Thing that Breen was talking to *Possible HL3 Spoiler*

Mannex17 said:
First of all, the thing in the jar is the head of a cremator, a creepy cloaked midget thing that's job is to go around after a big battle and use it's organic matter-dissolving gun to "clean up". Creepy.

Second, the "brain" that the guy mentioned on the combine head is actually the head inside the mask.
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Cremator? Hmn. Look at the thing in the jar-- its got the exact combine eyes and nose-shape... (I don't have the book, as you can see. Hmn.)

I guess the comine world looks like the citadel, eh..hmn..almost looks like a reflection, but I guess it's not.
 
Jesus Lincoln said:
it looks liek there is a banana in his ass
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Xen alien= straight up freak.

I smell an expansion with an M rating...there really here for the bananas, forget all that taking over the human race crap. :imu:
 
Lanthanide said:
Man it sucks that they put a lot of the backstory into raising the bar - it should be in the damn game.
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Well it is just like the matrix movies, to understand more about the movies you had to play the video game, and watch the animatrix. But there are A LOT of hidden things in the game that explain the story a lot more, just noclip all over the place once you finish the game. Loads of fun the things that you find.
 
You shouldn't have to noclip to find out the story. That's my entire point.
 
Combine are human under the masks.

At least, some of them are.

At nova, Dr breen mentions the "Trans-human" Forces. Im assuming that they are modified humans, or something. Also, Barney was working undercover as a combine, making it seem that maybe they aren't so "Inhuman" As you may think.

Mr. breen struck a deal with aliens, in return for controll of earth, he would give them resources. Or something like that. Either that, or he said he will give the aliens earth if they spared humanity. Maybe a combonation of both.

Plus, what was the citidel doing? It was digging for something. But what was it digging for?
 
Puzzlemaker said:
At nova, Dr breen mentions the "Trans-human" Forces. Im assuming that they are modified humans, or something.
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I believe you see an unmasked Combine troop on a security camera. Modified human, most definitely.
 
The metrocops (or "civil protection") are normal people AFAIK. You can see people in the train station (the ones waiting in line for food) that they're willing to volunteer for civil protection just to get a decent meal. This is how Barney is able to pass as one so easily, I suspect. As for the combine soldiers, I'm pretty convinced they're augmented humans, as seen in Nova Prospekt.
 
this is a combine advisor (hes in the Raising the Bar book) highly intelegent, but physically weakened to a slug by its technology.
 
Puzzlemaker said:
Plus, what was the citidel doing? It was digging for something. But what was it digging for?
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The citadel is powered by a big fusion reactor that runs through the center, and goes down to the ground. It's not digging, exactly; it moves because it is eating the city and converting what it eats into raw materials in order to create the combine machinery.
 
We'll see an expansion answering some of our questions by next year holiday time, if we're lucky.

Good thread, keep it going guys. :)
 
KagePrototype said:
The metrocops (or "civil protection") are normal people AFAIK. You can see people in the train station (the ones waiting in line for food) that they're willing to volunteer for civil protection just to get a decent meal. This is how Barney is able to pass as one so easily, I suspect. As for the combine soldiers, I'm pretty convinced they're augmented humans, as seen in Nova Prospekt.
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Yeah, I subscribe to this idea.

Sort of like the Jewish Police (equal to metrocops in HL2) in the Nazi built ghettos of WW2 (IE: From the Pianist for an example of Warsaw, Poland)

The 'combine soldiers' are forces from Earth that Breen/Benefactor's put together (listen to his spiel to the soldiers in Nova Prospekt.)

The Combine themselves are in fact aliens.
 
All the troops in the game are supposedly humans modified or volunteered...I remember hearing barney or Eli say they were humans
 
were those human things with the metal on their face, really skinny and bald the Combine soldiers? I saw one in one of those prison holder things.
 
I remember that thing from the beta as well...if you whacked it, it got pissed and headcrabs came out. :| Looks like they changed what the model was used for.

Interesting correlation between the combine advisor and Nihilanth; both are sickly-skinned, stitched-up creatures whose limbs are so feeble that they require technology to move around. You'll recall the Nihilanth relied on a floating platform for mobility since his legs were little more than jointed sticks attached to his body. The vortigaunts also refer to him as, "The lesser master," while the combine is refered to as, "the greater (higher?) master." Now I wonder if the Nihilanth was some sort of combine slug/Xen controller synth...it looks like a cross between both creatures.

