XEN and beyond

Have none of you played Blue Shift? Xen is a parallel universe used in teleportation (don't remember how though. I think I have to replay it sometime :upstare: ).
I haven't played the coop game Decay in the ps2 version where you play as Gina and another lady, but I've heard that explains alot too.
And another thing. I read an interview with Laidlaw where he said something about the crystal in the beginning not beeing properly resembled with Nihilants room in the end. I wonder what that means.
 
You have a very encapsulating writing style eVader. Puts my style to shame, anyway.

As for Xen, Dr. Rosenberg from Blue Shift tells you that during their teleportation experiments, they had difficulty aiming the teleporter, or teleporting objects to a specific location. Somehow Xen, a border world, was involved in the process. My theory is that the crystals on Xen interfered with the Black Mesa teleportation equipment, therefore opening a gap between the worlds, in a similar way to crossed telephone wires, or picking up two radio stations on one frequency.

Also in Blue Shift, you see equipment set up by the original Xen survey teams to aid aiming the teleportation equipment back at Black Mesa. My second theory is that whilst the creatures from Xen and the Xen landscape itself were easy to send back to Black Mesa to study, the crystals were not. This would explain why "some lengths" were taken to get it, as Gordon is told before he goes into the Test Chamber.

At that point the scientists have no idea as to what might happen during the experiment, but perhaps the G-Man and mysterious Administrator thought it would damage the extent of Nihilanth's control over the border world.

There are lots of older forum posts discussing this if you want to find out more.
 
Wow, first time I realised those crystals in Xen are the same as in the Test Chamber... well... I didn't realise, you told me lol
 
Well, it looks pretty much like one of the crystals, although I don't remember exactly. I don't think it glows like the Xen crystals.
 
Blue Shift explains that they used to use the crystals to aim the teleporter...we don't know if they still do. Either way, what Gordons team was messing with WAS one of the crystals...so theres definitely a connection there. The question is whether that was Xen's purpose (being a borderworld between us and another one thats good for teleportation), or whether Xen is something else entirely.
 
It could have been a big intergalactic truckstop for all we know.

I think that the difficulties encountered in getting the crystal were probably something to do with resistance from the local inhabitants...
 
i thought xen was necessary as a focus point for all of the teleportation that we and other dimensions(combine) use. like, you cant just point from where you are to where you want to go. there needs to be another focus point, which is xen. im guessing xen is the point of control the combine are taking from us. or at least trying to... just wait till i get my crowbar wrapped around their heads.
 
I just realised something, the Xen exploration team was stealing Xen artefacts. The nihilanth realised this, so he used some sort of beacon disguised as a crystal artefact. When the crystal is pushed under the anti-mass spectrometer, the resulting energy is emitted back to Xen space. The nihilanth sends its alien force to the vocal point of the energy outburst, to retrieve Xen artefacts and kill the wrong-doers. Hence to nihilanth's quote:

"Theives, you all are thieves, you are."
 
DEATH eVADER said:
I just realised something, the Xen exploration team was stealing Xen artefacts. The nihilanth realised this, so he used some sort of beacon disguised as a crystal artefact. When the crystal is pushed under the anti-mass spectrometer, the resulting energy is emitted back to Xen space. The nihilanth sends its alien force to the vocal point of the energy outburst, to retrieve Xen artefacts and kill the wrong-doers. Hence to nihilanth's quote:

"Theives, you all are thieves, you are."
Click to expand...


heh good theory. I never even twigged that the hev suits scattered in xen were guys from mesa. I don't think i even payed attention to hem come to think of it.
 
Well, after the first survey team failed miserably (not before bringing back a load of shit) Xen was locked down tight by Nihilanth and no-one could get in. All the caged aliens and biodomes and stuff were bred or engineered from the samples brought back before Xen was barred. Now, if, as I said, Xen is the crossroads between the other dimensions, the G-Man wants access once again so he can invade verything else. So. When the time is ripe (about 20 years later...in 1998!) he conducts the experiment. Putting a Xenite crystal under an anti-mass spectrometer causes a similiar effect to that of the tragetting array in Blue Shift, only more violent - actually ripping a hole in the fabric of reality and causing an inter-dimensional breach. I'm guessing the G-Man knew that Xen would send its armies through to earth and that would leave the way open for any would-be userper. Enter Freeman and a load of other 'heroes', plus the troops of the G-Man.
So the G-Man controls Xen. But what he didn't expect is that tearing a hole between dimensions is not a good idea. Xen and Earth start to merge. This is where Half-Life 2 comes in...

Or alternatively, do you think that maybe there was something you don't know at the end of HL1. The G-Man's actions have caused Xen and Earth to merge then and there, and so the world of HL2 is that of one dimensionally wedged halfway through another world. I just thought this because at the end you see a sandy crater with broekn vehicles and dead bodies but Xen sky. Opinions?
 
Could be.

Question: So you think that the whole thing started in 1978? Why?

