Oberleutnant wrote:He says the following about Opposing Force and Blue Shift at the end of his page:
"blah blah blah"
I strongly disagree with him, though.
I read all of that, and yes, I also strongly disagree with him.
AFAIK it was mentioned in the game that the Combine is altering Earth's atmosphere.
I completely missed that one. Is it actually called the "Air Exchange Program"?
It was stated in the manual of the original game (again, AFAIK) that Freeman was offered a position position at Black Mesa in 2000. He received his doctorate from MIT in 1999.
Aha...yes, it does say that, doesn't it?
None, I believe.
Based on the photo of Eli, his wife and Alyx (who is just a child in it) and that Eli says "That photo and Alyx were the only things I could carry out from Black Mesa" (meaning that Alyx was indeed quite young when the resonance cascade occured), we can assume that roughly ten to twenty years have passed since the events of the first game.
He should have put question marks or a spread of years that the events could have happened in. Then I wouldn't mind so much. But the fact that he just comes out and states a bunch of years without proof annoys me.
It was mentioned in the game that Citadels appeared simultaneously in several major cities around the world, after Xen wildlife started to teleport into the countryside. (Just to be on the safe side, I'd like to add a third AFAIK.)
Argh....I also missed that one entirely. Then how do we know that Breen was controlling all of the Combine on Earth and not simply City 17? Besides, where does he get the authority to surrender for Earth? He's not the President or President of the U.N. or any other nation's leader. He was just the administrator of the BMRF, which leads me to believe he was striking a deal with the Combine before the Resonance Cascade ever happened. In fact, he probably wanted it to happen. Then I wonder how the G-Man relates to Breen and the scientists in HL 1?
I think his theory makes plenty of sense in this regard. Nihilanth was clearly controling Xen and the Xenians, but he, too, had masters of his own much like Doctor Breen. Among the things Nihilanth says to Gordon at the end of the first game is: "Their slaves . . . we are their slaves . . . we are . . ."
I remember a lot of the things he said came under a lot of scrutiny since the voice was distorted. Has Valve ever released some sort of guide as to what the Nihilanth actually said, or is this going by the voice sounds only?
I think so. We see a great level of variation in appearances among the lifeforms we know the Combine altered, such as the Striders and those weird four-legged things in the Citadel at the end of the game and the human slaves. If all of the alien lifeforms the Combine altered are diverse in appearance, why should the vaguely-similar appearance of the Nihilanth and the human slaves signify anything?
If so, then why didn't we see any of the Combine's technology? The Xen aliens never used any vehicles aside from the flying transports and never used any sort of technological weapons of any kind. The only thing I could see that would kind of make sense, but not really, is the alien grunt being a genetically mutated version of the Vortigaunts. They both have a third arm in the middle of their torso. But then, that doesn't really make much sense as the alien grunt does not have the abilities the Vortigaunt has of using energy.
Also, if they really were controlled by the Combine, why didn't we see any of the more deadlier aliens in use by the Combine in Half-Life 2? No Gargantuas? Those big blue bastards could tear apart Striders like tissue paper. No tentacles in the sand? They are nigh-invulnerable. No flying Xen Controllers? They would have been ideal guards in the Citadel.
Perhaps Breen simply underestimated the human resistance and felt that more protection was unnecessary in the City 17? After all, he was confident that everything was under control.
We've seen the level of destruction that Gordon Freeman was capable of in HL 1. Breen obviously knew about it as well. And yet he still belittled his forces for not being able to apprehend an untrained scientist. So if he thought that Gordon Freeman was no threat and realized the level of damage he's caused in HL1, why shouldn't he have used the more powerful Xen aliens in subduing Earth? We already knew that the Xen aliens were capable of teleporting into Earth. So why not?
Well, to be honest, without Freeman the resistance would've been hopeless against the Combine. It was his arrival that sparked the open revolt in the first place. And as the game makes it clear, for the resistance members Gordon "Free Man" has become a messiah-like figure whom they all follow into battle.
So once the resistance sparks, why not bring in the heavy stuff to quell it unless they simply do not have it?
snip
No doubt "Somewhere in Eastern Europe" is as close as we are ever going to get.
I wonder if all of the people in the game are relocated from North America or if we're supposed to assume that all of the dialogue is simply translated into English. But then again, Father Gregori had a European accent, and Dr. Breen, Judith, Eli, and Alxy were all from the first BMRF, so perhapds all of the people in City 17 were relocated from North America after all. Perhaps North America had become too infested with Xen and Race X aliens and that is why they shifted everything into Europe?
Luzifer's right hand wrote:It seems not all Vortigaunts are free.
One of them is sweepings the floor at the begining of the game.
??? Under Combine control? Where is that?
Also, there is a scene in the game where the Vortigaunts
do attack Combine soldiers. After the Combine starts raiding East Black Mesa and the rubble separates you and Dog from Alyx, you can hear a Vortigaunt attacking and killing Combine soldiers. I haven't no-clipped it to see what's going on, but I think the audio is enough evidence.
