combine

what were the combine like during the 7 hour war? because the soldiers are human. in the 7 hour war it would just be impractical if it was only striders and gunships and i really wouldnt expect those huge ugly slug things to do any fighting

Don't forget, the Combines have the blue tower thing that rains bombs from the sky. There might even be a mobile version of that.

Imagine, if they mobilized that sort of technology on a large scale, the Earthlings have no chance.

Have you read "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"? If so, I imagine it was along the same line of invasion--global encirclement and rapid annihilation. Or it could be something like the movie "Independence Day". Except in this case the Earth lost.

I imagine it was a combination of two things.

1. There were probably headcrabs (therefore also zombies),
bullsquids, antlions and such rampaging across earth with the rift to
the boarder world open after the accident at Black Mesa.

2. The combine was attacking the Earth at the same time, and
offered a way to protect the Earth from the random creatures if they
surrendered....

What do you think?

Sounds good in theory, but how do you get a coordinated surrender in less than seven hours? I am talking about a global surrender amids the chaos.

what if the combine is actually another lifeform, taking shape as a toilet, and then hiding in bathrooms...think about that one

quote:

"Sounds good in theory, but how do you get a coordinated surrender in less than seven hours? I am talking about a global surrender amids the chaos"

How long after the Black Mesa incident did the combine invade. they might have been a couple a weeks leaving time for all the aliens to ravage the hell out of the population so that when the combine did invade there werent many humans left for the world leaders to have responsibilty for cause theres not many left in HL2 when gordon comes along

combine are telepathic or so i heard somewhere i think it was the strategy guide but anyway they could wack up the minds of the soldiers thus diminishing our chances

what if the combine is actually another lifeform, taking shape
as a toilet, and then hiding in bathrooms...think about that one

ever watched carefully in the teleporter incident in hl2, seen what
breen was talking to on the monitor? thats a real combine. they enslave
races to do the killing for them, hence the combine soldiers are humans
that have been taken to nova prospekt and been "reprogrammed".

well http://photobucket.com/albums/v685/natus/?action=view&current=combine.jpg

says that im holding on to the toilet theory

We hail the combine advisor (bows).

Now I've always wondered what is up with the stalkers. They looks as if
they were once human. Humans that died ages ago and that had their
corpses animated by some sort of life-sustainance system.

Oh, and if you want an idea on how the combile look like, examine the combine advisor model using hlmv.

stalkers are human beings who were experimented on on loads of depraved
ways. Their organs were riped out and, yes, replaced by life sustaining
systens. Also, their legs adn arms are amputated at the start of the
conversio process, to prevent escape. Later on, they are replaces with
crutches and other prosthetics.

/me has the HL Book Of Art.

damn, beat me to that.

Do buy the book if you get the chance, I found it very interesting and the concept art is great.

The art book is indeed rather nice.

I especially like the stuff it reveals about the original plot of HL2 (involving the icebreaker and the air processor plant).

Also, the sketch maps of how some of the levels were designed.
Interesting to see how the pro mappers do it, especially how they
create good encounters in a single-player map.

And "Ivan the Space Biker" gave me the giggles. :smile:

What does the book say about headcrab evolution? :biggrin:

Actually, Xen aliens wouldn't be a factor. Don't you remember the G-Man's speech end of HL1? The American military went to Xen and took control of it after Nihilianth's death. Black Mesa itself was presumably nuked - but if not, that would make the existence of Vortigons, Ichthyosaurs, and Headcrabs in HL2 a lot more plausible, though I suppose they could have reappeared on Earth by other means.

The Seven Hour War, I assume, went like this: Combine detects volatile portal activity on distant planet; Combine, always in search of new species to assimilate, decides to invade; in the course of seven hours, Combine strikes hundreds of thousand-foot tall towers into the Earth's crust, deploys endless waves of super-advanced armor (and, I assume, uses them - City 17 is one of the "last remaining population centers" by the time of HL2), and says, "Hey, Earth, why don't you give up?" "Okay," says Earth.

do you have a link to where I can buy this book?

edit:is
this it?

Potential Opposing Force spoiler:

I'm pretty sure its revealed at the end of Opposing Force that Black
Mesa was nuked. Hence the blinding flash of white light.

So... maybe there were no Xen aliens rampaging around Earth before the
Combine showed up. But what about places like Ravenholm?
Were they just victims of Headcrab missiles fired by the
combine? What about Antlions? They seem more like wildlife
now then tools of the Combine. In fact, it seems like Earth has
been infested with all types of monsters that the Combine doesn't have
control over. The ichthyosaur for instance.

Was Earth untouched and unaware of any problems until the Seven Hours War?

Does the HL Book of Art have anything on this?

i would be almost sure that random aliens would have been rampaging across earth thats why the war was only seven hours (or at least part of the reason)

Potential Opposing Force spoiler:

I'm pretty sure its revealed at the end of Opposing Force that Black
Mesa was nuked. Hence the blinding flash of white light.

So... maybe there were no Xen aliens rampaging around Earth before the
Combine showed up. But what about places like Ravenholm?
Were they just victims of Headcrab missiles fired by the
combine? What about Antlions? They seem more like wildlife
now then tools of the Combine. In fact, it seems like Earth has
been infested with all types of monsters that the Combine doesn't have
control over. The ichthyosaur for instance.

Was Earth untouched and unaware of any problems until the Seven Hours War?

Does the HL Book of Art have anything on this?

There is a really great website that answers alot of these questions, cant recall the name though...

