Tackling Lombardi's Revelation

[MuToiD_MaN]

So in the G-Man's post-HL1 lecture, who do you all think is the party that has control of Xen? One that Earth is a part of? G-Man's watchdog organization?

I'm entertaining the idea that the group that gains control of Xen as a result of the death of the Nihilanth IS the Combine. I can't back it up with much evidence, but perhaps the G-Man changed his own alignment to overthrow them afterward?

 

[Glenn the Great]

I went back to what the "All-Knowing Vortigaunt" said, and one of his lines goes something like this:

"The lesser master has been slain, and the greater master will fall in due time."

That can be said to support my theory that the lesser master (Nihilanth) was a subordinate to the greater master (Combine Overlord(s)).

A problem I have with the Nihilanth escaping Combine control has to do with the level of permanence of Combine surgery. Look at stalkers: we know from the official guide that they have had a great deal of their brain, along with almost every other organ, removed from their body. I could not see a Stalker turning against the Combine. I feel that the Stalker's state is rather permanent. I think the same permanence would be in Nihilanth too.

The other thing is that I don't like the idea of HL1's Vortigaunts fighting a defensive battle against scientists. We are never told that scientists have been actually capturing Vortigaunts or have been attacking their race. The way Vortigaunts fight in Black Mesa is rather brutal. They kill everyone on sight, even people who are helpless and unarmed. I have always felt that the Vortigaunts are fighting an invasive battle.

I still think the collars are significant, and that the collars seen on a few Vorts in HL2 are intended to be the same collars they were wearing in HL1, just updated in appearance, the same way the Vortigaunts themselves and some other enemies are updated in appearance.

 

[Sufferin-rebel]

well I would like to remember a bit of Breen's Speech

"We see the unknown as a threat instead as a oppurnity"

this I can compare with the Vortigaunts.. They got (forcefully?) removed from there homeworld to this new Alien-like world (Alien to them anyway) full of removed organs of animals and crap like that, they are bound to be scared, and they were merely scared of the unknown and decided to battle it

 

[ríomhaire]

The other thing is that I don't like the idea of HL1's Vortigaunts fighting a defensive battle against scientists. We are never told that scientists have been actually capturing Vortigaunts or have been attacking their race.

Agrunt in tube in HL1. Vortigaunt on an operating table in Decay.

The way Vortigaunts fight in Black Mesa is rather brutal. They kill everyone on sight, even people who are helpless and unarmed. I have always felt that the Vortigaunts are fighting an invasive battle.

Your species are being captured by aliens. You have no idea what happens to them once they are taken, SUDDENLY you are suddenly teleported to an alien world. Haunting sterile and even walls are enclosing you. You see a strange tall creature before you, WHAT DO YOU DO?

Also, BS gives a very good scene of a Vort examining a sci curiously. The sci then panics and screams. The Vort then takes a suprised step back and zaps the running sci.

 

[Glenn the Great]

I got the picture that the aliens you see experiments being done on, were subdued soon after the resonance cascade. It is apparant that the scientists have been trapping some of them after they ported in. You see some of this in OP4, such as headcrabs in kennels out in the middle of the hallway, and another scientist trying to load a fresh zombie into an MRI machine.

I never got the feeling that the scientists knew anything about the creatures before the resonance cascade.

 

[ríomhaire]

I got the picture that the aliens you see experiments being done on, were subdued soon after the resonance cascade. It is apparant that the scientists have been trapping some of them after they ported in. You see some of this in OP4, such as headcrabs in kennels out in the middle of the hallway, and another scientist trying to load a fresh zombie into an MRI machine.

I never got the feeling that the scientists knew anything about the creatures before the resonance cascade.

You clearly didn't pay mutch attention. Where do you think the fecking crystal sample came from?

"This is the supply depot for our first survey team. Quite a few handsome specimens were collected from the border-world and brought back this way. Uh, before the survey members started being collected themselves, that is."

Plus the fact that in BS there are old, boarded up teleportation labs that go to Xen.

