Lets examine the science in the Half-Life universe.

[Light_Science]

I admire the science aspect of this game,we can talk about whats real,what is not and what can be scientifically plausible.

I'll start with the Tau cannon ( Gauss Gun ) that fires beams of tau particles.We know that in the real world such a weapon does not exist,but the tau is an elementary particle with a negative electric charge similar to the electron.

 

[kineaesth]

okay, let us begin to talk about whats real!

do you think headcrabs can be scientifically plausible?

 

[Edeslash]

Valve science?

I haven't crafted any hats in a long time.

 

[Lobster]

In terms of biological organisms, there are many cases of parasites that control the actions of their host.

http://listverse.com/2009/07/29/10-fascinating-cases-of-mind-control/

As for the actual headcrab form.. robotic headcrabs already exist, slowly crawling into your nightmares!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19286259

 

[MFL]

Somebody get this man Darkside's headcrab writeup.

 

[Eejit]

do you think headcrabs can be scientifically plausible?

Nope.

Parasites are quite species-specific, they must evolve alongside their hosts. Particularly so in order to have more complex interactions such as affecting host behaviour.
An extraterrestrial species having that degree of adaptation to humans is implausible.

 

[Light_Science]

I agree that its implausible for an alien symbiote to bond itself with a human at that level.We can learn alot from Earths symbiotes and theorize about alien ones.

And what about teleportation ? It has been used many times in Half-life,and Portal of course.
The first thing that comes into mind is a wormhole.In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical feature of spacetime that can act as a shortcut trought spacetime.

 

[tomemozok]

Ah my favorite theme for discussion...
So,first off,the tau cannon is actually doable,but we don't have that kind of energy source(apart from antimatter ofc).Basically,you need a lot of concentrated energy into 1 spot,witch will vaporize anything it touches when it is released as a beam of particles(tau particles in this case).If anyone can control antimatter in such an environment,give me a shout
The headcrabs are doable,and are the closest thing we can make from the hl universe(apart from the real weapons)...Will write again soon

 

[Barnz]

I suggest you to read darkside and your_evil_twin's monster articles

 

[Light_Science]

I dont think that you can use antimatter as ammo for a weapon like the tau cannon.When antimatter comes in contact with matter they annihilate,or in other words explode.Unless you keep the antimatter in a magnetic field,that way it will not come in contact with matter,but when it comes in contact with the air it will annihilite and be lost.You can definatelly use it to create a bomb.

 

[KiplingsCat]

You can definatelly use it to create a bomb.

Didn't they do that in Angels and Demons? Because that was a paragon of realistic science right there.

 

[ríomhaire]

Ah my favorite theme for discussion...
So,first off,the tau cannon is actually doable,but we don't have that kind of energy source(apart from antimatter ofc).Basically,you need a lot of concentrated energy into 1 spot,witch will vaporize anything it touches when it is released as a beam of particles(tau particles in this case).If anyone can control antimatter in such an environment,give me a shout
The headcrabs are doable,and are the closest thing we can make from the hl universe(apart from the real weapons)...Will write again soon

The Tau Cannon and Gluon Gun (and Displacer) are both supposedly powered by a miniature nuclear reactor that's apparently light enough to carry around. Also the Tau Cannon has two household batteries so that helps I suppose.

 

[Lobster]

It made a cool whirring sound when it charged up! That's important.

 

[KiplingsCat]

The thing about physics is that it sounds like a really really really good idea in theory. It's all like hey this anomaly of science is cool, and could be used to do stuff, hurrah! But when you actually study it, you find that the stuff that works well and is physically sound is stuff that's been around long enough to become humdrum (the fission reactor, the car engine, the telephone etc). The reason it's had time to become humdrum is because it works. Most of the really "exciting" things like wormholes are actually just by-products of the mathematics that was put into place to explain the more boring stuff. They seem exciting to us because they'll never really be possible; not in our lifetimes and probably not for the rest of time either.

I mean, sure, there are still discoveries to be made. They're doing some pretty interesting stuff with tokamaks down the hall from me, which might someday contribute in some small part to viable cold fusion. But in the end, it's just some guy in a tiny lab pressing buttons on a machine that's held together with blutac. It's a long way from that to a Gluon Gun.

Plus, all you have to do is look at the Swartzschild metric for a wormhole for like five seconds for you to not be excited about wormholes anymore. The modern telephone actually starts to look pretty neat to you at that point.

