Wild Mass Guessing concerning the Half-Life games.
- Why would he be pissed when the Vorts "rescue" Freeman in Episode 1 then?
However, upon witnessing Gordon Freeman's effective resistance against the extraterrestrial forces and the defeat of Nihilanth, the G-Man decides that it's time to secure his own freedom. Perhaps the death of Nihilanth allowed him to do so, by weakening the Combine's control/influence over him.
Since that time, the G-Man has been using Gordon Freeman as his tool against the Combine's continuing invasion and occupation. He must do so strategically, picking times and places where Freeman will cause the greatest disruption to the Combine's plans, as he no longer has access to the Combine's military might. He also cannot allow Freeman to go free, as he's not willing to lose control of his most effective weapon (though he can be coerced into briefly doing so by the freed Vortigaunts, who hold sufficient numbers to threaten him now).
He is, for the moment, aligned with the resistance movement on Earth, as that's now the only way for him keep his own skin intact. However, his only true allegiance is to himself, and his personal motivations remain largely unknown. He may react in unexpected and hostile ways if/when the Combine is ever defeated.
He possibly orchestrated the Resonance Cascade in order to gather garmonbozia (pain and suffering) from the scientists and the victims of the Combine invasion. In Half-Life 2, you play as a Gordon Freeman doppelgänger he controls in order to cause more chaos and destruction.
- Best. Idea. EVER!
- The Vortigaunts are shown to have some power to stop the G-Man. They must collectively represent the GM's girlfriend.
- The G-Man needs Gordon to do things instead of doing them himself. He isn't stopped from doing it by legal restrictions, but by physical restrictions
- The G-Man is so vague about everything; his control on people is fairly limited, and if Gordon realises he shouldn't let G-Man's species be free, the G-Man will probably get fired.
- Let's consider maybe he had his eye color changed, too. It'd be a rather subtle change, of course: Gordon has green eyes, G-Man as far as I've seen has blue eyes with just a touch of yellow around the pupils; from far away enough it's easy to mistake the two. Why, though, is currently beyond the scope of my powers of speculation.
- Why? Discoloration due to aging.
- This troper has thought the same thing (about the G-Man being Gordon Freeman from the future), except that Gordon Freeman is mute because of a congenital malformation which will be surgically cured in the future. Gordon Freeman will learn to speak, but will always have a stilted quality to his speech.
- Alternately, the reason Gordon never speaks is because he's embarrassed about his speech impediment.
- Also, in Half-Life: Opposing Force, the G-Man tells Adrian Shepard that his ability to adapt and survive reminds the G-Man of himself. He does not tell this to Gordon Freeman, who has the same ability, because he doesn't need to. He is Gordon Freeman.
- Why does the G-Man have a widow's peak, then?
- Uh... A Wizard Did It?
- Implants. Gordon Freeman has androgenic alopecia.
- I'm no supporter of this theory, but I always thought if it's true, maybe Gordon has a widow's peak, but he really hates how he looks with one so he shaves it off. When he realizes he's the G-man he either just stops caring about it or starts to grow it out so he doesn't create a time paradox.
- This Troper does support the theory. If you look at the Half-Life 2 covers with Gordon and the G-man, G-man's widow's peak is in the same place as Gordon's hairline. Ergo: G-Man gets a haircut to make it look like he has a widows peak, to make him look even creepier than he is.
- Uh... A Wizard Did It?
- That explains why the G-Man rescued Alyx from the Black Mesa. He knew he'd need her help in the future. Or... past. Or... his past and Gordon's future. Or... ARGH!
- Gnote man. That is all.
- Building on this, wouldn't it make sense that the entire Combine Overworld wouldn't necessarily work together? G-Man is a powerful alien who decided (similar to Breen) to side with the winners.
- Not neccessary - he might be renegate - like organizing ressistance on planets etc. He might want part of empire just for himself or do it from moral reasons or for entertainment (cmb can afford to lost one planet once in a while to celebrate some events)...
- Further building, the G-Man is one of them taken to their fullest potential. While his brethren became reliant on their technology and slaves and removed their need for labour, the G-Man developed his abilities to the near-Reality Warper scale level of power he displays. Either bitter towards his brethren for squandering their gifts or simply ensuring no-one can ever equal or exceed his power, he begins to organise the destruction of the Combine.
- The "G-Man" we know could even be the mental projection of a VERY powerful Advisor—after all, we never see him actually interacting with matter, after all.
The G-Man and his employers have no interest in Barney Calhoun which is why (if memory serves me correctly, as it has been a few years since I played Blue Shift) there are almost no appearances of the G-Man in Blue Shift, or at least none of him observing Barney.
In Opposing Force, the G-Man preserves Adrian in a similar method due to having a similar adaptability as Freeman, but he had to CONVINCE his superiors to keep him, after all by the end of Opposing Force they already had Freeman so why would they need him? The G-Man however recognizes talent for he line of work he needs done and likes having back ups.
- Inversely he is a gangsta or, as the phrase "G" originated from The Nation Of Gods & Earths, an Asiatic Black Man.
- Where, curiously, in the Supreme Alphabet of The Nation of Gods and Earths, "G" stands for "God."
- Jossed in Episode 2, as a trigger word from the G-Man is used on Alyx, and Eli evidently talks about how he saw the G-Man back during Half-Life 1.
- Alyx Vance serves a number of roles. For one, she provided motivation in the early days of the Resistance, especially for Eli Vance. She herself is a badass, and if Gordon dies, the G-Man will promptly recruit Alyx as his primary weapon. Finally, you can bet that Gordon and Alyx's children figure into the destruction of the Combine.
- Which fits in nicely with the Portal WMG theory which states that the G-Man is their magical time travelling baby.
- Furthermore, Judith Mossman is also working for the G-Man. She kept Breen from crushing the Resistance, kept the Resistance from revolting prematurely, and even kept Alyx in the field so she could gain necessary combat skills. Her mission to the Borealis was under direct order from the G-Man.
- Also I reckon that, after Gordon's work for the Vorts in Ep 1 (against G-Man's wishes), the G-Man's superiors have improved their opinion of Gordon, and instructed the G-Man to see if Gordon would be interested in some kind of apprenticeship towards becoming a G-Man himself. This, I think, is the reason for G-Man's "heart-to-heart" with Gordon in Ep 2, and why he allows Gordon to see him implanting the memory into Alyx - essentially, he's giving him a bit of early work experience.
- Even Eli's death may be part of his plan - it will ensure the extinction of the Advisors at the hands of an enraged Gordon and Alyx.
- It's likely he or his superiors engineered the Combine invasion of multiple planets they believed could mount a resistance to weaken them.
- Explains why he was so reluctant to talk about a briefcase injury in Concerned, and why he's so hard to kill without insane amounts of explosives.
- To connect this with the "Gordon Freeman is the G-Man" theory, the G-Man/God became mortal for some inscrutable purpose which we mere mortals cannot hope to fathom (that is to say, for kicks), and while in this state is known as Gordon Freeman. Either He's spent a long time as Gordon Freeman (maybe He takes a brief vacation every few years) or He's rewritten everybody's memories to make them think He's been there for longer than He has. The G-Man/God is able to appear because He is omnipresent/beyond time. It's very likely that, in order to enjoy his vacation time, He's also rewritten HIS memories, so that He really thinks that He's Gordon Freeman. But He also watches over Himself from other points in time, and once His vacation is over, the G-Man/God restores him to his previous state. This is also why he's so hard to kill, and has a mastery of almost every single skill needed. He's GOD, after all. He just doesn't know it.
- To add to this, he actually rewrites the entire history and nature of the world before "descending," so that his vacation will be rather more interesting. Then, once he's done, he sets everything back to the way it was before.
- On a more sane role for Freeman under the theory, he is like Joshua, and God is helping him to defeat his enemies.
- So, Barney might wind up killing Azathoth? Awesome.
- Why is this the first time that anyone has connected Half Life with the Cthulhu Mythos?
- This troper would like to know too. Particularly since the first thing she thought upon encountering the G-Man was, "You're Nyarlathotep, aren't you? AREN'T YOU?!"
- This troper came to the same conclusion.
- Alternatively, his superiors were the Combine. The first game has him engineer the Resonance Cascade, providing the Combine with access to a new world, as well as removing a strong force that did and continued to resist their rule. Naturally, the Combine turn on the GMan the moment he has outlived his usefulness, and that makes him very angry (very angry indeed).
- The teleporting effects in game one is green lightning, just like the Homestuck First Guardians.
- G-man changes the scene several times he speaks to you (especially prevalent in the Half-Life 2 opening), just like Bec does in his strife with Jade.
- He isn't a blank white form because that suitcase. if it were destroyed the charade would be up.
- The Xen session (called Svort) never started because of the resonance cascade and is a doomed timeline that somehow stabilized into its own universe with the doomed timelines of other sessions, including the Earth session (Sburb) and the Combine session (Sbine). The Troll session (Sgrub) is probably there too.
- First Guardians aren't necessarily white and featureless, though; they're only depicted that way because they are guardians (as in, guardians of a specific child, most of the time; in the G-man's case, the child he was fated to guard was probably Alyx.) And it's really not that unreasonable to think that the Combine itself is the remains of some version of the Alternian empire, with Advisors being transtroll entities evolved beyond the hemospectrum (why they all have psychic power); perhaps they're even an entire race of upgraded defective ecto-clones of the souped-up psionic Empress, or they have some Glb'golyb mixed in for the deafening psionic scream that they do. Of course, this theory also implies that a. humanity will generate at least one more generation of children and b. will—even if it survives the Combine attack—be wiped out by meteor storms after the conclusion of the trilogy.
- Apparently he has expanded his powers beyond flying.
To continue, the G-Man sees Gordon as a man of similar interests as himself. He assumes that Gordon will be a mindless pawn, as they would share a common goal. His assumption was that he would destroy Black Mesa, just to save himself. But he didn't. He stayed behind to save his co-workers. This puzzled the G-Man, who did not see why Gordon did what he did. Deciding to do the work himself, the G-Man nukes Black Mesa, takes advantage of Gordon being in Xen, and has the Borderworld opened to the Combine. This would be contrary to his original plan, but as we see throughout the games, his loyalty changes hands, so this may have been the deciding factor in who he worked for.
Skipping forward twenty years, we see the G-Man, once again, believing that Gordon will work for his new employers. This time, he is correct. Gordon defeats the Combine's earthly leadership, the G-Man assumes Gordon will flee and save himself. Once again, he stays with Alyx. This time, however, Gordon had done his job, so rather than intervene, the G-Man simply let Gordon die, with his "friends", since the job was done.
The Vortigaunts intervened. The G-Man, as Gordon's equivalent, would be able to deal with them if he wanted to. But honestly, who likes to deal with them? Besides, other theories state that they have grown in power. So he just let them do whatever they had planned for Gordon. After all, improvising had worked for them both. In short, it worked, and Gordon escaped with Alyx. It was then that the G-Man realized that Alyx was more than just a weapon that he picked out for Gordon: she could be used to manipulate Gordon, even if he was out of his control.
As such, he summoned a Hunter upon Alyx, so that not only would Gordon have to follow his path to White Forest, but Alyx could be an exploitable force. To further this, he killed Eli and kept Barney and Izaak far away, so Gordon would only feel loyal to Alyx.
As for what he will do in Episode 3, he will use Alyx to force Gordon into doing something unspeakable. I don't know what it is, but many theories are abound, and my favorite is the Sadistic Choice, so we will go with that one for the time being. He will make Gordon choose: save the world or save Alyx. If he chooses Alyx, which the G-Man knows he will, this will put G-Man or his employers in a position of power over the Combine. Since Gordon is a One-Man Army, he will stop the G-Man and maybe save Alyx, but he will have broken Gordon, hoping that he will turn out just like himself. Will Gordon become the next G-Man, starting a vicious cycle, or will Gordon overcome the heartless mirror of himself? Again, only time will tell.
But there's more. He implants a message into Alyx in order to provoke a specific reaction from Eli. Thus, after his death, Alyx will be determined to carry out his last wish and destroy the Borealis. Except that there's going to be a snag - it will turn out that the Resistance really will need the tech onboard to defeat the Combine, meaning that Gordon will have to 'betray' her in order to save humanity. This move will end up isolating Gordon and forcing him to once again submit to the G-Man's control and it will be made very clear that Gordon will remain in his employ for the rest of his life.
- ...and strikes a bargain with the Shadow Proclamation, becoming their agent charged with maintaining galactic stability around Earth. He obtained the ability to turn any vehicle into a replacement for the TARDIS — hence his trip with Gordon in the trans-dimensional monorail car at the end of HL1, and with Shep in the Osprey at the end of OF — in exchange for his rebellious spirit and, for some reason, his Estuary English accent. His loyalty to his masters means that he's just as willing to work towards the benefit or the detriment of humanity depending on the current balance of power in the galaxy. What little he retains of his old personality drives him to select human "assistants" with whom he has some limited contact.
- If the Combine wanted Doctor Breen dead they'd just kill him. The scenario you suggest seems overly convoluted and counterintuitive. The Combine would have a lot to lose and very little to gain.
- Considering the only way Gordon could even hope to fight the GMan would be with help from the Vortigaunts, which would necessitate another Gordon/Vortigaunt team-up, then this must happen.
Bravo my friend. Points for effort. And thank you.-Evan
- That's why the Hunter killed neither of them. G-Man only sent it to injure Alyx so that he could check how far Gordon would be willing to go to save her. Everything Gordon did could have been done by the Vortigaunts with a little help from Greggs or Sheckley while Gordon delivered that vital data to Dr Magnusson, but he stayed to help Alyx to the end. Now the G-Man knows Gordon will risk the fate of Earth if it means he can protect Alyx.
- And maybe the Vortigaunts are Oompa Loompas.
Now I know what you're thinking, if the G-man's employers live in Xen, where were they? You did see them, you killed a few. The G-man and his employee's are the Xen crystals, at least, the physical parts of them are. The crystal the G-man "gave" to Black Mesa, that caused the Resonance Cascade, that was his phsyical self.