 

[mortiz]

If you look at the Nihilanth at the end of HL1 he has shackles around his arms indicating he was possibly a slave at one point. Now the obvious route to take was that the Nihilanth along with the other Xen fauna were enslaved by the Combine but it's possible the Nihilnath used its great power to escape into the border world and sealed the entrance. When the resonance cascade occurs (perhaps set up by someone affiliated with the Combine, but that'd mean they'd already know about Earth) it rips a huge hole in Xen. The Nihilanth construes this as some form of attack and the war breaks out. When the Nihilanth is destroyed it opens the portals into the border world allowing the Combine to move through freely and then on to Earth. By this logic you've got to look at who would benefit the most from this occuring and it would obviously be The Combine, also since the G-Man assists you at several points in the game I'm going to assume that in Half-Life 1 the G-Man is working for the Combine. The war between Xen and Earth cripples Xen and leaves Earth open to attack. So the combine must have known about Earth before the events in Half-Life 1. Now it's slightly more than hinted at that people at the Black Mesa facility had been venturing into Xen way before the resonance cascade, but I'm unsure of the significance of that.

My guess is that the G-Man contacted Breen on behalf of the Combine and offered him something he couldn't refuse in order to have the test sabotaged. Breen benefited alot out of the Combine invasion and was also the one pushing for the test to go ahead so this would make sense. However, it'd have to be something pretty damn good in order to convince him to sell out his world. The other explanation is that there's some other species out there we've yet to meet (the G-Man's 'bosses') who would very much benefit from the Combine enslaving earth so they set up the whole thing. I very much doubt that they're at war the Combine though, the Combine like the humans probably wouldn't even know about this third-party.

 

[Glenn the Great]

I really think the G-Man is working for a completely unknown party which may be opposed to the Combine. We really don't have enough knowledge about the real Combine to know if they just so happen to be fighting a war or what. The story makes a lot more sense and has more meaning in my opinion if you view the Vorts and Nihilanth as being under Combine control at the time of HL1. The consequence of that viewpoint is that elegant paralells can be drawn between the Vortigaunts and Humans. They are both races that were beaten down and enslaved by the Combine, and there is parallel in your actions in HL1 and HL2, in that first you liberate the Vortigaunts, and then you liberate the Humans. It makes it so that in both games, you were the instrument of stopping Combine slavery, which I believe is what the G-Man's motive is. I simply believe it is better storytelling.

We can't know which viewpoint is true until we get more information, and I have my fingers crossed that this will be clarified in Episode One. Then maybe I'll be able to tell you that I told you so. ^_^

 

[Eejit]

So in the G-Man's post-HL1 lecture, who do you all think is the party that has control of Xen? One that Earth is a part of? G-Man's watchdog organization?

I'm entertaining the idea that the group that gains control of Xen as a result of the death of the Nihilanth IS the Combine. I can't back it up with much evidence, but perhaps the G-Man changed his own alignment to overthrow them afterward?

I don't see how the Combine could be in control of Xen and yet not have local teleport technology. There are Xenian teleports and BM equipment all over the place.

If I had to guess who was in control of Xen now I'd go with the Controllers. Another possibility would be Race-X, but if that were the case I don't think we'll see Xen again.


As for the tanks in a sandy environment at the end of HL1 how do we know there are no sandy areas on Xen? The antlions certainly seem quite at home on Earth beaches.

 

[99.vikram]

I don't see how the Combine could be in control of Xen and yet not have local teleport technology. There are Xenian teleports and BM equipment all over the place.

Reverse engineering complex equipment you have never seen before is virtually impossible. Besides, the teleporters on Xen were completely organic and could NOT have been reverse engineered. As for BMRF, it is a crater.

If I had to guess who was in control of Xen now I'd go with the Controllers. Another possibility would be Race-X, but if that were the case I don't think we'll see Xen again.

I would have hought the Controllers lost power after Nihilanth fell, and got owned by the Vorts.
Laidlaw mentioned that RaceX was just another race with local teleport, and they took advantage of the resonance cascade to take revenge on humans (for stealing their babies and stuff).

