Who were the other HEV suited people you see in Xen?

[Kon]

In half-life 1, Who were those other HEV suited people you see in Xen?
I was just thinking about this, and wondering who they were and why/how they got there..

 

[leib10]

Less-than-fortunate researchers who were sent to collect Xen crystals and fauna for study.

 

[RNEvermore]

I remember reading that those poor bastards are the people that your administrator (Dr. Breen) sent to Xen to get the Purest Sample they've ever had which caused the Resonance Cascade.

They said that they went to 'great lengths' to get it, perhaps those guys are those great lengths.

 

[Kon]

oh heh,
i was thinking they were like duplicate gordon freemans from other alternate realities/dimensions..

 

[Acepilotf14]

No, Gordon is simply a long line of generic clones made for the sole purpose of having mindless drones to expend with no repurcussions to the company's well-being.

It could happen.

 

[Azner]

No it couldnt

 

[Iron_cube]

Normal scientists.

nuff said

 

[Omega11]

no no no, Gordon Freeman-like individuals, carrying a same canny ability to solve puzzles, and the handy knowledge of weapons, they just don't have a Goatee, that's what makes the difference, and hence, why they died. . . you never know, Xenians could be discriminatory against those without facial hair Oo.

 

[Cheomesh]

I figured they where guys who tried to flee to Xen to get out of the RC. Who knows why.

 

[Iron_cube]

You guys need to play HL1 again.

They knew about xen way before the resonance cascade.

 

[Azner]

Normal scientists.

nuff said

If normal means trained in jump emulation and thaught how to use weaponary but on a lower level than a soldier i guess youre right

:rollseyes:

 

[Apocalypse89]

I figured they were a mix of research teams sent into Xen before the cascade, and post-Cascade Lambda Core personnel attempting to find and kill the Nihilanth like Gordon.

 

[ríomhaire]

If normal means trained in jump emulation and thaught how to use weaponary but on a lower level than a soldier i guess youre right

:rollseyes:

Gordon was, and we wasn't even a fully-fledged scientist. He was just a lowly 'research assosiate'.

The guys in Xen are just people sent to collect samples from the boarder world who received a less-than-friendly welcome.

 

[nokori3byo]

Well, it goes a long way towards explaning why Gordon received weapons training when he did. Cleary the folks at BM were already up to no good.

 

[ríomhaire]

Obviously. Do you not remember Questionable Ethics?

 

[nokori3byo]

Obviously. Do you not remember Questionable Ethics?

Oh, of course. I'm just saying that Gordon himself might have wondered why he was being trained to fire an MP5 with a grenade launcher when he was ostensibly working as a research associate in experimental physics. He presumbaly didn't know about all the "Questionable Ethics" stuff before stumbling onto it in the game. Part of the unfolding narrative, I guess.

 

[Cheomesh]

Agreed. I had told people there was a reason he was trained like he was but the common response was dur dur scientists are nurds.

 

[Iron_cube]

If normal means trained in jump emulation and thaught how to use weaponary but on a lower level than a soldier i guess youre right

:rollseyes:

I meant the actual scientist models, just so people can picture them in HEV suits.

 

[Omega11]

Well, it doesn't seem to make sense that Gordon is just a research associate, because I doubt a huge complex like BMRF would give gun training to them. With this in mind, why don't (actual) normal scientists know how to use guns? The only one who does (or seems to) is the kleiner model you find holding a shotgun by a box, barricading the way to the Lambda Core =/.

It doesn't seem to make sense that 'lowly research assistants' would be given weapons training, and not anybody else on the higher level. With that being said, all he really did, was go push a sample into a machine, and utilie a few other tools (weapons, Silo, Lambda Teleport, etc). I'd think that not only BMRF was up to no good, but they were pretty much just exploiting their lower employees. . . and of course, they want you to go get more people to join them (tram ride in 'Black mesa Inbound').

Then again, there are a bunch of stoies behind Gordon and office work aren't there =/.

. . . God I need RtB. . .

 

[Narvi]

People trained in HEV suit use get weapons training as part of the orientation.

Normal researchers aren't trained in HEV use. So no weapons training. QED.

 

[RioBravoXL]

Obviously. Do you not remember Questionable Ethics?

It's been so long...

Whats this gist of this chapter again?

 

[Cheomesh]

Gordon is a low level guy because he hasn't been there very long at all.

And I agree with Narvi -- if you're not doing anyhting dangerous, why would you be weapons trained?

 

[ríomhaire]

Gordon received weapons training either because:
A: It's standard for HEV suit training
or
B: Because it was intended that he would eventually be one of the suckers sent off to Xen (He did receive long-jump training, and the long-jump module was designed soly for navigating in Xen.

It's been so long...

Whats this gist of this chapter again?

You see lots of Xen aliens in pens and cages and experimental weapons.

