T
Talfrey
Guest
I don't know how many people actually played Opposing Force, but for me, It was better than the original, simply because in this case, I was someone a little more like me... a soldier.
But to the point.
I warn you, that this will spoil the games and expansions if you have failed to play them, but I'm not going to bother with censoring myself. Just, if you don't want to ruin it for yourself, chances are you should have regarded the spoiler tag in the post name.
I begin by stating my hyopothesis. This is that Adrien Shepard is going to appear in an expansion of Half-Life 2. In a longer description, I also think he will make his entrance right before Alyx and Gordan take their week long teleporter trip. I'll explain the details of this later.
Now, as for indications that Adrien will even come back, there are definetly very few.
One of which is during "Our Benefactors", during your ride on the cage thing. While you're cruising along, you make a fly by over a number of Combine mobilizing on something in a hallway. If you were to ask me, I'd say that'd be Adrien. What the hell is he doing in the citadel you ask? Why, he's there to cover your ass. A distraction of sorts. Compared to the number of forces the Combine was eventually able to mobilize on you while Alyx was opening the gate, do you seriously think the number of troops you took out on your way to Breen was all they could muster? ESPECIALLY while you were in the middle of THEIR base?
Personally, I'd think not.
But if there was a gun totin' super soldier crashing through the front gate and dragging all of the resistance troops in tow, then I'd say that a "rogue physicist" might very well be of lower priority.
Now beyond that, there are no direct indications.
One can potentially cite the resistance's mobilization and assault on City 17 as a potential time where a hero such as Adrien's influence might have been involved, but then again, it could have just as easily been Barney. I personally think it's a mix of both.
Continuing on the thought of it being a mix of both, I believe that there will be another two expansions, one starring Adrien, and the other with Barney. The latter of which taking place during the week in which Alyx and Gordon were gone. It will likely be like the first Blue Shift, and it being about Barney mobilizing the resistance, and it'll also help fill in some of the plot gaps involving the resistance and the vortigaunts.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about. (Boy, I run in circles don't I?)
We all know that much like Gordon, Adrien was preserved by the Gman, after his exploits at Black Mesa.
For future reference, the speech given to Adrien was something along the lines of the Gman putting him in a place where no harm could come to him, and he could do no harm, that and something about seeing something of himself in Adrien. I can't remember the exact words, and my copy of Half-Life and Opposing Force are long gone. There's a story behind that, but I worry that if I start telling it, I may never make my point.
Anyway.
In the theme of Opposing Force, I will assume that to an extent, Adrien will have the "good fortune" of encountering a lot more of the other side than what Gordon dealt with. This will allow for valve to do some more story telling, and help us theorists fill in some of our gaps, and confirm theories, thus giving us the right to gloat, in places like this.
So I've been going through ideas, specifically how Adrien could wind up in a place where he could learn about the Combine.
So I got to thinking... my mental formula was something around the lines of... g-man's love of irony (see: trains) + viable storyline + cool factor. (yes, I realise this is about as ingenious as something an eight year old might come up with, but it suited me).
So I rolled through some ideas, places where G-man could drop him, and I thought that the best place for him to learn about the enemy, was the citadel.
If you remember, the G-man purposefully confiscated all of Gordon's weapons, while with Adrien, he merely left him in a place he could "do no harm".
Meaning, when Adrien drops in, there's a chance he might be fully armed.
Imagine the good Mr. Shepard arriving right in the middle of the citadel, fully armed, with every weapon he had at the end of Opposing Force. Of course, the teleportation gun isn't working, for whatever reason, but everything else is working nicely.
So Adrien makes his way through the base, running around in the equivalent of god mode, thanks to his vast array of alien and seemingly archaic (by that point) weaponry, until he arrives at one of the cages, he locks himself in, and off her goes, it's the same path as the one Gordon takes, and soon, he finds himself in the office of Breen.
At this point, Breen would give a speech about Gordon and Adrien's returns, reminiscing over Black Mesa, and likely noting Adrien's vast array of "Archaic" weaponry, he then offers to have a soldier of Adrien's calibur join him (Much like he did with Gordon at the end of Half-Life 2). Breen will likely say something about how Adrien was from the begining supposed to take out Freeman, and if he joined him now, he could finally complete his mission, lead Breen's forces, and help fill the world with shiny happy people. After that, he'll give Adrien "some time to think it over" and send him to have his weapons confiscated, "just as a precation".
Oops.
Don't you love it when singularity generators get put into strange devices?
