Humans, Combine, Xenians and Race-X

[narc]

Hi

I've been trying to work out the relationship between these four races for a while. I've read through the popular half life 1/2 storyline website, can't remember what's it's called, but I disagree with it quite strongly actually, lol.

First of all i need to get who's who straight.

True Xenians are the creatures with the three arms right?
So, Vorts, Grunts, Gargs, Controllers and the Nihilanth.

Race X included the uber cool green one eyed shock troops, the purple lightning guys and the little bastards with scythes for arms.

Combine, obviously we only know what we've seen in HL2 but all their warriors are mechanically/biologically ehanced/altered.

I don't think Xen was controlled by Combine when BMRF scientists found it or when Gordon destroyed the Nihilanth. First of all their is very little to sugggest that the combine were ever there. Apart from some stitches on the Nihilanth and some plugs in the Controllers.

The Combine are ridicously advanced and to suppose that they had enslaved Xen but not worked out short distance teleportation is ridiculous.

And finally a point that many seem to forget is that Gman says to Gordon at the end of HL1 'the border world is under our control for now' or something to that effect.

I think that this is when the Combien first found Xen and Earth. They noticed something was going in Xen's dimension and came over. Wiped out Earth forces and began to assimliate Xen. I bet Xen would look very different if we went back there now.

I also think Race X and Xenians were at war. The Controllers used Nihilanth to control the Vorts who made the Grunts and fought for them. Race-X probably buggared off/were assimilated when the Combine arrived.

Now i know Valve didn't make Race-X etc etc but they still fit in to the HL universe somehow. Valve would look a bit stupid if The Combine, this supposedly god like empire who rule dimensions/universe had never met Race-X.

Anyway feel free to pick this apart. :thumbs:

 

[ríomhaire]

Opposing Force has nothing to do with the story I'm afraid. Race X don't exist, the Black Ops never attacked the military and Black Mesa was not destroyed by a nuke.
I think Grunts and Gargs were manufactured in places similar to the Citadel by Alien Slaves (Vorts)
Nihilanth was under the control of the Combine.
The reson Combine can't teleport short distances is because they use a different type of portal. Imagine 3 spheres, 1 is our universe, 1 is Xen, one is a Combine world. Now lets say a point on the surface of the sphere is a destination. The Combine portals have to travel in a straight line so can't go anywhere else on their own sphere as they would have to go through the sphere. Ours goes to Xen travels around it and slingshots back to our sphere much like a satilite slingshots around planets. Does that make any sence?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Opposing Force has nothing to do with the story I'm afraid. Race X don't exist, the Black Ops never attacked the military and Black Mesa was not destroyed by a nuke.
I think Grunts and Gargs were manufactured in places similar to the Citadel by Alien Slaves (Vorts)
Nihilanth was under the control of the Combine.
The reson Combine can't teleport short distances is because they use a different type of portal. Imagine 3 spheres, 1 is our universe, 1 is Xen, one is a Combine world. Now lets say a point on the surface of the sphere is a destination. The Combine portals have to travel in a straight line so can't go anywhere else on their own sphere as they would have to go through the sphere. Ours goes to Xen travels around it and slingshots back to our sphere much like a satilite slingshots around planets. Does that make any sence?

That's wrong, Marc Laidlaw wrote for both Opfor and BS.
I agree with you on the other thing though. Xen was quite clearly under Combine control, Nihilianth was the equivalence of Dr Breen.

 

[Jandor]

I disagree on your OP4/BS point
I agree with your Teleportation and Xen/Combine points.

Much like the man just above me.

 

[ríomhaire]

I OP4 counts them why did the Black Ops attack the marines?

 

[AJ Rimmer]

I OP4 counts them why did the Black Ops attack the marines?

No witnesses.

 

[narc]

Actually, i do agree with the site, lol, i just wanted to test that theory out. I do think it's a shame about Race-X not coming back they could have done something quite interesting with them. A Xenian civil war, perhaps a combine resistance movement.

 

[Pai-Mei]

I don't care to speculate on Race X as, whether the events in Op4 are considered to have happened or not to have happened, they seem to have little effect on the rest of the HL storyline. Even if BMRF was destroyed by nuke or wasn't, it makes no difference because we'll probably never go back to it in a real Valve game. Even if Race X did come to Earth, it makes no difference because their stay was obviously short lived.

