Doom3world

First off, anyone who have completed the game can agree that we don't get very much concrete story. You're very often being thrown from place to place while trying to piece together as much info as you can. I'm working on my third play-through right now, and I'm going to see if I can collect any more story along the way. This post isn't so much about what happens to your during the game, but more about trying to piece together the little information I could gather.

- A quick touch-up on Half-Life 1 might be necessary. Black Mesa scientists opened a portal to a world (possibly in another dimension though I don't think it is explicitly stated) called Xen. Aliens from Xen (also called the "Border World") invade the Black Mesa complex, Gordon Freeman saves the day, yay.

- Post-Black Mesa, there are still lots of zombies roaming the planet (ie. Ravenholm). I'm sure this has a lot to do with Black Mesa directly, but some may have to do with the fact that the Combine and the Vortigons are still hanging around Earth (meaning, they are probably traveling here and some headcrabs are coming through as well, but this is merely a theory).

- At some point after Black Mesa there was a war. What caused the war is not told to us, but I would guess that the Combine took notice of us and staged an invasion. Dr. Eli Vance called it the "Seven Hours War." He tells us that Dr. Breen somehow negotiaged Earth's surrender, which is why he was "rewarded" with his current position.

- Dr. Breen is obviously just a figure-head. His purpose is to try to put a happy face on humanity's oppression in order to keep us from rebelling. I doubt that he has very much real power besides being the go-between for humanity and "our benefactors."

- I am unclear on who "our benefactors" actually are. At first it would appear that it is the Combine, but the two times we seen Breen make contact with these "Benefactors" the creature on the monitor looks (to me) like some large insect-like maggot/slug. Perhaps I am just looking at the image wrong, but that's all I can tell from the very brief glimpse given to us. Because of this I believe the "benefactors" are either an alien race that controls the Combine army or it's the actual Combine itself. I am very unclear on this one though.

- The Combine (or the "benefactors" if they are not one in the same) have suppressed human breeding. It is not stated if this suppression field is the same as the suppressor you shut down with Barney. I somehow doubt they are they same thing, but it's possible. Dr. Breen tells us (in the very beginning) that this is done to help humans overcome their primal instincts, but I very much doubt the Combine has such good intentions for us. More likely is that they want to control the population of humans.

- "Trans-Humans." While in Nova Prospect, if you pause to listen to Dr. Breen, he mentions the "Trans-Human forces." He talks about these Trans-Human forces trying to prove to (either the Combine or "our benefactors" I don't remember which) that they are a worthwhile addition to the Combine forces. Does this mean that the Combine forces are made up of multiple alien races? It would explain the name certainly, but that would be awkward since all the Combine troops have the exact same body type.

- Possible "Trans-Human" sightings in the Citadel. While you are going for a ride around the Citadel you can catch many glimpses of human-like creatures. They look like people that have been heavily experimented upon. They have many pieces of metal all over their body, which I assume are some kind of augmentation. Are these what the "Trans-Humans" look like? Are humans being experimented on in an attempt to make us a better race?

- Teleportation, as developed by Dr. Vance and Dr. Kliener apparently doesn't require you to go to Xen. Dr. Mossman's description makes it sound like they're sling-shotting around Xen, which is apparently more efficient than the Combine's methods. When you're leaving Nova Prospect (via teleporter), Alyx refers to a "Xen simulation" so it's possible that you're not even sling-shotting around Xen, but just simulating it with the teleport sequence. Xen seems to still be a place of significance, even if it only acts as a type of relay when going from place to place.

There are three major questions that need answering: 1. Who exactly are "our benefactors?" and 2. What is the Combine's plan (or more accuractly "our benefactors'" plans) for the human race? and 3. Who exactly does the G-man work for, and what is their stake in all of this?

#1 I don't believe we ever get an answer for in HL2, just glimpses and hints that don't add up to anything concrete.

#2 The Combine could easily squash the human populations within City 17 (and the other cities for that matter), and with concentrated effort they could defeat the rebelling humans in time. Given this, they must have found us to be useful in some manner (or some future manner) or else they just wouldn't bother keeping us alive. What that usefulness is I don't know. It could have to do with these "Trans-Humans" or it could be something else entirely.

#3 Not a damn clue. The G-man (and/or his organization) is apparently opposed to the Combine (why else would he send you there to wreck havoc?), but what his goals are isn't clear at all. At the end he mentions getting a lot of interesting offers for Freeman's services, but who is making these offers? Did somebody request Freeman's services in City 17, or was he sent there purely by the G-man (or who the G-man works for)? At the end of the first Half-Life, the G-man takes your weapons and says that they were "government property," which made it seem like he worked for the government (which country's government is up for speculation). The second Half-Life made him seem (to me) to work for a power higher up than the government, almost an "Illuminati" type organization if you will.

