History Fridge / HalfLife1

** Also, near the end of ''Opposing Force'', if you take a closer look at the nuclear bomb's instructions on the lid, it suggests that, when detonated, it will destroy everything in a 55 kilometer radius, or ''at the least'' cause significant damage and radioactive fallout in that radius. Regardless of where the facility is in New Mexico, this would've destroyed several small towns and possibly even reach some of the larger cities in New Mexico, or even into the country Mexico itself. Barney and his friends must've had a '''really''' fast car or something...

* Many people have noted that the Gonarch looks like a spider monster with a giant testicle (which WordOfGod confirms is intentional), now keep that in mind and consider that it's main attack involves dousing you with a [[{{Squick}} harmful white fluid]].

* Some have questioned why the Hazard Course, ostensibly designed to help scientists acclimatise to the HEV suit, features firearms training when in reality they'd have no need for it, and indeed why what is essentially a beefed up hazmat suit has "munition level monitoring" and a "defensive weapon selection system". But remember that Sector C isn't the only place where the HEV is used, where else do you see HEV suits? That's right, Xen. The HEV seems designed first and foremost to be used for the Xen survey expeditions (note how many dead HEV suit users you see in Xen compared to the three [=HEVs=] that seem allocated to the anomalous materials lab. These scientists would of course be carrying weapons to defend themselves against the hostile Xenian fauna and so being able to quickly see how much ammunition they have and what weapons they have available would be quite useful for them. The firearms section in the hazard course could be explained as a way for the higher-ups to see who is particularly skilled with firearms, so they have potential candidates for Xen survey teams.
** Note that it's not unprecedented for real-world field researchers to undergo at least a moderate amount of firearms training before venturing into particularly dangerous regions, whether for last-resort defense versus dangerous wildlife like polar bears or crocodiles, or to ensure they won't be easy pickings in a confrontation with armed poachers or the like. Conventional firearms experience is also a logical precursor to training in the use of tranquilizer guns, which are crucial equipment for most large-animal zoology field work.
*** Also note that there are at least two experimental weapons that Black Mesa is developing (three if you take Opposing Force as canon), and that they were also researching alien weaponry. Knowing how conventional firearms work would be crucial for the people testing those weapons, and having a firearms training course could even let them see which employees had an aptitude for weaponry that they could recruit for research purposes.

** As soon as you enter the area outside the silo place leading into "Blast Pit", a scientist runs off -- straight into the tripmines. And there's already active and murder-ready turrets all over the place. The later scientist that gets gunned down by H.E.C.U. seems like they're just entering the facility, but thinking about it, they ''already rigged and set up the entire facility'', likely already having set some of their weapons up in anticipation of whoever tried to escape. However long Gordon was out for in the test chamber doesn't excuse just how much danger was already in place; the government was seemingly planning to bury everyone from the outset and put the keys to hijack the facility straight into their troop's fingers without telling them how disposable everything was.

* The fate of the scientist and guard from the "Xen Portal" scene, Gordon manages to escape into the portal once it's opened but what did the two of them do since they would then have no one to protect them from the Xen masters swarming the area.

* Counts as a StealthPun, too: While all the other original ''Half-Life'' titles were about things coming apart, ''[[VideoGame/HalfLifeBlueShift Blue Shift]]'' was about things coming ''together''. In astronomy, guess what being [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshift blue-shifted]] means?

* The scientists assume the H.E.C.U. are there to terminate everyone associated with the project, and the audio script and manual imply the same. The AlienInvasion is what really catches them off-guard and ends up making everything really go to hell in a handbasket. So what was the U.S. Government planning, given that within mere hours they had an entire military force taking over the facility and murdering everyone on sight? An excuse to seize all of Black Mesa's assets before it all [[FromBadToWorse went pear-shaped?]] Did they think the scientists had gone crazy and were trying to start a doomsday, as some soldiers believed? Or, if the G-Man and other elements of the series are anything to go by, [[YouCannotFightFate did someone high up know what was about to happen and tried to stop it?]]

* What if a Resonance Cascade scenario actually has different levels of severity? What if the one in game was a low level one or a mid level one? What the hell would the worst kind be like?! A universe collapsing into the Big Crunch?

** As soon as you enter the area outside the silo place leading into "Blast Pit", a scientist runs off -- straight into the tripmines. And there's already active and murder-ready turrets all over the place. The later scientist that gets gunned down by H.E.C.U. seems like they're just entering the facility, but thinking about it, they ''already rigged and set up the entire facility'', likely already having set some of their weapons up in anticipation of whoever tried to escape. However long Gordon was out for in the test chamber doesn't excuse just how much danger was already in place; the government was seemingly planning to bury everyone from the outset and didn't inform their troops.

* The scientists assume the H.E.C.U. are there to terminate everyone associated with the project, and the audio script and manual imply the same. The AlienInvasion is what really catches them off-guard and ends up making everything really go to hell in a handbasket. So what was the U.S. Government planning, given that within mere hours if not ''the'' hour they had an entire military force taking over the facility and murdering everyone on sight? An excuse to seize all of Black Mesa's assets before it all [[FromBadToWorse went pear-shaped?]] Did they think the scientists had gone crazy and were trying to start a doomsday? Or, if the G-Man and other elements of the series are anything to go by, [[YouCannotFightFate did someone high up know what was about to happen and tried to stop it?]]

** Note that it's not unprecedented for real-world field researchers to undergo at least a moderate amount of firearms training before venturing into particularly dangerous regions, whether for last-resort defense versus dangerous wildlife like polar bears or crocodiles, or to ensure they won't be easy pickings in a confrontation with armed poachers or the like. Conventional firearms experience is also a logical precursor to training in the use of tranquilizer guns, which are crucial equipment for large-animal zoology field work.

** Note that it's not unprecedented for real-world field researchers to undergo at least a moderate amount of firearms training before venturing into particularly dangerous regions, whether for last-resort defense versus dangerous wildlife like polar bears or crocodiles, or to ensure they won't be easy pickings in a confrontation with armed poachers or the like.

* Some have questioned why the Hazard Course, ostensibly designed to help scientists acclimatise to the HEV suit, features firearms training when in reality they'd have no need for it, and indeed why what is essentially a beefed up hazmat suit has "munition level monitoring" and a "defensive weapon selection system". But remember that Sector C isn't the only place where the HEV is used, where else do you see HEV suits? That's right, Xen. The HEV seems designed first and foremost to be used for the Xen survey expeditions (note how many dead HEV suit users you see in Xen compared to the three HEVs that seem allocated to the anomalous materials lab. These scientists would of course be carrying weapons to defend themselves against the hostile Xenian fauna and so being able to quickly see how much ammunition they have and what weapons they have available would be quite useful for them. The firearms section in the hazard course could be explained as a way for the higher-ups to see who is particularly skilled with firearms, so they have potential candidates for Xen survey teams.

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See them [[Headscratchers/HalfLife1 here]].

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