So here's how it works. G-Man is asked by his superiors to deliver the sample that causes the Resonance Cascade. The G-Man gets a better offer from the Combine to weaken both sides enough that an invasion would succeed, but his superiors won't let him directly interfere. To get around that, he carefully and quietly inserts Gordon, who is the perfect "right man in the wrong place". Gordon kicks lots of ass, but then various factors (mainly vortigaunts interfering and the G-Man underestimating his creation) let Gordon slip away. Gordon kills the Nihilanth, which severely weakens Xen, which lets the Combine invade but interfers with the G-Man's plans to screw over the Combine later. In the brief chaos following the Nihilanth's death, he manages to regain control of Gordon and lock him up fast. He waits until the resistance is at its strongest, then drops him right in the middle of it. This lets the rebellion do serious damage to the Combine. Then, right when he feels like enough damage has been done, he tries to pull Gordon out. The Vortigaunts are on to his tactics, though, and quickly contain him. He is forced to release Gordon, and the Vortigaunts take control of him. At some point around this time, he comes up with the plan of using the tech of the Borealis against the Combine. The Vortigaunts, thinking that he's trying to help the rebellion this time, get a little lax with containing him. Eli tries to stop him, so G-Man gets a couple of Advisers to slip in during the chaos, set up an ambush in the hangar, and kill him. The Vorts are probably already on his ass by the time Eli's body hits the floor. I predict that the Borealis will not only damage the Combine, but also endanger humanity as well, just as one last big fuck-you to the world on the G-Man's part.
tl;dr G-Man is a textbook Magnificent Bastard.
- Confirmed by Half-Life: Alyx.
- He didn't start including Alyx in his plans until Episode Two. Until then, she was cannon fodder. He's including her as something more than fodder because the Vortigaunts (the only beings capable of rejecting his plans) consider her important.
- He states during the extended auto-fellation scene carried out while the Vortigaunts are saving Alyx that he was the only one among his cohorts who saw the wisdom of saving her during the original Black Mesa incident, and boy-howdy, turns out he was the genius after all.
- But why? Without Vance, Gordon is the Resistance's only hope. The only plausible use for Shepherd is to provide back-up during the combat operations the Resistance will encounter. After all, the guy is a Marine.
- The G-Man isn't on the side of the Resistance. The Resistance's contract for Gordon ended with the destruction of the Citadel. Adrian would be used as the G-Man's Repo Man, not as Gordon's backup.
- This theory's been scrapped, it seems that the G-Man really didn't seem to mind not having control of Freeman during Episode One.
- Insert obligatory "That's what he wants you to think".
To help with the ever increasing workload, G-Man has been assigned with the task of harnessing the resource that is Gordon Freeman. The typical Hero With A Thousand Faces is a power that, until now, MH&L, Ltd had not yet been able to control, but G-Man offered a interesting solution to the usual refusal of voluntary services that most Heroic Mimes answer with. Mainly, this is done through liberal helpings of Mind Screw.
The events of Half-life are being manipulated by the G-Man in order to produce a One-Man Army that can adapt to situations in a heartbeat, be accustom to sudden upgrades in order to complete a suddenly difficult mission and generally be immune to the effects of being dumped randomly in hazardous situations and being left there until the right man in the wrong place can sort things out, defeat the bad guys and get the universe going in the direction that MH&L, Ltd feel is most appropriate for the universe.
Once Freeman is fully trained, there's already a universe selected that he needs to fix. And then G-Man has some other individuals scouted out for the next recruitments.
- During "A Red Letter Day" the GMan can be seen on one of the monitors while Barney is in the room. Still a good WMG, though.
- Makes sense if he had a high-profile perception field, such as, I don't know... his TIE??? That's why he's always adjusting it!
- Alternately, the G-man is actually Cave Johnson kept alive after his "death" through methods unknown.
- An interesting idea. Possibly Jossed in the Half-Life 2 episodes, where it becomes apparent that the Vortigaunts are liberating Freeman from the G-Man, but perhaps by that time the G-Man had been rebelling against his former employers and trying to play events out for his own purposes.
The series will end with G-Man taking Gordon to meet his employers, upon which the player will view a video recorded by the staff at Valve, thanking them for playing and doing some minor story exposition. The game will then close. When the player attempts to reopen them, the "New Game" button has been replaced with "New Game Plus", which features dialogue from Gordon.
- The consequences he was referring to were the consequences of Alyx and Gordon interfering at the Citadel to delay the reactor meltdown. Their run in with the Advisor there and later at the farm house is what resulted in Eli's unfortunate demise by brain probing. If they hadn't interfered then a person of potential significance equal to Eli wouldn't have made it out of City 17 which would have spared Eli.
G-Man's employers were so keen to control Xen because its property value had gone up. Only problem was the Nihilinth was the rightful owner of the property and refused to sell. So G-Man was given the task of finding a way to get rid of the Nihilinth so his company could take over. G-Man accomplished this task by setting up the resonance cascade which ultimately drove the aliens out of Xen and allowed Gordon Freeman to kill the Nihilinth. G-Man's employers then took possession of Xen with the intent of building overpriced condos that could then be sold for billions.
By Half-Life 2, Earth's property value has been significantly decreased by the Combine's exploitation of its resources. Worried about potential danger to their profits they give G-Man the task of trying to get rid of the Combine before Earth loses all potential value. G-Man once again accomplishes this by using Gordon Freeman to overthrow the Combine Forces.
The whole mess with Gordon Freeman is grabbing someone of potential use who would otherwise be dead to clean up points of uncertainty as well as preventing people from tampering with causality in a way that will prevent his own existence. Black Mesa, the seven hour war, the occupation, and the revolution all had to happen to ensure he is built or born at some point in the distant future by humanity. This also why the Vortigaunts interference annoys him because their activites create uncertainty which risks sending humans off on a trajectory that avoids him.
- Portal: A GLaDOS-themed cybernetic eye for the Engineer.
- Portal 2 A reskin of the Grenade Launcher called the Combustible Lemon Launcher.
- Half-Life 2: A (cosmetic only) HEV suit for all classes.
- Half-Life 2 Episode 1: A Combine Soldier helmet for the Pyro.
- Half-Life 2 Episode 2: A plushie antlion (it could be clinging to your back) for all classes.
- Another possibility: a Half-Life 2 SMG for sniper.
- Left 4 Dead 1 and 2: I'm not sure about this one as I haven't played either game. Suggestions?
- This troper has played the game. and My ideas are "Pillz" for the medic[Which would basically the medic's sandvich, although In left 4 dead, first aid kits are more effective.] and Some infected cosmetic item. though to be fair, There already is promotional items for both those games.
- I am READY for the Chell x Gordon vs Alyx x Gordon shipping wars! Of course, they won't happen until ep3 is out, which means my popcorn will go stale.
- I think if one of the two have to speak, it'd be Chell. She has a specific reason why she doesn't speak, and it's because she doesn't want to give the Aperture robots the satisfaction of her replying. Now that she's out of Aperture, she has no reason to continue not speaking.
- This is pretty much exactly my theory. But the Borealis drydock found inside Aperture, without the ship near it, probably doesn't have any teleportation qualities. Plus she's not at the drydock now anyway, having escaped. I always figured that if she ever ended up being teleported to the Borealis, the G-Man would have something to do with it. But if Gordon and company teleported into Aperture, there's the problem of "How do they get out, and then, how do they meet up with Chell, and how do they get back to Eastern Europe?" G-Man again? Then again, the Borealis could just be teleported outside of Aperture somewhere close to Chell's location.
- I could just picture the romantic dialogue between Gordon and Chell as their relationship develops:
—> Gordon: …Chell: … - Seeing as Portal 2 happens possibly, at minimum, around 100 years after HL2E2 if Chell's appears in HL3 then it means there is a possibility that Chell woke from stasis before Portal 2.
- Actually, it's uncertain exactly how much time has passed since Portal 1 and 2, but the minimum is believed to be 20 years, at least by some people.
- My guess is that Half Life 3 and portal 3 will be the same game (no clue what name it'd have), and it will follow the route of Dishonored 2. Namely, that there are two separate timelines and two sets of game mechanics, determined by which of the two protagonists you determine gets to live in a Sadistic Choice at the beginning. In other words, if you let Gordon die at the beginning you'll be playing Portal 3, but if you let Chell die at the beginning you'll be playing Half Life 3. One obvious issue with this will be the extremely humorous tone of the portal series contrasting with the extremely serious tone of the half life series, though this could potentially be reconciled in the form of a Cerebus Rollercoaster.
- Sorry man, but seeing as it has been confirmed that Portal 2 is taking place 200 years after the first game, any chance of our friend Chell screwing things up for the resistance are pretty null. Still, aperture science could probably still be involved in some fashion.
- Untrue. Now that Portal 2 is out, it is painfully obvious that no more than a few decades have passed.
- Wordof God says that Chell will eventually have a "fairly significant relationship" with some characters we already know, so this could be at least partly true.
- Untrue. Now that Portal 2 is out, it is painfully obvious that no more than a few decades have passed.
Let's go over the facts.
It's no secret that there's a growing relationship between Alyx and Gordon. Even Valve's own commentary suggests it, as well as commenting on how they have tried to create a bond between her and the player at every opportunity. And they've done a good job, as I'm sure everyone here can attest.
At the end of Episode 2, Eli warns Gordon of the dangers of using the Borealis, hinting that it has the potential to create another resonance cascade, thus dooming all of earth. His last words to Gordon are to "destroy that ship!"
A recent interview with Gabe Newall himself indicates they want to "broaden the series' emotional palette." When asked what will draw the best response, what players fear the most, he responded, "The death of their children. The fading of their own abilities."
With these facts in mind, the final climax practically writes itself. Gordon and Alyx fight their way through the bowels of the ship, planting explosives to destroy it. They separate or are separated somehow, either to draw away the Combine or because the Combine force them apart. In the end, Gordon escapes, but is confronted by none other than a Combine Advisor, as in this picture.◊ As the final boss, it puts up a hell of a fight, delaying the player for many action-packed minutes. But in the end, those few minutes wreck everything. Alyx is still trapped on the Borealis; the ship has been activated by the Combine, and they're preparing to open a portal which will allow their forces through in planet-consuming droves.
Now both Gordon and the player find themselves in a no-win situation. This is not a problem they can force their way through with a crowbar. Their combat abilities will do them no good here, and they must make a choice which will doom their children; either Gordon and Alyx's potential offspring, or all the children of the human race. So, what will it be? Fulfill Eli's last wish and destroy the Borealis, or save your companion/love interest? If Valve really wanted to screw with us, they could put a timer on the decision. One can only imagine...
- That. Is. AWESOME
- Indeed - plus, since Gordon's life was 'woven' with Alyx's during the vortigaunt ritual that saved her life, having to sacrifice her for any purpose might quickly turn into a self-sacrifice as well...
The Resistance storyline follows Gordon returning to City 17 with the Resistance to defeat the remnants of the Combine, only to discover they are leaving Europe and heading to the Arctic. Gordon follows them there, activating an ancient warp gate using salvaged fuel rods from the remains of the Chernobyl reactor, and rescues Dr. Kleiner and Mossman from the Resistance's base there. Gordon then infiltrates the Borealis, discovering an ancient power source hidden on it, which is taken by the Combine to an ancient underground temple. Gordon enters the temple and destroys the Consul, the supreme leader of the Combine, winning the war.
The Combine storyline begins with Gordon captured by the Combine in the Arctic, a prisoner of Dr. Breen, whose injured body has been merged with an advisor. Gordon escapes, but is targeted by his fellow Resistance members for capture, due to rumors of him being mind-controlled. Gordon is eventually forced to do the Combine's bidding by fighting the Resistance and retrieving the power source from the Borealis. Eventually, he journeys back to City 17 and fights the ancient dark being hidden in the power source, allowing the Combine to take over.
The Benefactors storyline begins in Chernobyl, with Gordon a prisoner of the G-Man and his mind-controlled superhuman slave, Adrian Shephard. As Gordon is forced to fight against the Resistance and Combine in City 17 and the Arctic, he learns that G-Man is the ambassador for an interdimensional species whom plan to use the power source hidden on the Borealis to heal their shattered world. Eventually, G-Man betrays Gordon by leaving him to die, forcing Gordon to pursue and defeat him. Gordon kills the G-Man, but the power source is activated, effectively destroying all human life on Earth and rendering Gordon the sole survivor of his species.
- Couldn't they just only have portal surfaces where they were necessary?
- …facial animations? What?
- I think he's talking about Wheatley and the rest of the personality cores showing a lot of facial expressions despite technically not having faces at all.
- Now that there's Source 2...
- It is debatable whether of not he is already dead. He may have died in the teleporter when it exploded, he may have become an Advisor, or he may be somewhere else.
- Jossed as always.
So why is Valve giving the Unperson treatment to what got them into the game industry? Simple: They've spent the last 9 years banging their collective heads into a brick wall over its continuation, and they're sick of it.
As this page attests to, Valve originally started out speaking openly about the game, mentioning that the game would be doing something more ambitious than before, not wanting to show anything in order to give themselves creative freedom and not promise anything that won't actually be delivered. And as the years go on, they grow increasingly snippy about the game, rarely talking about it beyond a snarky remark, before cutting off any communication completely. Why don't they show anything? Because they don't have anything to show. Episode 3/Half-Life 3 is nothing and has been nothing but piles upon piles of prototypes tossed out for various reasons. No voice acting has been done or story outline written, as the game hasn't even passed the point of 'Does this gameplay idea work for Half-Life?'.
Development has gone so wrong that that the entire company is soured on single-player game development and has re-positioned itself toward hardware, VR, and Steam. Valve knows that its long crossed the point where the fans have gone from anxious to frustrated to apathetic, and by now Valve has no love for Half-Life and would like nothing more than to walk away from it entirely, but what could they say now that won't just make things even worse? They admit that the game is dead in the water and in doing so admit they've wasted 9 years of the fans and their own time for nothing. They quietly cancel the game, wash their hands of it, and betray the fans and Episode 2's massive cliffhanger...or continue to stay the course and say nothing, keeping a small team on the game in the hopes of a breakthrough they can commit to.
But by that point, will anyone even care? Its been nine years already. If this game is somehow still being actively developed, then is trapped in the deepest, darkest pit of Development Hell and only a miracle will get it out.
Half-Life 4 confirmed!
