Tackling Lombardi's Revelation

[Glenn the Great]

There is a lot of debate over the following quote by Doug Lombardi:

"We had a glimpse of the larger threat when we were working on Half-Life 1. In other words we knew that once you cleared out the Nihilanth, you were going to discover something worse beyond it. We knew that some immense threat had chased the Nihilanth and its creatures out of their own world and into Xen, from which location they were all to glad to seize the opportunity to continue on to Earth with suppression through the citadels. But the exact nature of the threat was left to be solved in Half-Life 2."

A lot of you seem to think that Xen is a safe-haven for the Nihilanth and Vortigaunts, and that the Vorts were not controlled by the Combine, all based on this quote. I believe that the quote has been misinterpreted, and I am going to show how.

Most people assume that the "larger threat" is referring to the Combine. It might seem like the Vortigaunts were slaves of the Combine, that they escaped to Xen, and that the invasion of Earth by Xen was a panic attack caused by human meddling in their world. I don't believe this is so.

Read this sentence:

"We knew that some immense threat had chased the Nihilanth and its creatures out of their own world and into Xen, from which location they were all to glad to seize the opportunity to continue on to Earth with suppression through the citadels."

Read it carefully. The Nihilanth and its creatures go to Xen.... from which location (still talking about Xen), they seize the opportunity to come to earth... with suppression from the Citadels.

What we see here is that Nihilanth and the Vortigaunts ARE THE COMBINE. They are the Combine since they are technically part of it, being slaves to them. They are no longer part of the Combine once the Nihilanth is destroyed, essentially freeing them.

The Combine are the "refugees" escaping from a much larger threat. I believe that this larger threat is who the G-Man works for. It is the extra party that will be introduced in the coming episodes.

[DeusExMachina]

Interesting theory. I don't think many others here will approve of it though...

[Samon]

Ok, so I didn't read it all, I'm tired, have work in the morning and going to bed soon so I'm not going to write a great deal saying why I completely disagree however...

I honestly, and I mean honestly, doubt the Combine are the refugees escaping the larger threat. As said in RTB "The Combine are the games evil empire." They've dominated countless worlds in an effort to force their technology onto other living organisms and adapt them and assimilate them in their own ranks.

The Combine are not refugees, they are an inter-stellar empire.

Also...The Combine chased the Xen creatures into Xen, and then from Xen moved through into Earth via the dimensional rift which made them become aware of it's existence.

[Glenn the Great]

The Combine is indeed an evil empire, and they are certainly massive, spanning many universes. I believe there is another great empire, which may be just as evil, and there is friction between these empires. There is a great war, and we only know the Combine half of it. A new faction will be revealed. We know that. I believe it is another giant empire, who is beginning to get the upper hand on the Combine, and Gordon is an agent of the Combine's downfall, just as the G-Man wants you to be.

First the GMan had you defeat the Vortigaunts. Now he's having you defeat Breen and his mechanized humans. GMan has sent you up against the same enemy both times, for the sake of his own empire, which is yet to be revealed.

[Darkside55]

This is one of the problems with information from developers, sometimes it's written in such a way as to cause confusion. What we have here is a failure to communicate.

You're connecting two thoughts into one, Glenn. Doug was saying that the Xenians were chased off their world by some unseen threat (thought 1), who were more than happy to attack Earth with their citadels (thought 2). Doug just put those thoughts together in the same sentence without clarification that they were different. What he MEANS is this:

"An unseen threat chased Nihilanth to Xen, [a threat which] was more than happy to attack Earth with their citadels."

The omission of a few words is what's causing the trouble. The Combine were never on Xen, and Nihilanth and the gang fled from the COMBINE. While I will say that your theory of the G-man's employers being the real masters has fan-merit, and would certainly be an interesting and unexpected twist to the story, I cannot see it happening. It's all confusion over something that should've been clear, but thanks to the wording it isn't.

[Samon]

I don't Gman has his own empire. He's merely using Gordon as mercenary, and he's the contractor.
Besides, he didn't set you against the Vortigaunts - it was Nihalinth. I mean, did he really subtely lead you to Nihalinth? No, I don't think so. That was Gordons own doing with aid from the Black Mesa team. It merely caught his attention. Though obviously Gman had other intentions and goals within Black Mesa.

Gordon is thrust into a cosmic war by a teleportation experiment gone badly wrong.

A war between the renegades of Xen and the Combine itself.

[Glenn the Great]

I mean, did he really subtely lead you to Nihalinth? No, I don't think so.

