No more headcrabs/Zombies/Zombines

[UltimaApocalypse]

I think that there may have been one Gonarch on Xen at the time. Because after you kill the Gonarch Nihilanth says "Done..what have you done?"

Of course, all the headcrabs we see on Earth today could have been grown by the Combine with that Gonarch eggsac.

 

[Asknoone]

It would probably die before that stage, since it is not a 'natural' headcrab as it was a regular headcrab mutated by the combine

Speculation.

I think that there may have been one Gonarch on Xen at the time. Because after you kill the Gonarch Nihilanth says "Done..what have you done?"]

I don't think he was directly referring to that. Xen is massive, there is going to be more than one.

picture the raid you would need to kill a gonarch.....

That's like...a good 50 cans..

 

[ríomhaire]

Treat gearbox's work like a fanfic for an existing Harry Potter book. Just because I wrote a story where Harry dies, it doesn't change anything about the real Harry Potter universe. The author isn't then obligated to somehow bring him back to life or anything.

False analogy, the Gearbox games are official and endorsed by Valve.

 

[knut]

It would have been out of place. You really need a set up for something like Gonarch.

I dunno, I thought the mines would of been a good place for a Gonarch. Certainly wasn't lacking headcrabs anyway.

 

[99.vikram]

I dunno, I thought the mines would of been a good place for a Gonarch. Certainly wasn't lacking headcrabs anyway.

You said Ravenholm before

The mines might have been ok. I feel that a Gonarch needs a LOT of room.

 

[Asknoone]

I dunno, I thought the mines would of been a good place for a Gonarch. Certainly wasn't lacking headcrabs anyway.

I think it is pretty much certain there was a Gonarch in those mines. But were Valve to stick it in they would have really had to go one step further in expanding the mines.

 

[Reginald]

I actually always wondered what the mines were REALLY for. They always seemed a bit... tacked on to the game.

 

[Asknoone]

They made sense. Ravenholm was a mining town. The quickest way out of Ravenholm and escaping to the coast was through the mines. Gordon goes through the mines. Vwalla.

 

[TaoFan]

I always thought Gonarch was the most disgusting creature in the game, with that gross swinging testicle thing, the irritating noises, the tiny headcrab babies pestering me, and when the beast charged me.

My computer agreed wholeheartedly, because 9 times out of 10 when I finally killed the bugger, my computer would insist on a rest by crashing out of the game.

True story.

 

[Reginald]

They made sense. Ravenholm was a mining town. The quickest way out of Ravenholm and escaping to the coast was through the mines. Gordon goes through the mines. Vwalla.

That makes perfect sense from a story point of view, but not really from a gameplay possibility. When I played first time, I thought I was heading for a boss anyway.

 

[Asknoone]

I have no idea how you got the idea.

 

[Darkside55]

I don't believe the crabs remain on the host body for too long. It's more of a survival thing I'm sure, and a means of food I guess. Darkside is writing up a pretty freakin huge thing on the evolution of the headcrab...be sure to look out for it.

I'm actually going to break my little rule that I wasn't going to post in the forums until I was finished with it...I wanted to make it my 1,000th post, but I figured I should post in this thread since the topic was brought up and I suffered a bit of a...mishap. "Freaking huge" was right; I was up to nearly FORTY PAGES of that headcrab document, and actually would've been done two days ago (only had to deal with the headcrab digestive system, which I have ended up cutting anyway ), but...wordpad ate my entire document for some unknown reason. ;( So, I'm rewriting the damn thing now, to the best of my memory. Also making the thing a bit clearer than it was the first time around; first time around it read like a Kleiner speech.

Anyway, thought I'd let you guys know that poison headcrabs and fast headcrabs cannot reproduce on their own. They rely on the gonarch to carry the blueprints for their subspecies, and they're born from her just like the classic headcrabs. The classic headcrab does actually mutate the host to become a gonarch; by the second stage of mutation, the gonome, the headcrab's already permanently bonded to the host body and cannot separate from it. In contrast, poison zombies and fast zombies cannot mutate their hosts any further--or at least, the fast ones can't. Neither of these zombie types eat, and therefore can't build up the energy necessary to undergo a second mutation.

Some other quick things to address from this thread:

• Gonarch doesn't eat.
• Fast and poison headcrabs are naturally occurring mutations that have nothing to do with the Combine.
• No gonomes in Ravenholm because of the massive amount of shelling vs. Ravenholm's population. Gonomes require a lot of food to transform; think of how a bear goes on a binge before hibernation. Gonomes evolve naturally with out any other catalyst (radiation, etc.), but they need food. Similarly, every subsequent transformation into a gonarch requires massive, and perhaps exponential amounts of food to power the mutation.

Anyway, back to writing with me.

 

[cojawfee]

Anything to base this on besides you just making stuff up for the hell of it?

