Unironicly would it even be possible to start an insurgency against an intergalactic communist occupation force?

14 years almost 15.
HL2 came out in late 2004...

Possible yes, successful most likely not

You can win as long as you keep your magical negro alive, too bad Freeman failed at that.

vortigaunts are kinda sexy

Canonically yes, the 7 hour war was over so damn fast bc Breen was power hungry and wanted to lead earth so when communications were down he signed as fast as he could before some general could disagree.
If this wasn’t the HL universe then it might be more difficult, but yeah you can still resist anything.

Real canon is Breen saw himself fit to protect the world and constantly negotiates with Freeman to surrender to ensure the survival of the human race with the end goal to assimilate into the Universal Union. But that's just a faggot theory

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this

Universal Union is the only Union I'd ever fight for.

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but at the same time aliens can provide much needed technological advancements, including armaments

The only reason the rebels in half life had a chance was because of teleportation technology which the combine didn't have. Also Freeman

Breen's intention was to keep humanity from being completely wiped out by basically selling them out to the Combine with the desperate argument that they could be useful to the Union. Combine accepted this argument and left him with a transhuman garrison in charge of policing and suppressing whatever feable dissidence there would be. Once Gordon starts stirring up more of a ruckus Breen becomes desperate as the Combine loses faith in him and his entire argument for humanity's existence. It's debatable whether he genuinely became sympathetic to the Combine out of stockholm syndrome or if the entire time he was motivated strictly by necessity for the survival of the human race, but regardless he really was in an unwinnable situation.

Pretty fucking great villain IMO.

i dont get half life 2. most of the enemies you fight are just dudes. who or what took over after the cascade resonance? they even say ingame combine portal tech is kind of shit and its one way. where is everyone?

aliens would view us how we view chickens and cattle, or even insects. we have nothing to offer them.

>who or what took over after the cascade resonance?
Breen answered to the advisors who are presumed to be one of the leading races if not the masterminds behind the Combine.
>they even say ingame combine portal tech is kind of shit and its one way
They do explain right in the beginning in Kleiner's lab how inefficient and shit their portal tech is. Later in the game in Nova Prospekt you see the teleporter they finally do build is a massive fucking room despite being equivalent to Kleiner's tiny hidden one. The Combine used the portal storms of the cascade to invade Earth in 7 hours.

Combine invaded, defeated human forces in seven hours. Massive loss of life, iirc it was around 1 in 7 people survived.
Remaining humans were relocated to single cities, hence City17.
Oceans are being drained and the atmosphere heavily fucked with, there's also some sort of mass sterilization in effect. I believe it was a field that inhibits infant cell division, Kleiner talks about it in episode 1.
So where is everyone? Dead or dying, and there isn't a new generation.

The enemies you fight are just duded cause that's what the combine have. They adopt new lifeforms into their forces and then modify them. That's why all the striders/gunships/etc look half biological, half mechanical. The humanoid enemies are humans that have been enhanced with tech and indoctrinated. Breen talks at length about it in Nova Prospekt.

Breen negotiated the surrender of earth and has been action as it's administrator.

Their portal tech is one way, which is also why you see so many humanoid enemies, the combine homeworlds don't know to send more forces. So the earthbound combine are using humans. The signal being sent off as the citadel collapses is to request a greater force to wipe out the remaining people. And the rocket launch in ep2 is to stop that.

The dudes at the beginning, up until Ravenholm are all Civil Protection officers, just regular humans employed as police. The soldier you see later are vaguely human, they've been enhanced, had organs removed, etc. You see one being operated on at Nova Prospekt.

>The Combine used the portal storms of the cascade to invade Earth in 7 hours.
but how? where are all the creatures that did it?

>most of the enemies you fight are just dudes. who or what took over after the cascade resonance?
Presumably, after all of Earth's armies surrender and Breen negotiates a peace, Earth is annexed by the Combine and Breen is placed as the leader of the leader of a puppet government. The Overwatch consists of humans for the most part, yes, but their loyalty ultimately lies with the alien empire.
>they even say ingame combine portal tech is kind of shit and its one way. where is everyone?
Not really sure, as others have said, maybe the Combine is just biding their time, hoping for humans at Black Mesa East to perfect teleportation tech for them.

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only if the gman is helping us

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Only if the Gman’s employers allow it and anti-Combine forces in other universes join in, like the Vortigaunts.