How can you say that he didn't lead you to Nihilanth, when he congratulates you for your destruction of it? The death of the Nihilanth was the goal. It's how you proved your worth. I think that the GMan set up the resonance cascade disaster. What was he doing in Black Mesa in the first place then? He was up to something, and it had to do with the scientists and their research. He wanted Gordon to get to Xen so he could take down Nihilanth.

[Samon]

The victory is short-lived, however. Gordon's heroics catch the attention of a sinister interdimensional bureaucrat. The G-Man, as he's come to be called, seals Gordon in stasis far from Earth, thought, and time itself.

And I quote from the Episode 1 site.
Somehow, I don't think leading Gordon to it was his overall goal - however, he's obviously pleased about it. You liberated the Vorts who quite clearly have come under his sway.

[Darkside55]

Gordon destroying the Nihilanth was a pleasant and unexpected surprise. The G-man had his hands in many cookie jars, but Gordon's was not one of them. The G-man had HECU, the black ops, and who knows what else backing him up...but Gordon Freeman, the man who actually got the job done, was completely out of left field.

Any time you see the G-man, he's merely heading where HE needs to go. There's nothing suggesting that he's leading you along for the purpose of conquering Xen. If the G-man takes a role in anyone's fate, it was Adrian Shephard's, constantly barring his path or opening new ways for him. The G-man had an armored regiment on Xen by the time Gordon destroyed Nihilanth...he obviously was not expecting you. But when you came out alive from the Nihilanth's chamber, he obviously recognized something special about you.

[ríomhaire]

My theory in a nutshell:
The Combine chased the Controllers and their slaves, Nihily and the Vorts to Xen.
Nihilanth controlled the Vorts, regulated the portals on Xen and bloked the Combine from getting through.
The g-man wanted to protect his and his employers' instrests, ie Earth.
Earth meddled in Xen, pissing off everyone their.
The Controllers ammased an army.
The g-man saw an opertunity, the Resonance Cascade was set up by him as a pre-emtive assault to confuse the Controllers so his employers' forces could move in and sieze Xen.
Gordon f*cked everything up by stopping the RC with the satilite launch.
The g-man manipulated Gordon to Xen where he could take out Nihilanth, plunging the Controllers into even more chaos than the RC did. Portal storms are back and worse, the Vorts are free and portals are now uncontrolled.
The g-man's employers' forces move in and take Xen, for the time being.
With Nihilanth dead the Combine are now free to move in and take Xen at last.
They see the Portal Storms, track their source to Earth and invade there too.
Earth is still important to the g-man for whatever reason. He uses the resistance and Gordon to overthrow the Combine control on City 17.
Everything goes to shit and suddenly the Vorts or perhaps an entirly new power who wishes for Gordon's safty/services rip Gordon from the g-man's control.
From there, we'll see.

[Samon]

The G-man had an armored regiment on Xen by the time Gordon destroyed Nihilanth.

No, I don't think that was his doing. First off, I firmly believe the military never made it to Xen. Also, that was a nice collection of planes, tanks, soldiers and god knows what else stored in one place. A little cramped? Yap. And the floor was sandy...that's not Xenish. I'd say that was merely a crossover from Earth.

I also believe he's not got a single jot of interest in Earth.

[Glenn the Great]

I believe that Doug didn't make a mistake when he told us that. My position takes his literal word, and your position assumes he messed up.

[ríomhaire]

"some immense threat had chased the Nihilanth and its creatures out of their own world and into Xen, from which location they were all to glad to seize the opportunity to continue on to Earth with suppression through the citadels"
If you take him word for word he's saying that the Nihilanth and creatures were glad to seize the opportunity to continue on to Earth with suppression through the citadels :rolleyes:

[Glenn the Great]

Yes, since I believe that at that time Vortigaunts were under Combine control, Nihilanth and friends were just as much the Combine as the Human Overwatch troops are the Combine. Doug is referring to the collective Combine which Nihilanth and the Vorts were part of as slaves.

Remember that the Nihilanth told you that they were slaves at the time of the fight. If a slave gets free from his master, he isn't a slave anymore.

We know that Episode 1 will introduce another party. They aren't talking about the Vortigaunts, since they are pretty well known already.

[Darkside55]

I believe that Doug didn't make a mistake when he told us that. My position takes his literal word, and your position assumes he messed up.
It is in my experience that people do not always mean exactly what they say. The meaning is more important than how it is said; not everyone speaks in well-defined, clear-cut sentences. I understand what he MEANS, even though what he SAYS is tripping over himself.

No, I don't think that was his doing. First off, I firmly believe the military never made it to Xen. Also, that was a nice collection of planes, tanks, soldiers and god knows what else stored in one place. A little cramped? Yap. And the floor was sandy...that's not Xenish. I'd say that was merely a crossover from Earth.