Oh, and the trans-human forces have these cybernetic implants on their throats that you can see on the one overwatch soldier who's shirtless on a table. I can't remember what chapter that's in though. If you look at the concept art for them they're supposed to be mostly synth, but it was changed so that they have a much more human appearance.

BTW, I don't know where some of you guys are getting your definitions from, but a benefactor is someone who supplies you with something. A benefactor gives or donates to a person or party and acts as a supporter. Benefactor comes from the word benefit; if you go back too far into the Latin meaning of the word it gets pigeonholed into only meaning something nice. I think we can all agree the combine's gift was not a nice thing.
 
What I'd like to know is how Breen was allowed to surrender to earth. What makes him so special to speak for all of humanity? So he surrenders then becomes high and mighty? I think he had a deal with the combine for a long time before they attacked earth. And if the citidel is their only means of transportation to earth how did they get there in the first place?
 
markabey said:
the crab-syths and mortar-synths are only seen on the lift to breens office and the guide says they are the backbone of the combines "subsequent" armies - is that going to appear in hl3 then?
http://img58.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img58&image=d3_citadel_050053.jpg
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I was just rewatching the end sequence from Half-Life: Source, and there were things that look like those machines at the top of the screenshot (or they could just be the Xen ships, I didn't play through the whole thing again).

Rhalle said:
Someone said you can see them [the stalkers] on a TV in Nova Prospekt.
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Yeah, I noticed that too. Maybe the combine were using the prisoners of Nova Prospekt as guinea pigs to genetically create beings suitable to be hosts for the Combine aliens?

Dsty2001 said:
For some reason, I'm starting to get the impression Dr. Breen is actually a human that was took over by a parasite of some sort.
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It doesn't really look that way to me, because by the end Breen was just running away and acting very human and stuff - and he wouldn't have bothered trying to save himself by finding a 'host body'.

ThrasherX9 said:
I think he had a deal with the combine for a long time before they attacked earth. And if the citidel is their only means of transportation to earth how did they get there in the first place?
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I think the Combine got here when the Resonance Cascade occured, meaning that Breen, administrator of Black Mesa, planned this all in advance.
 
There was also a model for the Combine which wasn't included in the game - it was called a Stalker I think. It was like a lifeless body inside a mechanical humanoid shell, but you could see the face.

They looked freaky. Too bad they didn't have em in it.
 
That is the real combine. All the soldiers and workers are just humans.

Metrocops are humans who volunteer to work.

Soldiers are force to nova prospekt and transformed into stalkers. The stalkers either become workers of the citadel or become soldiers to the combine.


The name of the model is combine advisor.
 
Just did the start again and didnt run out the room when the car pulls up.

Breens speech implied;

Humans cant have sex or reproduce (something in the water?) anymore
Instinct is wiped out (to stop rebelion)
Soon the humans will be `freed`, a ploy to stop resistance while the combine crush the world to build weapons
 
Breen's bargaining chip is Xen relay teleportation technology. Breen promises that he can deliver Kliener or Vance (or Gordon once he appears on the scene) and allow the Combine to expand further. Several times Dr. Mossman makes the point that Combine teleportation technology is limited because it works on a "thread model" (which is apparently more primitive)or something of the sort. Personally I think the Combine uses a "cosmic string" to open wormholes to wherever (which technically makes it a wormhole and not teleportation, hence the reference to "relying on local transport once they get here")

Or alternately, Breen uses the "resonance cascade" as his bargaining chip. Either promising (or threatening) to set off another once certain demands are met. Perhaps Earth is the only place where a "resonance cascade" is even possible. Or maybe he's bluffing the aliens the whole time and trying to make the best out of a bad situation. Could be he's a good guy forced to make questionable choices to migitate the damage.

Just thoughts. See if you can poke some holes in them.

