Half-Life & Portal series, general discussion (v3)
2,834 replies, posted
[QUOTE=tempunary;39478472]Could someone explain to me who ordered the Black Ops to kill the HECU? It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to murder your own soldiers when they could of just worked together. Or they could of just told the HECU to bring in the nuke instead.[/QUOTE]
I assumed the Black Ops were CIA, probably the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Activities_Division]Special Operations Group[/url].
So much of what Black Mesa was doing was top secret, so secret that even guards and scientists seem to have been kept in the dark about everything outside their own labs. For example the AM Labs analyzes a crystal whos origins are not revealed to them, another Scientist mentions that the he was told the Icthyosaur came from the Challenger Deep, and one even remarks that you've learned "far more than what any one man is supposed to know."
Perhaps the CIA realised the social and political implications of what would happen if word of not only the labs, but the RC, were to get out. When the Military failed to contain the alien invasion, the CIA kicked them out and switched to Plan B, destroy [I]everything[/I] in Black Mesa. So the the CIA sends in SOG (the most secretive and elite special / black ops group in the US) into Black Mesa to plant a thermonuclear warhead at the center of the base.
So why did they attack the HECU? I think there could be 2 reasons:
1. They thought the Soldiers left behind might have stumbled across more information than what they were supposed to, and decided to silence them.*
2. They thought that the soldiers would resist if they learned what the Black Ops were up to and didn't want give them a chance to interfere.
* SOG is the most secretive Special Forces group in the US, it's possible they already know a great deal more than what anyone is supposed to. In comparison, the HECU are not, they're a Spec Ops group geared toward operating in dangerous environments. Therefor the CIA may not have trusted the surviving soldiers with the information they may have uncovered.
[editline]6th February 2013[/editline]
Also, as for the HECU that made it out, it can be assumed that they were either kept in the dark in a similar manner to the Scientists and / or they were forced to sign an NDA forbidding them to speak about the incident ever again. Anything taken from the base may be confiscated as well.
The ones who were left behind were not under military control, and any survivors might escape with stolen documents or whatever else that would expose Black Mesa's work, and the Government's willing cooperation with that work. So the ones left behind would be considered a threat to secrecy, while the ones who were evac'd are under control.
Use a Thermal Discouragement Beam on a Combine Advisor
[sp]"Laser Fat Removal"[/sp]
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;39491326]I assumed the Black Ops were CIA, probably the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Activities_Division]Special Operations Group[/url].[/QUOTE]You're overthinking it. All signs behind the handling of Black Mesa from the resonance cascade to the cover up operation point to the manipulation of the G-Man, at the time known as the Administrator, and his mysterious employers. It's the classic shadowy government alien conspiracy theory taking cues from the real world (Area 51, the Roswell incident) and fiction (obvious X-Files inspiration) alike.
However, don't confuse actions for motives. We don't know why the G-Man did what he did because Valve probably didn't know either. It's only now that they've decided to fill in the holes, and it involves a lost boat built by a crazy man obsessed with combustible lemons.
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;39491326]Also, as for the HECU that made it out, it can be assumed that they were either kept in the dark in a similar manner to the Scientists and / or they were forced to sign an NDA forbidding them to speak about the incident ever again. Anything taken from the base may be confiscated as well.[/QUOTE]
If you watch the scene where Shepard gets left behind carefully and wait around after the osprey lifts off, you'll hear and be able to see an explosion in the sky; the osprey Shepard would've been on if the G-Man didn't prevent him from going. Either the aliens or the Black Ops were killing any escapees, so while i'm sure [i]some[/i] HECU got out, they're probably extremely few in number. v:v:v
[QUOTE=Marphy Black;39491491]You're overthinking it. All signs behind the handling of Black Mesa from the resonance cascade to the cover up operation point to the manipulation of the G-Man, at the time known as the Administrator, and his mysterious employers. It's the classic shadowy government alien conspiracy theory taking cues from the real world (Area 51, the Roswell incident) and fiction (obvious X-Files inspiration) alike.
However, don't confuse actions for motives. We don't know why the G-Man did what he did because Valve probably didn't know either. It's only now that they've decided to fill in the holes, and it involves a lost boat built by a crazy man obsessed with combustible lemons.[/QUOTE]
Or you could look at it simply:
Nihilanth is last of his kind, fighting brutal war against the Combine. Is taking refuge in Xen, it is his last stand. (Confirmed by Laidlaw)
Now GMan could have been hired by Nihilanth to find an escape route/way out or to simply find out where the Humans were coming from.
The GMan takes a crystal sample from Nihilanth's lair (Confirmed by Laidlaw as source of the sample). Subsequently Black Mesa is sabotaged (the damping fields are turned off, a crowbar is lodged into equipment and various other things) prior to conducting a test on the sample delivered by the GMan. Black Mesa also pushes equipment too hard keen to not fail after telling Dr. Breen that it would go smoothly.
