Xen crystal in Black Mesa East
 

In laboratory of Eli Vance is some device with typical yellow Xen mineral and source of rays (I think its small anti-mass spectrometer). Probably this crystal is not GG-3883 (famous sample from Anomalous materials) but it could be a EP-0021 (weak sample mentioned in report of Collete Green - in HL1 manual) or other Xen crystal. What is function of these machine and crystal? Maybe is element of teleportation technology (teleport is based on some crystalline anomaly) or something different?

Xen has loads of crystals like it. The vortiguants could have brought some, or some may have come to earth during the portal storms. Eli had plenty of opportunities to get this crystal.

In real life, a mass spectrometer use Nuclear Magnetic Resonance on the material being analysed to find the energy values of it's resonance peaks and hence determine the structure of the material.


I have no idea what an anti-mass spectrometer is, I'm guessing it's just pseudoscience, but my interpretation is they want to analyse this crystal's structure, but conventional methods yield null results.
So they use this high tech, and high energy analyser, but by resonating the atoms in the sample they cause some kind of disturbance which excites the atoms too much and they do this resonance cascade scenario etc etc.
Looks like Eli is analysing the crystal using a similar spectroscopy, but there's no resonance cascade this time.
Maybe the sample in the Black Mesa lab was sabotaged?

Of course it's all pseudoscience (ie BS) so don't look too much into this, it's just a story.

A Vortigaunt most likley gave it too him.

To my knowledge, the crate that you push into the big sparkling thing was placed there by the Combine...or was is Xen? I know for sure that the substance being analyzed was placed there as a sabotage.

It was niether, they were testing it out, if there was anyone who sabotaged it it was Dr Breen, who was repeatedly pushing for it to be examined

The reason there was a resonance cascade, I'm guessing, is because 1) the sample was so pure and so large and 2) they used so much power. I got the distinct sense in HL1 that Gordon had pushed things into the spectrometer before.

I bet the sample was just there to be studied. That's kinda what scientists do. :dozey:

I read some Resonance cascade Theory on teh interweb...

Basically, The crystal was too pure, and retained the majority of the energy that flowed into it, and there is some negative feedback of some sort (you hear the scientists say "its probably nothing" during the experiment). Also, breen pushed to run the equipment at a higher power than they had planned to.
This theory was preceded by a little on a nuclear bomb, so im assuming that when the energy reached its 'critical mass' it dispersed outwards at speed, starting off the portal storms.
We know that breen purposefully caused the resonance-cascade as a part of a deal with the combine, so all this seems to make sense to me (theres some reference to breen setting up a satelite to amplify the portal storms in the hl timeline website, y'know which one).

These machines are not directly related to teleport technology, but they allowed the scientists to analyse what makes basic teleport stuff work.

...

Probably. :p

ok. go back to the area where u find this "anti-mass spectrometer" and examine the area more closely.

If you look to the top of the machine you'll see it connects to the teleport thingo. so im guessing that these crystals allow the "xen relay" that mossman talks about on the lift down, without them teleports would be limited to inter dimentional travel not local travel like vance and kleiner and alyx have been able to do, again as mossman says.

I know EXACTLY why the Crystal is important.

In the Half-Life Manual, it tells us that Gordon's Thesis paper was written on "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."

In other words, the Crystals are what enable teleportation. With at thesis title like that, its no wonder Eli thought you would be interested in observing the Transuranic Crystal.

This is probably why Xen has so much in the line of natural teleporters, because Xen is so rich in the crystal. Apparently, the conditions to create a portal where exactly right when they tried to merely analyze the crystal, and thus, the Resonance Cascade.

Nods, the thesis is also probably the reason why Mossman talks about being a fan of Gordon's work even before he joined Black Mesa.

And also states why I'm right in saying the Combine had no control over Xen. If they'd controlled Xen, they'd be fart-assing about with crystals all day long, teleporting in and out of women's locker rooms as they please.

Or something. Still, if the Combine controlled Xen, they'd have all of the local teleportational tech they'd need from the Controllers.

-Angry Lawyer

not really. just because the crystals were there doesnt mean that the combine knew about their properties and how to use them to their advantage.

Its generally known now that the combine had control over xen during the time gordon visited and killed nihilanth.

damn i wish i had actually bought half life and then i would have the manual with all this cool stuff. how bad is it that half life 2 has no manual besides a piece of orange plastic!

If you want to read a lot of whats in the manual... go to www.planethalflife.com under game overview. I don't know if its word-for-word, but its close.

cheers pai

Then where were the Synth? The Citadels? The Combine symbols they assign their troops? It's not known who controlled Xen, as there was no evidence in either game. Just because one fan created an 'official storyline' page, everyone believes it.

I'm sorry, but saying that the Nihilanth was controlled by the Combine simply because he was controlled by something is wrong. There needs to be more proof either way.
Using most people's theories on the subject, if any Alien were to be controlled, by default it's gotta be the Combine. There's no supporting evidence, other than a few Nostradamus style ramblings by the Vortigaunts.

So what if the Nihilanth had slave manacles? Using that sort of logic, then the genie in Alladin must have been under Combine control, because he wore similar ones.

Yes, the Nihilanth was probably not a natural creature. But it had a large chunk of Xen crystal in its skull - and if the Combine controlled Xen, but didn't know localised teleportation, why did they build a massive teleporter in Nihilanth?

Oh, and for people saying that the Thumpers in Xen were evidence of Combine habitation...
http://www.passcal.nmt.edu/~bob/pass...mages/0930.jpg

Stuff that hits the ground (or in Xen's case, seems to drill into it) is not a Combine thing.

-Angry Lawyer