I also believe he's not got a single jot of interest in Earth.
This is going to be a hard one to prove either way. The fact is that yes, the ground was most certainly the New Mexican desert. The sky, however, was Xenian. Since you were teleporting across Xen, it makes sense that it was on Xen (there is nothing to suggest that SAND does not occur on Xen); however, it could also have been one of the G-man's hallucinatory tricks.

But regardless of where that place was, the scenario has meaning to it. Much like the debate we're having about what Lombardi said over what he meant, this is a case of what was implied more than what actually happened, or where it happened. The tanks, the military, and the planes were an invasion force. This was no longer a cleanup crew. Showing HECU destroyed against the background of Xen (and perhaps the New Mexican floor) has metaphorical meaning. There was an invasion going on, from both sides. The Xenians came through, and in that, our military pushed through. I believe that was the G-man's doing. It's such a wonderful setup, if you think about it:

The G-man is employed at Black Mesa as a liason to the teleport experiment facilities.

When the time is right and they have a pure sample, a week before the experiment happens he gets the marines trained for close-quarters combat. He also employs the black ops.

When the experiment goes awry, as he knew it would, he sends in the military as "cleanup," eliminating any trace of people who knew about the teleportation experiments and the alien world. He directs the military into Xen. One man in particular he moves through the facility, cleaning up more aliens (Shephard).

The military breaks itself against the Xenian forces. Gordon Freeman unexpectedly destroys the Nihilanth, throwing said forces into disarray and allowing the military--and thus the G-man--to take control of the borderworld.

With that complete, he returns to Black Mesa to make sure that no word of this gets out, arms a nuke, and destroys the evidence.

[ríomhaire]

When the time is right and they have a pure sample, a week before the experiment happens he gets the marines trained for close-quarters combat. He also employs the black ops.
Actualy, it was 2 months, Shephards mission is confirmed in March, the RC happens in May.

[Glenn the Great]

Would you like to tell me why there is a Vortigaunt slaving around with a broom in the train station? He's wearing slave collars, and the Combine is his master.

[ríomhaire]

Would you like to tell me why there is a Vortigaunt slaving around with a broom in the train station? He's wearing slave collars, and the Combine is his master.
Because the Vortigaunts are the perfect thing to use for visible labour. Having humans do it will depress and discust citizens even more. Stalkers would be even worse. No self-respecting metro-cop would do it. Vortigaunts are the perfect thing for visible work. Plus the Combine and Xen slave collars are clearly quite different.

[Darkside55]

Actualy, it was 2 months, Shephards mission is confirmed in March, the RC happens in May.
Ah, you're right. G-man showed up around March 3rd, and the incident was on May 15th. I'm not sure why I thought it was a week...=/ This only lends credence to the theory that this was all the G-man's plan, however.

On the vortigaunts, I could not have said it any better than riomhaire. In fact, I never even considered the "visible labor" aspect of it; very nice.

[Glenn the Great]

Plus the Combine and Xen slave collars are clearly quite different.

It's the same collar. It's green and metallic. It looks different because HL2's artwork is much more detailed. The whole Vortigaunt model underwent a big makeover. Same goes for the collar.

[Darkside55]

Collar was gray and dull, I believe, not green and metallic. Potato, potatoe, though, right? It's most definately a different collar. How hard would it be for the Combine to engineer, or reverse-engineer a collar for the vortigaunts? Remember that most--if not ALL--the vortigaunts who came through the portals were collared.

[ríomhaire]

The HL2 is grey and dull. It also looks alot less smooth than the HL1 varient. It also has wires (IIRC) and a crotch thingy.

[Glenn the Great]

I just looked at it. It is pale green on my monitor. I stand by the idea that it is a updated version of the same collar.

The idea that the Combine enslaved Xen, Gordon freed them, and now the Combine is replacing them with humans while the vortigaunts rally with them against the Combine to keep them from the slavery that the Vortigaunts just escaped makes for a much better story in my opinion. It allows for parallels between the Vortigaunts and Humans that aren't there if you twist Doug Lombardi's words to paint a picture of an accidental battle between Humans and Vortigaunts, and then some brand new people (Combine) come on the scene and now the Vortigaunts are all buddy buddy with you somehow... it's lame and dubious.

Using your logic, the Vortigaunts we fought in HL1 were a totally different species than the ones in HL2 because they have a different number of eyes.

[ríomhaire]

That's not what it paints at all. The Combine aren't brand new because they were fighting the Xenians, please try to pay attention.

[Darkside55]

Let me break the whole thing down. It will be easier to see how the stories relate to each other.

