My HL2 Theory based on all info we know...

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Asknoone

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here goes

i have always though that Dr. Breen and the combine were trying to Invade Xen....trying to colonize it simply because in the Plot preview valve released it said that resources are a low and stuff. So Breen could be trying to defeat Xen in order for humans to live in Xen

i also think this may be the case because in the PC Zone preview it gave a statement of what Breen was saying on a screen in a courtyard.

"Dont worry, you bieng treat like this for a reason, you arnt ready to make your own descisions yet...but soon you will be free to do as you please...dont be afraid." says Breen.

perhaps he is saying you will be free to wander the Earth freely once the combine have conquered Xen and he has chosen a select few citizens to live there and began the next era of human life.

Whilst others dwell on a dying Earth. That may be why the Vortigaunts are helping you and the scientists...joining forces to stop the Combine. but more likley that they have been exiled from Xen by the Controllers and they joined the sceintists because they helped free them.

But while Breen tried to conquer Xen, the Controllers decided to unleash there army on earth. Thus with the portals opening the 'Wildlife' of Xen I.E Ant lions, bullsquids, headcrabs etc headed through by accident....then started to live and breed on earth. The Ant lions coming up from undergroud? perhaps they have made a nest or something under the dried out beach.

Perhaps Ithycosaur live in our Oceans and Ant lions live undeground. But we havnt seen any Alien ground troops have we?

I believe there are two MAJOR invasions taking place betweem Xen and Earth. The combine and breen want to inhabit Xen, the Controllers and the Xen leadership want to inhabit earth......or even destroy earth.

That may be why Breen put everyone in numbered Cities because he didnt want anybody getting killed and the human race annhilated then his plans would be ruined and no one could inhabit Xen. so he puts people in cities to keep them from harm guarded by a Harsh army of itchy trigger fingered Combine soldiers.

Have we seen any Xen Aliens actaully IN City 17. actaully right in the actaul city? no i dont think we have, only Combines. So that could indicate that the Alien wildlife HAS overun Earth, living in wasteland and citizens live in different, safe cities each one numbered.

Also in the PC Zone mag it says Gabe Newell said they wanted the Antagonist (Breen) to be a reasonable bad guy and for you to beat them because you are a better scientist than they are. Thus far Breen i suppose i kind of reasonable, he is trying to do what he thinks is best for humans and earth albiet its not the greatest solution but there we go.

Clearly Breen has his own ideas about the Alien Invasion and how to handle the situation. Obviously during the ALIEN invasion the Aliens killed of any form of resistance, army/police everything. The Breen saw his chance and formed an army of powerful Human/machine Hybrids, ushering people into cities and fighting the Aliens.

And also Gabe said Pieces of Xen will be coming to earth, like in HL1, when you fight the horde of vortigaunts with the handily placed turret there is pieces of Xen landscape stuck to the walls and what not.

i guess the longer the portals are opening...the more the two dimensions are merging

Also i am pretty sure Dr. Mossman said thet could swing around the border world and come back again without passing through, indicating they can teleport large distances without having to go through Xen in doing so. Something the Black Mesa Scientists couldnt quite figure out how to do.

And as for the Combine Citadel eating through City 17...i cant quite get my head round that one. "I like to think of City 17 as my home." "Welcome to City 17, one of our finest remaining urban settlements." Ok Breen then why are you eating away at the city!?!?!?!

perhaps its not eating the entire city, perhaps he is trying to destroy the Scientist base? perhaps he is making room for something on a much larger scale, perhaps a teleportation Lab? who knows.

Anyway thats my theory. and after reading that Gamereactor interview....and mentioning how they wanted to develop characters such as Alyx, Barney and Dr. Kliener i reckon Eli might just die. and i think he never mentioned G - Man because there isnt much to develop when it comes to G - Man exept who or what he is.

Come to think of it i never mentioned G - Man in my theory...i cant quite think of anything for G - Man. exept that he may or may not be part of some strange Government sect that has its own plans for whaterver they may be...
 
and i think the citizens in Blue are the citizens in the proper uniforms, the citizens in white are the resistance fighters. thats what i thin anyway
 
I think breen says that because .. well .. it's a propaganda you know .. "you'll be free soon"! a morphen injection.
 
Yeah, and "It's safer here", probably means "You'll die here". Heh.

