Combine History: Difference between revisions

From Valve Developer Community
Jump to navigation Jump to search
No edit summary
Line 9: Line 9:


* The Combine were in fact NOT on [[Xen]] at the beginning of Half-Life 1. This was recently stated by Doug Lombardi.
* The Combine were in fact NOT on [[Xen]] at the beginning of Half-Life 1. This was recently stated by Doug Lombardi.
* The [[Vortigaunts]] had been enslaved by the Combine.
* The creatures on [[Xen]] were there because they had been running from the Combine, and Xen was a refuge.
* During the course of of Half-Life 1, Gordon Freeman freed the Vortigaunts from Combine oppression, likely by killing [[Nihilanth]], who seems to be equateable to [[Dr. Breen]] on Earth.
* The dimensional rift caused by the resonance cascade attracted the Combine to Earth. It only took them seven hours to completely take over Earth, hence the invasion's name: The 7 Hour War.
* The Combine invaded Earth after the [[Portal Storms]], and took 7 hours to defeat all of Earth's armed forced. This was known as the [[7 Hour War]].
* After the invasion, Dr. Breen brokered a "peace" with the Combine and convinced them that Humanity could be evolved to the point where it would be useful enough to be included into the Combine. Dr. Breen worked with the Combine to produce  "trans-humans", mostly in the form of Combine Soldiers.
* After the invasion, Dr. Breen brokered a "peace" with the Combine and convinced them that Humanity could be evolved to the point where it would be useful enough to be included into the Combine. Dr. Breen worked with the Combine to produce  "trans-humans", mostly in the form of Combine Soldiers.
* The Combine had at least one enormous skyscraper-like HQ at the beginning of Half-Life 2. It's possible there may be more, possibly one for each of the cities, cities 9 through 20 at least, mentioned at the beginning.
* The Combine had at least one enormous skyscraper-like HQ at the beginning of Half-Life 2. It's possible there may be more, possibly one for each of the cities, cities 9 through 20 at least, mentioned at the beginning.
Line 18: Line 17:
==Before Half-Life - [[Xen]]==
==Before Half-Life - [[Xen]]==


Before Half-Life the Combine had already invaded, conquered and pacified Xen. It seems that the natives of Xen, the Vortigaunts, were enslaved, which is mentioned throughout HL2. Also, the entity used to place Vortigaunts in Half-Life was called monster_alien_slave.
Before Half-Life, the Combine were already an interstellar threat. The Xenians were made up of many races of alien species that were conquerors at one point, and then sought refuge from the Combine destruction. The [[Vortiguants]] were slaves to the [[Nihilanth]], but the Nihilanth also has metal wristbands similar to those of the Vortiguants, and it has what appear to be surgical scars. The Nihilanth's legs have also been amputated (similar to the Stalkers). This signifies that the Combine may have enslaved the Nihilanth at one point. Although they were not on Xen, the Combine had there fair share of influence before the resonance cascade. More than this cannot be said.
 
Why exactly the Combine invaded Xen is a mystery, but it seems likely it was to do with teleportation. Even at the beginning of HL2, the Combine only just managed to get intradimensional teleportation working, and then only with the help of [[Judith Mossman]]. It seems unlikely that they had this technology at the beginning of Half-Life. Other than possible research into technology, the Combine seemed to be mass manufactring alien grunts.
 
I'm quickly going to propose a theory here: What happened on Xen could have happened on Earth. That is, you might equate enslaved vortigaunts with stalkers, grunt as supersoldiers, and nihilanth as Breen. If you look at the alien grunts from Half-Life closely, you'll not many similar anatomical similarities to vortigaunts, such as a third arm, siphon like structures on either side of the neck and similar eye positioning. They're just much bigger. The same idea applies to the alien controllers. This could be a natural evolutionary divergence from a common ancestor, but the prescence of the Combine make me suspect their direct involvement. I believe that the grunts were modified vortigaunts who were designed to be much better than normal vortigaunts at combat. This hadn't happened on Earth yet, but I don't think it was very far off. I don't think Breen had got very far along with his transhuman program at all.
 
There is an alternative theory to this, however, based on three things things:
 
* "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" - Mark Laidlaw, PCZone issue 160 pg 139
* Nihalanth can teleport things locally in your last fight with him
* No evidence of typical Combine architecture in Xen
 
This theory apparently proves that Nihilanth wasn't a Combine puppet when he first arrived on Xen from somewhere else (at least, at first).
 
==[[Black Mesa Research Facility]]==
==[[Black Mesa Research Facility]]==
We still have no idea what happened at the Black Mesa Research Facility, and I don't think we'll ever get much more information. What we do know is that for some reason is that the experiment that Gordon Freeman was ordered to perform seems to have allowed for a massive invasion of aliens to teleport onto Earth.
Because the Combine were not on [[Xen]], we can't say anything about the Black Mesa incident except that it attracted the Combine to Earth.
 