 

[Moxie Wolf]

Hilary Clinton's Mind controls them

 

[jimmyjam]

IF the combine were meddling with the genes of the headcrabs (and that's a big if), it's not unreasonable to think that they'd want to prevent the formation of Gonarchs

 

[Darkside55]

Anything to base this on besides you just making stuff up for the hell of it?

When a guy isn't on the forums for a month because he's writing a 40-page headcrab paper, there's two signs right there: number one, he's f*cking insane, and number two, he's probably been pouring over real-world scientific, genetic, and biologic texts and has sat staring at a headcrab model for hours on end, or checking their AI in the SDK, or playing through Gonarch's Lair, Ravenholm, and Missing in Action (that's OpFor) a hundred times over. So...yeah, I've got evidence for it.

 

[AJ Rimmer]

When a guy isn't on the forums for a month because he's writing a 40-page headcrab paper, there's two signs right there: number one, he's f*cking insane, and number two, he's probably been pouring over real-world scientific, genetic, and biologic texts and has sat staring at a headcrab model for hours on end, or checking their AI in the SDK, or playing through Gonarch's Lair, Ravenholm, and Missing in Action (that's OpFor) a hundred times over. So...yeah, I've got evidence for it.

Are you a crazy person?

 

[Darkside55]

Mm, yeah, I'd say so. Actually, I did say so...why're you making me say things twice?! Who are you? What do you want? WHERE IN THE HELL AM I?!

 

[bbson john]

Do Gonarches really give birth to headcrabs? Since the babies of Gonarch look like a small Gonarch, rather than a young headcrab.

 

[Darkside55]

They actually look similar to both of them. You can see traces of how the babies grow up to become mature headcrabs. Really the only thing that makes them look like gonarchs are the position of the legs and the growth on their underbelly; both of those traits eventually disappear with age.

 

[ríomhaire]

* No gonomes in Ravenholm because of the massive amount of shelling vs. Ravenholm's population. Gonomes require a lot of food to transform; think of how a bear goes on a binge before hibernation. Gonomes evolve naturally with out any other catalyst (radiation, etc.), but they need food. Similarly, every subsequent transformation into a gonarch requires massive, and perhaps exponential amounts of food to power the mutation.

That's my theory too. But I think a gonarch might eat, then grow the breading sack, then give birth, then the sack falls off, then it eats ect
Only an idea though.

 

[Darkside55]

The question is, "why would it eat?" You figure that there's probably a hundred, perhaps more than a hundred offspring inside of her. After it births all those headcrabs, why would it go into a second development cycle? It probably just births one full sac and then dies. You can sort of tell, too, based on where she was living...there was no food around. I think it's just because the gonarch doesn't need it (nor do her babies). They'd leave the island when they're grown up and then get food, but before then...it's unnecessary for them.

Now, the Combine's CAPTURED egg sacs, they can stimulate those to produce multiple caches of headcrabs, over and over again.

 

[ríomhaire]

Possibly.

 

[jimmyjam]

the organic asteroid things themselves may be food
hell, for pre-resonance cascade headcrabs, maybe the asteroids are hosts, even

 

[Glenn the Great]

My thoughts are that the three kinds of headcrabs are different species belonging to the same family, just like how we have different kinds of frogs and millions of other creatures in real life. The headcrab takes host bodies as a food source, and uses it as a means of protecting itself. When the host body is no longer suitable, the headcrab simply detaches itself and looks for another host, all the while gradually growing larger until it matures into a Gonarch.

 

[ktimekiller]

darkside, when is this paper of yours going to be available to the public? im extreamly interested.

 

[Reginald]

I have two questions for Darkside.

1. Could a Gonarch eat its own testicle if it was really hungry?
2. Could Gonarches latch onto giants? :O

Oh, I also have a serious question. Please read it after the stupidity of my other questions. ;(

Does your paper explain how the headcrabs ate before discovering the juicy morsels that are humans? Vorts? Although if the theory is to be believed, Headcrabs were on Xen before Vorts fled there. As far as we know, there are no host-shaped bodies that a headcrab could latch onto and therefore evolve into a Gonarch.

 

[ríomhaire]

I have two questions for Darkside.

1. Could a Gonarch eat its own testicle if it was really hungry?
2. Could Gonarches latch onto giants? :O

Oh, I also have a serious question. Please read it after the stupidity of my other questions. ;(

Does your paper explain how the headcrabs ate before discovering the juicy morsels that are humans? Vorts? Although if the theory is to be believed, Headcrabs were on Xen before Vorts fled there. As far as we know, there are no host-shaped bodies that a headcrab could latch onto and therefore evolve into a Gonarch.

1: Lamarr eats watermelons (note in Kleiner's lab) and attacks a crow during the teleport sequence.
2: A headcrab would obviously have to have to have evolved in an eco-system with a suitable host.

 

[Reginald]

A headcrab would obviously have to have to have evolved in an eco-system with a suitable host.

So does the speculative fan-wank of a headcrab's life-cycle, plus your evidence, rule out the headcrabs being native to Xen?

 

[Darkside55]

darkside, when is this paper of yours going to be available to the public? im extreamly interested.

