How the hell does Xen Work?

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special-ed

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I mean.. what is the gravitational center of the floating platforms? How do the aliens get around if they can barely jump? How do plants grow if it never rains and no atmosphere exists?
 
A good point there. I'll wait to see what everyone else says...Mainly because I have no idea.
 
Nobody's sure what's holding the platforms in orbit, but there's gotta be something dense at the centre.
Aliens can probably jump.
There is an atmosphere, otherwise Calhoun would have exploded when he was gated there.
The plants could possibly gather moisture directly from the atmosphere.

-Angry Lawyer
 
TST_Devgru Seal said:
A good point there. I'll wait to see what everyone else says...Mainly because I have no idea.
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that's great...

but yeah, only headcrabs can jump
 
Only headcrabs are coded to jump, because it's pretty pointless making a bullsquid hop. They probably *can* jump in a storyline sense.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Only headcrabs are coded to jump, because it's pretty pointless making a bullsquid hop. They probably *can* jump in a storyline sense.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...

Actually bullsquids do hop but it's not nearly high enough to make it to another platform. It was quite hilarious watching the bullsquids hop back in the day when I played hl1. Houndeyes also do a small hop. If you watch houndeyes without them knowing you're around VERY RARELY they will stand on their hind legs and look around.
 
they dont have hind legs...they only have 3 legs...
 
Ravioli said:
they dont have hind legs...they only have 3 legs...
Click to expand...

Whatever.. they're soo cuuute thooough.. too bad if I ever had one as a pet it would gib me.
 
special-ed said:
too bad if I ever had one as a pet it would gib me.
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lol

But remember how for those platfroms are? Gordon had to have a long jump kit.

The plants, like someone said, could absorb water throught the atmosphere; Osmosis anybody?. (theoretically speaking) (beacause i do have a phd in theoretical physics)
 
Osmosis is a process involved in biology, not physics :p

Do you ever see the Marines jump in Half-Life? Do they even have jump animations? Probably not.

But, does that mean that soldiers can't jump?

An alternative theory could be simply collisions between the seperate asteroids, and creatures just jumping ship.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Xen is not a planet it is a dimensional borderworld. Keeping that in mind we can now hypothesys that maybe all the creatures that live on xen are actually from the surrounding worlds. Natural-Selection. Only the fitest surive. As for the jumping I assume we've only seen 10% of the Xen Habitat.
 
BorderWORLD.
Dimensions are big places, bigger than just one nebula filled with rocks.

-Angry Lawyer
 
The gravitational center of Xen (if there is one) would have to be something dense, as Angry Lawyer said. Something like a neutron star.

Personally I don't feel that Xen HAS a gravitational center. I don't think the normal laws of gravity apply in Xen; I think the landmasses are simply suspended within the nebula.

Aliens probably make use of the floating platforms that circle around stationary ones. There're also a lot of teleporters on Xen, not just engineered ones but naturally occuring ones (such as in the Gonarch's lair). They probably use those to get around. And just because we never see certain creatures jump long distances, I'm sure they might be able to. Houndeyes, for instance, seem like they could jump long distances on the borderworld. Not as long as Gordon with the jump pack, but far enough to get around.

Also, there is an atmosphere. Barney, Gordon, and the G-man are mask-less when they're on Xen, so there is oxygen to breathe.
 
Xen seems to have gravity, but it's lwoer than Earth's, IIRC you could jump most of the platforms without even having to use the long jump.
The lowered gravity goes along with another theory, maybe what you encounter of Xen is like... the rings around Saturn, just rocks barely contained in the gravitational field/stmosphere of some huge gas planet.
 
Que-Ever said:
Xen seems to have gravity, but it's lwoer than Earth's, IIRC you could jump most of the platforms without even having to use the long jump.
The lowered gravity goes along with another theory, maybe what you encounter of Xen is like... the rings around Saturn, just rocks barely contained in the gravitational field/stmosphere of some huge gas planet.
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true, but the platforms did seem to have a central point of gravitation, indicating that it was much more than an asteriod...asteriods don't have enough grav.
 
The basic rule for xen, is you DONT KNOW
for all you know the Normal rules of physics that come from Our dimension Arent the same in Xen, there could be a whole new set of rules, you just dont know.

And its inhabitants are all organisms from other worlds.

There isnt any plant life other than the Light things and the big spikey hit you things, that are probably more organism than plant.
 
Maybe Xen exists in a gaseous planet such as Jupiter with an atmosphere that holds in oxygen/nitrogen/carbon. I know most of the wildlife existing on Xen was manufactured (such as the Grunt, the latest invention of the time). My guess is Xen was an abandoned unused space (maybe with a few stars/planets), taken over by the Combine Nihilianth, who set up platforms composed of certain minerals to test how compatible his new species would adapt on earth, for the upcoming portal storms. Nihilianth used xen controllers and vortigaunts create his new species.
 
