Headscratchers / Half-Life

• Why does everyone call the Tau Cannon a Gauss gun? A Gauss gun shoots a projectile accelerated via electromagnetic coils; the Tau Cannon shoots lasers. I understand that the files call the Tau Cannon a Gauss gun, but it still makes no sense to me.
  • It's a particle cannon, not a laser.
    • Fair enough, but it's still decidedly not a Gauss gun.
    • A Gauss gun is just a nickname for a coilgun. There's nothing that says it can't be applied to a electromagnetic coil-based particle accelerator.
  • Actually, it's just called the Gauss gun because that's its internal name. It was a Gauss gun early in development, and Valve didn't change the name.
• On a meta level, why did Valve make it seem in Surface Tension that only a single Apache was after you^note level-design-wise it's not, even though multiple choppers patrolling the area would actually make much more sense. Also why didn't they take into account that a thoughtful player may attempt to take the choper down using the Tau Cannon?
• Okay, so what the hell was the US government's cover story for the Black Mesa Incident if they had kept things "contained" at the facility? Better yet, how the hell were they planning on keeping it a secret considering how many witnesses, both Black Mesa personnel and HECU Marines, they would have to silence? Theoretically, they can kill the Black Mesa employees (which they tried) but how are they going to keep a random Marine from telling the press?
  • Step One: Send in HECU, who is specially trained for this, to clean up Black Mesa. Step Two: Black Ops kill HECU and anyone that they missed, as seen in Opposing Force. Step 3: detonate nuclear warhead, as seen in Opposing Force. Step 4: Unknown, but likely "Blame Terrorists". Of course, Gordon launching that rocket created the portal storms, but it's also shown that the military successfully invaded Xen. Chances are, Vorts were working their way into human society, portal storms were wrecking society, and then the Combine proceeds to invade, making it all a moot point.
    • Why not just nuke it from the get-go, then? I think they were just making it up as they went along.
    • Firstly, the portal storms were caused by the Nihilanth holding open the crack caused by the Resonance Cascade, the satellite that Gordon launched was supposed to put a stop to it (the Superportal in Episode Two is actually shut down by the same satellite working in conjunction with the one Gordon launches in that game). As for why they didn't nuke Black Mesa right at the beginning? It's a research facility working on cutting edge technology. They didn't want to risk potentially losing all that science (even if they gunned down the staff, they would still have access to prototypes, experiments, research notes, etc). Only when it became clear the situation was way out of hand did they bite the bullet and go for the nuclear option.
• I realize many story elements in the first game were lightly retconned, but what the hell does the G-Man mean when he says, "The borderworld, Xen, is under our control?" After killing the Nihilanth, whose control could it possibly be under other than the Combine's? But there's no way he works for the Combine. So did the Combine just skip over Xen on their way to Earth, and some third party took control of it?
  • It might just be "control" more in the sense of "pacified" rather than that anyone has any real, direct control over it, especially since he says it's under control "for the time being". The Nihilanth's dead, so Vortigaunts aren't being forced to Kill All Humans, the stronger military-like species are probably either scattered and disorganized or just plain wiped out by Gordon, and fauna like headcrabs and ichthyosaurs only ended up coming over because of later portal storms. If the Combine wanted to take over the place all they'd need is send some soldiers over, but I don't know if they have the capacity to do that; it depends on whether Xen's status as a border world means anything to the way the Combine can only teleport by tunneling through from one dimension to another.
• Why does the G-Man take all your weapons away at the end? He says most of them were government property, but why would a Sufficiently Advanced Alien or whatever care about Earth's laws? I suppose you could say he's still pretending to be a real Government Agent but I really don't think Gordon (Or anyone in the audience) is falling for that by this point. This makes even less sense considering at the beginning of Half Life 2 he releases you from suspended animation because he wants you to fight again. Wouldn't Gordon be a lot more effective if he had all his weapons from before?
  • You forget that it could be an excuse. As for why he doesn't give them back at the start of the game... imagine if Gordon, lost and confused in the middle of the Combine's biggest stronghold on Earth, gets caught bearing his weaponry and no plan of action or contacts to help him on his way? That'd be inviting a strike team too well-equipped for him to confront at that point. And the HEV suit would be far too conspicuous too early.
  • I think G-man enjoys being mysterious. And his teleportation/time-travel powers might come with limits that make teleporting a bunch of guns too much hassle to be worth it. Gordon gets new guns anyway in Half-Life 2, and presumably G-man dropped him off in the right time/place to make sure that would happen.
• Why was there such a dramatic gameplay shift at the end of the game? You get into the flow of shooting aliens and soldiers, and bam! Low-gravity platforming hell. I know it's a trope, but...it always annoyed me.
  • I can think of two reasons: A) They wanted to change up the gameplay for the finale to make it more dramatic (kind of like the Super Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2), and B) They wanted to make Xen seem very alien and different to Earth so they altered the gameplay to reflect that (again, kind of like in Half-Life 2. Whether it works is debatable, but I can understand why they attempted it.
• How come the HECU marines do not remove Gordon's HEV suit when he is thrown in the garbage compactor in the "Apprehension" chapter? They took all his weapons, why leave the suit?
  • Bond Villain Stupidity. It's the same reason they didn't shoot him in the head before throwing him in.
  • They probably figured that, as amazing as the HEV suit is, it won't save him from a trash compacter.
  • They probably felt weird about stripping the unconscious prisoner of the same gender.
  • I just assumed Gordon is sealed into the suit, and you need the proper know-how to deactivate it and get it off.
  • I think I read Somewhere that they originally did take it off and you had to get it back.
    • They didn't in the game though so it doesn't matter.
  • It might be because they were killed by black ops before they could take it off and the black ops activated the compacter thinking he was already dead.
  • A deleted scene from Half Life: Decay was meant to alleviate this plot hole by having the two protagonists encounter and kill said marines right after they dumped Gordon in the trash compactor. Obviously that scene is non-canon now, but it could still be reasoned that the marines were otherwise killed by some miscellaneous threat (of which there are many at Black Mesa) before they had a chance to finish off Gordon. The compactor being activated could've even been an automated process, given how much machinery is still running on its own in Residue Processing.
  • The lines spoken by your captors as you're hauled away suggest that you were intended to disappear without a trace. The weapons you're carrying were picked up in the field and handled only through your suit gloves, so taking those for their own use isn't a problem: no fingerprints, no evidence. But the HEV suit is specifically Gordon Freeman's and could potentially be traced to you. The soldiers needed to get rid of it as well as you, so they figured the trash compactor would start the job for both body and suit, and Black Mesa's automated refuse incinerator would finish it.
• How is Adrian Shepherd attempting to interact with Gordon Freeman at the Xen portal a Temporal Paradox?
  • It didn't happen in the original game.
• How come Headcrabs are compatible with human biology enough to be able to connect to them and control them? Not only that. They don't do this with any Xen lifeform.
  • They're not that small and lightweight either. Headcrab is actually as large as a goose or mediocre dog. Now imagine several pounds of flesh and bones hurling themselves right in your face. Ouch! Such force should be enough to snap human neck along with crushing at least their nose. Considering this some parasite-induced puppetization should be the least of your worries.
• If the Black Ops Assassins' modus operandi is stealth why do they stomp like a herd of elephants? On the other hand the HECU Marines' footsteps are almost inaudible. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Let's not take gameplay balance reasons into account.
  • Unfortunately, gameplay balance is about the only reason I can think of.

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