Talk to a Vortigaunt... they reveal loads of clues about the story!

[Matt]

[Matt]

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If you talk to a Vortigaunt by pressing the use key they will say something different each time to give you cryptic clues to the story of both games. Here's a few...

'we call you sib although your name and meaning are a mystery to us'
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sib is short for sibling and means brother or relative. The vortigaunts seem greatful for what you have done to free them and regard you as one of thier own? The last part is most likely a reference to your name bieng freeman or 'the freeman'
We are a tapestry woven of vortessence. It is the same for you if only you would see it.
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Vortessence isnt a word. Vortigaunt essence? Does 'we are a tapestry of vortessence' simply mean we are vortigaunt? And does the second part imply that gordon freeman is also?
Something secret steers us both. We shall not name it.
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This seems to me a reference to the gman. When you drop into the red cart on the railroad in route kanal the vortigaunt there has the TV on with the gman on. Along the coastline you also spot the gman meeting with a group of rebels so its obvious the gman has a large influence within the rebellion against the combine.
We serve the same mystery.
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Another reference to the gman maybe? If so this quote tells us they dont quite know who he is either.
While our own lay scattered at your feet, you severed the vortal cord that bound the Nihilanth to life, and to us.
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I dont believe vortal is a word either but im not sure what it means or this sentence? Anyone care to have a stab? 'Our own lay scattered at your feet' refers to the vortigaunt slaves who gordon killed in the first game.
How often have we slipped our yoke, only to find it choking us again.
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A yoke is a neck brace that oxen and horses wear when pulling a cart or plough to control them. It seems as though the vortigaunt fears bieng enslaved again.
That sharp spur of hope has not dulled to this day. For once the lesser master lay defeated, we knew the greater must also fall in time.
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Now this ones very interesting. The lesser master is most likely a reference to nihilanth. I noticed from HL1 that nihilanth was wearing wrist braces very much like the ones the vortigaunt wore. Check here for pictoral reference http://www.hlspain.com/main/imagenes/Guia_HL/nihilanth img1.jpg
Could the greater be the combine slug thing we see on the screen near the end of the game?
Your bright face obscures your darker mask.
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A very strange thing for the Vortigaunt to say... Is freeman hiding something?

Does anyone else care to speculate on these or other sayings?
 
I believe Vortessence could be their word for their collective mind.
 
The thing I recall about the 'gaunts was when they apologised for speaking in an alien language, saying that they would refrain from that and instead speak in human tongue. Another pipes in and says 'except when saying unflattering things about you' and they immediately go back to alien. Pee'd myself laughing. :)

Oh yeah, they've made up words for things that don't have an accurate translation. Vortessence collective or hive mind perhaps, although it could mean much more. We know they have some sort of ability like that because Alyx says that every now and then a 'gaunt is caught and sends back, or shares images. I don't remember her exact wording.
Vortal coil must equaly be thier comparison to mortal coil, their own set of beliefs etc would apply and again no strict translation. Thier essence was tied to the Nihilanth. It's curious though that the greater master is refered to as falling. I'd assume that hasn't happened yet, if that's the case then how can they be fighting with the humans against the combine?
 
Crash Happy said:
Oh yeah, they've made up words for things that don't have an accurate translation. Vortessence collective or hive mind perhaps, although it could mean much more. We know they have some sort of ability like that because Alyx says that every now and then a 'gaunt is caught and sends back, or shares images. I don't remember her exact wording.
Vortal coil must equaly be thier comparison to mortal coil, their own set of beliefs etc would apply and again no strict translation. Thier essence was tied to the Nihilanth. It's curious though that the greater master is refered to as falling. I'd assume that hasn't happened yet, if that's the case then how can they be fighting with the humans against the combine?
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I get the feeling Nihilanth was also enslaved by whomever the "benefactors" are (I havn't beaten the game yet so there could be a better name for them) and was used with the purpose of controlling the Vortigaunts through the mind. Once he was dead the Vortigaunts were free in the mind but were still an enslaved race.
 
