The SEVEN hour war

[soulslicer]

I always wished they had a mod for the seven hour war. It would be really interesting, seeing the huge citadel ships dropping in. Nuclear bombs exploding everywhere. Portals ripping earth. M4A1 vs plasma rifle. nade vs orb. any thoughts?

 

[Xendance]

Maybe there will be in the future? Who knows?

 

[Asknoone]

Citadel ships ?

 

[Slug Advisor]

Citadel ships ?

OMG, dont u know dat the Ctadel was a ship??/

 

[Asknoone]

Guess I just fail huh?

 

[Remus]

Guess I just fail huh?

 

[soulslicer]

lol, the citadel has to be a ship, then how does it fly into earth through the huge ass portal and plop its self on the ground..

 

[Link]

They open a portal from the ground to the height of the citadel, and make the entrance for it wherever the citadel was built.

The problem with a mod of the 7 hour war is that the player has to fight on the lossing side. I'd still like to see one though.

 

[soulslicer]

NO, the problem is that there will be no combine soldiers. And I will surely miss combine soldiers.

 

[CyberPitz]

Heck, Black Mesa was a losing battle, and Barney and Kleiner got out of it. Maybe they can have someone in there fighting, then somehow still be alive after the war. *or maybe have him die at the end, which would be nifty*

 

[Sheepo]

I heard somewhere Episode 4 would take place during the 7 Hour War. I was kind of hoping for that...

 

[Asknoone]

I always thought after 'forcing' the portal storms wider the Citadels would simply 'phase' in. No details on EP4 have been released, so take no notice of 'rumours'.

 

[Xendance]

I heard somewhere Episode 4 would take place during the 7 Hour War. I was kind of hoping for that...

That would not make sense. We would be going back in time, rather than continue in it.

 

[Asknoone]

It could be an expansion.

 

[Xendance]

An expansion yeah. Episode 4 = NO.

 

[Asknoone]

We have no idea what Episode 4 is. It is just a name. Valve have claimed they are doing an Episode trilogy which will end after 3. Doesn't make sense to go forward with a fourth.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Yeah, for all we know, Episode 4 is just a placeholder name.

 

[Sheepo]

I heard it would be an expansion, from someone besides Freeman's point of view. My guess: they just don't have name for it yet so it's reffered to as Episode 4. I couldn't care less... As long as they make HL3!

 

[Xendance]

As long as I get more Half Life story, I couldn't care less what they called it.

 

[Slug Advisor]

Seven Hour War
Last Seven Hours (website isn't in English)
Return to Xen (Samon's gonna kill me)
Point of View 2: Azure Stand (sequel to POV and Azure Sheep)

Damn, if these things have their own sites, it's really hard to find them. I'm also pretty sure atleast one of those is dead, I just can't be bothered to check right now.

 

[Dark_assassin23]

*as samon*
I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!!!
lol

 

[kupocake]

Yeah, for all we know, Episode 4 is just a placeholder name.

Or they've never talked about 'Episode Four' just a 'Fourth Episode', itself a standalone.

 

[madaimer]

An idea for a 7 Hour war mod could be war of the worlds esque where ur a normal civilian and trying to escape and find somwhere safe

 

[Jintor]

Hahahaha!

Ah, Tripods. How you reminded me of Striders.

 

[ríomhaire]

We have no idea what Episode 4 is. It is just a name. Valve have claimed they are doing an Episode trilogy which will end after 3. Doesn't make sense to go forward with a fourth.

I think they said "a fourth episodes" rather than "Episode Four".

 

[W4d5Y]

I think a setting in the 7 hour war is great, because they can actually make a game that is only demanded to be maybe eight chapters long (for each timespan of the conflict, maybe the game would cover one hour before as well, where only the Portal storms are present and where there's a bit of eastereggs, spoilers, hints and puzzles.)
That would quite funneh, nobody would or would want to complain because any prolonging the play-expirience blurs the canon and takes away the expirience of being invaded by unbeatable forces what alone the idea of the seven hour already bares.

I myself once reckoned an add-on might even cover some point earlier than the seven hour war, although I don'T know which one. Maybe some setting where you witness the timeline and origins of the BM-incident

 

[Frentzen]

Think about an Abrams Tank vs. Strider Showdown. Heh. Strider smithereens but even more tank smithereens.
That would require some heavy singularity cannon action!

 

[Fadeaway]

Why on Earth can the Combine not have any Overwatch soldiers from before the Seven Hour War? You can't easily conquer humanity with a handful of walking tanks, especially if three AT4 rocket blasts can knock one down. As beleaguered as mankind would be from fighting aliens brought in from the portal storms, I highly doubt that they used exclusively synth-cybernetic armour to take Earth.

Considering the vast scope the Universal Union is believed to inhabit, the chances are that somewhere along the line, they found something remotely humanoid. We've seen that the majority of Overwatch soldiers are lobotomised, augmented humans, but what about the things behind the Overwatch elite's helmet?

 

[Frentzen]

You have to be insane. It takes at least 7 rockets to take a strider down. Now place that in the Arizona desert with no cover at all and some marines trying to shoot down a row of 20 striders. They are lucky If they endure that raid!
Besides... where would the Overwatch soldiers come from?
Bear in mind the Combine are much much more than just Synths and the Overwatch. A proper 7 hour war would show the magnitude of the event. 7 Hours are not to be taken for granted. There HAS to be a reason why It was so short.

