The "Combine" spotted in popular literature

[Franky4Fingers]

This is to do with Half Life 2... Kinda...

Ive been reading "One Flew Over a cuckoo's nest", which is a book about a guy who fakes mental illness to get out of working off a prison term. It's told from the first person by a patient who beleives that the institution is run by machines, and technitions who make "installations" into the brains of the patients. He constantly refers to nurse Ratched as an agent of the 'Combine'. This is a kinda long passage but it might shed some light on who HL2's combine are:

"The Big Nurse tends to get real put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth, accurate, precision-made machine. The slightest thing messy or out of kilter or in the way ties her into a little white knot of tight-smiled fury. She walks around with that same doll smile crimped between her chin and her nose and that same calm whir coming from her eyes, but down inside of her she's tense as steel. I know it, I can feel it. And she dont relax a hair till she gets the nuisance attended to - what she calls "adjust to surroundings".
Under her rule the ward Inside is almost completely adjusted to surroundings. But the thing is she can't be on the ward all the time. She's got to spend some time Outside. So she works with an eye to adjusting the Outside world too. Working alongside others like her who I call the "Combine", which is a huge organization that aims to adjust the Outside as well as she has the Inside..."

Seems like a pretty good description of the Combine in HL2 huh? Methinks Gabe's been doing year 13 english

 

[Brian Damage]

Very interesting...

Sounds like what the game Combine could be doing...

Maybe they're cyborgs?

 

[The Dark Elf]

Well, atleast their copying decent works then

 

[Iconoclast]

Please tell me that isn't the first time you've come across the word.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Please tell me that isn't the first time you've come across the word.

He found something similar to the supposed HL2 storyline, is that so wrong?

 

[Frank]

Oh YES, Fenric! We've come here to collect your head!

/me is being sarcastic...

 

[Mr. Redundant]

Please tell me that isn't the first time you've come across the word.

when I read that comment, for some reason I thought Iconoclast thought that Franky4Fingers was quoting the bible....

you know... "The Word"

...


bah well I thought it was funny.

anywhoo, nice observation Franky. I think the relevance is quite apparent, and Im pretty sure people are going to come back to this thread after Hl2's release and say "aaaah thats what he meant!"

and for some reason that reminded me of "King Pow: Legend of the Fist"
go forth Chosimba.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

I think there's weight in the similarities to cuckoos' nest. Combines can create cyborg vehicles (strider, manatee) so it makes sense that they'd use that power on themselves too.

 

[mortiz]

It wouldn't suprise me if Valve did draw influences from such popular works. They've certainly drawn from movies, so I assume books are also a place of inspiration for the team.

 

[staddydaddy]

I've read the book before, We will see if this is a relebant connection after the release.

 

[frances_farmer]

its a cool movie also. jack nicholson owns

 

[Jhokur]

The movie came out the weekend I was born (Halloween, 1975)

 

[SubKamran]

when I read that comment, for some reason I thought Iconoclast thought that Franky4Fingers was quoting the bible....

you know... "The Word"

...


bah well I thought it was funny.

anywhoo, nice observation Franky. I think the relevance is quite apparent, and Im pretty sure people are going to come back to this thread after Hl2's release and say "aaaah thats what he meant!"

and for some reason that reminded me of "King Pow: Legend of the Fist"
go forth Chosimba.

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist?

 

[Franky4Fingers]

It wouldn't suprise me if Valve did draw influences from such popular works. They've certainly drawn from movies, so I assume books are also a place of inspiration for the team.

Yeah, its cool to find these kind of references/inspirations, unless its a Blizzard game...
Warcraft = Lord of the Rings
Starcraft = Aliens, and protoss are like Predator
I dont know why everyone thinks Blizzard games are so original. Dont get me wrong, Im a big fan, but tolkien could probably sue bliz for the warcraft series if he was still alive. It even has ents now

 

[The Dark Elf]

Yeah, its cool to find these kind of references/inspirations, unless its a Blizzard game...
Warcraft = Lord of the Rings
Starcraft = Aliens, and protoss are like Predator
I dont know why everyone thinks Blizzard games are so original. Dont get me wrong, Im a big fan, but tolkien could probably sue bliz for the warcraft series if he was still alive. It even has ents now

Tolkien based most of his idea's on other things, so chances are the Tolkien estate couldn't sue people using ents or spriggans or elves or orcs. Their from myth and legends, nobody owns that.

 

[Dan]

but he really invented that Middle Earth style genre. Before Tolkien, elves were little fairy people that sometimes worked for Santa Clause, orcs didn't exist, and trolls were hairy Scandinavian guys that ate goats.

 

[Gordon'sFreeman]

but he really invented that Middle Earth style genre. Before Tolkien, elves were little fairy people that sometimes worked for Santa Clause, orcs didn't exist, and trolls were hairy Scandinavian guys that ate goats.

Lmao! that brought a tear to my eye.

--

still, its all good.

 

[Flyingdebris]

actually blizzard wasn't ripping off aliens or predator, well aliens was quoted but not predator.

No, what Blizzard ripped off was warhammer 40k. i'd say they are fairly alike enough to know where most of the ideas came from

 

[Brian Damage]

I'll agree with you there, Flyingdebris. Those Zerg are direct ripoffs of the Tyranids...