Would've been three days ago had it not erased itself. *grumbles* But, at the current rate I'm rewriting it...uh...well if I don't manage to finish it by Wednesday (and I probably won't) it won't be until after July 4th. I have a big trip to LA coming up from the 29th to like the 4th or 5th so I'll have no time to write it then. So I'd say like pretty shortly after that. But maybe I'll get it done before I leave, who knows. It's big and certain things require a lot of explanation, so...takes some time. Plus I'm a lazy bum.

Reginald,

1. *Me looks around the thread for girls* Well, the gonarch IS female. (Oooooooh)
2. It could probably hitch a ride on the back of the antlion king. In fact, I bet all the giant Xenian creatures probably can connect together somehow, like Voltron.

And yes, I explain what headcrabs ate before arriving on Earth. They are actually from the planet that the Xenians originally came from. And you'd be really surprised what a headcrab could take for a host...

Also, nothing's native to Xen. Everything that arrived on Xen came there from somewhere else. And while this could mean that headcrabs did come from another planet other than where the Xenian races came from, it's really unlikely given their similarities to other Xen fauna. Green blood, oxygen-breathing, similar preferences to temperature, natural resistance to almost all forms of radiation...everything from Xen evolved from one homeworld.

 

[ríomhaire]

So does the speculative fan-wank of a headcrab's life-cycle, plus your evidence, rule out the headcrabs being native to Xen?

Possibly native to the Vorts home-world or Vorts just happened to be a suitable host when they ended up in Xen. I doubt the Vorts have been on Xen long enought for the headcrabs to evolve to them as prey, especially since they would have came to Xen already sentient.

 

[Kingreaper]

On the issue of Poison Gonarchs: I get the impression from the loading of Poison Zombies that Poison Headcrabs may reproduce on their host without further development, explaining the large number on one host.

 

[AzzMan]

I think the main reason there were no gonomes inHL2 is because of either lack of food (not as many fresh bodies as in HL1) or maybe the Combine somehow disabled their ability to grow past a certain stage.

 

[TheCheckt]

I think the main reason there were no gonomes inHL2 is because of either lack of food (not as many fresh bodies as in HL1) or maybe the Combine somehow disabled their ability to grow past a certain stage.

I like that theory. It makes sense because after all they are breeding there own headcrabs. Then again it would only be for the city crabs. I mean most likely regular headcrabs are coming out from the portal storms. Unless the supression field worked on a few other species such as headcrabs.

I doubt that whole supression thing though. It's probably just the whole city crab non-city crab thing.

I can't wait for the headcrab evolution paper.

 

[evil^milk]

Do you guys think a headcrabbed vortigaunt would be a good idea?

 

[Darkside55]

It is, but vortigaunts have a lot of natural defenses that would keep away a headcrab. I like to think that they might have the ability to discharge electricity across their entire body, which would kill the headcrab when it latched on.

'Course, that's just my own speculation right there. Vortigaunts might only be able to channel energy through their hands. At the very least though, that's something to keep them from getting crabbed unless they were swarmed or caught in an ambush.

But vortigaunts definately must have played host to a headcrab somewhere along the line. They definately come from the same world, so it must've happened, and probably numerous times.

 

[Flyingdebris]

Considering the size of the gonarch and the amount of energy it needs to spit out baby crabs, shoot acid goo, rampage around in an angry manner, and take a serious beating. I'd say it would require the ability to eat. Since it lacks an obvious mouth it can't really bite, so if anything, it probably mashes up its food with its giant freaking legs, egg sac, or acid goop, and then kinda munches or sucks up whats left using maybe the same orifice it uses to spit out crabs.

 

[jimmyjam]

maybe the baby crabs have already been born, and the egg sac is more like a kangaroo pouch, so instead of birthing the little dudes, she's just letting them out
and perhaps they can bring food back inside the scrotum thing to feed the gonarch

 

[Para]

Assuming a headcrab would take over a vortigaunt (despite what Darkside55 said, lets say as a Combine experiment if not anything else) it'd be dangerous - but not for the player. Since vorts shoot bolts of electricity they would most likely lose the ability to actually aim those things making themselves discharge at random objects including themselves and other crabbed vorts thus making it ecologically a pointless effort for headcrabs to try infest one.

 

[ríomhaire]

On the issue of Poison Gonarchs: I get the impression from the loading of Poison Zombies that Poison Headcrabs may reproduce on their host without further development, explaining the large number on one host.

I think it's more like they inject eggs into the host (swolen stomache)

Assuming a headcrab would take over a vortigaunt (despite what Darkside55 said, lets say as a Combine experiment if not anything else) it'd be dangerous - but not for the player. Since vorts shoot bolts of electricity they would most likely lose the ability to actually aim those things making themselves discharge at random objects including themselves and other crabbed vorts thus making it ecologically a pointless effort for headcrabs to try infest one.

If they can figure out grenades they can probably use the natural abilities of creatures they (arguably) evolved with.