There was something called the portal storm that dropped all kind of
xen/other alien wild life on earth. It was kinda like what
happend in black mesa (head crabs popping out of no where) but all over
the earth. With all these crazy life forms running a muck all
over the earth humans started moving to urban areas where they could be
better protected from these new threats. Then the combine
attacked. I would guess that they said "ok earth, give up" we
said "oh noes we wont" they then blow up France and we say "0wned! ok
we give up"

That portal storm idea makes a lot of sense to me.

could you try and get that web site drglass?

plz

DrGlass said:
I would guess that they said "ok earth, give up" we said "oh noes we wont" they then blow up France and

... we were so indebted to them that we gave up our planet voluntarily.

Where did you get this stuff about the portal storm?

"Portal" Storm Continues:

models/props_lab/corkboard002.mdl

As for Black Mesa being nuked, you could see the G-man fiddling with
the nukes warhead at some point, so yeah, if OpFor was incorporated in
the official storyline, then BM is gone.

http://fragfiles.org/%7Ehlstory//timeline.htm

Helpful site with the story so far.

http://fragfiles.org/%7Ehlstory//timeline.htm
Helpful site with the story so far.

thats the site

That's a plausible timeline, but still based on guessing. He does, however, make one big mistake: as I said before, the United States did in fact take over Xen after Nihilianth's death. He also misinterprets Breen's position as Administrator of City 17 as being Administrator of Earth and assumes that City 17 is the Combine's capital.

It's a nice little timeline, but not by any means perfect.

He also mentiones that after the fall of the citadel in C17, the
combine would have been forced to reattempt conquering earth, as if he
didn't mention that there were other combine cities around; cities that
didn't have a Gordon Freeman to do the dirty-work.

Yeah thats a big hole there, I mean there is even mention of a City 14
in the first minutes of the game, also, I dont think the citidel is
only in City 17.

I like to think that the Citidel is kinda like a large landing craft that the Combine crash into major urban area's.

City 17 must have had some reason to be targetted by Gordon, or his
"overseer" the gman. I don't think you can say its just one of the many
cities - it must have had some greater importance than the others or it
wouldn't be City 17 that you liberate during HL2. Also, the fact that
Breen was the administrator of Black Mesa and now City 17 suggests it
is of some greater importance - why would Breen, somebody who was there
during the initial events at Black Mesa, be the human in charge of some
random eastern European city if it wasn't of some greater significance?
Why would Barney, Eli and Walter have chosen there to base their
operations?

Why would Barney, Eli and Walter have chosen there to base their operations?

I think that's the only way for Valve to work all these familiar characters from HL1 into HL2. It's just convenient, but not necessarily meant to be logical.

I think think that breen was working with the combine, and he is infact
a high (dare I say highest) ranking human to the combine. I'm
saying that C17 was like the capital but there are other cities out
there, not to mention the fact that the combine still have controle of
a major part of earth.

Though, now that breen (and I supose everyone else in C17) is dead the
combine dont have the foot hold on the humans like they used to.

When you arrive at C17, some guy says something along the lines of "Dr breen? here? I thought I was done with him when I left city 14" and then someone else says "I wouldnt say that if i were you, this is his base of operations"

So I think its safe to say Breen has a similar position in other cities as in city 17. I also think the ending sequence (with the whole parasite thing) implies he has more power (or apparent power at least) than just admin of C17.

Could there be more than one Dr. Breen? The Combines could've cloned him with their technology, and installed a copy of him in every city.

Could there be more than one Dr. Breen? The Combines could've
cloned him with their technology, and installed a copy of him in every
city.

hmmmmm..... sounds far fetched but at the same time, not so far fetched.

Could there be more than one Dr. Breen? The Combines could've
cloned him with their technology, and installed a copy of him in every
city.

hmmmmm..... sounds far fetched but at the same time, not so far fetched.

Sounds like over-complicating things to me. :wink:

it must have had some greater importance than the others or it
wouldn't be City 17

Right. It would have been at least City (choose number from 1 to 5).

That timeline site is actually pretty accurate, for the most part,
according to Marc Laidlaw, which means it's roughly like that, given or
taken a few things.

Oh well, let's just wait for HL3... :razz:

Yes lets wait another 6 years

The timeline is very helpful and seems to have got a lot of the story correct.

Ah, I just remembered something regarding HL2's storyline. If you
recall, HL2 Barney reminds you of that beer he owed you. Thus, we are
forced to deduce that, out of all the HL1 Barneys, the real HL2 one was
the Barney that opened-up the anomalous materials lab, when you got off
that train at the beginning of HL1 ("catch me later and I'll buy you a
beer", he says). When you get back to this place after the resonance
cascade, you find 2 9mm clips next to Barney's corpse...

Well, Barney and Barney may take over each other's position, as in
working shifts... (though it's still weird then that Barney Calhoun was
the one knocking on the door in the HL intro... Blueshift 'n stuff...)

Or 'I'll buy you a beer' is a common word amongst the Black Mesa security staff... :razz:

Any pre-disaster barney will say "catch me later I'll buy you a beer", if you use them enough.

Any pre-disaster barney will say "catch me later I'll buy you a beer", if you use them enough.

hehe use.

Any pre-disaster barney will say "catch me later I'll buy you a beer", if you use them enough.

Yeah but the Barney i'm talking about says that without using him.

If we were to disect the HL1 storyline, though, we would be forced to admit that Barney has about 100 twin brothers.