-Br1ght Boy

PS:So how'd I do?
 
here's a bit of a change of pace. Breen talks of Humanity, for the first time, being able to achieve immortality. Now, this may have been a shallow promise meant only to sooth the masses, but I got a sense from the game that Breen truly believes what he is saying. Near the end he clearly shows that he is bitter that he lost the war, so to speak, to win the heart of Alyx's mother away from Eli. This clearly has messed with his head quite a bit. He truly believes that human instincts and emotions may only lead to problems, that power is the cure for all forms of distress. In a way he is like Gordon - simply a pawn being carefully pushed into play by the true forces behind this conflict. The G-man has carefully orchestrated Gordon's life, preparing that one fateful push with unrelenting precision, and from then on gordon's life was planned out more thouroughly than the melting of an ice sculpture at a martha stewart getting out of prison party. orchestrating his arrival at that bus station in just such a way that he would meet that police guard, escape out that back door, head into that building being raided, get blocked by that rock collapse seperating him from alex... In a similar way, Breen was given that crystal sample, driven to force its use...

I feel that Breen's calculating insanity was directed by halucinations and voices in his head and unbelievable circumstance just as much so as Gordon's... perhaps by the G-man, perhaps by his telepathic advisors, perhaps partially by nihilanth, perhaps by something we have absolutely no knowledge about. But of course this is pure speculation and i'm inserting my own interpretations here...

What I set out to say was, do you think that the combine aliens actually had the technology capacity for immortality? Is that perhaps what they were preparing nihilanth for by mutilating his body?
 
immortality in the sense that cybernetics keep the biological alive forever... maybe. Seems to be based around disturbance of natural progression, the story invokes a basic instinct kind of feel.. fighting for individuality, which is very powerful.

Aside from the feelings... that thing on the screen maybe 1 conciousness in a vessel.. (Breen utters something about them moving his conciousness into another physical form, and he doesnt sound too happy about it) , but that vessel hes talking too could be the combine overlord.. or 1 of them.. that give the orders to control the combine.
 
any one everthought you know that "G" in G-Man might acctually mean god. i mean the dude knows like everything, he can open portals, and can orcastrate peoples lives, i dunno i might be going on a wing, but D-Day ment day-day so i dunno if that makes any sense i was just thinking about it. all good theories so far guys keep bringin em up.
 
since when did D day mean day day?
D day was deployment day, was it not? The first counterattack on continental Europe's soil?

Just as V-E day was victory in europe day and V-J day was victory in japan day. When military commanders were planning these things out they said, Ok we know what to do once we attack but we don't know what day we'll do it on and if I do I don't want to write it down.... I'll just call it D day and base the timeline off of that, like "We'll do this one week after D day" or "We should have omaha beach 7 hours after D hour..."

Anyways, G-man is government man. He says clearly at the end of the first game "I confiscated your weapons, after all, they were government property...." maybe he isn't a government man in the end, but the valve team clearly intended to tie him into the government's coverup of the event in the first game.

He's linked in even more so in opposing force, although I must admit I never completed that.
 
ya im pretty sure that thing on the screen was a real combine, the type not made for earth.
 
Did any of you guys notice that the advisor has attack animations?

He slashes with his weird claw things.
 
yea, i notcied that, also. odd, and it has like walking animations and shit, too. odd....
 
It's a giant grub in a sack using floatation devices to keep itself from collapsing under its own weight, implants to keep it alive and functioning, and... has a plug in the back of its suit for God knows what.

It really reminds me of Starship Troopers now. Getting in is Hell. Taking it out is like a stroll in the park. :E
 
redhollowpoint said:
any one everthought you know that "G" in G-Man might acctually mean god. i mean the dude knows like everything, he can open portals, and can orcastrate peoples lives, i dunno i might be going on a wing, but D-Day ment day-day so i dunno if that makes any sense i was just thinking about it. all good theories so far guys keep bringin em up.
Click to expand...

D-Day meant "Day of Days"
 
The pictures you have there ae the real combine... not the ones that are part human.
 
I did not know that. Interesting.

On an unrelated note. I do definitely think that G-man has or had at least some connection with the pre-war US government. Most likely as a spy or plant by some other, unknown alien race.
 
After all that I can now tell you that it is not it's face. The face pic is actually it's arse with an exhaust pipe and muffler! The ocular implants are it's reverse lights! geezuz sifnt know that :p lol
 
D Day is someone with a stutter trying to say day. o ok!
 
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