 

[Fadeaway]

The portal storms. The general consensus is that man's armed forces in general had their metaphorical hands full with what came from Black Mesa. I think that the 'Seven Hour War' is just a term used by the Resistance to make the Universal Union sound all the more evil (I'm not saying they aren't). For something as brief as 7 hours, it must have been something along the lines of an extermination job on the alien invaders and the subjugation of anyone after that who refused.

You'd be grateful if an alien race managed to save you from extinction, right?

Well, up until the point where they drug your water and take people away to be turned into cyber-augmented footsoldiers.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Guys, Striders are NOTHING. They likely weren't used in the seven hour war at all. What we've seen of the Combine is just a garrison, Earth is just an outpost , the first world they found in our Universe. The seven hour war would have their full force in, which would be unstopable.

 

[ríomhaire]

Why on Earth can the Combine not have any Overwatch soldiers from before the Seven Hour War?

Overwatch soldiers are modified humans. Before they capture Earth they have no source of humans to modify, therefore there cannot be any Overwatch soldiers.

You can't easily conquer humanity with a handful of walking tanks, especially if three AT4 rocket blasts can knock one down. As beleaguered as mankind would be from fighting aliens brought in from the portal storms, I highly doubt that they used exclusively synth-cybernetic armour to take Earth.

No, they exclusively used syths symaltaniously deployed in every remaining population centre across the globe to take Earth. Earth's remaining armed forces were busy protecting cities from dangers outside of the wall. The Combine came from inside. They had no way of being ready for this.

Considering the vast scope the Universal Union is believed to inhabit, the chances are that somewhere along the line, they found something remotely humanoid. We've seen that the majority of Overwatch soldiers are lobotomised, augmented humans, but what about the things behind the Overwatch elite's helmet?

Elites resemble no piece of the Combine military except other Overwatch soldiers. It is clear that humanity has not been fully assimilated yet. Also, there is a reason that Breen refers to them as the "transhuman arm of the Combine Overwatch".

 

[kupocake]

Overwatch soldiers are modified humans. Before they capture Earth they have no source of humans to modify, therefore there cannot be any Overwatch soldiers.

Well, baring some kind of conspiracy where the combine manipulate earth's leaders into prepping for the war, and having armies of cyborg soldiers who suddenly switch to the combine's side when the Citadel's 'unexpectedly' beam in (A little too Star Wars Episode 3 perhaps? ).

Rather than an all-out synth war, I think it's safer to assume that the infantry role was provided by another race (or races) assimilated into the combine during the Seven Hours War and that this race was then slowly withdrawn from earth in favour of transhuman forces, in order that humanity could prove itself worthy of entry into the combine. One candidate for this 7hr-war infantry role is the Hunter synth, which is about human size and is mysteriously making an appearance now that the transhuman occupation has gone tits up (unless of course, the Hunter is a new synth created on Earth...)

Once the combine had a loyal human force on earth, it made sense to put them in charge of their own world because 1) Humans, having evolved on earth are the most likely race to be adapted to it and 2) using humans is a constant reminder to the citizens that the combine isn't on a straightforward 'kill all humans' tirade, and that there's always the option of surrendering your 'humanity' and living on as part of the combine (an effect that the combine wouldn't get by using an alien race, who would be unable to set a leading example because they're from heck knows where and they're not going to be anyone's brother or mother or great grandmother).

 

[who is gman?]

If there was a 7hr war mod then it would be very boring. If you played as Earth you'd get wasted. If you played as the Combine you'd waste.

 

[Jintor]

If there was a 7hr war mod then it would be very boring. If you played as Earth you'd get wasted. If you played as the Combine you'd waste.

Just because you know how it ends doesn't make it boring. There's a billion bloody WWII games out there, you know.

 

[who is gman?]

I think the difference is that WWII lasted several years and the sides were roughly even. The Seven Hour War - the name speaks for itself!

 

[Sheepo]

who is gman? is right. we're not alking about knowing the outcome. We're talking about suckiness of the outcome. You get totally destroyed on one side or you destroy on the other. Admit it's fun to totally annihalate unopposed but after 7 hours it gets kind of boring to mow down a line of Marines as a Strider. Or on the other side you're Mr. Grunt fighting off recently invaded Xen aliens and Combine synths and after 7 hours are impaled by a Striders foot or something.

 

[Fadeaway]

I think the difference is that WWII lasted several years and the sides were roughly even. The Seven Hour War - the name speaks for itself!

Heard of 24? If they can stretch an entire real-time series over the course of 24 hours, you could do something similar with Half-Life 2. Besides, even if the surrender was called within seven hours, that doesn't mean everyone on Earth stopped fighting.

 

[Jintor]

And you can still have individual stories along it, etc.

 

[who is gman?]

I got an idea! You could play as some guy who's fleeing the city and has to defend his wife/girlfriend/family from all the aliens in the countryside and you see your city being blown up and stuff. Along the way you have to try to hide from and/or destroy Combine scouts etc and eventually you end up leading the resistance. It wouldn't be a Half Life exactly but I think that's the only way one could pull it off. Edit: and in the end your wife/girlfriend/whatever dies and you swear revenge on the Combine.

And no I haven't heard of the 24.