possible borealis *spoiler*?

[Dr0ndeh]

when you no-clip to the staged area where the borealis is being filmed from (in the mossman transmission scene near the end) the ship is actually half embedded in either rock or ice! it actually looks more like rock to me, meaning possibly it was half teleported into solid rock during whatever incident made it disappear.

i wonder what went on in that magical boat. and why does it scare eli so much?

 

[cyk]

It probably scares Eli because, well, he blames himself for Black Mesa, and he's probably a bit leery about ultra-experimental teleportation stuff.

 

[Dr0ndeh]

 

[victor]

looks like ice. and is that water at the bottom?

 

[Dr0ndeh]

nah just a blue void. the deck of the ship isnt rendered because you normally cant see it.

 

[Planetary]

Wow! Nice find. Inspired by the Philadelphia Experiment, maybe? Don't worry, I don't actually believe that stuff, just seems similar.

 

[MJ12]

Of course they never knew whether or not a force such as the combine would be in the story. They had no idea HL1 would be such a success. They do this with movies all the time.

 

[Para]

I thought everyone knew that Borealis is an ice breaker/ship made for harsh environments and was originally part of the very original Half-Life 2 story where one part of the game was actually making the ship properly functional again.

 

[Rizzo]

I was browsing the Black Mesa Source forums, seeing if they intended to make good for the Magnussion/casserole and other things that were introduced in Ep2, well anyways... someone posted this image.

Thread is found here.
http://forums.gamernode.com/showthread.php?t=16197


I'm going to look into it and further examine the Judith transmission scene.

Thats the woman from black mesa science team, the one from Kleiners picture.

 

[Xendance]

Thats the woman from black mesa science team, the one from Kleiners picture.

In case you haven't made the connection, these are two of the original team of Black Mesa scientists. They've been cut out of the original picture in Kliener's lab in HL2 and pasted into this one

Read again.

 

[Is This Tea]

It probably scares Eli because, well, he blames himself for Black Mesa, and he's probably a bit leery about ultra-experimental teleportation stuff.

He's convinced himself that the G-man's message, "unforeseen consequences" was a warning that whatever is on the Borealis could trigger the same magnitude of consequences as that fateful day at black mesa.

Wow! Nice find. Inspired by the Philadelphia Experiment, maybe? Don't worry, I don't actually believe that stuff, just seems similar.

I would say that it is definitely a nod to that conspiracy theory. Not an endorsement... just a fun little cultural reference.

I thought everyone knew that Borealis is an ice breaker/ship made for harsh environments and was originally part of the very original Half-Life 2 story where one part of the game was actually making the ship properly functional again.

True, but I would bet that the plot points surrounding the ship have changed drastically. They'll probably get to recycle a lot of ideas that they had for the original, but the context will be radically different.

 

[Para]

True, but I would bet that the plot points surrounding the ship have changed drastically. They'll probably get to recycle a lot of ideas that they had for the original, but the context will be radically different.

Yeh. What seems most likely to me is that the ship teleported itself and part of the dock inside an iceberg or something equal and Ep3 is about getting there and claiming the secret of Borealis.

 

[Narvi]

I wonder if we get another choice in Episode 2. Like the choice whether to use Borealis or not. It'd make a nice callback to HL1.

 

[Asknoone]

I wonder if we get another choice in Episode 2. Like the choice whether to use Borealis or not. It'd make a nice callback to HL1.

Hopefully not. That'd suck something silly, especially considering how it'd drive two completely different paths for beyond ep3. That's not too plausible. Strict narrative plox.

 

[Asuka]

Very interesting thread to read and some nice finds here.

 

[Operational]

I wonder how Mossman knew where it was, if it has been lost for so long?

 

[Narvi]

She found it.

Honestly, that's like asking how people knew where the Titanic was.

 

[Rizzo]

Read again.

I didn't actually read it at all.

 

[Revenge]

Warning: The follow spoilers are from Portal, not Ep2.

Spoiler

Can someone please dig up the OHP slides from portal and post them here? One of the slides talks about Black Mesa and Aperture competing to produce an ice-inhibiting system. Black Mesa's was more expensive and relied on skilled personnel, while Aperture's was cheaper & arguably alive.