I agree with you on the other thing though. Xen was quite clearly under Combine control, Nihilianth was the equivalence of Dr Breen.

Nihilanth was under the control of the Combine.

I'm actually going to finally start a thread AGAINST this theory.

 

[FireCrack]

IIRC ladilaw himself said that the events of opfor and BS did occour, but have no effect on the overarching storyline, either race X hit from the combine, or was assimilated by them since the end of opfor.

 

[Polaris]

OpFor story is compatible with storyline of Half-life 2.

 

[Asknoone]

Race X don't fit into the storyline, theyre just somthing gearbox made up - Marc Laidlaw confirmed this.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Race X didn't impact the main storyline, but they're still there. They're just not going to be back ever again.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[ríomhaire]

Race X fit in. But Black Ops attacking marines dosn't.

 

[Wilsonator]

Controllers, Vorts and Nihilanth

Interesting point about the Xen Controllers, lets say the Vorts are 'Stalkers', the Xen Controllers' 'Enforcers', (Half human-half Alien Combine Creatures with whips who oversee the slaves, as seen in RtB) and Nihilanth as Breen.

The Vortigaunts have not been drastically modified in any way but i believe there is a good and reasonably obvious reason for this:

Vortigaunts-
Highly Intelligent
Can use lightning to heal, fix and charge and attack
Hive Minded
Can handle weapons if given the chance

Humans-
Reasonably intelligent (not as much as Vorts though)
Can handle weapons
As races go, physically weak without help from say, a suit.

The Combine saw the natural abilities of the Vorts and decided to take advantage of the Hive Mind by establishing a control link with the Nihilanth.

The Vortigaunts need to be enslaved because they have the free will to resist, the Controllers however need no collar because their brains have been modified so they are completely loyal to the Combine, which is why you see no sort of control devices on Overwatch Soldiers etc.

Nihilanth however needs something of a free will so his judgement is not impaired or he will make the wrong decisions for his people.

Breen became administrator because he was a negotiator, when the Combine attacked he took control, he was a leader and more importantly, he knew people. He lent a human face to the Combine opression, convincing some citizens with his propaganda and speeches. The Combine could have wanted something similar with Nihilanth.

Also the Vortigaunt Janitor in Station 17 is wearing a mind control collar and is being watched over by metrocops, showing the collars are Combine made perhaps?

Blah Blah Bla- are you still reading?

 

[Wilsonator]

Double Post- Ignore

 

[ríomhaire]

I think it is more like the controlers are loyal to Nihilanth nomater what. When the Nihilanth says float, they say how high, that way the Combine didn't have do anything to the controlers.

 

[Wilsonator]

That's pretty much what i was trying to say.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

The one flaw in that theory is that the Combine love to stamp insignia on things. Almost everything of theirs has a logo sprayed or inscribed on. But, nothing from Xen had any form of Combine insignia.

I still think it's best to consider the Combine and Xen as seperate entities, simply due to the fact that the Combine had not been dreamed up by Laidlaw when he did HL1.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[ríomhaire]

Sauron wasn't dreamed up by JRR Tolken when he wrote the hobbit.

 

[Wilsonator]

-and Douglas Adams wrote the entire Hitchiker's Guide quintilogy by making it up as he went along, using charcters and events to tie up loose end as was convenient, i think Marc Laidlaw did that to tie the events of HL1 and 2 together.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Ultil Laidlaw goes out of his way to provide more concrete evidence, then there's no use speculating either way.

It was made pretty obvious about most of the other things in the games - the Humans experimenting on Xenians in HL1 - with the grunts in the bottles - the Combine augmenting the Humans in HL2 - the bloke laying on the operating table - and stuff like that. There's no definitive thing that supports this theory on Combine occupation on Xen.

Each dimension is likely the size of a universe. Why the hell do people assume that the Combine own them all/are in the process of doing it? The universe is a big place, it's feasable that the Combine would have missed Xen altogether. In the scale of the universe, an entire galaxy is but a pebble on the beach. How likely is it that the Combine would have conquered the majority of them?

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Laivasse]

Sauron wasn't dreamed up by JRR Tolken when he wrote the hobbit.

But what he did do was link the story retroactively by saying "that necromancer in Mirkwood I mentioned - that was Sauron". Valve don't do this. Where in HL2 is the evidence that the Combine were on Xen? There is none, because Valve didn't intend it that way.