Ya know it is possible, that what we saw of Xen, was just islands floating around a large planet or something more continous like that. It explains the Xen skybox a little more.
 
Haven't you noticed that they get around Xen using teleportation?
 
Gahaha, Gabe is cackeling at you speculating fools! Xen is actually a normal half-life bsp with an sv_gravity 300 script in it! Ahaha, :LOL: Hahaha
 
That is kind of what I was thinking...Its just a script :p

Okay..well, I just think that its teleportation, and the floating islands are much like the moon of earth, and are only closer together, and much, MUCH smaller.
 
Pesmerga said:
Gahaha, Gabe is cackeling at you speculating fools! Xen is actually a normal half-life bsp with an sv_gravity 300 script in it! Ahaha, :LOL: Hahaha
Click to expand...
you mean Xen isn't real?!?! it's already happened with santa clause and the easter bunny! but Xen isn't real either?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
 
Probably an extremly dense centre that everything orbits. I think Xen was originaly made of huge orbiting contenants and the Combine broke them up during battles/resource mining.
 
Possibly a little bit of cosmic string in the centre. Although, cosmic string produces one hell of a lot of gravity, and would have crushed everything to a small, one-dimensional thread.

Lets leave the Combine out of this. There's STILL no evidence for occupation.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Possibly a little bit of cosmic string in the centre. Although, cosmic string produces one hell of a lot of gravity, and would have crushed everything to a small, one-dimensional thread.

Lets leave the Combine out of this. There's STILL no evidence for occupation.

-Angry Lawyer
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well, at least I'm not passing it off as fact.
 
True, but you'll probably get less wrath from me if you rephrase it to say "Assuming Combine occupation, it could be broken up from mining efforts" :p

-Angry Lawyer
 
ríomhaire said:
Probably an extremly dense centre that everything orbits. I think Xen was originaly made of huge orbiting contenants and the Combine broke them up during battles/resource mining.
Click to expand...

That's my favorite theory so far. The teleporters were likely placed by the combine to travel from rock to rock. Once they mined for everything they could, they left the dimension under the control of Nihilanth; transforming the place into a borderWorld and using it to grow troops out of the remaining wildlife (i.e. the alien grunts).

Again, not fact but theory.
 
If the lumps of rock were orbiting around some gravity source, this wouldn't mean you'd feel something like gravity standing on the rock.

When you're in orbit, you're essentially falling in a circle. And the rock is falling with you. So you experience no force or acceleration relative to the rock. It's like being in a space station. You still feel a considerable force from the Earth, but relative to the station you are weightless.

The only thing I can think of is maybe the field is so intense there's a variance in the force between the rock and something standing on it, but i've only ever heard of things like that near black holes. And it's very bad for you.
 
But then you've got Mossman's quote.

"We're closing in on a reliable local teleport technology, something the Combine still hasn't mastered. Eli thinks their portals are string-based, similar to our Calabi-Yah model. But they failed to factor in the dark energy equations. They can tunnel through from their universe, but once they're here, they're dependant on local transportation"

Now, if the Combine controlled Xen, they'd know how local teleportation works. There are clear structures used for local teleportation on Xen.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
But then you've got Mossman's quote.

"We're closing in on a reliable local teleport technology, something the Combine still hasn't mastered. Eli thinks their portals are string-based, similar to our Calabi-Yah model. But they failed to factor in the dark energy equations. They can tunnel through from their universe, but once they're here, they're dependant on local transportation"

Now, if the Combine controlled Xen, they'd know how local teleportation works. There are clear structures used for local teleportation on Xen.

-Angry Lawyer
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What? NO! Stop talking about that! Bad Lawyer!
 
The whole Mossman bit. It means I win. Finally.
Or not, dependant on if people can come up with a rebuttal.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
The whole Mossman bit. It means I win. Finally.
Or not, dependant on if people can come up with a rebuttal.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...
We disscussed that before, in about 3 threads.
 
Yeah, but it's the first time I actually hit you with the true quote!

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
Yeah, but it's the first time I actually hit you with the true quote!

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...
what's this got to do with Xen?
 
Nothing. But you know, someone alluded to the Combine and Xen when Angry Lawyer was around.

Angry Lawyer said:
Although I spelt Calabi-Yah wrong.
Click to expand...

You where wrong Angry Lawyer. Again ;) .
 
Lahire149 said:
what's this got to do with Xen?
Click to expand...

Xenians have the capability to do local teleportation. The Combine, as proven by Mossman's quote, can't. Therefore, the Combine aren't on Xen, and didn't break the place up.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Or did they have the Combine force the Xenians to transport them \ make them transportable?
 
The Combine are a race that values scientific endeavour one hell of a lot. They wouldn't go without actually learning how to do it themselves.

-Angry Lawyer
 
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