On another note, did anyone notice those big orbs of bubbly looking things floating in the distance on Xen? They bear a suspicious resemblance to a sort of water-dwelling bacterial colony...
 
Is there any backstory to Half-Life anywhere? Or maybe a site that explains the whole story of the game, because it has been a long time and I don't remember all the details, or understand dimensional rift dealies.
 
In the same sequence with the dead troops, vehicles, and the Xen sky, I also noticed there was a broken canister and inside I could see a min-portal. So maybe the merging effects could be controlled. I dunno
 
I personaly dont think all the things like the bubbles in the backgrounds were intended to have significance when the game was first made. However valve made so many little leads and such a good story line i think they are now going to take insignificant things from the old game (case in point the lights on sticks) and actually make a meaning for them being there.

Just to refresh my memory can anyone list the endings to the blue shift and op force? I played op force but not blue shift so i may be missing out on some of the plot.
 
I just think that the merging of Xen and Earth was just an illusion. Two things brought this to my attention.

1) If it was merged, was there any need for the transit system to go through that tunnel thingy where you have to choose (part of the illusion as well).

2)The citadel and the combine have a very metallic look. However, on the Xen world, the features of the Xenians equipment and their structures were more organic in nature. This might be a by-product of the wad files, and possibly might not of been the textures that Marc Laidlaw required to recreate his vision of Xen
 
Got some pretty good theorys there.
We will just have to wait for HL2 to find out what happened to the rest of the outside world after the 'accident' in HL. Certainly the 'Alien Invasion' would not have been confined only within Black Mesa?
also i do not think that the Expansions will have any effect on the story in HL2, because they had story elements not actually devised by Valve.
I actually hope so, because i didnt like a few of the things that happened in Opposing Force, like the end part. The Boss looked like it was related to the Tentacled monster from Blast Pit, did it not?
 
It looked like a grown-up version. We still don't know whether or not the Race-X and the Xenians came from the same world...
 
Well, since there were NONE in Xen, I'll assume not. I was just guessing about the date, but when I looked it up I found some useful information. In fact, Freeman's War (Laurence Ramone, Parker Books 2008), the authorative source on the Black Mesa Incedent, the very first mission to Xen commenced on October 13th, 1978. Guess I was right!
 
Sulkdodds, what the hell are you on about?

And as for not seeing any Race-X on xen, well, we only ever saw a little bit of the place...
 
Freeman's War? I made it up. I didn't know you'd take it seriously, considering the amount of random comments I make....

Still, if there were any Race-X on Xen you'd think you would have met some. Its a game for chrisssakes - if there were race-X on Xen I would assume you would meet some in one of the games. I mean, if you hadn't met them in OpFor there would be no reason to believe they existed. Since Xenians and Race-X were never together in OpFor I assume they were seperate and probably enemies, since they only came in force once Nihilanth and Xen were out of the way. they took advantage of the situation (Freeman has killed Nihilanth) to invade. Lucky Shepherd stopped them. Anyway, I doubt Race-X were on Xen. You don't see any of the cast of Dead Ringers on Xen, and there is no reason to assume they are there.
 
The cast of Dead Ringers weren't interdimensional aliens, though.

*

I think.
 
Okay, let me change my example. You didn't see Daleks on Xen, and there weren't any. Happy?
 
Why assume Race-X came from anywhere else until we have some proof for that assumption, though?

Occam's Razor comes to mind...
 
I don't think it's a referance to anything, though it would make a good name for a Half-Life book...
 
In fact, Freeman's War (Laurence Ramone, Parker Books 2008), the authorative source on the Black Mesa Incedent, the very first mission to Xen commenced on October 13th, 1978. Guess I was right!


I am so confused....
 
Foxtrot said:
Oh so the date 1978 is made up too?
Click to expand...

You can tell when the first experiments took place. In the .wad files, some of the office textures are named fifties. As for the Black Mesa Incedent, it wasn't 1998. If you look at the Offer letter at the beginning of the HL manual, it states the year as 200-. That means it could of been 2002, 2006, 2008, or other years that start of with 200. What happens if the Black Mesa incedent actually occurs in real life, now that would be **** cool, wouldn't it?

Yep, Laidlaw predicted the future
 
Actually, Black Mesa has fifties architechture in it because it's a converted nuclear/missile base.

I remember reading that somewhere. The manual, I think.
 
but the Offer letter justifies the year of the Dreadful Experiment (not 1998)
 
Really? Well, I'll be damned. Possibly. Still, I don't think teleportation would have existed in the fifties. It was a converted missile base. The first teleporter is seen in Blue Shift and it looks more recent than 50s. 1978 seems about right to me. The reason I mentioned it is to get consensus. Does it seem like a reasonable date?

Because I didn't entirely make up 'Freeman's War'. I'm halfway through writing it. :)

But my name's not Laurence Ramone.
 
The Black Mesa incident was not 1998, it was in the 2000's, it says so in the offer letter in the halflife manual
 
Yes I knew that, I was just wondering what you mant by "justifies". Sorry.
 
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