1. The Combine, a power-hungry universal union, assaults, or is ABOUT to assault, the original Xenian homeworld.

2. Nihilanth flees with other Xenian races to Xen. The Combine cannot follow.

3. Black Mesa's experimentation leads to the discovery of Xen. They begin to collect alien species by force, and the Xenians retaliate into full-on war mode.

4. Gordon kills Nihilanth before the invasion gets any further than Black Mesa; however, the release of the teleport energies creates portal storms and randomly banishes Xenian fauna to Earth. Among those are some of the vortigaunts.

5. The Combine detect said portal storms, and move in to attack Earth.

That is how it happened. Really, you can't play "fill in the blanks with the Combine" to make the argument work. A collar doesn't suddenly mean the Combine occupation of Xen. If you are a universe-spanning force hellbent on conquering, and you cannot build a suppression collar within a month or less, I pity you. Even if you had no collars to reverse engineer (which I'm sure they had PLENTY), you should still be able to come up with something.

The Nihilanth's words don't necessarily mean that they are currently slaves to the Combine. Remember that those lines were thought of before HL2, before they even thought of the Combine. The story has since undergone changes. In whatever case, the Combine had NO control over the Nihilanth. He FLED.

The Combine have not set foot on Xen. They do not control anyone or anything on Xen. They might NEVER get to Xen.

[Glenn the Great]

Alright, here is my version of the story, which I feel is much better.

-The Combine conquered the Vortigaunt race and thousands of other races all across the multiverse.
-Xen is one of many Combine outposts on the interdimensional fabric.
-Humans stumble upon Xen some time before the resonance cascade, and set up a relay for use in teleportation experiements.
-Human presence on Xen attracts the GMan and/or his employers' attention.
-The Combine also become wise that another intelligent species exists, and we become a target for assimilation.
-Whether orchestrated or perhaps just by accident, a resonance cascade makes a massive split in the dimensional fabric.
-The Combine begin to attack Earth by first sending in waves of Vortigaunt slaves.
-Gordon defeats the Nihilanth, a creature serving as a control hub for the Vortigaunts. Vortigaunts retain their sanity and free will, and begin to revere Gordon as a messiah.
-The angry Combine flood Earth with their other slave warriors in retaliation for the loss of the Vortigaunts, with hopes of assimilating the land, resources, and most importantly, technology, of the human race.
-Dr. Breen, who has perhaps made contact with the Combine some time before the resonance cascade (and he may have even been the one to set up the resonance cascade. Also note that the scientists tell you that the Administrator wants you to go ahead with the experiment), negotiates a settlement with the Combine.
-Events of Half-Life 2

[ríomhaire]

I feel that your theory is incomplete. The RC wasn't an accident for 2 reasons:
1: Dr. Rosenburg said so
2: That's just horrible storytelling :P

Until you come up with who done it I feel your theory is incomplete. The two main suspects are Breen (rather scetchy IMO) and the g-man.

[Glenn the Great]

Look at my next to last note. I think Breen was responsible.

[WingsofJecka]

I dont like to post much, but nobody mentioned this one thing yet so ill give it a shot.

Up till now I have always aussumed that the Comnine forced the Xenians to flee to Xen from their homeland. But based on recent news about epsiode one, specfically concerning a new third party, I began to think that maybe this new third party is what caused the Xenians to flee. Doug's "greater threat" could be the third party instead of the Combine.

I could be wrong, but i dont think doug spefically mentioned the Combine as the "greater threat."

Its not perfect for sure, but nothing is perfect here anyway.

[Glenn the Great]

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to argue here. The Combine isn't the only big player in the multiverse. There is always a bigger fish, and this third party probably battles with the Combine every day, and the Vortigaunt arm of the Combine's empire may have been forced to retreat to Xen.

[WingsofJecka]

But i dont think the vorts are part of the combine though. Infact in my little theory they might never have been contact between the combine and the vorts/nihlanth.

in other words the Xenians were just an independent race, like earth.

[ríomhaire]

I really doubt Breen organised it. I most certainly don't think that the RC was a Xenian attack. The actual soldiers don't show up until you stop the RC. Though it might have been a Combine plot against both Human and Xen though I doubt that to extreme levels. I'm all but certain it was...the g-man!

[Samon]

I dont like to post much, but nobody mentioned this one thing yet so ill give it a shot.

Up till now I have always aussumed that the Comnine forced the Xenians to flee to Xen from their homeland. But based on recent news about epsiode one, specfically concerning a new third party, I began to think that maybe this new third party is what caused the Xenians to flee. Doug's "greater threat" could be the third party instead of the Combine.