(Also, and I know this is pedantic so forgive me in advance: explode is not another word for annihilate. The annihilation leads to the explosion but is not in itself an explosion there I'm done).

 

[tomemozok]

The Tau Cannon and Gluon Gun (and Displacer) are both supposedly powered by a miniature nuclear reactor that's apparently light enough to carry around. Also the Tau Cannon has two household batteries so that helps I suppose.

That is true,but there is one problem here:Radiation.You will die from radiation before you can fire up the tau cannon.

To continue my post:Headcrabs are really plausible,you'll just make an organic life "grow" on a metal robotical skelet,and control that skelet by a computer.

Teleportation: This one is a big one,because there are many theoretical ways to achieve this.The one that i think will work is actually refferenced in HL: Entanglement(2 particles are neutral and connected,and the moment one of them becomes polarized,the other one shifts its pole to the opposite).There are ways like vibrating the molecules to a certain freqency,so you can split them,and reassemble them in another location(Blue Shift teleportation works like that,that's why you need to activate the crystals in xen).Those are the ones refferenced in Hl.There are other ways,but in another time.

Next one would be the aliens themselves,i think,and the hive-hand weapon,witch will shoot darts that are heat seeking.The hard part is the replenishing ammo,and i have no idea how to do that,apart from something like organic breed that can "poop" those darts,but here the prob will be the energy (aka food).The aliens them selves are plausible,since half of them are part robotic,part organic(except the vorts but they may generate their electricity like the electric eel).
Enough for now,will write again soon

 

[tomemozok]

I dont think that you can use antimatter as ammo for a weapon like the tau cannon.When antimatter comes in contact with matter they annihilate,or in other words explode.Unless you keep the antimatter in a magnetic field,that way it will not come in contact with matter,but when it comes in contact with the air it will annihilite and be lost.You can definatelly use it to create a bomb.

When matter and antimatter collide,they release pure energy that vaporizes everything it touches.
The end result of antimatter meeting matter is a release of energy proportional to the mass as the mass-energy equivalence equation, E=mc2 shows(wikipedia)

If you can tap that energy,use it for your own needs,you will basically be god,since 1 ml of antimatter will generate enough electricity to power up whe whole world for around 12 hours.Imagine what will 1l do

 

[KiplingsCat]

Quantum teleportation only applies to certain types of particles. It wouldn't really apply to a complex object like a human.

 

[Light_Science]

If you can tap that energy,use it for your own needs,you will basically be god,since 1 ml of antimatter will generate enough electricity to power up whe whole world for around 12 hours.Imagine what will 1l do

Scientist at CERN had trapped antihydrogen atoms for 17 minutes,but this is still very expensive and the amount we are able to produce is very little.We are no way near of producing 1ml :/

 

[Danny_ZQ]

2muchscience4me

 

[Eejit]

To continue my post:Headcrabs are really plausible,you'll just make an organic life "grow" on a metal robotical skelet,and control that skelet by a computer.

Yeah that makes everything about headcrabs totally plausible.

 

[Clay]

It made a cool whirring sound when it charged up! That's important.

All you have to do is make a whirring gun that has a spinny thing and glows.

But seriously, if we're talking about headcrabs, if they had prior knowledge of Xen, then Xen had prior knowledge of Earth, correct? (Cut me some slack, haven't played HL1 in a few years. #howlonguntilbms?) Not to mention the fact that humans were there prior to the rift opening and all them aliens be coming in the Earth. Who's to say they couldn't have studied how the Human brain worked? And if we're throwing OpFor 'lore' in here, they had ships they were flying in. I highly doubt you could have gotten one of those out of the rift opened by Freeman in Black Mesa. Is there any indication as to how far away Xen was from Earth? Regardless, in order to get a craft from an alien planet to Earth, you'd need a fairly advanced amount of technology (be it organic or otherwise). It's definitely plausible that they could have studied humans (even from afar) and adapted (or bred, or even created) headcrabs for the explicit purpose of creating human slaves via mind control and body modification (as per headcrab zombies).

On the same track, Zombines. What are the Combine? Are they just humans? Or are they another race? If the latter, then that poses some issues for my argument...

 

[Eejit]

Headcrabs were wildlife on Xen (though originating elsewhere) not bioweapons wielded by the Nihilanth against humanity.