The story's end is a rather curious one, however. The ending first appears to be on an ambiguous note in line with the rest of the series thus far:
- "Just then, as you have surely already foreseen, the Vortigaunts parted their own checkered curtains of reality, reached in as they have on prior occasions, plucked me out, and set me aside. I barely got to see the fireworks begin."
Given Laidlaw stated that he wanted to end Episode 3 in a way that left the series open for a new direction and leave Gordon "on hold", it seems this ending would have been more than appropriate with that in mind. But instead the story continues:
- "And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish. At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists. I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final episode."
This doesn't make sense as the ending of Episode 3 and is not consistent with Laidlaw's stated goal of giving new writers a blank state. Why would there be new members of the research team if the resistance already won or lost? How would Gordon know old friends are dead? It is very likely this final paragraph is not part of the intended ending of Episode 3, but is Laidlaw reflecting upon the state of Valve and Half-Life at the time that he wrote this. In the first paragraph:
- "This was the case until eighteen months ago, when I experienced a critical change in my circumstances, and was redeposited on these shores."
Laidlaw had retired from Valve eighteen months prior to this blog post. When the writer of "Epistle 3" states "I spoke of my return to this shore.", Laidlaw is referring to us directly, and not from the reality of the series. Allow me to break this down, and offer what I believe Laidlaw is saying here.
- "And here we are. I spoke of my return to this shore. It has been a circuitous path to lands I once knew, and surprising to see how much the terrain has changed. Enough time has passed that few remember me, or what I was saying when last I spoke, or what precisely we hoped to accomplish."
The gaming landscape has changed drastically over the years. Half-Life has been largely forgotten about by the mainstream gaming community. The groundbreaking achievements the series was known for have become commonplace. The goals of the episodes and what Valve and Laidlaw aimed to accomplish have decayed and become irrelevant.
- "At this point, the resistance will have failed or succeeded, no thanks to me. Old friends have been silenced, or fallen by the wayside. I no longer know or recognize most members of the research team, though I believe the spirit of rebellion still persists."
While some at the company pushed for a new Half-Life game over the years, Valve no longer cares about concluding the series. Many of the people who worked on Half-Life have since left the company either by choice or by force. Some of the newer employees at Valve may still wish to work on Half-Life, but likely do not have the pull or resources to convince the rest of the company as the series does not fit into Valve's current business or gaming model.
- "I expect you know better than I the appropriate course of action, and I leave you to it. Expect no further correspondence from me regarding these matters; this is my final episode."
Whatever happens with Half-Life will be in the hands of its fans now, and it will be through them that the series lives on. Laidlaw does not intend to speak about the series beyond this point, and this should be considered his final word regarding his involvement on Episode 3 and Half-Life.
From a logical perspective it would also make a large amount of sense to hire someone whose own body is failing or significantly weaker then average if you want to make proper use and test of a special suit which enhances strength and agility. Who else would be able to measure full capabilities better than someone who would be near-totally reliant on it? While an average person might be able to describe its improvement of there lives someone whos mobility would be seriously limited without it makes for a much better testimonial. Black Mesa also goes out of their way to state they are an equal opportunity hirer and that disabled people should be evacuated first.
People immediately following the Black Mesa incident were also either surprised or downright shocked by his survival even when they were barely outside the ground zero of the incident themselves. While it might be normal after the angry men with guns show up happening immediately afterward suggests he was otherwise much less likely to survive even compared to his coworkers in the unshielded rooms right outside ground zero. Even if it was exposure to radiation that concerned them a simple pain of glass or steel doors would have done nothing to protect everyone else in the immediate area.
Finally, with the suit, Freeman can only sprint a certain amount of distance tied to the suits auxiliary power suggesting that the suit is controlling this not his own muscles. Again for clarity his strength is also noticeably increased with the suite capable of wielding weapons without much recoil, smashing boxes to dust, and throwing around various objects when without the suit he's limited to small objects if anything at all.
- Silent unbreakable warrior of peaceful origins
- Accidentally opens a portal for the bad guys
- Hyper-space storage for weapons
- Wields a deadly length of cold steel
- Enjoys tossing bombs into the face of enemies.
- Useful but annoying female voice constantly piping up
- Alternates between solving puzzles and brutally murdering things
- Like the undead
- Time-skip to a crapsack world where one attempts to depose a power-hungry ruler who controls inhuman forces from his untouchable citadel
- Meets an ageless sage who vaguely describes what just happened
- Father-figure murdered, despite one's total success at given task
- Though his offspring survives
To be seen:
- Fights with his opposite (Dark Link/Shepard)
- Last boss takes the form of the real power behind the throne after his defeat (Ganon/Combine Advisor)
- Travels back in time to set things right
- Grappling hook
- Worry not. I just spruced it up.
- Seems reasonable, given that he spends a lot more time handing out whoop ass, instead of using that MIT Doctorate. Hell, he may even be a plant by the government, and not a scientist at all!
- Although it paints him as more of a badass when you think that he's so hellbent on surviving that he picks up a gun with absolutely no training and just mows down anything that gets in his way.
- At the least he was in ROTC.
- He must do it with robot hands coming from the HEV then, cause he never seems to let go of his gun/crowbar.
- He signs in the same way he can use two-handed weapons on a ladder, obviously. (Or, if we want to be serious, Gameplay and Story Segregation.)
- Alternatively, there is an LED screen on the front of the suit which displays what he is thinking at the time. The suit is telepathic.
- The tipoff for this is during the intro of Half-Life - the announcer voice says, "Black Mesa is an equal opportunity employer."
- Jossed by the game itself. Listen closely when you pick up ammo or a medkit. The HEV's suit is distinctly female, the other voice is distinctly male.
- That doesn’t necessarily follow - he may be capable of vocalising without actually being able to speak. All we ever hear are grunts of pain and the like.
- Jossed by the game itself. Listen closely when you pick up ammo or a medkit. The HEV's suit is distinctly female, the other voice is distinctly male.
- Now with fan comic!
- He became a good guy by slaughtering everything in his path. There's no reason he would have any changes to his ethics.
- So basically, "You're not smart. You're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a full-time employee!"
- Gordon was in a bad economy. Having a PhD without any experience Gordon was (un)lucky his old professor (Kleiner) got him the Black Mesa janitor job.
- A Ph.D. in theoretical physics is required for janitors at Black Mesa.
- The mop is an application of the theoretical Kerr Metric magnetically coupled to a tungsten pole. The Hazard suit is neccesary to survive the radiation. The theoretical physicists insist that cleaning up messes in the rec room by removing the offending matter from reality may result in unforeseen consequences...
- Well - it can be true. I heard about problems with servers which occured... after janitor was sarcastically told to power vacuum cleaner from UPS - which she did. Probably they want to avoid such problems and the payment rate adjusted with security clearance is similar.
- A Ph.D. in theoretical physics is required for janitors at Black Mesa.
- This troper thinks Gordon Freeman, despite what Dr. Breen thinks, is a well-trained special military operative, perhaps placed within Black Mesa to watch over things.
- Seeing as how Gordon's physics degree plays no part in any of the games as opposed to his skill in fieldcraft and asskickery, this seems entirely plausible. It's also possible Gordon is "a man of few words" because he doesn't want to blow his cover by saying something that would reveal his lack of scientific knowledge.
- If he was placed in Black Mesa to watch the things, it would probably be required for him to have knowledge about PhD 1) to not destroy cover 2) to know what is worth watching.
- I have this theory that Gordon is actually a Black Ops trooper from Half Life who has amnesia and was reprogrammed by the G-Man to be a scientist to infiltrate Black Mesa. G-Man also gave him his PhD. Maybe this is why Gordon is so adept to firearms. Or he could have just spent alot of time in the hazard course.
- It is still possible that he "barely" got the degree because of the propaganda war machine taking advantage of the fact that either due to illness or birth defect, he was mute. The reason why we never see him "talk" is because a) he can at least mouth the words, and the people that know him understand and b) his hands are always full and he cannot use sign language.
- Well hey, maybe he got his degree AND combat training. Maybe in the near future, MIT has an ROTC program Gordon was in. His personnel file doesn't list his combat credentials because he wouldn't need those in a science lab. This is also why he does so much grunt work: The scientists see him as a Boisterous Bruiser because of his military background, and they don't want a knuckle dragger working on the important stuff. ...Um, hey, that's how ROTC works, right?
- Hmm. Isn't American army financing the veterans (I'm not from USA so I only heard about this program)? In such case he might go to army only to have fundings of his PhD program.
- Mostly Jossed. Considering that his thesis was called "Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array", I think it's safe to say that he knows what he's doing.
- Seeing as how Gordon's physics degree plays no part in any of the games as opposed to his skill in fieldcraft and asskickery, this seems entirely plausible. It's also possible Gordon is "a man of few words" because he doesn't want to blow his cover by saying something that would reveal his lack of scientific knowledge.
- Alternatively, Gordon Freeman is actually dying of some strange disease which does not allow him to speak. And his life-long dream was to become a famous theoretical physicist and save the world from an alien invasion, which is being granted by the Make-A-Wish foundation. It would certainly explain why everyone treats him like he's a genius for doing the simplest things.
- More likely, that was some dying kid's wish and it is being granted to Gordon by Aperture Science's Take-A-Wish Foundation (Really, the TAW Foundation is canon and that is what it does). Destroying BM was just a side benefit.
- Except the Take-A-Wish foundation was replaced by the Aperture Science Self-Esteem Fund for Girls, presumably because of the former's complete lack of good publicity. (According to Aperture Science.com's timeline, the US government made use of the Heimlich Counter-Maneuver to assassinate terrorists and the Portal program is obviously doing well. By process of elimination, the tier which was to be replaced is the TAW foundation. Heck, I think that Word of God even confirms this somewhere...)
- More likely, that was some dying kid's wish and it is being granted to Gordon by Aperture Science's Take-A-Wish Foundation (Really, the TAW Foundation is canon and that is what it does). Destroying BM was just a side benefit.
- The idea of it being a joke is evident with the G-Man. Whenever he addresses Freeman, it's either "Mister Freeman", or "Doctor Freeman" with a slight air of sarcasm on "doctor".
- Not only that, in the first game everyone adresses him as Mr. Freeman, not Dr. Freeman. It's kind of condescending to do that to someone who's supposed to have earned a PhD.
- Actually, I heard them say Doctor.
- Not only that, in the first game everyone adresses him as Mr. Freeman, not Dr. Freeman. It's kind of condescending to do that to someone who's supposed to have earned a PhD.
- Gordon does have those credentials... but so does everbody else. He's the new guy who does all the boring, dangerous stuff.
- Also, the experiment had only just started. The work done by the other scientists consisted of checking that the sample was ready, giving Gordon instructions, and taking a few readings just before the resonance cascade. If there hadn't been a resonance cascade, they would have taken more readings, and subsequently analyzed them. This last part is where Gordon would have used his degree.
- 27 is about right for a physicist who had just completed his education.
- Perhaps he lost a bet and the beer store was closed.
- Or it could be a dig at how the most challenging thing gamers do in games is... flip switches and plug in plugs.
- While playing the games again, this troper couldn't help but notice that whenever someone addresses Gordon, they tend to talk a bit louder and slower, almost as if they're talking to a mentally retarded person. This is especially so when they are describing some task that needs to be done. Gordon's "PhD" may just be some fake certificate the Black Mesa scientists made to make him feel better.
- There are many hints that Doctor Freeman is a really good scientist on par with Eli Vance and Judith Mossman. The proof of this is that one of the first things we find out about Freeman upon his arival to Eli's hidout is that he got his place in Black Masa over Judith, who is shown to be a rather good scientist and a specialist in her field. Next, Eli Vance immediatelly states that he can't wait to get Gordon out of the HEV suit and into the labcoat, where he BELONGS. It is clear that Eli primarily saw Gordon as a scientist and a great aid in teleportation research.
- Gordon Freeman is a postdoc. He's got the credentials, but he still needs refining under the tutelage of another scientist before he's really got his chops. Postdocs work long hours and do a lot of gruntwork in exchange for guided research and the chance to publish alongside a noted scientist (having a significant body of published work is the hallmark of a capable scientist at his prime. Publish or perish, as they say.) Gordon's thesis is directly related to teleportation; he likely applied for a postdoc position at both Aperture Science and Black Mesa. Black Mesa was the more prominent position (work for those crackpots at Aperture? Be a member of the laughingstock of the scientific community? Are you kidding?) plus the above-mentioned idea that Vance or Steiner was a former teacher/mentor and could help influence Black Mesa to hire him secured Gordon's choice to work for a quasi-governmental black operation.
- Eh, it can be explained a lot more simply than that. Imagine you're one of the country's leading scientists, working on a top-secret project for the highest echelons of government. You've earned the contract by beating your rivals, another leading company working in the exact same field, on the exact same project. You're breaking new ground, redefining physics as we know them. And then some brat that's not even out of university yet publishes a doctoral thesis. And not just any thesis, either. Best-case scenario, this one man has independently come up with the exact same theory, with no outside aid whatsoever, that it took you an entire team of scientists to create (and that was so complex that your rivals couldn't even copy it). Worst-case scenario? His theory was better than yours, and the only reason you won the contract instead of your rivals is because you cribbed the upstart whelp's notes. He's not even 30, he's only barely graduated, and yet he's proved himself to be at least your entire facility's intellectual equal. Gordon is a scientist, all right: It's just that Black Mesa is jealous of him, and they're assigning him menial grunt work out of spite.
- What's more, it's common knowledge among the resistance, as evidenced by lines like, "Don't worry, he's done this before." when Freeman "dies."
- What if Gordon is actually the Prince of Persia?
- In Portal, one of GLaDOS's taunts is "You wonder what happens after you die? I know." Possibly the afterlife in the Half Life universe involves other dimensions. When Gordon Freeman "dies", his "soul" is kept from leaving this dimension by the G-Man (or the Vortigaunts, when the time comes around), a new body is fabricated, they dig up a fresh HEV suit somewhere, and * pop* !
- The ability to groundhog your way to inevitable success would be the most awesomest superpower, if it didn't come at a terrible cost. You see, because Gordon is an instrument of Fate, he can only ever do what Fate requires him to do. Any attempt to escape the road set ahead him and live happily ever after in some distant place not full of Combine, full of zombies, on fire, or full of Combine zombies on fire is brutally stymied by the dreaded Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence, Bottomless Pits, Deadly Water ( or fauna), or a cold, black screen informing Gordon that he has failed.
