atrophied.

On that note, here's my most favourite shot ever: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y21/ranmafan/d1_town_020000.jpg

The headcrab's ability to spontaneously evolve in a short span of several years puts me to believe that their adaptability is an essential part to their survival, hence the effecient use of resources.

For the poison zombie, I think the bloating is more a hyper-reaction to the poisons in the headcrab than the accumulation of toxins in the flesh. In the initial stages, a person with a poisoncrab latched on would essentially swell to twice his usual size as his immune systems overload, before succumbing and having tissue necrosis setting in. If you've been bitten by a spider, you'll know that the skin swells, and sometimes a the bitten area turns black and hard for a long time, especially for hunting spiders. (It hurts like hell I'll tell you that.) I believe that the additional poisoncrabs latching on only aggravate the problem. However, because of the accelerated tissue decay, it is unfeasible for a poison zombie to remain viable for long. The poisoncrab must bring with it some of the headcrab's ability to enhance a host's resistance to hazardous conditions and enhance its viability/tissue integrity so as to maintain a usable host body. Otherwise none of the poison zombies in Ravenholm would've lasted very long (nor be so durable) with four crabs clinging onto the host. I do agree with Darkside55 that after the initial swelling and integration of the host, the host body can act as a reservoir for the poisoncrab's toxins.

Antlions... hm. I believe they only came through Xen. Their nature dictates that they come from a world with surfaces that can be excavated to their needs and Xen doesn't seem very capable of supporting entire colonies of these creatures. More likely they came from another world during the portal storms (they probably did, and I missed that bit of lore) and I still like to believe they came through from another combine-held world.

By the way, what's a Synth? I can't remember for the life of me.

Cheers!
 
It's really nice to see some intelligent discourse around here; all your points seem intelligently made.

Antlions: You're probably right about this. The thumpers were an unusually inspired creation for the Combine. It seems like they incorporated the design into the Citadel, too; I doubt that they could adapt that fast, so it seems likely that they were "aquired" earlier on. They seem to have some parallels to headcrabs in the way they adapt even faster than the Combine do.

The synths make up the bulk of the Combine army. Dropships, Gunships, Striders, Hunters, (and to a lesser extent the Stalkers and Overwatch) are all synths, as are several creatures glimpsed only briefly in the bowels of the Citadel (the Crab synths and Mortar synths) and the pods used to transport Advisors. Exemplifying what happens to any race that attracts the attention of the Combine, (everything up to this point is fact; the rest of my post is speculation) they were probably subjected to major surgery, cybernetic augmentation, and likely selective breeding and genetic modification over long periods of time.
The Wikipedia entry also lists the shield scanners in this category, but I think they're fully mechanical. (This would be a good thing to study, those of you with some kind of model viewer and a working copy of HL2. The shield scanners never did get much attention...)
 
Yeah, It is a very good idea.

Also, the fast headcrab, in my theories gets it's speed from literaly feeding adrenaline directly into the body of it's host, which causes the wear and tear that you see on it's host. And I agree that it truely does strip all flesh and organs not essential to it's survival on the host. In my study i also noted the Black headcrabs more feline, stalky posture, also, the normal headcrabs get an upgrade in HL2, they get four frontal mandables, I will mark that as a short evolutionary entry! wooha!

The Synth are Bio-machines once creatures enslaved by the cmbine and turned into war mcahines, in short, their cyborgs. The Synth families as far as the combine are concerned are: Strider, Gunship, Dropship, Mortar and crab synth.

And one more thing, its quite strange, the Xen headcrabs seem to jump as if they were in normal earth gravity, as with every other xen creature, but only you seem to defy it. Strange physics error? Or do the Xen creatures have the ability to manipulate their gravitational mass?
 
ha ha, you got ninja'd!

Forgot one point: the Antlion Hive is waaaay too large for anything seen on Xen to hold; even if there was an island that big somewhere, all that tunnelling would probably ruin its structural integrity.
 
I just finished the Snark chapter....LOL Gman got him!!!
 
Ah, I don't think Adrenaline is useful when the host's brain is not functioning to receive it. The human body when forced under certain chemical stimuli to work can perform miracles, but if I'm right, doesn't Adrenaline affect the brain first, causing it to send signals to the rest of the body? I'm a little fuzzy on my biochem now, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, for the Manatee synth (and certain synths in general) I have a notion: Certain organisms are able to, under certain conditions, grow 'around' objects. In the manatee's case, it could be that its rear end was grown 'around' a hoverfan, rather than moulded or shaped mechanically (I used artificially at first, but everything is artificial with the combine).

Just my $0.02's worth.