I could be wrong, but i dont think doug spefically mentioned the Combine as the "greater threat."

Its not perfect for sure, but nothing is perfect here anyway.

I honestly doubt this...HL2 was the rise of the greater threat. The whole idea behind Lombardi saying that was too emphasize the Combines role in HL2.

[Eejit]

Glenn if the Vortigaunts and Nihilanth were controlled by the Combine (or part of it) then why don't the Combine have local teleports?

By the same argument the Combine can't have made it to Xen yet. Not only are there Xenian teleports around for them to reverse engineer, but BM teleport equipment too.

[Glenn the Great]

I'm really starting to think that a lot of this argument is really hard to solve because Valve is making up the story as they go. When HL1 was created, I don't think that Valve had thought up the Combine just yet. I think that synths were in large a new idea come up with during the development of HL2, and the only signifigance Xen's local teleports had at the time, was simply to be a way to link the scenes together. I don't think that at the time, Valve had thought about the Combine's teleporting problem. It wasn't until a few years later when it came time to create Blue Shift that Valve really started thinking about teleportation issues.

A lot of this problem has to do with difficulty retrofitting the story of HL2 and all of its new ideas to a game that was made 6 years earlier when the story had not developed so far.

[ríomhaire]

No shit.

[Eejit]

A lot of this problem has to do with difficulty retrofitting the story of HL2 and all of its new ideas to a game that was made 6 years earlier when the story had not developed so far.

Why would that be a difficulty? They simply make the HL2 story fit with what they already made...

[Samon]

I'm really starting to think that a lot of this argument is really hard to solve because Valve is making up the story as they go. When HL1 was created, I don't think that Valve had thought up the Combine just yet. I think that synths were in large a new idea come up with during the development of HL2, and the only signifigance Xen's local teleports had at the time, was simply to be a way to link the scenes together. I don't think that at the time, Valve had thought about the Combine's teleporting problem. It wasn't until a few years later when it came time to create Blue Shift that Valve really started thinking about teleportation issues.

A lot of this problem has to do with difficulty retrofitting the story of HL2 and all of its new ideas to a game that was made 6 years earlier when the story had not developed so far.

But Gearbox did Blue Shift. Not Valve.

Valve had a vague idea in HL1, but nothing concrete. As time developed, the plot developed - it became something greater than imagined in HL2. At this stage however they aren't making it up as they go.

[Glenn the Great]

I read somewhere that although GearBox created Blue Shift, Laidlaw wrote the story for it.

[Samon]

I'm not sure, really.

[MuToiD_MaN]

So in the G-Man's post-HL1 lecture, who do you all think is the party that has control of Xen? One that Earth is a part of? G-Man's watchdog organization?

I'm entertaining the idea that the group that gains control of Xen as a result of the death of the Nihilanth IS the Combine. I can't back it up with much evidence, but perhaps the G-Man changed his own alignment to overthrow them afterward?

[Glenn the Great]

I went back to what the "All-Knowing Vortigaunt" said, and one of his lines goes something like this:

"The lesser master has been slain, and the greater master will fall in due time."

That can be said to support my theory that the lesser master (Nihilanth) was a subordinate to the greater master (Combine Overlord(s)).

A problem I have with the Nihilanth escaping Combine control has to do with the level of permanence of Combine surgery. Look at stalkers: we know from the official guide that they have had a great deal of their brain, along with almost every other organ, removed from their body. I could not see a Stalker turning against the Combine. I feel that the Stalker's state is rather permanent. I think the same permanence would be in Nihilanth too.

The other thing is that I don't like the idea of HL1's Vortigaunts fighting a defensive battle against scientists. We are never told that scientists have been actually capturing Vortigaunts or have been attacking their race. The way Vortigaunts fight in Black Mesa is rather brutal. They kill everyone on sight, even people who are helpless and unarmed. I have always felt that the Vortigaunts are fighting an invasive battle.

I still think the collars are significant, and that the collars seen on a few Vorts in HL2 are intended to be the same collars they were wearing in HL1, just updated in appearance, the same way the Vortigaunts themselves and some other enemies are updated in appearance.

[Sufferin-rebel]

well I would like to remember a bit of Breen's Speech

"We see the unknown as a threat instead as a oppurnity"

this I can compare with the Vortigaunts.. They got (forcefully?) removed from there homeworld to this new Alien-like world (Alien to them anyway) full of removed organs of animals and crap like that, they are bound to be scared, and they were merely scared of the unknown and decided to battle it

[ríomhaire]

The other thing is that I don't like the idea of HL1's Vortigaunts fighting a defensive battle against scientists. We are never told that scientists have been actually capturing Vortigaunts or have been attacking their race.
Agrunt in tube in HL1. Vortigaunt on an operating table in Decay.