- In fact, Gordon seems to be the sorting operator of a Many Worlds Stupid Sort Algorithm working on the premise "if (Gordon succeeds) continue(); else destroyUniverse();", thus leaving only the universes where "the Freeman excels at all tasks" intact. Appearently, the Vortigaunts are aware of this, and calling Gordon "the one free man" is in fact a display of scathing irony on their part.
- Or, due to his many universe nature, he is free, free to doom as many universes as he wants, kill resistence members with impunity, and choose about the gnome.
- In fact, Gordon seems to be the sorting operator of a Many Worlds Stupid Sort Algorithm working on the premise "if (Gordon succeeds) continue(); else destroyUniverse();", thus leaving only the universes where "the Freeman excels at all tasks" intact. Appearently, the Vortigaunts are aware of this, and calling Gordon "the one free man" is in fact a display of scathing irony on their part.
- This Troper have always taken the gameworld in a very literal sense: Gordon's "powers" and his lack of freewill is simply due the fact he is controlled by a supravesal entity(a player, yes us) something that the G-man an the Vortigaunts is aware of. This is Lampshaded multiple time throughout the game.vortigaunt: "Your bright face obscures your darker mask. [...] Far distant eyes look out through yours.[...] Could you but see the eyes inside your own, the minds in your mind."
- Something I stumbled upon on DeviantArt:Freeman is in motion, fighting off a dozen Combine Elite with nothing but his crowbar. His speed is unimaginable—he seems able to predict his enemies' movements, even dodge bullets. The observer can't tell, but this battle is already over—Freeman has fought it over and over in infinite parallel existences, and he knows every possible outcome, as well as how to choose one that ends well for him. In countless other timelines, he's dead already—but he has a card up his sleeve that trumps all others: the F6 key.
- Possibly, the other dead researchers had helmets for protection, not because of low pressure or an airless environment. This might appear impossible, but Xen's anomalous gravity is at least as impossible as its apparently breathable atmosphere. The presence of Gordon's HEV suit HUD also seems to imply that he does have a helmet. He is seen without one several times in Opposing Force and Blue Shift, but these are non-canon.
- This Troper conjectures that the HUD is projected onto his glasses by the HEV suit, Adrian's PCV is linked to his Gas Mask, and Barney's helmet has an eyepiece on it a la Halo Marines.
- Adrian Shepherd managed to survive Xen's atmosphere just fine while wearing only a gas mask. Barney Calhoun did so wearing nothing but a security guard outfit. Incidentally, both games are canon, with Blue-Shift technically being more canon than Opposing Force.
- Adrian Shepherd and Barney Calhoun can, obviously, both also breathe in space.
- Word of God also states that Xen has an atmosphere and the previous visitors were just wearing helmets to avoid taking risks.
- Not to mention that if Xen's atmosphere was dramatically different than Earth's, the aliens who lived there most likely wouldn't be able to survive very long here.
- Alternatively, Gordon Freeman is Bruce Wayne, possibly during one of his times leaving Gotham City (which have occured a few times during DC's plot). This explains how he's so handy with guns - Batman has been shown using them, both in his oldest eras and for ballistics study.
- Sadly, there is a flaw with this theory. Gordon Freeman is quick to respond to enemy hostiles with lethal force. Batman has made an oath not to kill, so the two must be different people. While there is quite possibly a strong connection to the two, it is uncertain what that connection is.
- Batman won't kill HUMANS (and even humans were fair game in early comics). He doesn't give a fuck about aliens and monsters.
- Wait a minute, how's this for a connection: Gordon Freeman is partially Batman. The teleportation experiments, which have been shown to be able to (at least when breaking down) spontaneously retrieve things from alternate dimensions, once interrupted a battle between Batman and Mr. Freeze, in which Batman was being backed up by Commissioner Gordon, and what arrived in Black Mesa was an amalgam of Gordon, Freeze and Batman called Gordon...Free...man. He had Batman's combat and science skills, Gordon's appearance and Freeze's fancy HEV suit (and willingness to kill). Couldn't speak, though. They kept him around to monitor him, but he was so useful they made him up a fake identity and put him to work...okay, maybe this is getting out of hand.
- Don't be silly, Gordon Freeman wears glasses! If he were Batman, how could he see?
- The glasses are optical flats. They don't actually affect his vision. They're just the disguise.
- Or, to make the disguise even better (Batman doesn't wear a bad disguise) the glasses are real, and he has to wear contact lenses underneath them. The contacts and glasses cancel each other out.
- Of course, the price of doing that would be that his peripheral vision would suck, because he has distorted vision from the contacts that isn't being canceled by the glasses. Which, come to think of it, is true in the games. It's a First-Person Shooter, so you can only see the area directly in front of you, and not areas to the left and right that would ''normally' be visible. So now we have proof!
- Actually, one of the kids mentioned that they only had so long before they used up all their oxygen, implying the air was in space with them.
- Come to think of it, didn't Jimmy Neutron have a dog of sorts?
- Being a former Robin, he would have all of Batman's skills; he also has no problem with killing (unlike Bruce Wayne).
- Also due to being Robin, he could have had the same treatment to breathe in space.
- Jason Todd's already come back from the dead once, so Freeman's ability to repeatedly resurrect himself may be an extension of this same ability.
- Additionally, his death was caused by being beaten with a crowbar by the Joker, so this would explain Freeman's affinity for crowbars.
- Or, perhaps all of the Half-Life series is a Dying Dream being had by Jason Todd. Until he got better...
- This troper notes that the thesis title is physics Jargon for "Shooting crystals with lasers to cause teleportation".
- If not his entire body, at least his balls.
- The Black Sabbath reference made me laugh, as did the completely random reference to Gordon's bollocks. Thank you, TV Tropes.
Gordon kills people with weapons.
"Rides the metal monsterBreathing smoke and fireClosing in with vengeance soaring high"
The "metal monster" is the dune buggy from Half-Life 2. It "breathes smoke and fire" with the gauss gun.
"He is the painkillerThis is the painkiller"
Meaningless chorus
"Planets devastatedMankinds on its kneesA saviour comes from out the skiesIn answer to their pleas
Through boiling clouds of thunderBlasting bolts of steelEvils going under deadly wheels"
After the 7-Hour War (devastates planets: check. mankind's on its knees: check.) Gordon comes out of stasis.
"He is the painkillerThis is the painkiller"
Meaningless chorus
"Faster than a lazer bulletLouder than an atom bombChromium plated boiling metalBrighter than a thousand suns"
Gordon's able to overcome any threat, and typically borders on Refuge in Audacity with his entries.
"Flying high on raptureStronger free and braveNevermore encapturedTheyve been brought back from the grave"
Gordon eventually saves the human race from the Combine.
"With mankind ressurrectedForever to surviveReturns from armageddon to the skies"
After the Half-Life series ends, Gordon goes back into stasis (or returns to the skies).
"He is the painkillerThis is the painkillerWings of steel painkillerDeadly wheels painkiller"
While he's in stasis after defeating the Combine, Gordon is idolized by the newly-saved human race as a saint, with wings of steel.
Gordon, while happy to have a job at an institution as large as Black Mesa, is still slightly pissed off at Breen and Dr. Magnusson for treating him like a stupid handicapped idiot, which explains the microwave casserole incident. Barney, however, got along fine with Gordon and the two of them were good friends and spent a lot of time together in airducts. Alyx's "man of few words" comment was because she didn't know he was mute, or alternatively just a joke at his expense.
- Maybe we're just watching the recording of how he saved the universe and he went through and edited out all of his own dialogue.
- It could also be because his HEV suit has some sort of active camouflage. Were there any reflective surfaces in the areas he walked in without the suit?
- Gordon doesn't cast shadows, either. In fact, you never see your own character's shadow (or reflections) in a Source game (but you can see other peoples'). Thus, it gets a little weird if you extend this logic: All the terrorists and counter-terrorists from Counter-Strike are vampires!
- This certainly explains why he wanted a job in the underground complex of Black Mesa, far from that pesky sun. Also, it's fun to imagine that maybe he was on fire for the whole rooftop chase in Half-Life 2, like a vampire in Buffyverse who's too plot-important to die from the sun.
- That's why he never talks! To hide his fangs!
- He will then use this isotop to defeat the enemies.
- It sort of got disintegrated that one time.
- It got better.
- Barney was inside the Citadel at the time in Civil Protection disguise and managed to get it once it teleported into the confiscation room. Then, after the train crash, it flew through a tunnel, around the corner, then into some gears.
- Except that, when he gives you the crowbar in Episode One, Barney specifically says that he has a limited supply of crowbars "so try not to lose this one, okay?"
- Polycount aside, the HL1 crowbar seems have a different shape than the Half-Life 2 one, if the HUD graphics are anything to go by.
- While I seriously doubt this will actually happen, it would be the most awesome ending imaginable for the series. True Art Is Angsty!
- Alternately, he's still got that headcrab up there, and everyone's just politely ignoring it as they would a pimple or a bit of spinach caught in his teeth.
- Also, "prepare for unforseen consequences" is his way of saying Screw Destiny.
- Perhaps this lifeform also removed his ability to speak?
- Console mode is an extension of this: Gordon's nascent telekinetic abilities allow him to erect an impervious personal shield (God Mode); increase the power of his superior kinetic weapons (weapon damage increase); allow for staggering feats of jumping, nay even flying, and passing through walls (gravity, no clip) and at the highest levels achieving complete mastery of the time-space continuum, making things appear from thin air and teleporting himself anywhere (give "item", make "enemy", map warp). Basically, Gordon uses his powers and knowledge of physics to their logical deadly end. The G-Man recognizes Gordon's potential towards the end of Half-Life, so he reacts him for the inevitable war with the Combine, but there may be a secret Kryptonite to Gordon's abilities: they are only activate for limited periods of time and are more than likely limited in ultimate quantity (much like Spawn's energy powers).
- No way the Emperor would be led around by the nose, even by Tzeentch. But Gordon could be a Primarch, or even the Emperor's earliest experiments to make superhuman soldiers.
- This sounds pretty epic.
- One problem; Valve tried that with Chell in Portal 2, but they didn't go through with it because, in their words, it sucked.
- They also tossed out replacing the Portal gun with a gun that fires the paints. That alone makes me distrust their judgement.
- Alternatively, he doesn't speak it, but the game makes the view bob left and right to make a no.
- Nope, he'll just say "Nah" and shoot the G-man with a pistol.
- Soooo... Gordon's gonna be naked?
- No. Chell's jumpsuit stays put when she walks through an ASMEG, and it's probably safe to say that Gordon's wearing something similar under the HEV suit. He might have commando training, but I doubt he goes commando — especially what with all the pinchy bits that powered armor might have on the inside. His teeth are fair game, though.
There, helmet/no helmet flame war solved.
- This actually explains a lot of things, like why there are no separate helmets available in any of the suit storage areas, and why none of the suit-wearing corpses have the helmet knocked off of them (being attached to the suit). Also, the reason Gordon doesn't activate the helmet in Freeman's Mind is because he never read the manual.
- And it's not like he ever has enough time to say anything before the next alien crashes through a door or wall collapses near him. The guy's a serious Weirdness Magnet.
- Alternately: Gordon talks, but for whatever reason, you're not allowed to hear what he says. (Possibly tying into the "Gordon is G-Man" theory, if you heard his voice, it'd be a dead giveaway.) Characters do react at times as if he's said something.
- This seems plausible, especially regarding Opposing Force's Adrian Shephard.
- Alternately: Gordon talks, but for whatever reason, you're not allowed to hear what he says. (Possibly tying into the "Gordon is G-Man" theory, if you heard his voice, it'd be a dead giveaway.) Characters do react at times as if he's said something.
He refused to believe that Android Hell was a real place and escaped from the Aperture Science lab. His hatred of Aperture Science caused him to join Black Mesa, knowing nothing except that they were "rivals" and he became fiercely loyal to them. He later fights the Combine out of this loyalty, which he now displays toward Black Mesa's ex-scientists. They do not know he's an android because his appearance was altered like Andrew's in Bicentennial Man.
- This needs to be true, if only because it's too good an opportunity to miss for a character that never speaks to know several languages.
- Either that, or he just wears them to look smart.
- They are also able to detect and visualize lasers, that's why you can see the lasers from trip-mines, turrets and sniper scopes.
- Because this guy jumps around so much it's really a wonder that he hasn't lost his glasses yet.
- He died when he was performing the simple experiment, and the rest of the series is his fever dream while the medical team at Black Mesa try to revive him.
One of the new sound files, when reversed, sounds like "Gordon, you're next". This could be GLaDOS, who wants revenge on Gordon for some transgression against her in the past; maybe he was even a contributor to her insanity. This goes into Portal being an Evil Plan by GLaDOS to escape into the "real world" and hunt down Gordon. Of course, she'll be very happy when she finds out he is en-route to an Aperture Facility where Gordon is at her mercy… Until Alyx, The Combine, newly-freed Chell and Gordon's own unexpected competence combine to throw a colossal Spanner in the Works of course. The G-Man probably set this all up to sabotage the Combine's plans for Borealis.
- PTVD isn't a real disorder. It was made up for a Halo novel.
- Gordon Freeman isn't a real person. He was made up for the Half-Life video game.
- Fair point. WMG contains countless crossovers, after all.
- PTVD sounds a heck of a lot like selective mutism, so this could be a thing without the crossover
- Snake Eyes had part of his face shown in the original comics, avoiding more recent reveals of his face in animated series reboots. He's blonde, Freeman has brown hair. Probably not the same person, but, hey, Snake Eyes is a ninja, so who knows.
- And if he did talk, everything he'd say would be rude due to the fact that his life has been so hard since the Black Mesa incident; An accident happens at Black Mesa, and of course he's the one who has to save everyone from aliens, soldiers, and alien soldiers, then go to another dimension and kill telekinetic aliens, a giant headcrab, an alien God, then next thing he knows, 20 years have passed, and he's on a train in a city where he's thought of as the messiah... which of course means he has to fight everyone's battles again. And it doesn't help that people go out of there way to be jerks, such as Barney giving him a crowbar, that crane operator who dropped the car he was in and expected him to solve it, and Dr Magnusson. Not to mention no matter how many times he shoots people in the head, they just won't die!