I still think he's a badguy and not somekind of harsh oppressor with good intentions.
 
i understand that its a propaganda, i just was looking at it from a different perspective, but i do think he is some harsh opressor with intentions that arnt relativly good but perhaps what he believes he thinks is best. Like gabe said "a reasonable bad guy...and for you to beat him because your a better scientist than they are"
 
I think Gabe meant that Breen was supposed to be more believeable and three-dimensional than most game badguys.
 
Most game badguys rule through force.
I think that Gabe wants Breen to manipulate you (and the Combine), to his own ends.
That's probably what he's meaning ....
 
Samon said:
...Anyway thats my theory. and after reading that Gamereactor interview....and mentioning how they wanted to develop characters such as Alyx, Barney and Dr. Kliener i reckon Eli might just die. ...
Click to expand...

Yeah i think Eli dies sometime around when you first meet Dr. Kliener. I get this belief from watching the "Kliener's Lab" binkvideo. Something Alxy says.
 
perhaps but i think that trailer there where they are in Klieners lab is about half way through the game. I think Eli may get killed/captured or something and had an somesort of different idea on what he wanted to do.

but because he is either killed/captured Alyx decides to do it her way with the help of Kliener but a little unsure of whether it will work.
 
Samon said:
Have we seen any Xen Aliens actaully IN City 17. actaully right in the actaul city? no i dont think we have, only Combines.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about this, but wasn't the scene with the zombies getting ripped of by the rotor in the e2k3 vid also in city 17? pls correct me
 
yea, but hes saying that there are no alians in the city

combine= not aliens
Zombies= Not aliens (cept for the headcrab bit)
 
Gabe said you would find out a lot of info on the G-Man this time round.

I agree that the Combine could be a paramilitary force used to protect humanity from invasion.

I personaly think something along the lines of this...

After HL1 when black mesa got nuked (op4) The Administrator/goverment didnt just stop the experiments but had other research areas around the world....

Now maybe resonance cascades happened at these other sites but becuase only BM had Gordon freeman some of the other sites were taken over by the xen aliens/race X.....

Humanity could not fight on all the fronts and the world eceonomy went to hell, nuclear weapons may have been used and countries fell into chaos....

this enabled Breen and others to grab power and create primitive levels of goverment (ie. in the mad max trilogy you see humantiy going to hell then in hell in #2 and finaly pulling itself back together in mad max 3)

The combine were created to protect the remaining human cities that were not over run, Marshall law was declared so that the Combine would not have to worry about civilians wandering around etc.....

Now, Breen has been working on ways to fight the invasion and the citadel is maybe one of them.... but some scientists and or others dont share his views on how to fight the invasion and they try to stop him...

EG. maybe Breen in trying to to save humanity must destroy a large portion of it... IE. the needs of the many outwiegh the needs of the few (take out 100 innocents to save 1000 etc..)

The resitance forms and tries to stop breen from carrying out his plan, Enter Gordon freeman who has been revived by the G-Man to either help/fight the combine/resistance...

I dont know if he wants you to help the combine or not becuase at the start of the game you enter C17 but the combine dont try to kill you.... or maybe the G-Man is the resistance and smuggles you into C17 as a worker or something and once inside you go underground and meet up with him or something....

(just dont know)

Gabe said one group is wrong and the other is very wrong.... maybe Breens wrong in that he wants to kill so many to save some people and by stopping him Gordon and Co... destroy the combine but the Aliens no longer being held back by the combine can finaly conquer all of earth.....

So that leaves a massive amount of questions and gameplay for HL3 in wich maybe gordon goes to the enemy homeworld and takes the fight to them or something...

Either way i say "its the end of the world as we know it.... and i feel fine..." *sings*
 
thats a good analysis dougy. I have heard this one group is wrong the other is very wrong thing before. which interview was this someone???

i dont think that resonance cascades happened in all other facilities, i think it was intentional by the Xen Aliens. The defeat of the nihalinth, the invasion force by the military and the closing off the portals. i think they are a little pissed.

Oh and i was looking up the cast for half life 2, found it and Dr. Breens real name is Dr. Wallace Breen


I'm not sure about this, but wasn't the scene with the zombies getting ripped of by the rotor in the e2k3 vid also in city 17? pls correct me
Click to expand...

