City 17 Canals

The City 17 Canals.

Where City 17 gets it water supply (or used to) is from a river system, controlled by a hydroelectric dam, channeled through a maze of conduits and sewers known as the Canals.

Significance

Over time, the Canals became neglected and depleted from the diminishing water levels caused by the Combine. The Resistance used its run-down nature to construct an underground railway network of sorts to ferry citizens away from City 17 to the far outskirts of Black Mesa East. However, it isn't long before the Combine network detected the movements along the Canals, and started deploying counter-insurgency units into the various entry points, including Manhacks, in a bid to flush out or kill the resistance members underground.

When Gordon Freeman first meets Alyx Vance, she states that they are on the verge of a 'better way', obviously referring to a better method of transport from City 17 to the outskirts. Soon Freeman realises that this is by means of an experimental teleportation technology. While Alyx teleports successfully, Gordon's attempt is foiled by the intervention of Hedy Lamarr. This forces him to take the alternative route through the Canals where he experiances first hand, the state of this method.

By the time Freeman reaches the first areas of the Canals, many of The Resistance checkpoints had already been eradicated. However ,Gordon makes it through the early sewers to the river system itself, where he takes possession of the Airboat. Once word gets out that he had bypassed the earlier Combine forces, Hunter Choppers are dispatched to start scouring the Canals to find and destroy him. Even though Gordon Freeman barely makes it Black Mesa East, it is clear that at that point, the entire undergound railway system of the Canals had been routed out and fully destroyed.

Trivia

• The players route through the Canals spans over Chapter 3 and 4, 'Route Canal' and 'Water Hazard', the third being his treck through the first initial sewer systems, and the fourth being is journey across the water system to Black Mesa East itself.
• There are a total of four G-Man sightings throughout these two chapters.
• From the ninth canal map, but more clearly at the hydroelectric dam itself, a silohette of Ravenholm can be seen in the setting sun.