Y'know, I reckon Orcs are probably actually inspired by Orkneys, which I believe were a kind of demon or hobgolin-type thing...

 

[The Dark Elf]

I'll agree with you there, Flyingdebris. Those Zerg are direct ripoffs of the Tyranids...

Y'know, I reckon Orcs are probably actually inspired by Orkneys, which i believe were a kind of demon or hobgolin-type thing...

Orkney's are those folk who live on that small Orkney Island, not quite british and not quite Norwegian

So many ways to go with that (hopes there's no Orkney's on the forum reading this)

 

[Brian Damage]

I didn't mean any real people, I'd read something, I think it was in a Brian Froud book, about the mythical-type Orkneys.

Heck, Y'know where the legends of pixies came from? The Picts, a tribe of diminutive people. It's supposed to be "Pictsies".

 

[mbrithoms]

lol makes you wonder if valve have been reading this thread and also the strider thread and are going' Dam I didnt think they would notice, we need 10 more months to rewrite these things out!'

 

[Styloid]

I think I'd better tell the 'less-read' a little bit about the book... you see it's about a mental institution run by a harsh nurse who insipidly controls the patients. It is an allegory for society (it was written in the 60's by a hippie). The protagonist is a rebellious new patient that begins to shake things up in the institution. The story is told through a schizophrenic patient that nobody thinks can talk or listen (representing the silent majority of society). Sometimes he has hallucinations and one of those hallucinations is a "combine"- a system of oppressors/authorities all linked together with 'wires'.
In other words there is little to no likenesses at all.... I just thought it was a clever nod to a good book.

 

[daveodeth]

makes me think of whitewolf trying to sue the makers of underworld.

 

[Franky4Fingers]

I think I'd better tell the 'less-read' a little bit about the book... you see it's about a mental institution run by a harsh nurse who insipidly controls the patients. It is an allegory for society (it was written in the 60's by a hippie). The protagonist is a rebellious new patient that begins to shake things up in the institution. The story is told through a schizophrenic patient that nobody thinks can talk or listen (representing the silent majority of society). Sometimes he has hallucinations and one of those hallucinations is a "combine"- a system of oppressors/authorities all linked together with 'wires'.
In other words there is little to no likenesses at all.... I just thought it was a clever nod to a good book.

I think I kinda summed that up in the very first post in the thread. Thanks though, we're all impressed.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Are you suggesting that the combine read literacy in their spare time, especially read "One flew over a cuckoo's nest", remarkable, who would a thought that. At least they are enriching their lives with poetry, literacy, ballet dancing in their spare time, until offcourse freeman comes along and splatters their brain across cookery books.

 

[Styloid]

I think I kinda summed that up in the very first post in the thread. Thanks though, we're all impressed.

Okay... stupid me.. I forgot what was in your post when I posted and now I look like an idiot.....

 

[Jackal hit]

tee hee it DOES fit quite nicely... ...the scanners and surveillance and all. i read cuckoo's nest way back when... and one character i loved... martini... maybe barney will be the equivalent of martini! *gasp* ...even funnier if they made alyx into a martini like character... but nah, they need to make her into some vile temptress.

 

[The ToAsT]

Another reference - Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles or CHOAM from 'Dune' by Frank Herbert. Don't know why I mention that, just felt like it - mmmmkay?

 

[Quixote]

Those are some pretty cool examples but I think they might just be ripping off from Websters as a combine is:
1. To become united; coalesce.
2. To join forces for a common purpose.
but the nure ratchet thing is cool too. Maybe they'll give Gordon a labotomy too, that would kinda explain why he never talks and can't remember where he's been for the last few years.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Coicidence just struck me.

A Combine Harvester Harvests wheat to make people big and strong

The Combine Harvests City 17 to make the citadel big and strong

Marc Laidlaw wasn't getting his inspiration from Combine Harvesters or Farmers was he

 

[Wilco]

I DEMAND that Valve make the background music "I've got a combine harvester" by The Wurzels, cos that will make it the coolest scene ever (for 5 minutes, at which point you turn it of).

 

[Foxtrot]

LOL death, nice find.

 

[Wesisapie]

oh please. Combine is being used as a noun here, not a verb. So it sounds more like COM-bine rather than com-BINE. So those unite for common cause definitions are pretty null, because they are the verbular version.

 

[Andy]

It is interesting, and just like them to put something in that they can have a chuckle about to each other, and people who get it can be really pleased with themselves

at some point i'll finish my "meaning of (half)-life" essay and submit it to the articles section

 

[A.I.]

Coicidence just struck me.

A Combine Harvester Harvests wheat to make people big and strong

The Combine Harvests City 17 to make the citadel big and strong

Marc Laidlaw wasn't getting his inspiration from Combine Harvesters or Farmers was he

I already mentioned this once on the forum. I looked up in a dictionary and the combine (harvester) could easily be that building that's eating out the city. There's another option. The Combine could be kind of a cyborg people, like the soldiers, that floating thing you see in the seafloor in E3 vids or even a strider (that gun below it moves too organical to be attached mechanically)