The Borealis is an ice-breaker created by Aperture, and wouldn't require anyone to operate it if they installed their advanced AI systems all over the place, thus greatly reducing operating costs...

Seems to me that GlaDOS is alive and well on the Borealis.

 

[sammitch]

It's the titantic.

 

[Dr0ndeh]

is it stated anywhere that mossman actually worked for black mesa? if not its almost a given that she worked for aperture. which is neat.

 

[Crash Happy]

The thing about basing suppositions on the set mocked up for the Mossman transmision is that it is just a mock up. There was no point making the full thing as all they really wanted to do was give us a flash of the ship's name and some ice to reinforce the idea.
That slide of the Borialis team though is a great find. I'm suprised that a company like Aperture could tempt away scientists from the BM research team. I guess though that that would be a workable option. After all if one or two members wanted to take the research in a particular direction and were prevented, either by the rest of the team or by upper management, they might well take up an offer.

There was a conversation where Alyx says that Mossman keeps saying that she should have been inside the reactor instead of Freeman. That hints that she was working somewhere in Mesa, but only if you percieve it that way. She could equally say that if she'd been working elsewhere and still remain a logical statement if later that gets revealed.

 

[krink]

HO-SNAP

|

AS SEEN HERE http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/p-4.html

COINCIDENCE?

I THOUGHT NOT

 

[Operational]

She found it.

Honestly, that's like asking how people knew where the Titanic was.

The Borealis vanished without a trace - if it was so easy to find somebody else would have by found it by now. And it's not like she just stumbled upon it, after HL2 Mossman purposely headed north to find it so she must have known something about it's location - I'm just wondering what and how she knew.

That slide of the Borialis team though is a great find. I'm suprised that a company like Aperture could tempt away scientists from the BM research team.

Or perhaps they left Aperture to go to Black Mesa, they are in the same picture as Gordon who we know hadn't worked for Black Mesa that long before the RC.

There was a conversation where Alyx says that Mossman keeps saying that she should have been inside the reactor instead of Freeman. That hints that she was working somewhere in Mesa, but only if you percieve it that way. She could equally say that if she'd been working elsewhere and still remain a logical statement if later that gets revealed.

They were both applying for the same position, Freeman beat her due to his "Innsbruck experience" or some such.

An interesting possibility is that after Mossman was turned down by Black Mesa she was hired by Aperture Science which might help explain why and how she went searching for the Borialis.

 

[Narvi]

The Borealis vanished without a trace - if it was so easy to find somebody else would have by found it by now. And it's not like she just stumbled upon it, after HL2 Mossman purposely headed north to find it so she must have known something about it's location - I'm just wondering what and how she knew.

It's been twenty years since it was lost. It was likely lost before the Black Mesa Incident, or during the interim between the Black Mesa Incident and the Seven Hour War. It's quite hard to find wreckage even from planes, which at least follow a fixed flight path which limits the area of search. Assuming it disappeared before the resonance cascade, you have to check all 510 million square kilometers of the Earth's surface for a small ship, with no prior leads. It's quite fair to assume they stopped searching after a while; the ship might even have been trapped under tons of ice, so as to be invisible to satellite surveillance. In the twenty years since, however, the sea levels have dropped considerably, and it's quite likely that the climate has changed enough for ice around the ship to have melted away somewhat; however, the relatively pristine nature of the ship makes it unlikely that it has been under a great quantity of ice which has since melted away; despite the preserving qualities of ice, it melting would have had detrimental effects on the ship itself.

Mossman wasn't looking for the Borealis, however; it seems to have been a mere lucky find on her part.

Anyway. Not implausible.

 

[Rizzo]

Well, she had to be doing something up there?

 

[Crash Happy]

I think Mossman was looking for the Borialis, since they make a big deal of the fact she's gone north and that Alyx doesn't get told why. Alyx must get told quite alot about resistance affairs usually but this was kept secret. In her transmision she says she found 'it' and that the combine can't use it against the resistance. The film of the ship hidden in the transmision must mean the 'it' is the Borialis.
As to how it was found, I don't see that it matters but you have to remember that humanity is scattered by the combine invasion and so it is entirely possible that someone caught sight of it and word got around which in turn may have lead Mossman to the approximate area that it was sighted. Narrowing down the search field nicely.
Better than all this conjecture though is the fact that Kleiner says that the transmision includes lots of other stuff too, the thing that caught my eye though was "hailing frequencies". Obviously Mossman may well have included a frequency for Eli to reach her but isn't it an old shipping term?
If that much is true then she included a way to contact the ship itself, which leads back again to the Aperture OHP slide saying... "arguably alive".