He does still have a conscience, sort of, which is why he sees his co-workers as aliens or headcrab zombies (thus making it "okay" to shoot them), but it's not until the SWAT team attempt a rescue (botched, obviously) that he starts seeing human enemies.
Thus G-Man is just the FBI agent who is trying to negotiate the release of the hostages who are alive, Alyx someone he's had a crush on forever but didn't have the guts to talk to (and probably didn't even know he existed until he took her hostage—her behavior is trying to stay alive while this psychopath goes around blowing shit up and killing people), etc, etc, etc.
- One problem: Breen was the Administrator of Black Mesa, and somehow negotiated the end of the Seven Hour War and got to take over the world in the wake of it. It's quite likely Breen planned the disaster, portal storms and Combine invasion to take over the world. So, if anyone would be aware of Gordon being a threat, it would be Dr. Breen, who, as established, rules the world. Notice that he sees you once and immediately calls the Combine advisors.
- When G-Man tried to take Gordan back and put him in status, he won't because Gordan will be "chained" to Alyx. Alyx, who never made a deal with the G-man, can't be taken by him, and so Gordan can't either.
- When G-Man takes Gordan, he'll end up dragging Alyx with him.
- Or, most likely, he'll take Gordan away, Alyx will start to weaken and die, so the Vort's and Barney will get in contact with G-Man, and offer Alyx's services (who'll be in a coma by that point) to him in return for her contract stating she has to go everywhere with Gordan.
- Or maybe because he can read Freeman's Mind, and doesn't wish to inflict that horror on the rest of the universe.
- This would be interesting if it weren't completely ridiculous. Eli and Alyx have no reason to lie to Gordon (and it isn't as if he'll tell anyone), nor are they that good actors. The GMan doesn't negotiate, he tells other people what to do. It's redundant for anyone to hire Gordon as the GMan does that himself. And why would Alyx trade Barney's life when she barely knows him?
- This idea still works if Eli's own life was the payment for Gordon's services, or if there was some other payment that we are as yet unaware of. Eli certainly knows of the G-Man's existence, and when Gordon first arrives in City 17, Barney and Dr. Kleiner don't seem like they're surprised that he's there in the first place, just that he showed up without any warning (Dr. Kleiner even says "I expected more warning", implying that he knew Gordon was coming, but he didn't know when.) In Episode 1, Alyx remarks on how Eli was "so sure [she] wouldn't find [Gordon]" still at the base of the Citadel. Perhaps the contract was merely for the destruction of the Citadel, and Eli figured that the G-Man would be taking Gordon back to wherever after that. However, the Vortigaunts, having gained a new admiration for Gordon upon seeing him in action during the uprising, decided to intervene and remove him from the G-Man's control so that he could continue to boost the morale of the Resistance.
- This is canon. At the very most, Eli may have suspected the G-Man spirited Gordon off somewhere, but we don't know how much Eli knows about the G-Man beyond "he exists and is somehow involved in things." To borrow the way the timeline guide puts it: no one talks to Gordon about the past several years because the world changed so much that no one could have missed it, and they don't know technology exists (the G-Man's stasis/slow teleport) that would allow someone to miss it, so it would be like talking to a soldier in Afghanistan about 9/11; you don't see a need to discuss it.
Another WMG related to this: the Gravity Gun and HEV suit are also part of the Cascade. The Gun contains sample GG-3883 from the test, and the suit, while modified, is still the original suit. They choose futures in the same way Gordon does, and so any scenario that would destroy them just doesn't happen.
- Odd his college professor and his best buddy for years recognize him if that's the case.
He'll abandon his friends, dye his hair and shave his beard, then to suit his new "Hollywood" persona he'll ditch his glasses for a pair of prescription shades (Why he didn't wear them before Duke Nukem 3D is anyone's guess.) He no longer has the HEV suit because it was either damaged beyond repair or he donated it to a museum. His muscular physique is entirely logical considering the running and gunning he did fighting the Combine and the reason behind his constant one-liners is that he's seen far worse.
When Duke Nukem Forever/Half-Life 3 finally comes out Gordon Freeman, or "Duke Nukem" as he now calls himself will come out of retirement, pick up a modified HEV suit and face off against the G-Man's forces.
- He would spend his days firing pot shots at any of Ravenholm's citizens who happened to be near his church.
- They both share the same name and title.
- They are both Russian Orthodox priests.
- They just won't die!
First, she:Gets Eli imprisoned. This causes Alex and Gordon to go to Nova Prospect to save him. This ends up with Eli still being imprisoned, and Nova Prospect blows up. This is taken as the signal to begin the uprising.
While G-mans objectives are vague, he seems to want Breen dead, because he puts Gordon in stasis seconds after he kills him. He would have no chance of getting that to happen without the whole uprising thing.
Then Alyx gets captured, and Gordon fights his way to Breen. Then he gets captured, and Dr Breen says:"(Gordon) has proven to be a fine pawn to those who control him"
Probably not the exact quote, but it seems that Breen knows about G-man. Then Dr Mossman picks a very convenient time to change sides again. Then Gordon gets free, and kills Breen. Then G-man puts him in stasis, but how would G-man have killed Breen if she had just stood there? Sure, G-man might think that she would change sides, but why risk it?
Then she goes to the arctic to find the Borealis. How did she know were it was? How did she even know it existed? Then she gets attacked, and this gives a reason for Gordon to go there. Also, Eli's death seems very useful for G-man, as he was going to tell Gordon who G-man was, so is Alyx's injury by the hunter, because that distracted the Vorts so G-man could talk to Gordon.
- For the record, Breen was referring to Eli Vance when he talked about who was 'controlling' Freeman. Breen thinks exceptionally little of Freeman.
- Furthermore, she says 'until you're where he wants you there's nothing you can do'... is she speaking of Breen, or the Gman?
This is semi-foreshadowed by Eli's remarks that Alyx and Gordon would make a good couple, and that they can't "blame an old man for wanting grandkids." Additionally, it explains why the G-Man now takes such an interest in Alyx in particular: now that she's carrying his prime specimen's child, she's super-important to his schemes. That baby could play a vital role in some other intergalactic conflict of his, and it will be the price she pays for being saved from Black Mesa.
- That's going to lead to a very odd conversation when Gordon and Alyx find out.
- The Freemance-shipping fangirl side of me really, really likes this idea (seriously, someone write it in a fanfic because I want to read it), but the more analytical side is struggling to justify how exactly this would work. I can comprehend how intertwining souls would be key to saving someone from death, but it doesn't strike me as something that would lead to impregnation. I get that the Vortessence is more-or-less magic and can be used to handwave lots of things, but still.
- Then again, if you thought that a bunch of people caused the end of the world for you and your family you would want them dead too.
- As much as this troper doesn't like this theory, there is some evidence for it- when the Resistance shuts off the superportal, Dog makes a noise that could be interpreted as dissapointment. The subtitles actually say "Dog Dissapointed", but it might be an automatic thing for one of his sound effects.
- Dog is actually making the noise in response to Magnusson's exuberant celebration of his own genius - his headshake and the 'disappointed' sound effect line up with Magnusson's off-screen happy dance and Alyx's eyeroll.
- This troper personally thinks Dog was a mole, but his attacking the Advisors at the end of Episode 2 was a permanent HeelFace Turn on his part.
- Hmm... there's actually a good reason to suspect he's an unwilling (possibly even unknowing) mole, yet still firmly on the Resistance's side: His head appears to be a modified Combine scanner. Regardless of his loyalties, it's possible that someone noticed an "overrun" unit's monitor suddenly coming back online, and with a Resistance member's face front and centre to boot. He may very well be the Combine's window into the Resistance's soul, which is a good reason not to steal an alien spy drone to use as your robot's eyes. This explains the timing of a lot of events, too: The most obvious is the Advisors waiting until they knew D0G was gone before they showed up (assuming they still have a way to monitor the connection, even without the Citadel), but it also explains the attack on BME (the Combine launch it while they know Freeman is playing with their camera), the snipers after you leave Ravenholm (they know Gordon's gonna be coming that way, since D0G escorted him to Ravenholm and it's the only other way out), the Strider coming to life in Episode 2 (with how quickly D0G was running towards it, it was safe to assume Alyx, and thus Gordon, was nearby), and the timing of the onslaught later on (not only is the Resistance getting ready to launch their satellite, but the Combine know that Gordon's there, too; they might've figured they could pin him down until the Advisors were in position, since he's presumably one of the only Resistance members known to be able to take down multiple Striders without dying, and probably destroy the rocket too). Depending on whether his A.I. is in the scanner head, this might even mean the only way to stop the Combine from using him is to permanently blind D0G... or worse.
- At the risk of being meta, the Cremator's were probably a type of human-synth the Combine were designing but decided not to produce by the time their human forces were being finalised. A few prototypes were constructed however, but after the project was cancelled these were tossed and, the Combine treating the Earth as one big waste pit, their pieces ended up wherever. Alyx found the mask of one of them in one of her explorations and thought it was neat, showing her father, but Eli, being a scientist, decided to study it anyway. As for the bodies, Cremators were meant to vaporise corpses, so it probably isn't them.
- Where are all the female barnacles? Also, such a long penis seems unnecessary, given that barnacles are always extremely close together or spread apart in separate rooms
- Barnacles (on Earth at least) don't have genders. They are all hermaphrodites. The barnacles could just be using those penis' to reproduce, just like they do in real life.
- Considering the Gonarch and the Strider, this is a definite possibility.
- And so that's why the fast head-crab zombies scream sounds so much like a smoker to me.
- Or they have the same voice actor.
- This makes a surprising amount of sense (the Gene Worm especially could be a method the Combine use to harvest the resources of a planet), except for the part about the Synths, as none of the Race X have any mechanical additions whatsoever, which would preclude them from being any part of the Combine forces as all of them are shown to be "post-[insert species here]" of some sort. They could be a mercenary group the Combine use to investigate newly-discovered planets though, but that's stretching it a little.
- It could possibly be that the Race X that Adrian saw was part of a Combine experiment in completely biological post-[species] creation. By extension, it was not a success (given that it was, as the OP said, promptly nuked), so the effort was scrapped and the Combine kept on relying on the 'old reliable' of mechanical augmentation, but the Combine still invaded Earth again when the opportunity came, just with the classical cyborg-and-overwhelming force combination this time.
- Personally I thought Race X was a much smaller interdimensional empire that the G-Man and his employers were trying to hide from the Combine. Remember that the Combine doesn't have intradimensional teleportation, but Race X seems to have mastered it? The G-Man and his employers are trying to make sure that the Combine doesn't discover Race X and steal their teleportation technology and give themselves a new edge in their omniversal conquests. That's why all the Race X witnesses are purged; they know the Combine are coming and don't want any humans to talk of it.
- It could possibly be that the Race X that Adrian saw was part of a Combine experiment in completely biological post-[species] creation. By extension, it was not a success (given that it was, as the OP said, promptly nuked), so the effort was scrapped and the Combine kept on relying on the 'old reliable' of mechanical augmentation, but the Combine still invaded Earth again when the opportunity came, just with the classical cyborg-and-overwhelming force combination this time.
- Hey, the Saiyans did it.
- Space Pirates too.
- In Dune, Feyd-Rautha and Glossu Rabban are both youthful administrative pawns of an older member of House Harkonnen, dispatched to oversee a planet valuable primarily for its mining resources. It's not an unheard-of tactic (saves effort on the part of the older members of the race who can attend to more pressing local matters, while still giving them the same level of control), and it makes a certain amount of sense, especially given the Advisors' telepathic abilities, that they would do so on Earth.
- According to Raising The Bar, that's basically the intention when making them, but several things have changed in the episodes, so that could easily have been Retconned
- This could also explain why the Advisors were in the Citadel, as middle-management would be more effective on the planet than communicating from the Overworld.
- If so, launching him (and a lawn gnome) into the super-portal may have been a bad idea.
- Unless that itself was the secret!
- Just As Planned.
- But the rocket was supposed to transmit to the Black Mesa anti-Portal Satellites, so s/he never had to deal with the superportal.
- Unless that itself was the secret!
- This troper argues that his concern is completely logical for a pet owner. After all, there's lots of dogs, cats, etc. around in the real world too.
- This troper must point out that Dr. Kleiner put the cat into the teleporter to test it, and it didn't end happily. And that's a cute, cuddly cat. Rather than one of the most horrifying creatures you're ever likely to meet.
- This troper must point out that Dr. Kleiner is more nuts than a room full of scrotums.
- This troper believes that either Gordon or Alyx will die in Episode 3, followed by a "heart-to heart" from the G-Man saying how he took precautions to keep him/her alive, followed by one of the fuel tanks from the rocket crashing to Earth with Lamarr crawling out of it, zombifying the deceased party and fighting on your side/relinquishing control to you. Either that, or she zombifies the gnome into a vicious killing machine.
- You'd be wrong; Lamarr was de-beaked and as such cannot turn people into zombies.
- On the contrary, the death of whichever one or the crash would involve the top of the skull being ripped off. The beak, therefore, would no longer be necessary.
- Or Lamarr could have gotten his/her beaks regenerated after returning from space.
- Part of me hopes that Lamarr comes back as a Gonarch. Can you imagine having what is essentially a walking Multi-Mook Melee in the body of an Antlion Guard, that shoots acid On your side?
- You'd be wrong; Lamarr was de-beaked and as such cannot turn people into zombies.
- However, it's possible that Myrmidonts are simply hostile to all humanoids (possibly with the intent of eating them, although you never get to see them doing anything except attacking people), given that they also kill Combine soldiers with no apparent provocation on their part.
- All antlions seem to be relentlessly hostile towards anything living that doesn't smell like them (including humans without pheropods, the Combine and headcrab zombies, at least), but only the Myrmidonts also attack Gordon, who smells like a rival Myrmidont.
- Or perhaps he's one of the Breens from Aeon Flux. He is actually a lot like Trevor Goodchild without the sex appeal.
- It's obvious the Black Mesa Incident was that kind of plan. However this troper always thought the G-Man was it (and a very good one, indeed).
- Seeing as Epsiode Two reveals that the g-man provided the crystal specimen for the original test, the above is pretty much confirmed.
