Will we be better off?

[elkaebee]

The combine have been driven(we know it'll happen) off Earth. (slight)Order is restored.

After all this, will Earth be better off than it would have been if Black Mesa(and by extention, everybody else) hadn't torn the universe a new one by way of resonance cascade?

Remember that now(post HL story arc, not our "now") we've access to technologies' undreamt of, but we also have stuff that looks straight out of Paul Verhovens' head jumping for giblets and whatnot and whatso, and whatif.

 

[Nitre]

(Maybe)

 

[alyxvance]

i say no

 

[Operational]

Hell no, for starters I don't know what technologies you are talking about. There is also the massive human death toll, mental scarring, biological effects of drinking/eating the stuff the combine put out (with potentially multi-generational effects), loss of an entire generation due to the suppression field, loss of self-sufficiency for most of the human race and the permanent ecological damage from xen life and combine influence.

 

[Link]

Now? Maybe.

10 generations time? Definatley.

 

[Druckles]

While I don't believe "shoop-da-whoop, lazahs" is necessarily "best", I do think we're better off for the resonance cascade. As in they, not we. Not being in a post-apocalyptic scenario...

 

[The Mild Gatsby]

"Meh" effectively sums up my thoughts on the universe as a whole/purpose of mankind/where my socks are at, so I'll go with that.

 

[Tuskin]

Once the combine are gone, there will probably be groups of people trying to claim power in the world.

 

[mrman234]

No. We have to rebuild the entire world physically, politically, technologically, socially, and other things.

And in the chaos someone like Hitler could easily rise to power. There would be wars over the best areas of the planet.

 

[McGooTheWise]

The resonance cascade is the entire reason the combine are on earth in the first place, so, no.

 

[Tenebrais]

I'd say so, not so much for laser guns and the like (apparently Aperture Science already had similar technology, depending on when Portal occurs) but because it means the human race has access to other worlds. They already have what appears to be an inseparable ally in the vortigaunts, with all of their unique powers, and through Xen it should be quite possible to visit other worlds. Essentially, the human race can now leave Earth, so the damage that has actually been caused to it is less significant.
however, the damage caused to the actual humans is also considerable. I would say, in the long term it was beneficial but in the short term quite the opposite.

 

[Earthdeath]

yes.the new tech is great, plus it solved the whole "earth is overpopulated"crap, as well as global warmingit would seem.therefore, my theory of "there is no problem that cannot be solved with the right application of explosives" is right.

 

[Doomguy132]

What technology do we have that we haven't had before. Remember that even before the Resonance Cascade, technology such as the Portal Gun, Gluon Gun, and many others had already existed, and would have been developed quicker and a lot easier without the combine. Besides, the effects of the portal storms basically ravaged the face of the earth, herding people into cities, and the arrival of the combine only made it a lot worse. The oceans are being drained at a disturbing rate, basically everything that isn't combine-made is decaying, and basically the destruction from the combine on both the Human race and on the Earth will be permanent.

Kind of makes you feel stupid for arriving in the test chamber that day, huh?

 

[Adabiviak]

Yes. There's nothing like a common enemy (or the threat of a common enemy) to unite people.

 

[Operational]

Yes. There's nothing like a common enemy (or the threat of a common enemy) to unite people.

Until the enemy is eliminated and civil war breaks out.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

It has been hinted by Laidlaw that the Combine are not the most terrifiying enemy that could attack Earth. So far, in the HL games, with each new generation a new, worse enemy is introduced. So no, because we will proboaly have some more alien bitchasses attacking us.

 

[Earthdeath]

an army of combine is better than an army of zombies/headcrabs.

 

[Syme]

eh there r ups and down. well it greatly depressed the population so that can be good and bad. and with such a common foe i'd find it harder to see some fascist leader rise to power. rather the survivors come together to make a unified govt of sort. i mean i'm sure after the population grew that everything would go back to shit. but there is also the fact that most of earths resources r close to depleted. It really depends on how u feel about the world now. would u care if that happned now? assuming u survive the 7hr war.

 

[Au-heppa]

It has been hinted by Laidlaw that the Combine are not the most terrifiying enemy that could attack Earth.

Where did you hear this?

 

[VortigauntLover]

It's not the deaths of 6.6 billion people that is the issue (The best number of humans on Earth, for the species and the planet, is about 1-2 billion, preferably gathered in certain areas so some areas could be left entirely to wildlife, like South America), it's the total destruction of all infrastructure, the destruction of Earth's eco system, the draining of the oceans...and the 6.6 billions deaths are pretty awful too.

Way, way worse off, plus once the Combine are gone civil wars will break out. The countryside is still covered in Xen aliens (antlions arguably being the biggest trouble) so they can't just go out and build stuff. Earth is a really bad situation.

Alternatively, mankind could realize that war gets nowhere and how close we are to extinction, and finally unite for peace. Even so, we are still worse off.

 

[Sufferin-rebel]

Where did you hear this?