As for the tanks in a sandy environment at the end of HL1 how do we know there are no sandy areas on Xen? The antlions certainly seem quite at home on Earth beaches.

I always thought those tanks were the ones you blew up at Black Mesa, which the Gman took to Xen ("quite a nas-ty piece of work you have managed over there.."). I believe earth held control of Xen for a limited time before the 7 hour awr.

 

[mortiz]

I don't see how the Combine could be in control of Xen and yet not have local teleport technology. There are Xenian teleports and BM equipment all over the place.

If I had to guess who was in control of Xen now I'd go with the Controllers. Another possibility would be Race-X, but if that were the case I don't think we'll see Xen again.


As for the tanks in a sandy environment at the end of HL1 how do we know there are no sandy areas on Xen? The antlions certainly seem quite at home on Earth beaches.

Well, possibly teleportation was a feature of the Xen, my guess is that all local teleportation drew power from the Nihilanth, and not through from a technological source.

 

[Eejit]

Reverse engineering complex equipment you have never seen before is virtually impossible. Besides, the teleporters on Xen were completely organic and could NOT have been reverse engineered. As for BMRF, it is a crater.

If the conquered Xen they most likely have had 20 years. They have their own teleport technology, and are a very advanced civilisation. I think they would be able to reverse engineer.

There was BMRF teleportation equipment on Xen. Look at Blue Shift.

As for Xen teleports being impossible to reverse engineer, I disagree. The Combine are experts at creating biological technology, e.g. the Synths.


I don't see why the downfall of Nihilanth necessarily leads to the Controllers being wiped out by Vortigaunts. I believe the Controllers probably created the Nihilanth in the first place. If the Vortigaunts rebelled I think the Grunts would be too dumb to help them and probably still obey the Controllers.
Grunt army, Gargs, Mantas + Controllers > Vortigaunts imo.

 

[Glenn the Great]

I believe that the Controllers, Nihilanth, Grunts, and Vorts are probably all different castes of the same species. They all share the 3rd arm, they are arranged in the roles of worker/soldier/drone/queen, and it is official information that the Vortigaunts are "hive minded."

 

[99.vikram]

I believe that the Controllers, Nihilanth, Grunts, and Vorts are probably all different castes of the same species. They all share the 3rd arm, they are arranged in the roles of worker/soldier/drone/queen, and it is official information that the Vortigaunts are "hive minded."

Yes, but it's certainly not a peaceful symbiosis because the controllers put the vortigaunts in chains.

 

[Darkside55]

The story makes a lot more sense and has more meaning in my opinion if you view the Vorts and Nihilanth as being under Combine control at the time of HL1. The consequence of that viewpoint is that elegant paralells can be drawn between the Vortigaunts and Humans. They are both races that were beaten down and enslaved by the Combine, and there is parallel in your actions in HL1 and HL2, in that first you liberate the Vortigaunts, and then you liberate the Humans. It makes it so that in both games, you were the instrument of stopping Combine slavery, which I believe is what the G-Man's motive is. I simply believe it is better storytelling.

I don't believe it makes for better storytelling. Simpler, maybe, but not better. As it stands, throughout Half-Life you've had four different powers: human beings, Xenians, the G-man and his employers, and the Combine. The way the story is now, with the Xenians not under Combine control, you've got a real four (now three) way dynamic here. Xenians flee from Combine. Humans intrude on Xenians, who wage war against them. G-man employs the man who conquers Xen. Combine strike at Earth, and that is where we stand now. I believe that the "rise of the third power" in Aftermath will be the G-man's employers, as the only ones we haven't seen. They will connect the story together in yet another way, being once linked to Xen and perhaps also linked to the Combine, and linked to the human resistance as well. That is good storytelling, a complex weave of separate parts that culminate a whole. It is not directly point A to B, no, but I feel that it is better. More fleshed out, more real than just "one big group of aliens attack the human race, and you free some of them so they help you."