The weapon confiscation... thing... then zaps everything away, and finally zaps the teleportation gun. It's time for a teleportation trip again! A few locations Adrien could possibly visit: Nova Prospekt-"Hey, isn't that Gordon getting into that portal thing?", Xen-"This looks familiar!", Barney-"ADRIEN? Is that YOU?!?", and finally arriving at Dr. Kleiner's lab.
At this point, I can easily see him getting excited, and saying "Thank god you made it Gorda..."
From here, I see Adrian joining up with the resistance, and helping to attack various Combine bases at the edges of City 17, which allow Resistance forces to move into the city. At some point, I'd think that Adrien would want to pursue something more, tangible in the way of information explaining the grand scheme of all that's going on. For this, I'd think he'd leave City 17, and perhaps go to another city, perhaps another dimension (I'm sure I'm not the only who can see Adrien blasting his way through giant slugs), but eventually ending up back in City 17, of course after filling in a few plot holes.
He'd arrive to see Gordon drop in the hole, and then spend a little while blasting down striders and gun ships, until he sees a fleet of drop ships heading back intot he citadel, and blaring announcements for forces to assemble on Freeman, "Stop Freeman at all costs." So Adrien then breaks into a Combine tank, and rams through the front gate of the Citadel, leading the assault as the resistance forces follow. I could see this as a full out war. Thus, he makes a little distraction, allowing for our primary hero to make his way to his destiny.
After taking out most of the big stuff, Barney will say something like "We've got everything under control here, go help Gordon!"
And then it's time for YOU to go into the Citadel. you make your way through everything, and just when you think you're gonna run out of ammo, you find your old gear. Including the teleportation gun, which still isn't working right. So you make your way up, just like Gordon did, and arrive at the control room, just before the explosion, coming near the energy beam/plasma ball dealies causes your teleportation gun to automatically draw and start crackling, you run forward, and suddenly see Gordon dissapear, your gun crackles, launching beams about, making things dissapear, including Alyx, and then just when you're about to be blown up, you get hit too. You're at a train station, a train stops, and out steps the G-man, he comes up to you, and tells you that he did not forget about you, and that much like Mr. Freeman, you did a very good job, but it was time for you to wait again, Mr. Freeman might need your help again. Bam, you're back on the train... and it all goes black.
Wow.
That went from being just my theory to being a whole story, I apologize.
I'm... gonna go now.
But to the point.
I warn you, that this will spoil the games and expansions if you have failed to play them, but I'm not going to bother with censoring myself. Just, if you don't want to ruin it for yourself, chances are you should have regarded the spoiler tag in the post name.
I begin by stating my hyopothesis. This is that Adrien Shepard is going to appear in an expansion of Half-Life 2. In a longer description, I also think he will make his entrance right before Alyx and Gordan take their week long teleporter trip. I'll explain the details of this later.
Now, as for indications that Adrien will even come back, there are definetly very few.
One of which is during "Our Benefactors", during your ride on the cage thing. While you're cruising along, you make a fly by over a number of Combine mobilizing on something in a hallway. If you were to ask me, I'd say that'd be Adrien. What the hell is he doing in the citadel you ask? Why, he's there to cover your ass. A distraction of sorts. Compared to the number of forces the Combine was eventually able to mobilize on you while Alyx was opening the gate, do you seriously think the number of troops you took out on your way to Breen was all they could muster? ESPECIALLY while you were in the middle of THEIR base?
Personally, I'd think not.
But if there was a gun totin' super soldier crashing through the front gate and dragging all of the resistance troops in tow, then I'd say that a "rogue physicist" might very well be of lower priority.
Now beyond that, there are no direct indications.
One can potentially cite the resistance's mobilization and assault on City 17 as a potential time where a hero such as Adrien's influence might have been involved, but then again, it could have just as easily been Barney. I personally think it's a mix of both.
Continuing on the thought of it being a mix of both, I believe that there will be another two expansions, one starring Adrien, and the other with Barney. The latter of which taking place during the week in which Alyx and Gordon were gone. It will likely be like the first Blue Shift, and it being about Barney mobilizing the resistance, and it'll also help fill in some of the plot gaps involving the resistance and the vortigaunts.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about. (Boy, I run in circles don't I?)
We all know that much like Gordon, Adrien was preserved by the Gman, after his exploits at Black Mesa.
For future reference, the speech given to Adrien was something along the lines of the Gman putting him in a place where no harm could come to him, and he could do no harm, that and something about seeing something of himself in Adrien. I can't remember the exact words, and my copy of Half-Life and Opposing Force are long gone. There's a story behind that, but I worry that if I start telling it, I may never make my point.