 

[Omega11]

People trained in HEV suit use get weapons training as part of the orientation.

Normal researchers aren't trained in HEV use. So no weapons training. QED.

True. . . damn. . . you're good.

. . .

Or I'm just extremely stupid XD

 

[nokori3byo]

People trained in HEV suit use get weapons training as part of the orientation.

Normal researchers aren't trained in HEV use. So no weapons training. QED.

Makes sense, dosen't it. After all, the HEV suit is designed to recognize weapons the user is carrying and displays ammo in its HUD

It's also true that:

1. BM was at least partly a military installation (there was an Apache helicopter inside the facility!).
2. Security was clearly taken pretty seriously, as there were countless Barneys equipped with pistols, heavy duty armour, and helmets.

I've never played Decay. Do Doctors Cross and Green get weapons training, or was it just assumed the player knew what to do by then? (Actually, it'd be amusing to see Gina getting instructions from her own holographic doppleganger).

And what about "The administrator"? There've been hints that Breen helped orchestrate the Black Mesa Incident. I wonder if he had anything to do with making weapons training standard for researchers.

 

[Azner]

Gordon was, and we wasn't even a fully-fledged scientist. He was just a lowly 'research assosiate'.

The guys in Xen are just people sent to collect samples from the boarder world who received a less-than-friendly welcome.

AFIAC

Most scientist these days dont get to use guns.

Hes not a normal scientist from my pov. Any scientist in black mesa isnt.

Youre looking from Halflifes POV mmrite?

 

[Tyrone Slothrop]

In half-life 1, Who were those other HEV suited people you see in Xen?
I was just thinking about this, and wondering who they were and why/how they got there..

Um, no offense, but I'm only replying to this because you win the prize for dumbest question posted on this forum in the few short weeks I've been reading it.

This one isn't hard. Just think of what you already know about Black Mesa and the HEV suit.

i'm not about to get into an argument about whether or not tutorial sequences in any of these games count as "canon," but I think "Gordon" went to the firing range, among other things, because the purpose of the sequence is to teach the player the basic functions of walking/running/jumping/shooting, etc. Kind of like the way Gordon would have to be wearing some kind of protection for the other characters to be taken seriously sending him to do dangerous things rather than doing it themselves.

Leaving out OpFor and Blue Shift, [correct me, please, senior members,but I'm fairly certain that Valve has repeatedly explained the expansion packs are NOT CANON] I always figured Xen was completely inhospitable to human life without at least basic equipment like a respirator and/or NBC protection. The HEV suits were designed mainly to be used in Xen, once the Black Mesa people figured out how to go there. I assume that in the course of making three successive versions of the suit (Gordon's is a Mark 4, remember?), they realized that things like armor and movement augmentations would also come in handy.

HL1 takes place after they've been exploring Xen and collecting specimens for some time. Sooo, those corpses are probably scientists wearing HEV suits that went to Xen to study it and never made it back.

 

[MJ12]

^Chill. You new members are always so mouthy, it wasn't a bad question, and as you can see it clearly brought out some debate in this thread, which implies that the answer might not be so clear.

 

[Tyrone Slothrop]

but, while I'm here:

AFIAC

Most scientist these days dont get to use guns.

Hes not a normal scientist from my pov. Any scientist in black mesa isnt.

I don't have the original instruction booklet anymore, but after I bought the game in 1999 I looked up the jargon in the letter from Black Mesa offering Gordon a job:

Gordon did his PhD research on teleportation. Not exactly a garden-variety field for physicists, but it happens to have been (apparently) the main type of research going on at Black Mesa. One would imagine that people qualified for the work Gordon was doing are few and far between, so you'd think they'd want to protect their investment.

It's really not uncommon for large corporations (especially large corporations either run by, or doing important work on behalf of, governments) to invest in training for their employees that isn't directly related to their primary job functions but might turn out to be useful later or even make them slightly more productive over the long run. (Ever seen those videos from Japan of whole buildings' worth of secretaries and engineers doing synchronized calisthenics routines on company time?)
Since Black Mesa was a retrofitted government facility from the Cold War, I can see it being routine policy to train employees in basic security-related skills prior to employment. Military institutions in particular tend to be designed around multiple, redundant preparations for any conceivable emergency. Teaching physicists how to do simple gymnastics and fire small arms wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea if you want to make absolutely sure you won't run out of physicists.

(And you'd probably be more worried about the possibility of someone from outside getting into your labs to sabotage them than the possibility that you might need to eliminate your entire staff before any of them got out. Hence the Marines' obsession with catching Gordon Freeman: who would've thought one physicist who spent a few minutes on a gun range could take out squad after squad of highly trained special forces operatives, right? "He's... JUST...ONE...MAN")

It is curious that they designed a computer system for the HEV suits that would keep track of weapons and ammunition. It suggests some unspecified sinister intentions in the early parts of the game. But then again, it seems like they were still working on figuring out all the different kinds of "protection" you'd need to survive long enough in Xen to gather any useful information.