Laidlaw stated in an interview that during the development of Half-life 2, that there was a "Bigger threat" in mind compared to the ninathanlth (sp?)
That interview was quite popular if memory recalls.

 

[VortigauntLover]

Laidlaw stated in an interview that during the development of Half-life 2, that there was a "Bigger threat" in mind compared to the ninathanlth (sp?)
That interview was quite popular if memory recalls.

That bigger threat was the Combine.

There's not too much that can be worse then the Combine and not be unbeatable.

The Combine have:

Destroyed the forces of Earth in seven hours
Killed about...4 billion humans (I'll assume 2.6 billion or so were killed in the Portal Storms)
Turned hundreds of thousands of humans into horrific cyborg synths, like the Transhuman Overwatch and Stalkers
Begun to drain the oceans and seas of Earth
Kept mankind in a horrible Orwellian society for the past 20 years

And a lot more.

What could be worse?

 

[Au-heppa]

Laidlaw stated in an interview that during the development of Half-life 2, that there was a "Bigger threat" in mind compared to the ninathanlth (sp?)
That interview was quite popular if memory recalls.

Yeah, like VortigauntLover said. http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showpost.php?p=2071111&postcount=1 Xen and Beyond.

"(LOMBARDI) We had a glimpse of the larger threat when we were working on Half Life 1. In other words we knew that once you cleared out the Nihilanth, you were going to discover something worse beyond it. We knew that some immense threat had chased the Nihilanth and its creatures out of their own world and into Xen, from which location they were all to glad to seize the opportunity to continue on to Earth with suppression through the citadels. But the exact nature of the threat was left to be solved in Half Life 2."

I have never heard of the same thing said about Half-Life 2 and the Combine, though. I remembed the above being said by Lombardi, but had never heard of Combine being afraid of some bigger force, so I found it interesting.

 

[Asknoone]

I think the idea of there being a more lethal threat than the Combine to be pretty freakin ludicrous when you consider the context of the Combine itself. Anything bigger than that kind of force is silly.

It has been hinted by Laidlaw that the Combine are not the most terrifiying enemy that could attack Earth.

Yeah he's never said that.

 

[Syme]

yea there really isn't anything worse than the combine..... they r like a gigantic corporate army who is all powerful. it be like if all the business guru's came together to auction off humanity and start a cyborgenic army.

 

[Disrupted_Hunter]

It would leave us with some new alien equipment and technology. So possibly scientists would be able to study them and use them to better the world. Like cure cancer or something like that. Air and light pullution would decrease drastically since cars and lights weren't used as much as they are used today. But like someone said, there are also the people who will be scarred and the deadly things the Combine left. But I bet after a few years it would all be gone and civiliation would start to build up and get better as they learn from their mistakes.

 

[Earthdeath]

yeah, the only way to stop humans from fighting back and rebuilding is to eliminate us.Plus we have many bases hidden aroun the world, ones even i dont know shit about.

 

[fadi299]

I'd say so, not so much for laser guns and the like (apparently Aperture Science already had similar technology, depending on when Portal occurs) but because it means the human race has access to other worlds. They already have what appears to be an inseparable ally in the vortigaunts, with all of their unique powers, and through Xen it should be quite possible to visit other worlds. Essentially, the human race can now leave Earth, so the damage that has actually been caused to it is less significant.
however, the damage caused to the actual humans is also considerable. I would say, in the long term it was beneficial but in the short term quite the opposite.

it'd be suicidal to open another portal and pay xen/other worlds a visit!, seems like you forgot that xen and the other worlds/planets in the same dimension are still controlled by the combine, this would be like giving them another invetitation to invade earth!.........the humans have only destroyed a tiny part of the combine forces, there's absolutely no chance for the humans to defeat the combine empire, the only thing that can be done is to shut off the portal(was done in EP2!) destroy the existing equipments/technology(borealis!) that the combine(what's left of them on earth) might use to open a new portal(to be resolved in EP3!) and hope that the combine won't find another way to reach earth!....

as for the vortigaunts, they already lost their homeworld to the combine and there's no chance of them ever returing to their home, so i guess they'll just settle on earth instead!, i don't think the humans will mind it!..

 

[Kula Meenur]

The slaughter of humans offsets any advantages.

 

[VortigauntLover]

The slaughter of humans offsets any advantages.

Meh, the total destruction of the eco system and the destruction of most of Earth's infrastructure and cities is worse in the long run.

 

[fadi299]

It has been hinted by Laidlaw that the Combine are not the most terrifiying enemy that could attack Earth. So far, in the HL games, with each new generation a new, worse enemy is introduced. So no, because we will proboaly have some more alien bitchasses attacking us.

he never said that!, what he said is that the nihilanth and his people are not the most terrifying enemy that could attack earth, and by that he meant the combine!, and as many here said, there can't really be any worse than the combine. the combine forces that the humans have been fighting in HL2 and the episodes are just a tiny, tiny part of their army and don't forget that the combine orginally wanted to wipe out the whole human race hadn't been for breen who surrendered earth to them..