Edit: Jester - I think it was just a minor oversight on the programmer's side, but if you want, we could always assume the headcrabs could compensate for Xen's gravity. =P
 
ranmafan said:
The headcrab's ability to spontaneously evolve in a short span of several years puts me to believe that their adaptability is an essential part to their survival, hence the effecient use of resources.
Click to expand...
Why the hell do people seem to assume the poison and fast crabs evolved between HL1 and 2? It makes no f*cking sense!

Also, I find the idea that a headcrab can examine and selectivly mutate a host far-fetched. That said it depends on which you believe is more far-fetched; the headcrab being able to selectivly mutate the host or humans being similar enough to headcrabs' natural prey (Vortigaunts?) to be mutated by them.
 
ríomhaire said:
Why the hell do people seem to assume the poison and fast crabs evolved between HL1 and 2? It makes no f*cking sense!

Also, I find the idea that a headcrab can examine and selectivly mutate a host far-fetched. That said it depends on which you believe is more far-fetched; the headcrab being able to selectivly mutate the host or humans being similar enough to headcrabs' natural prey (Vortigaunts?) to be mutated by them.
Click to expand...

It's all conjecture at this point, my good man. But I remember that in Darkside55's original thread (go read the file he wrote on headcrabs!), Marc Laidlaw (cuz he laid down the law, baby!) wrote to one of them (or was it in his document?) that the Poison Headcrab, at least, evolved on Earth during the portal storms. Conceivably the Fast Headcrab did too. There's your proof. Cheers!
 
You could explain both, the fast head crab, for instance, perhaps evolved because of a need to catch signifigantly faster orey, this may include humans and other relatively fast animals. The poison headcrab may have evolved to become a better hunter, more intellegent, which also may facilitate the reason for it being a communal species of head crab.

I took a look at the Scanner in model viewer today, there is nothing organic in or around it, at least thats visible to the human eye.

Also, the idea that the Synth grow around their bodies is a very plausble explination to their Semi-organic qualities, in a sense, its a reverse engineering of a Borg (for you Trek fans.)
 
ranmafan said:
It's all conjecture at this point, my good man. But I remember that in Darkside55's original thread (go read the file he wrote on headcrabs!), Marc Laidlaw (cuz he laid down the law, baby!) wrote to one of them (or was it in his document?) that the Poison Headcrab, at least, evolved on Earth during the portal storms. Conceivably the Fast Headcrab did too. There's your proof. Cheers!
Click to expand...

I just quoted that email in another thread. Here it is:

He Whose Word and Name are "-Law" said:
Those things [poison and fast headcrabs, antlions] came through during the portal storms, which continue
erratically to this very day. Some of the critters came early
(immediately after the Black Mesa Incident) and adapted to Earth. I
think the poison headcrabs must have eaten something poisonous at one
point, and liked it so much they added it to their repertoire.
Click to expand...
 
i would love some kind of study group, I realized the full detail of Valve's world when I saw that some antlions had a red spot on their backside when some didnt, like it discerned gender, it was awesome.
 
I thoroughly enjoyed your writing. It was not just a mundane scientific log but a compelling narrative. I read all of them except the barnacle now.

I compared the headcrab article to darkside's and I was wondering, what's your theory on the gonarch? Is it "evolved" from a headcrab zombie? Is the headcrab dependent on a human host to become one? Or can it use another creature as a host?
 
I was working on the assumption (according to everyone since the dawn of Op4, the expansion to the original HL) that the Gonarch is the final evolved form of the Headcrab since everyone thought the little white critters it pumped out were baby headcrabs.

In Op4, which takes place a little bit during and after the actual events in Half Life, there is an advanced version of the headcrabbed zombie. Gearbox (the creators of Op4) called it the 'Gonome', which seemed too conincidental to pass up.

The first connection between the Gonarch and the Headcrab was this very Gonome zombie. If you can find a picture of it, the Gonome has a substantial increase in physical mass, and advanced control over its motor functions (allowing it to run and attack very fast!). It has begun development of a green carapace (whether hard or not we don't know) and the 'maw' in its chest is a real mouth now, not just a jagged gash in the victim's chest.

Also, Op4 (and Blue Shift) came with new textures. One of them affected the zombies in HL. The original texture was a regular zombie-ish texture, but the redone texture actually showed the first stages of 'Gonome'-ification where a small green patch protruded from the back of the headcrabbed zombies. We assume that within 24 hours, given enough food, a Zombie will grow into a Gonome.

Given that we never get past the initial 24-48 hour period of HL, we never see what happens if a Gonome metamorphs into a third stage and above, all the way to Gonarch. But we can assume. :)

We can also assume that since a Gonarch is already present on Xen, headcrabs don't necessarily need a human host to grow, but what they otherwise parasitize we don't know yet. It is possible they prey on Vortigaunts, or since nothing is native to Xen, we guess that the headcrabs came from another planet as did the Gonarch. Or their ancestors did, and headcrabs evolved into what they were on Xen. Better yet, maybe they're really like the Xenomorphs from Alien, who travel across worlds however they can and are highly adaptive, genetically and physiologically.