 

[Laivasse]

Ultil Laidlaw goes out of his way to provide more concrete evidence, then there's no use speculating either way.

What I hope Laidlaw *doesn't* do is link the Combine to Xen in future games simply because that what lots of people have irrationally come to accept, and he figures it's an easy way to avoid controversy....

 

[ríomhaire]

Nihilanth was slave to something. "We are slaves".

 

[Polaris]

I think the Alien Grunts, Gargantua, Xen Masters (Controllers) mayby Gonarch are synthetic or biological - genetical modified. Only Vorts are "pure" Xenians. Other Xen lifeforms is like animals not inteligent creatures.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

I'd assume that the only non-modified intelligent Xen are the Controllers and the Vortigaunts. The Controllers likely created the Grunts from the Vortigaunts. The Gargantua is more likely some form of wildlife.

Nihilanth claimed he was a slave, that's true. He didn't say that he was a slave to the Combine, though - it's possible he was referring to the floating head Xen Controllers; with 'we' being him and the Vortigaunts, as it can be assumed that he was part of their mind-web thing (backed by the claims of Vorts in HL2).

The biggest difficulty is that, unless Laidlaw actually takes the player to Xen, then they're always going to assume that the Combine are dominating it. It's easy for him to visually show that the Combine control Xen - for example, if he were to have Xen aliens on Earth actually fighting alongside the Combine troops. However, there aren;t many clear cut ways for him to say that they're not dominated.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[CrazyHarij]

But where does Race X fit into all of this?

 

[Jandor]

I think the Vortigaunts and Controllers where the original sentient species of Xen, Grunts where made from Vortigaunts and Nihilanth was made from Controllers. The Vortigaunts have sort of a Vortigaunt only forum that they can post information, images, throughts to. The Controllers found a way to 'hack' the Vortessence and achieved Dominion over them. The Combine invaded and conquered the Controllers, thereby conquering the Vortigaunts, the Nihilanth was made to control the Controllers, and the collars where made to enhance the controllers control of the Vortigaunts.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Nihilanth claimed he was a slave, that's true. He didn't say that he was a slave to the Combine, though - it's possible he was referring to the floating head Xen Controllers; with 'we' being him and the Vortigaunts, as it can be assumed that he was part of their mind-web thing (backed by the claims of Vorts in HL2).

The biggest difficulty is that, unless Laidlaw actually takes the player to Xen, then they're always going to assume that the Combine are dominating it. It's easy for him to visually show that the Combine control Xen - for example, if he were to have Xen aliens on Earth actually fighting alongside the Combine troops. However, there aren;t many clear cut ways for him to say that they're not dominated.

-Angry Lawyer

Well the vortigaunts refer to Nihilianth as the lesser master and make hints about the combine being the greater master, also, in hl2 we see a vort with the exact same collar as in hl1, under combine slavery, indicating that at least vorts were slaves to combines in hl1, don't you think?

PS, CrazyHarij, are you a evil minion, I mean staff member now? cool

 

[Asknoone]

But where does Race X fit into all of this?

Originally Posted by Marc Laidlaw
Hi, Solver, I'm assuming whatever I tell you is going to get posted somewhere, so I'll be very careful in answering.

I will not talk about the meaning of the game or clear up stuff that has yet to be clarified or revealed; it only makes sense to do this in the context of the games themselves. Stuff that hasn't been revealed is that way because we're not ready to reveal it. Everything that's there is there for a reason; ditto for everything that isn't there. I can only say, "Stay tuned."

Race-X was Gearbox's creation, and likely would only be continued if Gearbox were to do more episodes in the HL universe. There were gameplay modes they wanted to explore, and their designers wanted to make some new monsters; Race-X was a great way for them to do this. The universe is expansive enough to allow this without conflicting with the core story. Remember, these are games first and foremost, and the story really is there to open up and extend (rather than shut down) possibilities for fun gameplay. We did coordinate overarching story elements with Gearbox, but left a lot of the details for them to explore and invent according to what worked for their design process. As for whether Shepherd was put on ice before or after the Nihilanth's demise, it's really hard to say, since Gordon's time in Xen and in the Nihilanth's chamber may not be mapped directly against the timeline of events at Black Mesa.