The way Vortigaunts fight in Black Mesa is rather brutal. They kill everyone on sight, even people who are helpless and unarmed. I have always felt that the Vortigaunts are fighting an invasive battle.
Your species are being captured by aliens. You have no idea what happens to them once they are taken, SUDDENLY you are suddenly teleported to an alien world. Haunting sterile and even walls are enclosing you. You see a strange tall creature before you, WHAT DO YOU DO?

Also, BS gives a very good scene of a Vort examining a sci curiously. The sci then panics and screams. The Vort then takes a suprised step back and zaps the running sci.

[Glenn the Great]

I got the picture that the aliens you see experiments being done on, were subdued soon after the resonance cascade. It is apparant that the scientists have been trapping some of them after they ported in. You see some of this in OP4, such as headcrabs in kennels out in the middle of the hallway, and another scientist trying to load a fresh zombie into an MRI machine.

I never got the feeling that the scientists knew anything about the creatures before the resonance cascade.

[ríomhaire]

I got the picture that the aliens you see experiments being done on, were subdued soon after the resonance cascade. It is apparant that the scientists have been trapping some of them after they ported in. You see some of this in OP4, such as headcrabs in kennels out in the middle of the hallway, and another scientist trying to load a fresh zombie into an MRI machine.

I never got the feeling that the scientists knew anything about the creatures before the resonance cascade.
You clearly didn't pay mutch attention. Where do you think the fecking crystal sample came from?

"This is the supply depot for our first survey team. Quite a few handsome specimens were collected from the border-world and brought back this way. Uh, before the survey members started being collected themselves, that is."

Plus the fact that in BS there are old, boarded up teleportation labs that go to Xen.

[mortiz]

If you look at the Nihilanth at the end of HL1 he has shackles around his arms indicating he was possibly a slave at one point. Now the obvious route to take was that the Nihilanth along with the other Xen fauna were enslaved by the Combine but it's possible the Nihilnath used its great power to escape into the border world and sealed the entrance. When the resonance cascade occurs (perhaps set up by someone affiliated with the Combine, but that'd mean they'd already know about Earth) it rips a huge hole in Xen. The Nihilanth construes this as some form of attack and the war breaks out. When the Nihilanth is destroyed it opens the portals into the border world allowing the Combine to move through freely and then on to Earth. By this logic you've got to look at who would benefit the most from this occuring and it would obviously be The Combine, also since the G-Man assists you at several points in the game I'm going to assume that in Half-Life 1 the G-Man is working for the Combine. The war between Xen and Earth cripples Xen and leaves Earth open to attack. So the combine must have known about Earth before the events in Half-Life 1. Now it's slightly more than hinted at that people at the Black Mesa facility had been venturing into Xen way before the resonance cascade, but I'm unsure of the significance of that.

My guess is that the G-Man contacted Breen on behalf of the Combine and offered him something he couldn't refuse in order to have the test sabotaged. Breen benefited alot out of the Combine invasion and was also the one pushing for the test to go ahead so this would make sense. However, it'd have to be something pretty damn good in order to convince him to sell out his world. The other explanation is that there's some other species out there we've yet to meet (the G-Man's 'bosses') who would very much benefit from the Combine enslaving earth so they set up the whole thing. I very much doubt that they're at war the Combine though, the Combine like the humans probably wouldn't even know about this third-party.

[Glenn the Great]

I really think the G-Man is working for a completely unknown party which may be opposed to the Combine. We really don't have enough knowledge about the real Combine to know if they just so happen to be fighting a war or what. The story makes a lot more sense and has more meaning in my opinion if you view the Vorts and Nihilanth as being under Combine control at the time of HL1. The consequence of that viewpoint is that elegant paralells can be drawn between the Vortigaunts and Humans. They are both races that were beaten down and enslaved by the Combine, and there is parallel in your actions in HL1 and HL2, in that first you liberate the Vortigaunts, and then you liberate the Humans. It makes it so that in both games, you were the instrument of stopping Combine slavery, which I believe is what the G-Man's motive is. I simply believe it is better storytelling.

We can't know which viewpoint is true until we get more information, and I have my fingers crossed that this will be clarified in Episode One. Then maybe I'll be able to tell you that I told you so. ^_^

[Eejit]

So in the G-Man's post-HL1 lecture, who do you all think is the party that has control of Xen? One that Earth is a part of? G-Man's watchdog organization?

I'm entertaining the idea that the group that gains control of Xen as a result of the death of the Nihilanth IS the Combine. I can't back it up with much evidence, but perhaps the G-Man changed his own alignment to overthrow them afterward?