They werent in city 17....they were in ravenholm. which i believe is a small town/industrial are on the outskirts of city 17.
 
Okay, what I think:

From what I have read the G-MAN might be a biomech government agent. No, I have not read anywhere people's ideas and reasons for why the combine is supposedly attacking earth. I have also heard that the combine is biomech as well. I have read that the combine is attacking europe. What is funny to see is that all the combine police and soldiers there are pushing the people around, telling them there is nothing to see here.

My theory: G-man works for the US government and this so called alien invasion from another planet is not that at all. I'm almost positive that another alien race capable of traveling hundreds of light years to earth would be far more advanced militarily speaking and it would be very simple for them to kill off everyone on earth. I believe that G-man is leading a US invasion of europe, alien propoganda is being used so that the entire world thinks that the invaders are alien. The US is brought in to help.

Sounds pretty close to reality, which is scary. Anyway. I think the story in HL2 might follow something along these lines. The combine know how to speak english, they aren't speaking alien. I believe the US is using the very real idea of alien invasion to attempt world demonination without anyone knowing who is actually in control.

My $0.02

-Will
 
BlueIce said:
I'm not sure about this, but wasn't the scene with the zombies getting ripped of by the rotor in the e2k3 vid also in city 17? pls correct me
Click to expand...

i sincerely doubt so. The architecture of Traptown compared to City17 is very different. Traptown seemd more modern.
 
Hmm.. that's quite an interesting concept Will.

i doubt gman is either alien or biomech. I'm thinking that he is simply human. Though i find it really bizarre how he struggles so much to speak normally.

i made a theory about HL2 in a thread like this but the thread suddenly vanished.

i'm going to find it now.
 
The voice over the original videos said that it was an old part of City:17.

Just so you know. :)
 
hmm, even more interesting.

so traptown was a part of City17 until the zombies and co overran it, forcing Breen and his administration back into a more compressed city17.
 
Here's my theory from another thread.

Gordon was employed as a cleaner for when things go wrong. during that 10-15yrs between Hl1 and 2, the administration took advantage of the border world trying to increase their power doing more research and such. Admin couldnt control border world like the Nihilanth could, things went wrong and the ant lions and zombies got through to Earth.
Aliens killing people all over the place. Only a few safe places left. Breen sets up his admin in City17. Using the border world, Admin enlists the help of the Combine; an alien race from some other dimension. They strike a deal, Combine gets to use some of Earth's resources, and in exchange, Admin gets the help of the combine in defending the few remaining countries/cities/places on Earth.
Combine gets too cocky. starts taking more than they should. Admin fears they are loosing control over the cities and the aliens arent going away. They tell Gman to get the cleaner.
Gman gets Gordon and puts him into the action (not telling him why ofcourse). Gordon regroups with his oldschool buddies, plus a few new faces, and attempts to sort out the mess he majorly contributed to in Hl1 (he doesn't know that the administration wanted it to happen though/planned it).
 
might be close

I think a combination between what esquire is saying and what I am saying could be very close to what the story might be. The gman is put forth as more of a sinister, darker character, so the idea that he is helping clean up doesn't seem entirely feasable, I think there are ulterior motives to what he is doing. He might be employing gordon to fight the combine, but for which reasons.. i.e. The combine might be taking over more then what they were alotted in the first place, but why? Has the gman's agency decided the combine should clear a place out and then the gordon would finish off the combine so that the agency controls the territory? It might just be technical difficulties with Gman, in his creation, but I also think it is odd how he speaks, and how he almost seems like he is really TRYING to speak correctly. Grammar problems, that sort of thing, long pauses in his speech pattern, I'm thinking he might not be completly human, or that he might be a puppet of some sort.

EDIT: sorry for the misstypes, I'm in class.

-Will
 
i still dont understand.... WHY DO PEOPLE THINK THE COMBINE ARE ALIENS!?!!?!?
 
Cos they're too inhuman!

We can only go on what we've seen so far. And so far we've not seen any normal human interaction between either combine and combine or combine and human.

They've all been very robotic. Very... drone like.
 
Esquire said:
Cos they're too inhuman!

We can only go on what we've seen so far. And so far we've not seen any normal human interaction between either combine and combine or combine and human.

They've all been very robotic. Very... drone like.
Click to expand...