- As opposed to the hypothesis that Nihilanth IS a Combine cyborg, who leads his people in Xen under their tyranny? Free Vortigaunts captured by the combine are outfitted with the same green restraining gear they wore as slaves in the first game (look to your right when you get off of the train platform at the start of Half-Life 2). Important to note, Nihilanth sports a pair of gray manacles on all three of his wrists, just like the slaves do.
- Wasn't it confirmed by the developers that the Nihilanth and Combine were old enemies and that the Nihilanth had to escape to Xen after its home dimension was conquered by the Combine?
- Wasn't it also stated that the Vortigaunts were the Nihilianth's slaves and Freeman freed them? And don't forget how they're always prasing him for freeing them in the second game, despite having tried to murder him in the first.
- Word of God, as vague as it continues to be, is that all the lifeforms encountered in Xen are not native, rather they were refugees from planets the Combine conquered that fled there to hide (inadvertently bringing some of their pest species with them as well). Aside from the common morphology indicating an evolutionary link between the Vortigaunts, the Controllers, the Grunts and the Nihilanth itself, the actual role of the Nihilanth before or after this exodus hasn't been stated, except that, yes, it used Vortigaunts as slave labour, so this WMG remains valid.
- Jossed. Marc Laidlaw confirmed that the Nihilanth was never captured by the Combine, and certainly wasn't created by them or working for them. He was the sole surviving member of a powerful and god-like species that was hunted to extinction by the Combine; through telepathic links, he enslaved the Vortigaunts, and fled to the border world, Xen, where the Combine couldn't get him. It's there that the Vortigaunts began constructing the army (Grunts, Mantas, Gargs).
- Ah, who can blame her...
- Not to mention the evidence - Alyx herself does a convincing portrayal of someone who's just met her knight in shining hazardous environment suit, and even Barney comments on the apparent chemistry between Alyx and Gordon.
- She tells him "Be careful" when he's about to go up against Breen. You only say that if you're truly concerned about the person in question getting hurt - if you would rather they fail but live than succeed at the cost of their life.
- Something else of note-Episode 1 ends with the Citadel exploding, and Gordon blacking out. Episode 2 begins with the only cutscene in the Half-Life franchise-almost certainly representing what Gordon is thinking about during the explosion. So what is in the cutscene? Alyx helping Gordon infiltrating the Citadel, Alyx killing zombies in the hospital, Alyx suffering an attack from an Advisor etc. Looks like our favorite Heroic Mime can still return Alyx's affection.
- Also Eli seems to indicate it (while Alyx says they are Just Friends he says that "[she] can't blame old man for wanting grandchildren".
- Valve would earn this troper's eternal hatred if they made us kill an Advisor with Eli's mind in the next Half-Life.
- That's an awesome idea.
- All normal zombies just want someone (Gordon) to help get the headcrab off their head (listen to their cries reversed), but when they get close enough to him, the headcrab takes over and makes the zombie attack.
- Must be the water.
- Apathy and depression can do wonderful things for pain tolerance.
- Except that all the suppression field did was prevent proteins from forming in the uterus. It was pretty much just like a mass birth-control machine.
- That's what the Combine wants you to think!
- Seeing as Breen's whole suppression field speech revolves around "instict" I imagine the device also somehow chemically castrates the populace. Stopping certain proteins from forming in the brain perhaps?
- If they could do that, couldn't the combine just mind control the entire human race to ENJOY the oppressive situation they are in?
- Similarly, I like to think that Alyx's increased flirtiness and concern for Gordon in the Episodes has the same roots in the disabling of the Suppression Field (which has been suppressing her libido for almost her entire life). She's now suddenly experiencing uninhibited sexual desire for the first time in her life. Of course, there's also the natural development of her relationship with Gordon to consider, but finding yourself having to deal with your own newfound sex drive for the first time definitely helps.
- The vort that installs the gun on your boat in Half-Life 2 always did seem to be talking down to me. Perhaps they worship Freeman for saving them, but are kinda ticked about how many died to make it possible.
- Alternatively the Vorts simply maintained a respectful but realistic view of Gordon as a person rather then a savior. They feel pain for their losses in the original conflict but don't begrudge him defending himself and respect his accomplishments that aided them making them willing to joke with him. The few genuine insults are directed at a certain observing third party. The Vorts are aware of the G-man watching so while they genuinely compliment Gordon they give the manipulator watching through his eyes nothing but disdain.
- Her clothes are quite obviously patched with duct tape. The question is why they haven't thought to slap a layer of that on the HEV suit.
- And, based on a theory that GLaDOS has Chell backed up on file, Freeman will storm the Combine with an army of Chell clones.
- Uh, no. Word of god states that he lost his leg to a bullsquid.
- Word of God is that the Xen army had their backs to the wall. Nihlanth was out of options and desperate. When a portal opened to Earth, a world that was free of Combine, he took the first chance he got and ran like hell, figuring nothing could be worse than the Combine. It failed, and his death caused the portals to remain open.
- I'm not sure how much of the change in the appearance of the Vortiguants is due to changes in graphics as opposed to in-universe events, but their seemingly more impressive combat abilities are probably a combination of fighting someone other than a one man army, and no longer being under the control of an oppressive overlord. The Nihalanth didn't seem like the type to let a slave race develop its abilities to the fullest.
- Correction, they have held off one swarm of Antlions and the G-man. They fail when facing anybody who brought a gun.
- Unless the person with the gun is an HECU marine. Remember that they were part of the Xen force that tried to conquer earth.
- They were being used as expendable cannon fodder at the time. The alien Grunts were the members of Nihalanth's forces that were doing the heavy lifting.
- Plus if you look in Half-Life they are wearing similar collars to those that the combine would go on to make them wear
- Hmm. I guess that collar suppresses their connection with
the ForceVortessence and therfore theJediVortigaunts does not fight so effectively.
- You have a point. There is an enslaved Vortigaunt, HL1 bracelets and all, in the station at the beginning of Half-Life 2. Why not a Vortigaunt Synth? Why no Vortigaunt Zombies?
- Except that you do see one enslaved Vortigaunt right at the start of Half Life 2, cleaning floors in the train station, behind a fence.
- He could have been biding his time, waiting for the One Free Man to arrive as a cue to throw down his oppressive collar. If the collar is the same as the ones Nihalanth used, the Combine probably don't really know how it works.
- Which is why they can't walk properly when controlling a human.
- Eli eventually did love "Alyx" as a daughter, for who she was and not who she was supposed to replace enough to die for her.
- Which explains a previous theory regarding Alyx's Made of Iron tendencies. Alyx isn't wearing Unobtainium, she is made of Unobtainium.
- It could be possible that the G-Man was lying about his true purposes for saving Alyx. Eli may have made a proverbial deal with the devil with the G-Man, having the G-Man save his daughter from certain death in exchange for... something. When Eli was unable to perform that favor, the G-Man allowed Eli to die. Or maybe the original deal was to have Eli die at a later date, just so the G-Man can watch her cry, because that's how he rolls.
- That would mean TV Tropes is an adjunct of the Combine, even if an unknowing one.
- Then it's raping time! Make babys with much hasty!
- Actually, think about it. They're preventing us from fighting them by giving us a training simulator. Doesn't that just create MORE Gordon Freemans?
- And that means that Episode 3 is delayed because valve doesn't want to be defeated.
- OR he and Gordon did a better job of clearing out the zombies in Ravenloft than we are led to believe, and after you left, he finished off the few that were still following you,and had a very casual stroll back to his church.
- It also explains why the Vorts in Episode Two seem to be genuinely reverent of Freeman, as opposed to their subtle mockery of him before then, the elders having seen this before (perhaps with the Nihilanth) and thus don't view Freeman as particularly unique or special, while the younger Vorts are far more idealistic when considering him.
- Basically Jossed as of a recent update, which makes all Half-Life 2 Vortigaunts look the same as the ones in Episode Two.
- Humans have an incredible capacity for self-delusion. It's probable he genuinely believed the "immortality" and "ascension" claptrap in the beginning, but as the horrors of Combine rule became more self-evident he would have had to systematically deactivate the reason portions of his brain to prevent reality from contradicting his preconceptions.
- Known in psychology as belief perseverance. It happens as a coping mechanism after we find out that we're wrong about something, so in Breen's case, it could be keeping him from realizing he's made a huuuuuge mistake…
- Or maybe it's even the same universe and the Gman kept him in stasis for longer than Gordon. The codex for Earth mentions something about environmental damage sustained during the 20th century...I'd say taking part of the ocean would count.
- So does this mean that The Combine are The Reapers?
- This could explain the 'Profile Reconstruction' at the start of Mass Effect 1: Adrian has been in stasis so long that his personality and looks have to be reconstructed.
- Both are Russian.
- Both are extremely powerful.
- Both name their gun.
- Both are bald.
- Both are of questionable levels of sanity.
- Or Alyx sent him into Ravenholm as a test of his strength. She finds the stories of the courageous Gordon Freeman difficult to believe, and so she sends him somewhere that she knows to be extremely dangerous, subconciously trying to test him, to see if he really is the superman that everyone thinks he is.
- Makes sense but for the fact that the Xen aliens and the Nihilanth found earth in a stroke of good luck when the resonance cascade ripped a hole bettween the dimensions, unless the whole thing was a plan gone wrong for the Nihilanth (possibly Out Gambited by the the G-man) then I doubt it would have known that there was going to be a resonance cascade that lead to earth.
- The standard city slave uniform comes with a white shirt underneath the blue jumpsuit. Since all the zombies wear blue pants and boots identical to the uniform, presumably they shed their jackets after/while being attacked by the headcrab, or it just got torn off.
- As of Portal 2, GLaDOS is still in the Enrichment Centre, so no, she will unfortunately not be meeting Freeman.
- Then again, she has enough backup personality cores to fill a warehouse, so her appearance is not outside the realm of possibility.
- Better yet, how about a secondary (in case of problems) backup of a certain little moron?
"This is what happens to you when you resist... Or if you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
- Except Azian died at Black Mesa. The boyfriend idea holds merit, though. I figure it happened to the deaf rebel she had a crush on that inspired her to learn sign language. And if it's no one that she knew personally, then I imagine the second part could stem from her sadness and anger at seeing innocent civilians taken away to be turned into Stalkers.
- Note the Seven Hour War is named that because it lasted seven hours. I doubt that many would starve to death in that time. The war would be officially over once the Combine had taken over literally all of Earth, and the Combine give food to their citizens. Why anybody would starve to death during that time, I don't know.
- Kleiner once tested the teleport on his own pet cat, and (possibly because of some headcrab DNA being thrown into the mix) it was transformed into a headcrab. The process of the cat changing was probably what gave Barney nightmares. It's why Kleiner cares so much about the headcrab, despite it being a monster which can turn a human into a shambling zombie.
- Alternatively, Kleiner just thinks that Lamarr is his cat, and she's really a random headcrab picked up by the teleport. The cat is probably dead.
- This could mean that the universe the headcrabs teleport in from is actually full of cats, they just become headcrabs in the process of getting here.
- In many places, you see headcrabs attacking and killing humans without zomifying them, and we know that the headcrabs never zombify Gordon, only try to kill him. This is because only certain humans can be zombified, and Gordon is not one of them.
- In other species (or at least the species they evolved alongside, probably from the Vortigaunt homeworld) it's possible they form a symbiotic relationship with other creatures, perhaps similar to mitochondria only on a macroscopic scale. But whatever they do, they interface with a specific chemical in the creature's body.
- Now, here's where the theory comes in. Whatever chemicals the headcrabs interface with, the same or very similar chemicals are present in the human brain. Due to this coincidence, the headcrabs are attracted to human brains, and can interface with them, allowing them to take partial control of the human body. The chemicals present in the human brain also causes the headcrab to become extremely aggressive, which is why the zombies will attack anyone living who comes near.
- It's also possible that the chemicals present in the brain are tastier than the chemicals they normally encounter, and so after gaining a taste for humans, they become addicted- hence why they attack any human who comes near.
The reason the people from Black Mesa East stopped visiting Ravenholm is because Father Grigori (who, like Gordon and Alyx, seems to be one of the rarely-encountered individuals who are born Made of Iron) took over the town, killed or imprisoned most of population, and set up traps to hunt down the survivors.
- So... Father Grigori is actually Jigsaw?
- That's not really what is implied at all. He says the traps are the work of someone who once had too much time. Not created when there was too much time. What that line more likely means is that Grigori was once an engineer or mechanic. In comparison to his current, more religious, busier life, the life of a mechanic would seem like someone with too much time on their hands. Now he is using those skills from before to deliver salvation.
- "Your bright face obscures your darker mask."
- "Far distant eyes look out through yours."
- "Could you but see the eyes inside your own, the minds in your mind, you would see how much we share."
Of course, any of those sayings could mean anything. But here's one that really throws all ambiguity to the wind: you know how after the Vortigaunts free Gordon from the G-Man, the mission failure messages you get seem to have been written by them? Well, what sentence shows up on the screen if the player fails to defend White Forest in Episode Two? Answer: The game now ends.
This still doesn't make the stakes any lower for them, though. Remember, the Vortiguants view time and space as "false veils", so the game world is just as real to them as our world is to us because to them, everything is real.
- Or the second one, the advisor suits look a lot like synth materials. Plus their names "advisors," they're probably a race that the original combine enslaved or allied themselves with them voluntarily. Then they got dumped with running newly conquered worlds that aren't considered important and the administration of the combine empire.
Here's some proof:
- He survived the zombie apocolypse and managed to build the traps.
- He is a religious man, who lives in a church.
- He has an post-human amount of skill with a shotgun.
- He never abandons Freeman.
- He gives Freeman a shotgun, only to produce another, stronger one that Freeman cannot use, as in he is channeling God Himself.
- He believes killing the infected will save them.
- He becomes solemn when entering the graveyard.
- He charges into the fire, but continues to laugh, implying he survives fire due to his holy protection(Shadrak, Meshack and Ebegnigo).
- but... portal 2 takes place 100 years after the first portal...
- You mean 30 years? 9999 days is roughly 30 years
- When the Borealis vanished from drydock, it was hurled through space and time, so 100 years after the first Portal is the time of Half-Life 2 Episode 3.
- Both games stories will occur simultaneously.
- Jossed. Part of the dock can be found in a hidden room, but the Borealis is long gone.