I don't see how the Combine could be in control of Xen and yet not have local teleport technology. There are Xenian teleports and BM equipment all over the place.

If I had to guess who was in control of Xen now I'd go with the Controllers. Another possibility would be Race-X, but if that were the case I don't think we'll see Xen again.


As for the tanks in a sandy environment at the end of HL1 how do we know there are no sandy areas on Xen? The antlions certainly seem quite at home on Earth beaches.

[99.vikram]

I don't see how the Combine could be in control of Xen and yet not have local teleport technology. There are Xenian teleports and BM equipment all over the place.

Reverse engineering complex equipment you have never seen before is virtually impossible. Besides, the teleporters on Xen were completely organic and could NOT have been reverse engineered. As for BMRF, it is a crater.

If I had to guess who was in control of Xen now I'd go with the Controllers. Another possibility would be Race-X, but if that were the case I don't think we'll see Xen again.

I would have hought the Controllers lost power after Nihilanth fell, and got owned by the Vorts.
Laidlaw mentioned that RaceX was just another race with local teleport, and they took advantage of the resonance cascade to take revenge on humans (for stealing their babies and stuff).

As for the tanks in a sandy environment at the end of HL1 how do we know there are no sandy areas on Xen? The antlions certainly seem quite at home on Earth beaches.

I always thought those tanks were the ones you blew up at Black Mesa, which the Gman took to Xen ("quite a nas-ty piece of work you have managed over there.."). I believe earth held control of Xen for a limited time before the 7 hour awr.

[mortiz]

I don't see how the Combine could be in control of Xen and yet not have local teleport technology. There are Xenian teleports and BM equipment all over the place.

If I had to guess who was in control of Xen now I'd go with the Controllers. Another possibility would be Race-X, but if that were the case I don't think we'll see Xen again.


As for the tanks in a sandy environment at the end of HL1 how do we know there are no sandy areas on Xen? The antlions certainly seem quite at home on Earth beaches.

Well, possibly teleportation was a feature of the Xen, my guess is that all local teleportation drew power from the Nihilanth, and not through from a technological source.

[Eejit]

Reverse engineering complex equipment you have never seen before is virtually impossible. Besides, the teleporters on Xen were completely organic and could NOT have been reverse engineered. As for BMRF, it is a crater.

If the conquered Xen they most likely have had 20 years. They have their own teleport technology, and are a very advanced civilisation. I think they would be able to reverse engineer.

There was BMRF teleportation equipment on Xen. Look at Blue Shift.

As for Xen teleports being impossible to reverse engineer, I disagree. The Combine are experts at creating biological technology, e.g. the Synths.


I don't see why the downfall of Nihilanth necessarily leads to the Controllers being wiped out by Vortigaunts. I believe the Controllers probably created the Nihilanth in the first place. If the Vortigaunts rebelled I think the Grunts would be too dumb to help them and probably still obey the Controllers.
Grunt army, Gargs, Mantas + Controllers > Vortigaunts imo.

[Glenn the Great]

I believe that the Controllers, Nihilanth, Grunts, and Vorts are probably all different castes of the same species. They all share the 3rd arm, they are arranged in the roles of worker/soldier/drone/queen, and it is official information that the Vortigaunts are "hive minded."

[99.vikram]

I believe that the Controllers, Nihilanth, Grunts, and Vorts are probably all different castes of the same species. They all share the 3rd arm, they are arranged in the roles of worker/soldier/drone/queen, and it is official information that the Vortigaunts are "hive minded."

Yes, but it's certainly not a peaceful symbiosis because the controllers put the vortigaunts in chains.

[Darkside55]

The story makes a lot more sense and has more meaning in my opinion if you view the Vorts and Nihilanth as being under Combine control at the time of HL1. The consequence of that viewpoint is that elegant paralells can be drawn between the Vortigaunts and Humans. They are both races that were beaten down and enslaved by the Combine, and there is parallel in your actions in HL1 and HL2, in that first you liberate the Vortigaunts, and then you liberate the Humans. It makes it so that in both games, you were the instrument of stopping Combine slavery, which I believe is what the G-Man's motive is. I simply believe it is better storytelling.
I don't believe it makes for better storytelling. Simpler, maybe, but not better. As it stands, throughout Half-Life you've had four different powers: human beings, Xenians, the G-man and his employers, and the Combine. The way the story is now, with the Xenians not under Combine control, you've got a real four (now three) way dynamic here. Xenians flee from Combine. Humans intrude on Xenians, who wage war against them. G-man employs the man who conquers Xen. Combine strike at Earth, and that is where we stand now. I believe that the "rise of the third power" in Aftermath will be the G-man's employers, as the only ones we haven't seen. They will connect the story together in yet another way, being once linked to Xen and perhaps also linked to the Combine, and linked to the human resistance as well. That is good storytelling, a complex weave of separate parts that culminate a whole. It is not directly point A to B, no, but I feel that it is better. More fleshed out, more real than just "one big group of aliens attack the human race, and you free some of them so they help you."