I'm sure HL3 will answer a lot (it had better damnit!), but until then I can always speculate! Feel free to add any info you think would be helpful, or post any theories you've got.

Good read there. The story gap between the first HL and the second feels slightly less disjointed now. I still wish Valve had at least made some explanation as to the sequence of events though.

I say the G-Man is an alien from Xen, an agent, set in disguise as a Government Manager (of the USA I think) as he has the ability to decieve you.

In answer to the question "what do the combine want with us?" .....

When you enter the Citidel towards the end, you see pods, like the ones you ride in, going into a teleportation device (big blue beam) and dissapearing only to have the next one do the same... it would seem that these pods contain humans/half-humans and are being sent somewhere, most likely zen or the combine homeworld. The Citidel is like a big processing plant for humans.... so maybe humans are being harvested for food or maybe something similar to the matrix (humans = energy), i can't be sure....

but this is only my opinion....

-Timbobsteve

Actually, that's not a teleport beam. You can get into one of those carriages and get carried into the beam and it just electrocutes and kills you.

I think the trans human forces are the soldiers themselves -- they are human, they talk english after all. I think we never get in contact with real combines on the game. In the end, when you get to dr. breen, you can see him on a live conference with something, maybe that's a combine.

I don't think G-Man is human at all. He talks in a disjointed way like:

"Greetings Mi-ster Freeman. I have been... sent here to blah blah"

Almost as if he has trouble speaking English. I think that he is a being or alien in human form (so he would frighten Gordon). He also has the ability to stop time and teleport Gordon wherever he wants. Man, it sucks that Alyx is dead .

Not necessarily. Some magazine heard from Valve that there will be a Half-Life 3 (info they weren't supposed to release but did anyway) and they hinted that Alyx might be a playable character in it. I'll see if I can find that article again, I know I saw it on Fark.com a couple days ago.

Found it: here

Well, whatever the gist of the story is, it's very dis-jointed and cliched sci-fi
The combine are almost certainly human "recruited" for thier jobs because they fit a specific profile - possibly mutated.

I'm hoping Valve left gaping holes in the plot in order to patch them up in HL3, but personally, I think the plot just has gaping holes in it.

It never felt as cohesive as Half-Life 1 - pretty much all that was happening was Gordon being told to go here and there with the underlying theme of defeating the combine - fetching the gravity gun was pretty much the main reason for all the travelling in the first section of the game - without that, the last few levels would've been pointless.

Being a sci-fi fan, like I guess most of us are, it's a story that could've been a lot more polished, however, it's by far the best story in an FPS since Half-Life 1, so I guess that tips in it's favour. The end was rushed.

@bb_matt I certainly agree that the story was lacking and full of holes. I'm hoping the point of Half-Life 2 is to act as a bridge to Half-Life 3 (well, that and give us the Source engine obviously). If Half-Life 3 provides most of the answers to our questions, then Half-Life 2 is kind of just filler.

The soldiers you encounter throughout most of the game are simply mutated/enhanced humans.... When you're driving around in your buggy, if you stop by the petrol station and go across the road, hop over the broken fence and walk behind the large gas tank, you'll see a spray-painted history of the mutations... it goes from monkey to human to the foot-soldiers you're up against. The soldiers have implants and other "enhancements."

Also, when you're in the jail with Alyx, you'll see a few things on the monitors: namely, some poor frankenstein-ish bastard with bolts sticking out of his head. You see one of these guys again on your pod ride when you're in the citadel.

According to the Prima strategy guide (I hate that they put some background into the guide that ISN'T in the game... bastards... fortunately, people have posted stuff on various forums), the slug-looking thing you see on the monitors in Breen's office is a "Combine Advisor." And, apparently, the Combine are creatures that roughly fit the description of that liason thingy. You can also noclip around the map any time you see that thing on the mointors and view the entire model for yourself (all videos in the game take place in hidden rooms somewhere in the map and are just projected, like a GUICam in D3).

As far as who the Combine are and why they're interested in earth:

The outset of the ressonance cascade in the first Half Life... that temporal rift caught the attention of the Combine... a race that tends to invade other planets, use them up, using the native population(s) as fodder and labor, and move on... Think of it like a mixture between the Borg from Star Trek and the overall theme of Independence Day with a dash of Matrix here and there.

Anyhoo, this site is pretty good at going over the whole saga. It's a timeline of the whole story, and, according to the HL2 fanatics, it's useful for piecing stuff together.

http://members.shaw.ca/storage_4/hl2story/