- It's possible that the reason the Zombines keep trying to radio their allies is because the headcrab can't subsume the mechanical parts of their brain, which is why they have a jerky movement torn between soldiery things (radioing, pulling grenades) and zombie things (charging the player down with the grenade). The grenade thing could even be the soldier trying to trick the headcrab into a suicide rush to escape the And I Must Scream existence. This actually doesn't affect your WMG much...
- Jossed, by the existence of Zombines. Also, it's very unlikely that every single headcrab zombie in Half-Life 2 is a scientist.
- Holy fucking shit. that wmg makes so much se— wait, why are you applying logic to what is essentially an Anti-Frustration Feature?
- The Manta Rays: they look organic, but they make metallic sounds when hit or shot, and have seemingly mechanical parts. They shoot out some sort of beam from their belly as well- similar to the one used by the Combine gunship.
- Gargantuas: same thing. they appear to be metallic, and make the appropriate sounds when shot or hit. Yet they have organic qualities as well. I also doubt that those jets of flame/plasma that they shoot out of their arms are a natural evolutionary feature. Nor are their glowing red eyes... which also make metallic sounds when shot.
- Alien Grunts: their armor and weapons appear to be directly grafted on to them, and you can see them being manufactured in a factory on Xen, revealing that they're artificial beings. The question is, what are they being made from? We see vorts working on them, and they do share the vort trait of the third tri-fingered arm extending from their chest that they use to feed, as well as other features like multiple red eyes, hooved feet, and brown skin.
- And, while this one is minor compared to the previous connections, you can see a Vortigaunt at the beginning of Half Life 2 enslaved by the Combine. The neck brace and bracelets he wears are identical to the ones worn by the Vortigaunts enslaved by the Nihilanth.
They share many traits with synths. I theorize that the Nihilanth, in his race's war with the Combine, eventually learned of their methods of creating war machines. Using his vast psychokinetic powers, the Nihilanth teleported a Combine synth factory (because that factory on Xen does not look like it could be made with mere bio-technology) on a floating island to the border world, and ordered his slaves to build more. Gargs and Mantas are synths from other dimensions (and fulfill a similar role to Striders and Gunships), while Alien Grunts are Vortigaunt synths, in the same way Overwatch soldiers are human synths.
unless we're seeing some Translation Convention going on, it's likely the combine eliminated every language aside from english in some mass cultural genocide. Would make sense, as though the combine have absorbed numerous alien races, it would likely have been hard to maintain a puppet government translating into every language.
This is best exemplified with their construction of thumpers to control the Antlion population around Highway 17 - besides the practical benefits of keeping their Overwatch troops safe, the Antlions are one of many manifestations of the cruel, destructive multiverse that the Combine strive to stave off. Their claw-holding-an-egg logo also plays into this - despite its ominous appearance, it is meant to convey that that they are keeping it safe from danger. To them, everything is a binary choice between Life and Death, and Dr. Breen convinced them to choose Life - as far as they're concerned, Life is Life and beggars can't be choosers when you're dealing with the uncaring multiverse. :V
All of this plays into Dr. Breen's propaganda about how the Combine are 'benefactors' and how humanity 'see the unknown as a threat, rather than an opportunity' - even if he's simply regurgitating what the Advisors want him to say.
This WMG is fuelled primarily by the fact that the Gene Worm bears an uncanny resemblance to the Xen Tentacles, bearing the same 'hook with a hole' shape on its head, plus similar eyes and a similar pattern and colouration - not to mention the fact that the Alien Kudzu encountered around the warehouse where Shephard fights it is very Xen-like, even possessing a Xenian healing pool. It's conceivable that the Tentacles are in fact extremely long appendages of the Gene Worm that can appear almost anywhere - even in different dimensions - thanks to the Gene Worm's ability to settle comfortably while half-way through a portal. Plus, the 'X' in Race X could easily stand for Xen, and taking Half-Life 2 into accout, 'Vortigaunt' and 'Voltigore' sound almost too similar to be a coincidence.
This of course begs the question - if the Race X are from Xen as well, why are they hostile to the Nihilanth's forces? Because the Nihilanth is not native to Xen himself - he took up residence there to hide from the Combine, then proceeded to build up an army by enslaving the Vortigaunts, destroy the local ecosystem by building massive Alien Grunt factories, import invasive species from other dimensions, and generally be a meddlesome nuisance to the locals.
The Shock Troopers and their Pit brethren (i.e. the Pit Drones and the Pit Worm) were rivals to the Vortigaunts, but even they were appalled by the Nihilanth just barging in and enslaving them - on top of this, they have an ecological bent, explaining why they don't use any form of technology, in contrast to the Nihilanth with his factories mass-producing Alien Grunts and genetically-engineered Hivehands. They also revered the Gene Worm, the true apex life form of Xen - the Nihilanth enslaving the Gene Worm to use its powers to terraform both Xen and Earth for the Nihilanth's benefit was the last straw. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, the Gene Worm's devotees staged an uprising against the Nihilanth with the intention of kicking him and his forces out of Xen, and freeing the Gene Worm. This uprising, timed to coincide with the Nihilanth's invasion of Earth, inevitably wound up spreading over to Earth - but they took advantage of this by kidnapping intelligent humans, hoping to use their knowledge to help repair Xen's ruined ecosystem.
Despite these motives, however, they are still not above engaging in Planet Looting, hence their continued presence on Earth even after the Nihilanth was taken out by Freeman, though this was partly motivated by their desire to tie up all their loose ends by destroying the Nihilanth's remaining loyalists, along with any humans who might stage a counter-attack. The now-free Gene Worm came through with the intention of firmly establishing Xen's foothold on Earth, perhaps as a 'focus' to prevent random teleportations to and from Xen, making sure all teleportation goes through it - explaining why and how it can teleport Shock Troopers into the battle with Shephard.
For the sake of ease, let's call these creatures Hosts. Thanks to Half-life Alyx, we now know that the resemblance between them and humans is visual rather than olfactory (as has been hypothesized), since there's a moment where you stumble across a headcrab trying to bond to a mannequin.
The reason that none of the headrabs seen in the games so far have ever actually fully fused with their human (outside of one instance in the dubiously-canon Opposing Force) or turned them into a Gonarch is because, well, we aren't actually Hosts, and thus the state zombies are in is as far as the process can go for a human.
It's also possible that the opening of a zombie's abdomen isn't an attempt to create a new mouth, but rather an attempt to distend whatever organ would, in an actual Host, later become the Gonarch's egg sac.
I mean, just look at them. Their designs are insect-inspired kinda like how the creatures of Race X were made up. Not to mention that it's not really explained where the heck these things came from. If you had told me that the Antlion is an off-shoot or an evolved form of the Voltigores, I'd totally believe it.
The first condition: an abundance of food. During the Resonance Cascade, Black Mesa provided both: lots of dead bodies, panicking scientists fleeing in very direction, and isolated security guards/HECU marines to pick off without squadmates' support. Plenty of protein to consume and use to grow big and strong. Given enough time and nice out-of-the-way places to hide in, some of the more well-fed zombies had the opportunity to mutate into their more deadly second stage.
The second condition: a lack of predators to cull the herd, as it were. While a group of headcrab zombies (a herd? A flock? A shamble?) can overwhelm a group of untrained and frightened civilians, one person with a gun and a good aim who can keep their head on relatively straight in a crisis can mow down zombies with relative ease. Gordon, Shepherd, and Barney are the most immediately obvious examples, but Father Grigori managed to keep the zombie hordes of Ravenholm in check as well. Whether he knew about Gonomes is anyone's guess, but it's within the realm of possibility that he was hunting down and slaying any zombies that got too dangerous, and inadvertently taking out Gonomes before they could fully mutate.
The lack of Gonomes in the Quarantine Zone surrounding the Vault is more difficult to explain, but it may be that the Combine are aware of Gonomes and periodically send troops in eliminate them. They have a vested interest in maintaining control over their holdings, and the last thing they need is one more dangerous monster running around complicating things. On the other hand, since they have weaponised headcrabs, they may have genetically altered their stock of the little buggers to make it impossible for the Gonome mutation to happen (said genetic modification may have also led to the development of the Fast and Poison variants of headcrab), or they've introduced some agent to the environment that suppresses the mutation (who's to say the Suppression Field is just to keep humanity in check?)
Or maybe copyright on the Gonomes and other things from Opposing Force still belong to Gearbox Software and Valve don't care enough about them to try to untangle the legal issues surrounding it. But that's way less fun.
Some want Alyx to lead. She's Eli's daughter (so some consider it her birthright), she's clearly a very capable leader, and it's been widely-assumed for years (even by Alyx herself to a degree) that she would step into Eli's shoes when the time came (though that was generally hoped to be many more years down the road). She's also popular amongst most of the long-time rebels on a personal level, having been friends with many of them for years.
On the other hand, there are some that want Gordon to take control instead. He's assumed to have many more years of experience than her, and he's the One Free Man, foretold by the Vortigaunts to save the Earth from the Combine. He's also the default option for those who disagree with Alyx being leader for reasons such as her gender (some believe that the deactivation of the Suppression Field means that all fertile women should be focused entirely on conceiving and raising children), her emotional state (her desire to get revenge for her father's murder could blind her to what is truly best for the Resistance), and her relatively young age.
Not to say that Gordon's the perfect choice either. His clumsiness and lack of knowledge common to everyone else (due to his stasis) cause some to see him as a Genius Ditz, his physical weaknesses underneath the HEV suit have significantly reduced his heroic image in the minds of some ("The suit is the real hero here, he can't do anything without it."), and many are convinced that the One-Man Army would be much more useful to the Resistance on the front lines.
This fairly petty conflict would be largely limited to rebels outside the main cast and wouldn't lead to anything too serious, and certainly wouldn't place a huge strain on Gordon and Alyx's relationship (they have much more important things on their minds than who the rebels want to call the Resistance's leader, though it does help bring to light the true natures of their relationships with the rest of the Resistance, especially for Gordon). No Freeman faction vs. Vance faction, or anything extreme like that. But it would be a definite annoyance for pretty much everyone around White Forest for some time after the events of Episode 2. It's likely that the issue would be resolved by Alyx and Gordon officially taking up joint leadership, if not allowing the leadership title to be given to someone else entirely.
Though to be honest, I'm not sure how likely the latter scenario would be, considering the lack of characters really fit for the role. Second choice would be Barney, but I'm not sure that he would consider himself appropriate to fill the role. Kleiner isn't much of a leader type, though Magnusson could qualify if we excuse how widely disliked he is for his narcissism and offensive bluntness. I can also see Judith being willing and able if she gets back from the Borealis alive, but I doubt the rest of the Resistance will want to recognize someone who has already betrayed them once as their leader.
(Thoughts on this theory would be great since I'd like to write it in a fanfic.)
- While this does make sense from an in-universe standpoint, I think this one has been officially jossed by the ending of Half-Life: Alyx.
But I also found I have a problem with this: Half-Life is a very scientifically-driven story, always. It's about as sci-fi as sci-fi can get without being a Space Opera. Which leads me to conclude that these ghosts have some scientific explanation within the universe; that some force is somehow allowing "souls" to remain in existence after the body's death, with "soul" in fact referring to an imprint of the electrical impulses that run the brain. And where else, pray tell, do we hear unexplainable, immaterial voices of those passed? Nihilanth's altar, just before the final battle of Half-Life 1. My theory goes as such: the resonance cascade (usually presented as a storm of electrical energy, remember) somehow "caught up" a bunch of the souls of scientists who were dying in the Black Mesa incident and trapped them there at the altar, which may have been some kind of signal relay for the Nihilanth's power. When the Nihilanth died and the portal storms began, the release of energy not only unleashed those "spirits", but caught up more from anyone dying around the time of the Seven-Hour War and early Portal Storms, which would include Doug Rattman (probably), and perhaps some Eastern-European children left in the path of an angry Houndeye?
These "ghosts" get caught up in the portal energy; it's all just electricity, right? This gives them a limited ability to self-sustain and move around the world. And, driven by emotional responses they barely remember, they return to places they know well and "haunt" them. And voila, impossible laughing children and babbling Rattman.
- Considering the Vorts seem to understand the fabric of reality better, and can manipulate it, and they refer to reincarnation and souls, it's pretty much a confirmation that the supernatural exists.
- But their reality manipulation, and reincarnation/souls/spirit bonds/etc. could just be science beyond understanding. You know, the whole Arthur C. Clarke thing. This is what I'm saying with this theory: "Magic" seems to exist in the HL universe, just... you know... via science.
- Some of GLaDOS's comments in the first Portal have led others to conclude that Portal occurs just before or during the Seven Hour War. While the "9999-" line could mean an overshoot, it is still possible that Portal 2 occurs during the Half-Life 2 arc (yes, Valve staff said the two Portals have hundreds of years between them, but they've changed their minds plenty of times before), allowing the possibility for the two plots to be related without involving Time Travel.
- Well, that explains why I've always found the sniper rifle so goddamn useless.
- Isn't this Word of God? I mean, Adrian Shepard is issued an HEV suit at the beginning of his game, wouldn't make much sense to shove a Marine into a high-tech lab coat if it hadn't already had some combat capabilities. Oh, and the suit never had a helmet: how could it protect against hazardous gasses without a helmet?
- Shepard had some kind of powered vest that luckily was compatible with HEV rechargers and batteries. As for the helmet, well, there's a flame war I don't expect to die down before the Heat Death. I personally am on the pro-helmet side, as he had a HUD, and headshots didn't turn his brain to chunky grey matter. One could say he had a force field and holographic projector, and that wouldn't be much of a stretch given what they had at Black Mesa, but why would you bother to do that if you could put a helmet on the damn thing instead? He just takes it off for publicity shots. Also, if Opposing Force were canonical, the helmet debate would be settled, as we see Gordon briefly, and he's not wearing one.
- Not neccessarily, maybe the marines removed Gordon's helmet to properly identify him? Think about it, if you capture an enemy and they're wearing a helmet, you'd take it off to report it to base/put a bullet in their brain/throw them in the trash compactor/whatever, don't you think?
- Plus when you look at it all the dead guys in Xen had helmets, maybe gordo just had the good sense to quckily put an oxygen mask on after he entered the portal?
- Shepard's armor was based on the HEV suit design, and was (IIRC) produced by Black Mesa. The main differences were reduced scientific instruments (unnecessary) and reduced armor coverage (increased mobility, decreased cost).