 

[Ridge]

Hopefully not. That'd suck something silly, especially considering how it'd drive two completely different paths for beyond ep3. That's not too plausible. Strict narrative plox.

Well they say Episode 3 is the end of the story arc...it could work...however it'd likely lead to a long montage of what happens after those events, which is unlike Valve to do...

 

[Ridge]

Warning: The follow spoilers are from Portal, not Ep2.

Spoiler

Can someone please dig up the OHP slides from portal and post them here? One of the slides talks about Black Mesa and Aperture competing to produce an ice-inhibiting system. Black Mesa's was more expensive and relied on skilled personnel, while Aperture's was cheaper & arguably alive.

The Borealis is an ice-breaker created by Aperture, and wouldn't require anyone to operate it if they installed their advanced AI systems all over the place, thus greatly reducing operating costs...

Seems to me that GlaDOS is alive and well on the Borealis.

So yes, it appears GLaDOS in some form or another was an integral part of the ice inhibitor system...

 

[whb]

(spoilers for The Golden Compass)

Seems like a mild nod to Northern Lights / The Golden Compass to me --

Spoiler

using the (aurora) borealis at the far north of the world to make a link to another world...

Episode 3 could well end with a "do you use it or blow it up" question, just as HL1 ended with "do you step into the portal or not" in its ending sequence. Of course, HL3 would then start by assuming you did use the Borealis, as really there's no other way of getting Gordon to the setting of HL3. But that's just speculation.

 

[Nitre]

Seems like a mild nod to Northern Lights / The Golden Compass to me --

Spoiler

using the (aurora) borealis at the far north of the world to make a link to another world...

Episode 3 could well end with a "do you use it or blow it up" question, just as HL1 ended with "do you step into the portal or not" in its ending sequence. Of course, HL3 would then start by assuming you did use the Borealis, as really there's no other way of getting Gordon to the setting of HL3. But that's just speculation.

I really don't like the idea of going to another world. Valve could pull it off, but there would have to be a really bloody good reason to go wherever you go.

 

[Black Op]

Valve could pull it off, but there would have to be a really bloody good reason to go wherever you go.

To destory the Universial Union once and for all?

 

[Nitre]

To destory the Universial Union once and for all?

That would just be kinda stupid. Considering the Combine control tens/hundreds of worlds one person isn't going to be able to destroy it. Its like saying one particularly good warrior could have taken down the entire Roman empire. Its just not going to happen.

 

[Narvi]

I'd like to see Xen again before the Episodes end. I'm sure it would look awesome in a next-gen engine.

You just have to remove the atrocious jumping puzzles.

Anyone ever play Clive Barker's Undying? That had a few levels in a Xen-like area, which, *gasp*, did not suck!

 

[kmdarkmaster]

I wonder how Mossman could do all this in a very short time: Escape the Citadel, Go North, Search for the Bolaris, Find it, Struggle with the Combine, Prepare the film, and Send the message. (all this in several hours). Is it possible for a human?

 

[Pesmerga]

does anyone remember that old scan in PCGamer on HL2? It was a scene of a large boat (presumably the Borealis) waving to Gordon and signaling him to come aboard.

 

[giant384]

does anyone remember that old scan in PCGamer on HL2? It was a scene of a large boat (presumably the Borealis) waving to Gordon and signaling him to come aboard.

whoa i do remember that picture from along time ago.
you can also see part of the 'B' on the side of the ship so its possible

edit: or it could just be a random 'E' lol

 

[Pesmerga]

Scratch that, I just took a look and the boat was a small fishing boat stranded on the coast.

 

[The Monkey]

Wasn't Borealis that ship you played on in the old pre-alfa leak from 2003?

 

[Ridge]

Yep...Ive played it in Missing Information...more of a headache than anything else...