1. they just happen to look exactly like Humans
2. they speak english
3. they use a form of command structure similar to human military forces
4. they use human weapons
5. they wear gas masks

Seem pretty human to me.
 
But where's the emotion? The expression? So far i've only seen them beefing with Gordon and pushing people about. Never have i seen them casually talk to one and other like the military force that opposed you in HL1.

Those noises they make aren't human. And i don't think it's cause of the masks they where. I'm guessing they've got the human structure but aren't fully human, or have been modified.

Yes they look human.. two arms two legs etc. But until i see their faces, their skin, i'm saying that they jus look humanoid.

And why would they be wearing gasmasks when all other City17 citizens are breathing the fresh citadel air? It's not neccessary for their job unless they've got trouble breathing the City17 air. But how strange,, the other City17 people have no trouble at all. and they're human. Which simply suggests to me that something is certainly up with the Combine.
 
One of the voiceovers from the original vids refers to the "Alien Combine", IIRC.

Though, I think that the Combine Metrocops and Soldiers are actually human conscripts, or something along those lines.
 
'Combine' suggests (as has been said SO many times before :)) that there is a mixture going on - be it man/machine or man/Xen. I'm, afraid my memory of the original Half-Life story appears to be fading (I'm so going to replay it), and I'm going to appear heavily uninformed here... but let's see. There are now two shady, 'leader' figures, in Breen and Gman. I like the idea that perhaps the Human control of the border world was badly implemented, and that the aliens got to earth. Either that, or aliens were released so that the citizens of Earth had little choice but to turn to draconian figures as protection. The way I see it, there must be two stories: the real one, and the one that the inhabitants of the Half-Life world see. Gman is the only one who can see the real story and he, although supposed to operate under Breen, has his own agenda - hence his 'storage' of Gordon. The second, superficial story, appears to be something to do with said draconian figures taking control, keeping man in Cities such as City 17 and using the alien threat to their own advantage. The Combine can therefore be either soldiers for these forces (presumably led by Breen), or another race enlisted to help. So... after BM, the alien threat was partially negated, and the border world controlled. Fear of the aliens was then used to bring Earth under control, too, and the combine help in this. The logical next step would be for another alien race to get involved, to take advantage of the complacency, and this could involve the citadel. Gman is therefore vindicated in his shadiness, and releases Gordon to rebalance things. I assume, though, that Gordon will reaslise the shambles that Earth is in, and fight that, too, as well as the Xen wildlife that has been developing on Earth.

This is written so messily that I doubt it makes any sense, sorry!
 
Esquire said:
But where's the emotion? The expression? So far i've only seen them beefing with Gordon and pushing people about. Never have i seen them casually talk to one and other like the military force that opposed you in HL1.

Those noises they make aren't human. And i don't think it's cause of the masks they where. I'm guessing they've got the human structure but aren't fully human, or have been modified.

Yes they look human.. two arms two legs etc. But until i see their faces, their skin, i'm saying that they jus look humanoid.

And why would they be wearing gasmasks when all other City17 citizens are breathing the fresh citadel air? It's not neccessary for their job unless they've got trouble breathing the City17 air. But how strange,, the other City17 people have no trouble at all. and they're human. Which simply suggests to me that something is certainly up with the Combine.
Click to expand...

1. In how many real life news reports have you seen marines/soldiers talking to eachother about where to go for dinner in a war zone?

2.the noises the make is called the english language, being distorted a bit through a gas mask, all people wearing gas masks sound funny.

3. So its just a complete coincedance that the only animal on earth to evolve and look like human is humans and you think on some different world these aliens just happen to look exactly like a human in a suit? not to mention you see barney in a combine suit at one point so unless hes an alien he cant fit his perfectly human body into a combines suit.

4. why did soldiers in world war one/two then all previous wars after that use gas masks? hell some marines in half life wore them.. does that make them alien?

Im not saying they are 100% natural human, but i am saying that at some point they were human before they got "combined" at some point, maybe they are clones or biomechinaly altered after birth or something.
 
i think they are human/machine. its obvious they arnt exactly complete human, the gas masks, the strange blue eyes on the soldier ones.
 
Dougy said:
1. In how many real life news reports have you seen marines/soldiers talking to eachother about where to go for dinner in a war zone?

2.the noises the make is called the english language, being distorted a bit through a gas mask, all people wearing gas masks sound funny.