This was, however, not the first time Earth and Xen met. It seems Black Mesa research teams had been making excursions into Xen for some months before the accident. Research teams had discovered the Border World, Xen, while experimenting with teleportation in the advanced Lambda bunker. Not only did they likely do research on teleportation, but they also did seem to have taken "biological samples", native Xen wildlife, and brought it back to Earth.  We can see evidence of this in Blue Shift, where you visit an abandoned human research post on Xen, as well as things scientists say in the Lambda bunker. It's possible that it was these excursions which first made the Combine aware of the existence of a culture with an advanced understanding of the principles involved in teleportation.
 
It's been suggested in [http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/index.htm HLS] that Breen was contacted by the Combine before the incident and offered Breen a position as ruler if he caused a resonance cascade to allow them to invade.


==[[Gordon Freeman]] and [[Xen]]==
==[[Gordon Freeman]] and [[Xen]]==
[[Gordon Freeman]] travelled to [[Xen]] under the direction of a [[Lambda Bunker]] scientist. The scientist mentions that there is some huge being that unless destroyed will ensure the destruction of Earth. The path through xen is fairly haphazard, but somehow, whether through design or sheer dumb luck, Gordon finds himself travelling further and further in Nihilanths territory. The architecture is strange and organic, unlike that of the [[Citadel]].
There isn't a whole lot that can be said here either, but there is evidence of a "greater threat" in the original game. Although you don't meet this threat in Half-Life 1, the [[Nihilanth]] hints at the existence of the Combine. For more info, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilanth]  
 
Whatever or whoever was in control of Xen, it's clear that Nihilanth wasnt very pleased by Gordon's arrival, and as you travel through Xen Nhilanth talks to you, presumably via telekinesis (see a [http://www.answers.com/topic/nihilanth#wp-Transcript_of_Nihilanth.27s_speech transcript] here).
 
Apart from these messages, I haven't heard of any other refences, even obscure ones, to the Combine in Xen.


==See Also==
A note, in the future, do not pass off speculation as pure fact. The information I put in has been stated by Valve and I took out meaningless speculation.
* [http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/index.htm The Half-Life Saga Story Guide]: A very good site on the background of the Half-Life story, which Mark Laidlaw has called "pretty darn accurate for the most part" by Valve employees, apparently.
~AMG09

Revision as of 18:54, 23 January 2006

Todo: Sections: The 7 Hour War, The World After That
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.


Introduction

The Combine is an intergalactic (or possibly interdimensional, or both) alliance of species. Its true nature is not very well known. What we do know is this:

  • The Combine were in fact NOT on Xen at the beginning of Half-Life 1. This was recently stated by Doug Lombardi.
  • The creatures on Xen were there because they had been running from the Combine, and Xen was a refuge.
  • The dimensional rift caused by the resonance cascade attracted the Combine to Earth. It only took them seven hours to completely take over Earth, hence the invasion's name: The 7 Hour War.
  • After the invasion, Dr. Breen brokered a "peace" with the Combine and convinced them that Humanity could be evolved to the point where it would be useful enough to be included into the Combine. Dr. Breen worked with the Combine to produce "trans-humans", mostly in the form of Combine Soldiers.
  • The Combine had at least one enormous skyscraper-like HQ at the beginning of Half-Life 2. It's possible there may be more, possibly one for each of the cities, cities 9 through 20 at least, mentioned at the beginning.
  • The only other race apart from the natives of Xen and Transhumans is the race of the Combine Advisor.

Before Half-Life - Xen

Before Half-Life, the Combine were already an interstellar threat. The Xenians were made up of many races of alien species that were conquerors at one point, and then sought refuge from the Combine destruction. The Vortiguants were slaves to the Nihilanth, but the Nihilanth also has metal wristbands similar to those of the Vortiguants, and it has what appear to be surgical scars. The Nihilanth's legs have also been amputated (similar to the Stalkers). This signifies that the Combine may have enslaved the Nihilanth at one point. Although they were not on Xen, the Combine had there fair share of influence before the resonance cascade. More than this cannot be said.

Black Mesa Research Facility

Because the Combine were not on Xen, we can't say anything about the Black Mesa incident except that it attracted the Combine to Earth.

Gordon Freeman and Xen

There isn't a whole lot that can be said here either, but there is evidence of a "greater threat" in the original game. Although you don't meet this threat in Half-Life 1, the Nihilanth hints at the existence of the Combine. For more info, [1]

A note, in the future, do not pass off speculation as pure fact. The information I put in has been stated by Valve and I took out meaningless speculation. ~AMG09

Retrieved from "https://developer.valvesoftware.com/w/index.php?title=Combine_History&oldid=21635"