In either case, the vortigaunt slave / human slave dynamic is still present. I don't know why it's so hard to just say that the vortigaunts were slaves of the controllers, and not slaves of the Combine. When you're drawing comparisons, slaves are still slaves. The master is not important to the metaphor. You freed the vortigaunts in the first game regardless, and in turn they help free humanity in the second game. The Combine factor is irrelevant.

Also, I'm sorry, but there is absolutely zero way that the Xenians are all just different castes of the same race. Save for perhaps the grunts and the controllers, they cannot even share a common ancestor. They are far too different to be divisions of the same species, and the "evidence" that they're related is only, "they all have three arms" is just...well, I have no nice way to put it. It's like saying that all four-legged animals on Earth are related.

Also, despite the "official" stamp Prima gets to put on their strategy guides, the vortigaunts are NOT hive-minded. I'm looking at this entry for the vortigaunts right now, and whoever wrote this clearly does not understand the distinction between coterminous and hivemind. If the vortigaunts were hiveminded, they could not have such things as poets, now could they?

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Darkside55 seems to have it right, IMHO. Right enough anyway. That'd be awesome if we finally get to see what the deal is with the G-Man's empoyers.

It's like saying that all four-legged animals on Earth are related.

Well it is true, if you believe in evolution So perhaps not the same species, but still from the same planet.

 

[99.vikram]

I have an something of an obsession with symmetry, so at first I thought Combine-on-Xen was elegant, and defended it until I got flamed out of threads.

But if you think about it, Vorts being exiled from their homeworld makes for a "real" scenario, something we can picture happening on earth. It also avoids plot-holes like why Combine couldn't local teleport (which can be explained in other, complicated ways). It also explains the lack of Citadels etc. on Xen, which are supposed to be standard for all Combine colonies.

Also, I'm sorry, but there is absolutely zero way that the Xenians are all just different castes of the same race. Save for perhaps the grunts and the controllers, they cannot even share a common ancestor. They are far too different to be divisions of the same species, and the "evidence" that they're related is only, "they all have three arms" is just...well, I have no nice way to put it. It's like saying that all four-legged animals on Earth are related.

Vortigaunts, controllers, grunts share the third arm, so they have common ancestry. The Gargs, bullsquids, houndeye, tentacles, headcrabs etc. are either wild creatures or genetically modified wild creatures (not Nihilanth's style).

The Vortigaunts are bound to the force called Vortessence by the vortal cords. They are not hive-minded, but they share a group mind.

 

[Darkside55]

I'm sure that they have a common ancestor somewhere far, far, far back, just like saying all primates share some missing link somewhere down the line. However, they've all evolved long past that point into separate species. You might consider controllers and grunts distant cousins, having evolved in different directions (controllers favoring the mind, while grunts are brute strength), but if vortigaunts do indeed share some genes with those two it's gotta have been from eons ago.

 

[99.vikram]

It's possible that grunts and vortigaunts were engineered by controllers grown exclusively for being soldiers and slaves, resp. Their skin texture and eye patterns are strikingly similar under the exoskeletal armor, unlike the controllers.

Do any of you think controllers have a group mind?

 

[Darkside55]

I don't think that grunts and vortigaunts were engineered by the controllers. Judging from the look of the Nihilanth, they seem inexperienced with creating a completely organic creature. By that I mean the Nihilanth's body has been stitched together and infused with life, not grown. If they could do such a thing with vortigaunts and grunts, they definately would've done it for the Nihilanth.

Vortigaunts also have the vortessence, which I don't believe is something that could be engineered. It's supposed to be the fabric of the universe anyway, so that's out.

Grunts might've been modified from their original forms, but that's also debatable. The factory, as far as we know, wasn't producing grunts, it was packaging them. They might not be grown or modified at all, save for getting armor, hivehands, and then being stuffed in an organic crate.

As for the controllers having a group mind, it's not impossible. I'd imagine that their communication is almost entirely telepathic; the most we hear out of them are screeches of rage and pain, and some warning sounds. I don't recall them ever making words, as the grunts or vortigaunts do. The controllers probably can't see out of their fellows' eyes, like the vortigaunts, but they can probably relay messages telepathically over certain distances.