Valve or Gearbox probably didn't intend it at first, but after such a storm of fan feedback they incorporated the baby headcrab/Gonarch theory into the game and produced the Gonomes.

My fic was based off the development of Dr. Simmons making it into the Gonome stage before being terminated.
 
Jester2000 said:
You could explain both, the fast head crab, for instance, perhaps evolved because of a need to catch signifigantly faster orey, this may include humans and other relatively fast animals. The poison headcrab may have evolved to become a better hunter, more intellegent, which also may facilitate the reason for it being a communal species of head crab.
Click to expand...
Evolution doesn't work like that. Evolution is entirly random, it does not happen because of a need. If you throw something off a building 100 times its offspring won't have wings because the species needs to fly to survive.

I also don't trust the green blobs on the Gonome. Gearbox stuck that on their HD zombies too :\
 
Well, he is simplifying a slightly more complicated process, but overall, yes, evolution does work similarly enough for his fast-headcrab hypothesis, at least, to be valid on those grounds (not the poison one, though):
SUMMARY OF THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS: RÍOMHAIRE WAS BASICALLY RIGHT.

If an predator's (not a headcrab, I'll get to why later) environment changes suddenly, all of its normal prey replaced with a similar but faster species, then the faster predators of that species (those capable of catching one or two out of twenty of the prey animal) will get more food than the slower variety. Thus, the faster predator will survive long enough to procreate, and their descendants will indeed be faster. Those descendants will also be selected via speed, and so on.

However, there are three reasons why it doesn't matter: First of all, evolution doesn't go that fast via natural selection. It would have to be a fairly radical mutation to cause changes like that. Secondly, I can't see any faster creatures around here, can you? The Xen creatures are just as fast as anything readily available on earth (don't talk to me about gazelles; they run faster than the ubiquitous human, and thus aren't a necessary food source).
Third, I'm not sure how much headcrabs are prone to evolutionary pressures, what with their rather convoluted development cycle.

In any case, Ríomhaire, you are completely right about the poison headcrab. Continue with your lecturing.
 
Suprisingly enough, the Ghonark is indeedthe last stage of a head crab's life cycle, but it is rarely reached, and those that do, become the breeders for the next generation. Sheding it's soft leather skin and trading it for a very strong carapice that can take the power of most explosive objects, except the quantum destabilizer though. (Commonly referred to as the Egon-gun as it resembles the photon acceleraters from ghostbusters)

On the other matter, it is indeed true, but no theory is too radical, I mean, come on, its half life, anything happens! But the Poison and Fast headcrabs may be unseen, much older evolutions, simply because we did not see them, doesnt mean they didnt exist, and for the record this is a show of support against my previous arguement. Lol. Though the idea that they evolved later on in HL kinda fits it into the canon of Half Life, since we didnt see them in the first game we can simply assumed that at least some sort of random evolution in headcrabs must of happened or came from an uncharted part of Xen during the portal storms.
 
Yes but the Gonarch we fight is evolved from a Vortigaunt (probable). Would wonder how different a Gonarch would look like if it came from a human.
 
d00d said:
Yes but the Gonarch we fight is evolved from a Vortigaunt (probable). Would wonder how different a Gonarch would look like if it came from a human.
Click to expand...
DOES NOBODY KNOW WHAT THE HELL EVOLUTION IS?
That is not evolution, it is metamorphation (OK, I don't know if that's a word, I'm too annoyed to think). STOP LEARNING THE MEANING OF WORDS FROM POKÉMON!
 
ríomhaire said:
DOES NOBODY KNOW WHAT THE HELL EVOLUTION IS?
That is not evolution, it is metamorphation (OK, I don't know if that's a word, I'm too annoyed to think). STOP LEARNING THE MEANING OF WORDS FROM POKÉMON!
Click to expand...

Maybe the Gonarch is a zombie that reached level 25 :laugh:
 
"On the other matter, it is indeed true, but no theory is too radical, I mean, come on, its half life, anything happens! "

Hypothesizing incorrectly is the same whether one is talking about politics (maybe George Bush is a member of the Taliban IN DISGUISE), the G-Man (HE IS GORDAN FROM THE FUTCHAAAAR!!!) or anything else.


About the Gonarch: It doesn't appear to have any features, either vorti or human. It just looks like a headcrab with ball. I don't think it'd make any difference, visual or otherwise, either way...
 
Let's just stick to what we know and what we can theorise based on conjecture drawn from visible sources, shall we? The thread seems to be well on its way to being hijacked.

P.S - I agree, stop picking up words from the pokemon vocabulary, it's bad.
 
An interesting note. You know those mushrooms in Gonarch's lair? In OP4 a gonome seems to have set up his own lair and it has the same mushrooms.
 
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