That's true. I was assuming that the Greater Master tag was in reference to their predicament but you're right of course. If they were bound to the Nihilanth alone then his death would completely free them.
Seeing that his end would come too it seems logical for them to help speed that along.
 
There's another along the lines of: "Our greatest poet once wrote: Gilga Gilgamesh gaga"
So it seems they actually had a civilization back on Xen or wherever their home is.
 
Blast! beaten to it! i was thinking the same thing.

The own own scattered about you line was indeed about slaying hundreds of slaves while trying to kill nilianth.

he also said something about how its not thier place to forgive.

where exactly do you see 2 vorginauts talking? i never saw that
 
Benefactors is the name you might as well use MUlli.


I think the slavse can fight with the humans because the lesser master was in more obvious control, but perhaps not as absolute. The greater master is shrouded in mystery, and probably is able to apply its influence everywhere without our knowing. I'm wondering what the gmans place in all this is.

They're talking in the place just before after you get the ant lion "bug bait"
 
Mightyvvhitey said:
where exactly do you see 2 vorginauts talking? i never saw that
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Right before starting the Nova Prospeckt sequence

Edit: I was beaten by not one, but two people ;(
 
Great Post. HL2 (and HL) satisfy on so many levels. The Vortigaunts were really well done in terms of characterisation (and graphics).

We can only guess at the true meaning to their sayings, and I expect that is just the way the HL development team wanted it ;-)
 
Matt, good post,
this line however,

While our own lay scattered at your feet, you severed the vortal cord that bound the Nihilanth to life, and to us.

Replace vortal with VORPAL, i think this is some dungeons and dragons reference, because that is something in D&D universe which binds a being with its soul. I caught this in the game, and i was suprised to hear a reference to it. This is just my guess tho, vorts are hard to understand.
 
This is pure speculation, but " Your bright face obscures your darker mask" is probably a foreshadowing of gordon's sinister turn in the climax of the HL trilogy. Maybe Gordon and Gman are really one and the same, but either way, something very "uncharacteristic" of gordon will probably happen to him in HL3.
 
There's another along the lines of: "Our greatest poet once wrote: Gilga Gilgamesh gaga"
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The Epic of Gilgamesh, I believe it's the longest epic in human literature.
The plot thickens.
 
Well remembered redpoints! I'd forgotten all about that. Either way though I think the ulimate meaning remains the same. After all the cord that held your other-planar manifestation to your earthly shell was just an expresion of where your current existance was bound. In the same way the 'gaunts appear to have been tied to the Nihilanth and possibly are tied in the same way to each other.

If GMan and Gordon are the same person I'm going to start having unpleasant Matrix flashbacks. :(
 
I'm hoping that the bright face hides a darker self is that Gordon on the surface is a scientist, but underneith, he's a genetically altered mass killer.
 
I think it's safe to say that Gordon is a mass murderer anyway. For better or worse, he did kill like a thousand soldiers back in black mesa, tho this time around, he doesn't kill anybody with a human face. So I guess it's not really murder then...
 
redpoints said:
tho this time around, he doesn't kill anybody with a human face.
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.. unless you count that resistance member that I ran over. And the other ones I used as human shields against strider fire.
 
'Vortal' is the way they communicate telepathically. Go to the rebel antlion/beach base and talk to the two chatting vortigaunts.
 
on the fifth saying Nihilanth is the final boss in half-life 1. the creature is simialr the the masters of xen(small creatures that fly around shooting energy at u.)
 
*Looks at the date of the last post.*
*Looks at the new guy.*
*Sigh*.
 
Heh? Jesus christ. How do you even find threads this old?
 
Because STALKER really invented the notion of a have mind , right?
 
Mech Man said:
*Looks at the date of the last post.*
*Looks at the new guy.*
*Sigh*.
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picard-facepalm.jpg
 
At first I was like "O RLY?" then I saw the post date and I was all like "*facepalm*".
 
Both Gordon and the Vortigaunt serve the same mystery because they both just vessels for a hivemind consciousness.
 
maybe gordan is a vortgunt??!1
 
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