The result is the resonance cascade, a dimensional rift that Nihilanth is able to send his forces through in an attempt to escape to and capture Earth.
Now through the events of HL1/BS/OP4 we become aware that Black Mesa has been there many times previously, such as with the emitters on Xen, the large Lambda teleporter, the survey crews, them bringing stuff back. I'm pretty sure Nihilanth would have noticed this and wanted to do something about it.
Now doesn't that make more sense than "We don't know why the G-Man did what he did because Valve probably didn't know either."
I pretty sure Laidlaw knew exactly what he was doing in HL with the exception of OP4's bombing because he had no say in the GMan's actions in OP4. Not sure what say he had in Decay but they've never discounted it as being canon especially since Decay came with the HL1 Playstation version.
[QUOTE=Ereunity;39492079]I pretty sure Laidlaw knew exactly what he was doing in HL[/quote]No, Laidlaw did not know that the sequel would take place in a dystopian Eastern European country, that the G-Man and the Administrator were two different people, that the scientist who directed Gordon to get help would become the leader of a human resistance group, or that his bosses would hire a bunch of scrub student game developers and Old Man Murray writers to expand the universe he created with cake jokes. In case you haven't realized by now, Valve just makes this stuff up as they go along.
[quote]with the exception of OP4's bombing because he had no say in the GMan's actions in OP4[/quote]You might want to brush up on your Half-Life history before declaring expressly false statements such as this.
[QUOTE=Marphy Black;39492161]No, Laidlaw did not know that the sequel would take place in a dystopian Eastern European country, that the G-Man and the Administrator were two different people, that the scientist who directed Gordon to get help would become the leader of a human resistance group, or that his bosses would hire a bunch of scrub student game developers and Old Man Murray writers to expand the universe he created with cake jokes. In case you haven't realized by now, Valve just makes this stuff up as they go along.
You might want to brush up on your Half-Life history before declaring expressly false statements such as this.[/QUOTE]
I said Laidlaw knew what he was doing with the GMan in HL not how it would affect future games such as HL2.
The whole crystal from Nihilanth's lair was something they said they regretted not properly expressing throughout the game.
And Laidlaw had very little say in what happened in Op4 because Gearbox ignored half of the things he told them they could and couldn't do.
[QUOTE=Marc Laidlaw]We had a lot of conversations with Gearbox concerning the creation of Opposing Force and Blue Shift, and I supplied them with various documents that fleshed out background elements that hadn't been woven directly into the foreground of Half-Life. The place where you see this most clearly is in Barney's odyssey to Xen, where a bit more light is shed on the Xen-relay teleport experiments. Some of the reason for the overlapping narratives was that it made sense for Gearbox to reuse existing content, such as textures and design motifs, since they had limited schedules for producing these games. Most of the moment-to-moment gameplay and story decisions were left in Gearbox's hands, and we merely tried to make sure they dovetailed with our own designs and didn't create any huge conflicts. Gearbox, as fans of the original, had a good eye for places where their stories could overlap with Half-Life, but even so, they took plenty of liberties with the story for the sake of making a fun game. Fun in a game is ultimately more important than consistency.[/QUOTE]
Hey that JJ abrahams and gabe newell keynote happens soon doesn't it?
Why is this thread so popular all of a sudden?
[QUOTE=.:FoxOnFire:.;39492474]Why is this thread so popular all of a sudden?[/QUOTE]
Probably some article or forum linking to this thread for some funky reason
[QUOTE=WillerinV1.02;39492382]Hey that JJ abrahams and gabe newell keynote happens soon doesn't it?[/QUOTE]
That was today, wasn't it?
Guess that guy, [I]got spooked[/I].
Also holy moly that's a lot of guests.
[QUOTE=hogofwar;39493544]Any sign of the keynote being streamed? Or even professionally recorded.[/QUOTE]
The Verge is [url=http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/6/3958302/jj-abrams-gabe-newell-live-blog-february-6]liveblarghing[/url] it. That's all I know so far. Apparently it's available after the fact [url=http://www.youtube.com/variety]here[/url].
[QUOTE=Dlaor-guy;39493572][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/BQsmykb.png[/IMG]
This might explain the guests.[/QUOTE]
Yes, this is called "habraeffect" on Habrahabr (that site which is a Russian IT collaborative blog).
[quote]
svernidub: Interesting, when will hl2 be [on Linux]?
Me: I'm starting to get scared... [link to the Hell-met's post explaining the bugs caused by the Mac update] (warning, A LOT of 1920x1080 images).
[/quote]
so, 30 minutes or so to the keynote.
HL2 will [I]should [/I]be on Linux within the next week, you'll see why soon enough.
The verge liveblog-thingy has started.
[IMG]http://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/10003/2013-02-05_22-12-03-1020-1.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=hogofwar;39495069]The verge liveblog-thingy has started.
[IMG]http://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/10003/2013-02-05_22-12-03-1020-1.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
Link?