3. So its just a complete coincedance that the only animal on earth to evolve and look like human is humans and you think on some different world these aliens just happen to look exactly like a human in a suit? not to mention you see barney in a combine suit at one point so unless hes an alien he cant fit his perfectly human body into a combines suit.

4. why did soldiers in world war one/two then all previous wars after that use gas masks? hell some marines in half life wore them.. does that make them alien?

Im not saying they are 100% natural human, but i am saying that at some point they were human before they got "combined" at some point, maybe they are clones or biomechinaly altered after birth or something.
Click to expand...

answers to your questions:
1. None. Though please bear in mind dougy, that HL2 isn't real life. In most videogames the enemy will talk to each other in some way.
2. I'm talking about when they die. It's not a human death sound even through that mask. At any rate, Nihilanth was an alien and it could speak the english language. Could it not?
3. No i don't think that. I only said the combine were aliens in my theory about the storyline of HL2 to make it make more sense. Right now i don't think the combine are aliens but are a combination of human and something else. I'm saying that the combine aren't fully human. Or are simply altered humans.
4. I think the soldiers wore gas masks to protect themselves from gas attacks. But hell, i wasn't there was I! It could have just been for style! But if City17 was at risk of a gas attack then the citizens would have gas masks too, i would think. Also it's likely Breen would have a gas mask too if he felt that City17 was at risk of a gas attack. But we clearly see he does not wear one from the start of the E32004video. Though Breen himself may be somewhere away from City17.

At any rate, i didn't use the term "gas mask" in my last post. I said mask, to suggest the combine are hiding their abnormality. But if you're still thinking that what the combine is wearing is a gasmask then do a google search for "gas mask" under images. You'll see that most, if not all of the images show that the gas mask will have a large visor opening for the user's eyes to look through. Now look back to the combine with their relatively small view holes. Not very useful in a war if you can barely see out of your gasmask.
Also, most gas masks have a circular thing at the front around the mouth of the user and another circular thing on the left of the mask.
 
They certainly look quite similar anyway... good spot.
 
Yes, they are. Ask FlyingDebris, he actually owns one.

And the Combine Soldiers have a very human scream. Listen to the one that gets impaled by the hydra.
 
All in a day's work.

But, I think the Combine are at least 'mostly human'. They bleed red, and just because they don't talk about going out for beers while you're listening, doesn't mean they won't chat about it when you've gone. It's a lot harder to be intimidating to an oppressed populace when you're talking about last night's television.
Ohh, and when they die, the alien flatline sound they make, I'll assume that's part of their high-tech gear - the same way as when Gordon dies in the original, his suit makes a flatline.

-Angry Lawyer
 
I'd say the electronic whine is either a heartrate monitor going dead, or feedback from their mask radios.
 
My point exactly. For all we know, under their masks, the Combine could be just as human as you an I, and could have families to go home to, have favoured taverns, all that. I'm going to feel guilty shooting them.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Did you feel guilty shooting Black Ops and Grunts in HL1? :)

Oh, welcome to the forums btw.
 
Yup. Mainly because we'd developed a bond, after I arsed about with the coding to make the game into a very rudimentary isometric RTS, and added little bits of code to the folks so they'd chat alot more often. Ahh, the good old days...

-Angry Lawyer
P.s. thanks for the welcome :)
 
Bloody hell that IS the Combine mask!

Angry lawyer,
I agree with your "mostly human". That's my thoughts on the combine also.

Lawyer: "just because they don't talk about going out for beers while you're listening, doesn't mean they won't chat about it when you've gone. It's a lot harder to be intimidating to an oppressed populace when you're talking about last night's television."

I agree with that too. I thought of that too, but was just hoping that no one would bring it up! Thanks alot Lawyer!

But all the same, we all agree that they're not going to be normal human like Barney or other City17 citizens? That the combine will be modified in some way.

Hmm. This Combine storyline aspect remind me of that game, "beyond good and evil".

Anyway, yeah, welcome to the forums.
 
i doubt they are gonna go home and talk about what to have for dinner. they obviously arnt human, well not complete human anyway. i doubt they are aliens or mixed with xen. i think they are machines/humans.

they look they have been created , they probably wear the gas masks for a reason, not just for show or incase of a gas attack. they are probably wearing them because they need them to survive or something
 
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