Anyway.
In the theme of Opposing Force, I will assume that to an extent, Adrien will have the "good fortune" of encountering a lot more of the other side than what Gordon dealt with. This will allow for valve to do some more story telling, and help us theorists fill in some of our gaps, and confirm theories, thus giving us the right to gloat, in places like this.
So I've been going through ideas, specifically how Adrien could wind up in a place where he could learn about the Combine.
So I got to thinking... my mental formula was something around the lines of... g-man's love of irony (see: trains) + viable storyline + cool factor. (yes, I realise this is about as ingenious as something an eight year old might come up with, but it suited me).
So I rolled through some ideas, places where G-man could drop him, and I thought that the best place for him to learn about the enemy, was the citadel.
If you remember, the G-man purposefully confiscated all of Gordon's weapons, while with Adrien, he merely left him in a place he could "do no harm".
Meaning, when Adrien drops in, there's a chance he might be fully armed.
Imagine the good Mr. Shepard arriving right in the middle of the citadel, fully armed, with every weapon he had at the end of Opposing Force. Of course, the teleportation gun isn't working, for whatever reason, but everything else is working nicely.
So Adrien makes his way through the base, running around in the equivalent of god mode, thanks to his vast array of alien and seemingly archaic (by that point) weaponry, until he arrives at one of the cages, he locks himself in, and off her goes, it's the same path as the one Gordon takes, and soon, he finds himself in the office of Breen.
At this point, Breen would give a speech about Gordon and Adrien's returns, reminiscing over Black Mesa, and likely noting Adrien's vast array of "Archaic" weaponry, he then offers to have a soldier of Adrien's calibur join him (Much like he did with Gordon at the end of Half-Life 2). Breen will likely say something about how Adrien was from the begining supposed to take out Freeman, and if he joined him now, he could finally complete his mission, lead Breen's forces, and help fill the world with shiny happy people. After that, he'll give Adrien "some time to think it over" and send him to have his weapons confiscated, "just as a precation".
Oops.
Don't you love it when singularity generators get put into strange devices?
The weapon confiscation... thing... then zaps everything away, and finally zaps the teleportation gun. It's time for a teleportation trip again! A few locations Adrien could possibly visit: Nova Prospekt-"Hey, isn't that Gordon getting into that portal thing?", Xen-"This looks familiar!", Barney-"ADRIEN? Is that YOU?!?", and finally arriving at Dr. Kleiner's lab.
At this point, I can easily see him getting excited, and saying "Thank god you made it Gorda..."
From here, I see Adrian joining up with the resistance, and helping to attack various Combine bases at the edges of City 17, which allow Resistance forces to move into the city. At some point, I'd think that Adrien would want to pursue something more, tangible in the way of information explaining the grand scheme of all that's going on. For this, I'd think he'd leave City 17, and perhaps go to another city, perhaps another dimension (I'm sure I'm not the only who can see Adrien blasting his way through giant slugs), but eventually ending up back in City 17, of course after filling in a few plot holes.
He'd arrive to see Gordon drop in the hole, and then spend a little while blasting down striders and gun ships, until he sees a fleet of drop ships heading back intot he citadel, and blaring announcements for forces to assemble on Freeman, "Stop Freeman at all costs." So Adrien then breaks into a Combine tank, and rams through the front gate of the Citadel, leading the assault as the resistance forces follow. I could see this as a full out war. Thus, he makes a little distraction, allowing for our primary hero to make his way to his destiny.
After taking out most of the big stuff, Barney will say something like "We've got everything under control here, go help Gordon!"
And then it's time for YOU to go into the Citadel. you make your way through everything, and just when you think you're gonna run out of ammo, you find your old gear. Including the teleportation gun, which still isn't working right. So you make your way up, just like Gordon did, and arrive at the control room, just before the explosion, coming near the energy beam/plasma ball dealies causes your teleportation gun to automatically draw and start crackling, you run forward, and suddenly see Gordon dissapear, your gun crackles, launching beams about, making things dissapear, including Alyx, and then just when you're about to be blown up, you get hit too. You're at a train station, a train stops, and out steps the G-man, he comes up to you, and tells you that he did not forget about you, and that much like Mr. Freeman, you did a very good job, but it was time for you to wait again, Mr. Freeman might need your help again. Bam, you're back on the train... and it all goes black.
Wow.
That went from being just my theory to being a whole story, I apologize.
I'm... gonna go now.