The gman mumbles sound fairly close to what I remember him saying...strangely enough, I can't find the script for that exchange.

Thanks for taking such an interest in the story. Before HL1 came out, it was tough to convince outsiders that FPS players would care at all about having any kind of story in their game. Obviously, given the wide range of reactions, they care quite a bit. The debate over HL2's content is much more varied.

Yours,
Marc Laidlaw

*Waves goodbye to Race X. Good riddance too.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

But where does Race X fit into all of this?

Well, if you DO want to consider them as part of the storyline, it's more likely that, as Xen - and presumably all dimensions - are touching each other - perhaps some stuff from another Universe altogether got gated through. Matters little to the overall storyline, but it shows that the Universe is a pretty large place.

Well the vortigaunts refer to Nihilianth as the lesser master and make hints about the combine being the greater master

They never actually said 'Combine' in any of their ramblings. They could have been referring to Controllers, or it could have been due to the fact that they consider the Combine occupation a larger threat - a 'greater master' - than that of Nihilanth/Controller slavery.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Well, if you DO want to consider them as part of the storyline, it's more likely that, as Xen - and presumably all dimensions - are touching each other - perhaps some stuff from another Universe altogether got gated through. Matters little to the overall storyline, but it shows that the Universe is a pretty large place.



They never actually said 'Combine' in any of their ramblings. They could have been referring to Controllers, or it could have been due to the fact that they consider the Combine occupation a larger threat - a 'greater master' - than that of Nihilanth/Controller slavery.

-Angry Lawyer

I don't think the controllers were anything else than Nihilianth's minions, and why do the combine have the same technology as in Xen to keep their vorts in check?

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Because they found the Vortigaunt wearing the collar, and just left it on? Somewhere in HL1's storyline, it was made apparent that removing the collar would cause great discomfort/lots of effort. The Combine probably couldn't be arsed.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Because they found the Vortigaunt wearing the collar, and just left it on? Somewhere in HL1's storyline, it was made apparent that removing the collar would cause great discomfort/lots of effort. The Combine probably couldn't be arsed.

-Angry Lawyer

For 15 years? I'd assume the vorts would get rid of the collars the minute nihilianth was killed, yet there was one that was found by the combine and kept the damn thing for 15 years? Poor guy, he can't catch a brake can he?

 

[ríomhaire]

The collars are different. In HL1 they are green and there are 3 of them, in HL2 there are 5 and they are grey with wires.

 

[Eejit]

Nihilanth was slave to something. "We are slaves".

Doesn't mean he was slave to a group of people. He could have been speaking philosophically

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Eejit, you're a genius. Slaves to our wants, hates, fears, and desires. Why can't we transcend such things, and become buddies with Nihilanth?

Woah, you've got a warning? Where the hell did that come from?

Oh, and Rimmer, I'd assume that the Vortigaunts would have been born into slavery. Maybe they just don't feel it any more? Or perhaps, they're impossible to remove on your own? If that Vortigaunt got trapped somewhere for the 10 years between the two games, or feared contact with humans, I don't see how he could have removed it.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Eejit]

Eejit, you're a genius. Slaves to our wants, hates, fears, and desires. Why can't we transcend such things, and become buddies with Nihilanth?

Woah, you've got a warning? Where the hell did that come from?

-Angry Lawyer

Haha, thanks

The warning was from making a post in a thread which had begun to go off-topic which led to it becoming a spam thread. Nobody else got one but I'm not too bothered anyway.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

Eejit, you're a genius. Slaves to our wants, hates, fears, and desires. Why can't we transcend such things, and become buddies with Nihilanth?

Woah, you've got a warning? Where the hell did that come from?

Oh, and Rimmer, I'd assume that the Vortigaunts would have been born into slavery. Maybe they just don't feel it any more? Or perhaps, they're impossible to remove on your own? If that Vortigaunt got trapped somewhere for the 10 years between the two games, or feared contact with humans, I don't see how he could have removed it.

-Angry Lawyer

They were born into slavery until Nihilianth died, but I get the feeling the Vorts can speak telepathicly to one another, the other vorts would have called for him. But I guess it really doesn't prove anything, he could've just been captured by the combine like the one in Nova Prospekt.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Unless collars suppress the mind-web? It's possible, because the Slaves in HL1 seemed pretty dumb/cowardly.

-Angry Lawyer