 

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Oh, I'm chill. Just a little friendly critique. Didn't mean to offend.

This, however,

...it clearly brought out some debate in this thread, which implies that the answer might not be so clear.

is an example of a common fallacy that infers the qualities of an object from the reactions of those who perceive it.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

 

[MJ12]

Using big words in the wrong way does not make one sound intelligent.

 

[Narvi]

Using big words in the wrong way does not make one sound intelligent.

Considering his grammar and phrasing was correct...

Using that common dismissive phrase in the wrong way does make you look rather unintelligent.

 

[Azner]

but, while I'm here:




I don't have the original instruction booklet anymore, but after I bought the game in 1999 I looked up the jargon in the letter from Black Mesa offering Gordon a job:

Gordon did his PhD research on teleportation. Not exactly a garden-variety field for physicists, but it happens to have been (apparently) the main type of research going on at Black Mesa. One would imagine that people qualified for the work Gordon was doing are few and far between, so you'd think they'd want to protect their investment.

It's really not uncommon for large corporations (especially large corporations either run by, or doing important work on behalf of, governments) to invest in training for their employees that isn't directly related to their primary job functions but might turn out to be useful later or even make them slightly more productive over the long run. (Ever seen those videos from Japan of whole buildings' worth of secretaries and engineers doing synchronized calisthenics routines on company time?)
Since Black Mesa was a retrofitted government facility from the Cold War, I can see it being routine policy to train employees in basic security-related skills prior to employment. Military institutions in particular tend to be designed around multiple, redundant preparations for any conceivable emergency. Teaching physicists how to do simple gymnastics and fire small arms wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea if you want to make absolutely sure you won't run out of physicists.

(And you'd probably be more worried about the possibility of someone from outside getting into your labs to sabotage them than the possibility that you might need to eliminate your entire staff before any of them got out. Hence the Marines' obsession with catching Gordon Freeman: who would've thought one physicist who spent a few minutes on a gun range could take out squad after squad of highly trained special forces operatives, right? "He's... JUST...ONE...MAN")

It is curious that they designed a computer system for the HEV suits that would keep track of weapons and ammunition. It suggests some unspecified sinister intentions in the early parts of the game. But then again, it seems like they were still working on figuring out all the different kinds of "protection" you'd need to survive long enough in Xen to gather any useful information.

Wow, i can just coutner that with a sentence


I never said black mesa was normal. Infact it isnt.
Addon
I was just saying that comparing Mesa to any other science industry these days, they are not normal. Thats why Riom said there are was he was look trough a halflife perspective. Welcome

 

[MJ12]

Just because he used big words doesn't mean he had to. Or should I say in his terms-

"The person of discussion took the liberty of inserting complex vocabulary in areas of a phrase which were not nessisary."

-Which one sounds better? Just say your damn statement, anyone can use dictionary.com

 

[ríomhaire]

Leaving out OpFor and Blue Shift, [correct me, please, senior members,but I'm fairly certain that Valve has repeatedly explained the expansion packs are NOT CANON]

Marc Laidlaw hasn't said that they aren't canon, really. He has said that they don't matter though

I always figured Xen was completely inhospitable to human life without at least basic equipment like a respirator and/or NBC protection.

There is a non-HEV-suited scientist in Xen in the original Half-Life. He's in one of the chambers Nihilanth teleports you to. I've never bothered to check it myself, but I've seen numerous reports of it on multiple forums.

The HEV suits were designed mainly to be used in Xen, once the Black Mesa people figured out how to go there.

Source? We know the long-jump module was designed for navigating Xen, but not if the HEV suit was.

 

[Omega11]

Anyone remember this (I've fallen behid abit in this thread ><)?

I found this in the Lambda Complex, when standing there, you hear one of the scientists say 'Do you remember safety training?'

So some one was SLIGHTLY trained >.>

While we're at it;

I found out where the poor bastards got their HEVs XP
Sorry, I never noticed that there before.

EDIT: Actually read parts of this thread (in basic), and lemme say, WOW. I like it when new people here, atleast ask questons, and then, some OTHER n00b (I love that word). Comes in like an arrogant jerk, and then DOUBLE POSTS XD

LMAO!

 

[Cheomesh]

I *think* something in the game/manual/etc mentioned the HEV had origins in military application. Makes sense to me.

 

[Headcrab Pie]

Just look at the name.
H.E.V.
Now, that could simply mean toxic areas or....xen.


Mabye.

 

[ríomhaire]

The PCV is very like the HEV...

 

[Narvi]

And can interface with HEV health and energy terminals!

I knew there was another reason besides the nuke I liked OF as canon!