In either case, the vortigaunt slave / human slave dynamic is still present. I don't know why it's so hard to just say that the vortigaunts were slaves of the controllers, and not slaves of the Combine. When you're drawing comparisons, slaves are still slaves. The master is not important to the metaphor. You freed the vortigaunts in the first game regardless, and in turn they help free humanity in the second game. The Combine factor is irrelevant.

Also, I'm sorry, but there is absolutely zero way that the Xenians are all just different castes of the same race. Save for perhaps the grunts and the controllers, they cannot even share a common ancestor. They are far too different to be divisions of the same species, and the "evidence" that they're related is only, "they all have three arms" is just...well, I have no nice way to put it. It's like saying that all four-legged animals on Earth are related.

Also, despite the "official" stamp Prima gets to put on their strategy guides, the vortigaunts are NOT hive-minded. I'm looking at this entry for the vortigaunts right now, and whoever wrote this clearly does not understand the distinction between coterminous and hivemind. If the vortigaunts were hiveminded, they could not have such things as poets, now could they?

[MuToiD_MaN]

Darkside55 seems to have it right, IMHO. Right enough anyway. That'd be awesome if we finally get to see what the deal is with the G-Man's empoyers.

It's like saying that all four-legged animals on Earth are related.
Well it is true, if you believe in evolution :P So perhaps not the same species, but still from the same planet.

[99.vikram]

I have an something of an obsession with symmetry, so at first I thought Combine-on-Xen was elegant, and defended it until I got flamed out of threads.

But if you think about it, Vorts being exiled from their homeworld makes for a "real" scenario, something we can picture happening on earth. It also avoids plot-holes like why Combine couldn't local teleport (which can be explained in other, complicated ways). It also explains the lack of Citadels etc. on Xen, which are supposed to be standard for all Combine colonies.

Also, I'm sorry, but there is absolutely zero way that the Xenians are all just different castes of the same race. Save for perhaps the grunts and the controllers, they cannot even share a common ancestor. They are far too different to be divisions of the same species, and the "evidence" that they're related is only, "they all have three arms" is just...well, I have no nice way to put it. It's like saying that all four-legged animals on Earth are related.

Vortigaunts, controllers, grunts share the third arm, so they have common ancestry. The Gargs, bullsquids, houndeye, tentacles, headcrabs etc. are either wild creatures or genetically modified wild creatures (not Nihilanth's style).

The Vortigaunts are bound to the force called Vortessence by the vortal cords. They are not hive-minded, but they share a group mind.

[Darkside55]

I'm sure that they have a common ancestor somewhere far, far, far back, just like saying all primates share some missing link somewhere down the line. However, they've all evolved long past that point into separate species. You might consider controllers and grunts distant cousins, having evolved in different directions (controllers favoring the mind, while grunts are brute strength), but if vortigaunts do indeed share some genes with those two it's gotta have been from eons ago.

[99.vikram]

It's possible that grunts and vortigaunts were engineered by controllers grown exclusively for being soldiers and slaves, resp. Their skin texture and eye patterns are strikingly similar under the exoskeletal armor, unlike the controllers.

Do any of you think controllers have a group mind?

[Darkside55]

I don't think that grunts and vortigaunts were engineered by the controllers. Judging from the look of the Nihilanth, they seem inexperienced with creating a completely organic creature. By that I mean the Nihilanth's body has been stitched together and infused with life, not grown. If they could do such a thing with vortigaunts and grunts, they definately would've done it for the Nihilanth.

Vortigaunts also have the vortessence, which I don't believe is something that could be engineered. It's supposed to be the fabric of the universe anyway, so that's out.

Grunts might've been modified from their original forms, but that's also debatable. The factory, as far as we know, wasn't producing grunts, it was packaging them. They might not be grown or modified at all, save for getting armor, hivehands, and then being stuffed in an organic crate.

As for the controllers having a group mind, it's not impossible. I'd imagine that their communication is almost entirely telepathic; the most we hear out of them are screeches of rage and pain, and some warning sounds. I don't recall them ever making words, as the grunts or vortigaunts do. The controllers probably can't see out of their fellows' eyes, like the vortigaunts, but they can probably relay messages telepathically over certain distances.