- Well, since Valve likes Shephard and wants to include him at some point, I'm pretty sure it is. So there we go. No helmet. Plus, look both instances of putting it on. No helmet. Plus, if you're making a protective suit and include a helmet, why would you not make that waterproof and with an oxygen supply? I mean, you've already invented power armor. Why not go the extra yard and include features that already exist in stuff that's not nearly as protective while still being covering? You stuck a rudimentary AI in it, so why not? It's confirmed that the scientists in Xen were just being careful with having helmets, and on top of that, if Xen DIDN'T have an Earthlike amount of air, lack of radiation and other things, all the Xen creatures would die from coming here, and we know that's not the case. Even Xen creatures never sent over during the invasion consider Earth to be a suitable habitat. So, Gordon doesn't need the helmet in Xen. Also, Valve has had numerous alien ideas that were to mess with your vision. If Gordon had a helmet, they'd have made bullsquid snot obstruct your vision, boomer style.
- I've heard a theory that an armored hood and faceplate fold out from the back of the HEV suit. Hey, why not? Maybe in all the promotional pictures Gordon doesn't have it on because he prefers to feel the breeze on his face when he's not in combat, but when danger is imminent it folds back out. In any picture where he's in danger, he's just about to flip the hood on.
- The thing's designed to be used in Xen. Of course it'll have some combat capabilities.
- Or it was developed first as some sort of military armor super suit thing, but after it was deemed Awesome, but Impractical ("This would be perfect for an alien invasion." "Hah, that's silly. You're silly."), it was scrapped from a prototype for military use and reappropriated as a hazardous environment suit without many changes, protecting only against radiation instead of radiation and bullets and whatever else. So far as I can recall, it's possible for things developed by the military to end up in civilian use, so since Black Mesa is a government facility, it would be possible for a military scientist to give his buddies at Black Mesa some prototype suits they're not using anymore for Mundane Utility.
- This troper believes the HEV suit and the Powered Combat Vest (PCV) issued to the HECU were manufactured by the same contractor, given the cross compatibility with HEV chargers. The PCV was probably developed first on a USMC contract, and Black Mesa ordered a similar suit for use on Xen or when handling materials from Xen. This is why the HEV suit has "High-impact reactive armor" and "munitions monitoring" systems installed—leftover from the suit's combat origins. Further, the fact that PCV and HEV systems are compatible might suggest a larger conspiracy, since the G-man is seen at the HECU's training base, and It's All In the Manual that the HECU was trained specifically for the cleanup operation after the resonance cascade. It's subtle, but the implications are huge.
- Shepard had some kind of powered vest that luckily was compatible with HEV rechargers and batteries. As for the helmet, well, there's a flame war I don't expect to die down before the Heat Death. I personally am on the pro-helmet side, as he had a HUD, and headshots didn't turn his brain to chunky grey matter. One could say he had a force field and holographic projector, and that wouldn't be much of a stretch given what they had at Black Mesa, but why would you bother to do that if you could put a helmet on the damn thing instead? He just takes it off for publicity shots. Also, if Opposing Force were canonical, the helmet debate would be settled, as we see Gordon briefly, and he's not wearing one.
- This makes some sick sort of sense because half of Half Life is climbing out of holes, just like in that infuriating Atari game (which was the first game this Troper ever beat).
- Isn't it implied that the original game is taking place in the late 90's? Also, Portal is supposed to be taking place right around the same time as the Seven Hours War, not years later.
- Gordon is completely powerless without it, even with the suit (see the first game), and then becomes an unstoppable killing machine after getting it.
- It's originally found in a place where a crowbar would be unlikely, but the G-man has been seen.
- In Half-Life 2, Barry gives it to Gordon saying "you dropped this back in Black Mesa" but at the end of the first game Gordon was in an alternate dimension, therefore the G-man must have given it to Barry.
- Or crowbars are fairly common things that aren't that hard to find. I mean, each episode, they find a new one.
- Actually it was probably due to the fact that at the end of Blue Shift, Barney teleports to various locations in Black Mesa and Xen, one of those locations is a room with a grate where you can see gordon being dragged off by HECU marines, his weapons have been confiscated and perhaps the crowbar that they confiscated from Gordon fell through the grate and got picked up by Barney, or it could be the crowbar Barney picks up after the elevator falls at the beginning of the invasion.
- Or crowbars are fairly common things that aren't that hard to find. I mean, each episode, they find a new one.
- Immediately after the crowbar is disintegrated, the weapon scanner malfunctions and gives the gravity gun increased power and the ability to kill; this is a result of the power released from the crowbar destroying the thing that harmed it and then taking over the nearest suitable host.
- Also, the gravity gun's transformation is remarkably similar to Gordon's...
- Starts out: supposedly highly scientific, mainly used for physics puzzles, incapable of directly dealing damage
- Ends up: indestructible, super-strong, killing machine
- Also, the gravity gun's transformation is remarkably similar to Gordon's...
- The Black Mesa revamp seems to joss it, sort of. Gordon can uses flares and physics objects (grab a box, drop it on the headcrab) to kill headcrabs and zombies before he gets the crowbar. That implies at least some inherent badassery on his part.
- Though you're certainly right that Aperture seems to use a lot of technology formerly associated with the Combine before Portal's release, and you're right that the Overwatch and GLaDOS sound similar (because they are in fact both played by Ellen McLain) it's got to be noted that this technology is all used by the Combine Overwatch; that is, the human aspect of the Combine's presence. So, egg and chicken: It's possible Breen specifically equipped his transhuman forces with technology he ordered cannibalized from Aperture's Enrichment Center along with its AI?
- Ellen McLain also voices The Announcer in Team Fortress 2. Maybe it's something GLaDOS does to pass the time while waiting for Gordon to show up on the Borealis. Her time with Chell is evidence enough that she has no problems watching people die, and many people believe that GLaDOS uses a backup of Chell's brain to send her through the test over and over again, much like the respawning aspect of Team Fortress 2.
- I am going to go one further and say they are competing corporations. With this being the case, Chell is actually an Opposite-Sex Clone of Freeman (with better eyesight), and they are extensively testing the clones in puzzles/non-linear thinking to have their OWN "Gordon" of sorts - they even staged the whole scenario with GLaDOS, with cost included, so that they would get the PERFECT Chell when she "escaped".
- Does that mean the last scene of Episode Three will be a fade to black with a door of light opening and you just hear "Come with me" as The Doctor finally arrives on the scene?
- In that case, Gordon is a Primarch. It explains his awesomeness quite well, no?
- Most certainly-the Emperor himself was a brilliant scientist and quite a badass, so like father, like son...
- And so all references to things such as Earth, or (insert Earth location) are simply due to the original colonists' habit of naming things after places on Earth. Do we ever see a map of the world?
- Actually, yes, you do see a map on a computer screen near the garage at the end of Episode 2, and it is indeed of Earth. Also, there's a circle around eastern Europe, and more specifically the Ukraine, witch must mean that the game takes place in or near the Ukraine.
- "My precious crowbar... me wants it!"
- That... makes tons of sense. It also explains why their equipment sucks so much (sub machine guns as opposed to assault rifles, M1 Abrams that can be destroyed by rockets when real ones require simply ridiculous amounts of explosives to destroy, world war 2 era grenades, etc.)
- Alternatively, he did share it, but either he didn't proplerly explain details that he considered obvious or he died and someone just found his old notes and blueprints with a similar lack of detail, and other scientists failed to properly recreate it.
- Alternatively, Gordon is the Engineer. Spending time with the Demoman and the Soldier taught him greater proficiency with more firearms, and he doesn't talk because folks made fun of his accent. That's why he was working on the teleporter project — it's his project! The only reason he can't build turrets? He has a crowbar, not a wrench.
- Rebel 1: It's time for me to live up to my family name and face Full-Rebel 2: What the hell are you saying?Rebel 1: It's a family mantra, if you say it, you're guaranteed to not need bullets in battle, because they are so slow at points!Rebel 2: John, I just don't understand you.
- They'd better damn reference Concerned as well. At the same time, if possible.
- They already did. In Episode One you can hear a rebel saying that he misses Dr. Breen's T.V. show.
- It had juggling.
- They already did. In Episode One you can hear a rebel saying that he misses Dr. Breen's T.V. show.
- And if I don't hear a Freeman's Mind reference, heads are gonna roll.Rebel: Aw, come on, how are we gonna make it over this ravine? I don't suppose that suit of yours has a grappling hook?
- I would abate to that Episode 3 is (I think) going to center around the Borealis, so maybe Alyx could ask if Gordons suit has a Grappling hook
- I can hear it now. Gordon leads some Rebels across a landscape. One of them interjects. "This the same hill we were at afew minutes ago! We're walking in circles again!"
- At the moment, I'm supposed to be writing an essay.
- There's a WMG for Watchmen suggesting that the scientists who created the Intrinsic Field Remover that created Dr. Manhattan went on to found the Black Mesa Research Institute. The door locks with Dr. Osterman inside, and it's a saftey feature.
- Sounds more like they were owned by Aperture Science. Black Mesa is incompetent and stupid. That's outright mad scientist level hostile, which sounds like something Cave Johnson would do.
- Which neatly explains why Administrator Breen waited so long to attack the rebels directly because he was trying to avoid a direct confrontation with Solid Snake, the Combine didn't strike against the rebellion until they were sure Snake wouldnn't be a factor.
TL;DR: The pulse rifle is based off world-war two era machine guns.
It also allows Valve to retcon EVERYTHING.
- Kleiner's speech in Episode One states that the suppression field works by preventing embryo formation, however that doesn't exclude the Combine also suppressing sexual urges, which may be the purpose of the chips.
Additionally, the stuff that caused the Resonance Cascade was probable unprocessed Element Zero.
- It would explain how all-powerful he is, and why his motives don't make much sense- he's just messing around with the game world. He caused the Black Mesa incident because he wanted an alien invasion. He made Gordon a One-Man Army because he wanted a badass character. He blew up Black Mesa because he wanted to be cruel to Adrian. He made the Combine invade because he wanted a war. Gordon is just one of the characters in the game, at his mercy just like everyone else.
- However, from Episode 1 onwards, some of the video game AI (the Vortigaunts, perhaps others) has become sentient, and is starting to rebel against the player. They (possibly using cheat codes) have been holding the G-Man back, stopping him from interacting fully with the game world.
- Alternatively, the G-Man is just one of the players in an MMORPG, who uses cheats to mess with the game. The Vortigaunts are admins. Gordon, Adrian and Barney might be players, or they might be NPCs.
Earth's defense forces wiped out pretty fast.
Earth's resources being drained to an off-world location.
Humanity is facing extinction.
Out comes a hero, to lead a human rebellion. Taking down the main city of the occupation and dealing with its aftermath. This is the story L. Ron Hubbard would've written if he wasn't spaced out on the deck of a boat somewhere.
- Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 take place in 2009. We know (from the Half-Life manual) that the Black Mesa incident took place in 200X, which assuming it's concurrent with the Left 4 Dead universe, places it at May 15th, 2009. In Blood Harvest from the first Left 4 Dead, you can observe leaves falling from trees, which indicates that Left 4 Dead takes place in autumn. (Octoberish?). Therefore, the two timelines are incompatible.
- Why would it take place in May 15th? That's just the release date of one of the games, not a solid canon timeline fact.
- Also, game manuals aren't exactly the holy bible of canon. The PS2 manual of Half-Life stated that Gordon was going to his first day at Black Mesa, which is obviously not true.
Day of Defeat/ Source - WWII. No real relation to main events
Team Fortress 2 - Beginnings of Aperture Science (BLU) and Black Mesa (RED)
Counter-Strike - Terrorists attacks Black Mesa assets, kidnapping scientists, seizing facilities, and threatening to bombing Black Mesa assets among other things. Counter-Terrorists are set to thwart terrorist's plan, business as usual. The Counter-Terrorists eventually won, allowing the research that leads to Black Mesa Incident to happen.
HL1/Blue Shift/Opposing Force - Black Mesa Incident.
Left 4 Dead - (see above WMG)
Portal - about 2 years before Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2/EP 1-3
Alien Swarm - Simultaneous to Half-Life 2, shows Combine forces in other places.
Ricochet - also takes place around Half-Life 2. It's some game vorts play.
- Freeman's Mind has Gordon mention that the Black Mesa facility contains a lot of old missile silos, so you aren't the only one to consider this.
- Even better, parts of the facility were apparently built in the 1950s, mainly in Sector D Administration, so you aren't too far off after all.
- Three words: Perpetual Testing Initiative. Cave Johnson had multiversal travel. What is The Combine? A multiversal empire. And a high rank of The Combine is basically a Aperture turret, and the turrets in Aperture work the same as Combine turrets. And they've said Chell is important to the overall story. And Chell is almost certainly Caroline and Cave Johnson's daughter. Time travel, multiversal travel, the color scheme, the personalities, the tech, it all fits.
My conclusion? The Looney Tunes cartoons are set in the minds of animals being experimented on by the Black Mesa corporation. They are placed in virtual reality and put in various different situations, with their responses being noted. Acme were put in as an in-joke by the Black Mesa scientists, a caricature of their best-known rivals.
Furthermore, there are sometimes humans involved in these simulations, which take the form of Team Fortress 2.
The G-Man is a man in black, and he doesn't get his own hands dirty when something goes wrong. The last Shepherd heard, the aliens were evil and the government was fighting back in a desperate struggle. With the G-Man free from the Vortigaunts, how can he force them to back off? A preserved US Marine and the knowledge to kill aliens.
Black Mesa is an extremely unsafe work environment. Between the lack of railings, ladders that go past spinning fans, giant pools of irradiated sewage, No OSHA Compliance would be an understatement.
Clearly, OSHA was so embarrassed that it took them THIS long to notice so many flagrant workplace violations and were worried about how it would make them look if word got out about their failure to properly address the situation. So they dispatched the HECU to cover up all evidence that Black Mesa had gotten away with massive safety violations for so long. By total coincidence, a Resonance Cascade happened on the same day, providing a convenient cover story for their presence.
Faced with a terrifying and overwhelming force, the various nations of the world used their nuclear arsenal on the Combine, to no avail. The fallout later ended up into toxic sludge in various areas like in the canals outside City 17.