Play Hunt Down the Freeman.

On a serious note it's assumed they fucked off to better things after establishing a synthetic-human garrison under Breen to run shit. The neat and depressing thing about Half Life 2 is realizing at the end of the day that what you have battled and defeated were literal throwaway rear-echelon conscripts, a minimum fraction of the Combine's actual military strength. The even bigger tragedy is knowing we will never see where this goes.

>Play Hunt Down the Freeman.
yea no thanks. not even cannon btw.

There was the epistile 3 thing.

Gordon gets a look at the combine homeworld and realizes just how meaningless and futile it has all been

i am morbidly curious

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In HL2 it has been decades since the invasion, right? There are no children and nobody has been able to reproduce for a long time. Maybe the invasion forces went elsewhere now that Earth is sufficiently pacified in HL2.

Explain skinwalkers with their black blood

That was the joke user. Don't buy it, just watch the gameplay on YouTube. It's The Room-tier bad.

Skinwalkers aren't real, I wouldn't worry about it.

They did it in Half-Life 2. The only way they can get more fuck-huge laser-shooting crabs is through their portals, shut down their tech and they won't be able to bring in anything else to support their standard military, and those have been beaten by guerilla forces since guerilla forces were a thing.

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>He doesn't routinely rape and hunt skinwalkers
Why even live

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Meant for and

Only because of the Gman and his deus ex machina ability to move Freeman to where and when he needs him to fuck up as much shit as possible.
>The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world

The Resistance is fighting one of the biggest losing wars. The Combine took over the planet in less than a day the first time around, they could do it in less than an hour against a bunch of Soandso's with rifles. One of the biggest things is that they have a guy who can basically quicksave and quickload

Makes me wonder what the Combine brought around the time of the Seven Hour War

The creatures that did it were the striders, gunships, hunters, and other synths you see throughout the game. The soldiers you see in-game are just what the Combine do when they find a new species, they enhance them, and see if they can be used to conquer other races, like the aliens in XCOM.

G-Men exist in our world, dummy, Half-Life G-Man is the NWO fix-it man.

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>but how? where are all the creatures that did it?
iirc the portal storm happened after Nihilanth was killed since it was what was keeping them stable after the resonance cascade and allowing Xen critters and entities into our dimension. Then shit hit the fan and the Combine was able to lock on and slip in temporarily. Cue the 7 hour war and then occupation by the trans-human auxiliaries once the actual forces got cut off after the portal storms ended

I think you're confusing the term "deus ex machina" with the game of the same title.
>an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel.

The soldiers aren't really "just dudes". They were humans that were physically modified, essentially lobotomized, then had their brains 'enhanced' with cybernetic bits for unwavering loyalty to the combine. The Metrocops are different, they really are just dudes in uniforms.

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The force on earth was only a garrison force. The combine probably have bigger issues to deal with like other universal empires to fight, earth is just another atom in the ocean. If earth is lost what does it matter, 1 or 2 more planets may hear and rebel, just nuke em from orbit youve got entire universes to deal with

I know what you mean by deus ex machina. What I'm talking about is what the G-Man character was based around, and his role in Half-Life 1, and how that role would change in Half-Life 2.

Then we're on the same wavelength and I'm not sure what's being disputed.

That is a terrible idea. There are so many stars and so much resources stellar war just doesnt make sense. and even if we do go around anhilating more primitiv civs what are we gonna do when we find something more advanced then us.
The only reasons aliens would waltz over and anhilate us would be if we were the arseholes.
dont start shit with what ever made Przybylski's Star

the "G-man" isn't really a government agent, he's an alien that's disguised himself as one. I'd liken his role as a spy, more than anything else.

He/his employers are most likely some sort of transdimensional beings that knew when and where the resonance cascade would take place, hence why he showed up at Black Mesa that day. He went there to find a human that could serve as a pawn for his employer's interests, hence why he's seen pulling Dr Freeman out of space and time, and then in HL2, reinserting him into another time where his involvement would be needed.

It's the NWO, dude, he even talks about how he took away Gordon's weapons because they were US government property.

I chalk it up to Half-life storytelling being incredibly inconsistent and hammy

Because the story should always be there only to provide context to the gameplay. Half-Life is heavily inspired by The X-Files and similar science fiction, hence the G-Man and his mannerisms and giant underground facility that gets cleaned up by the US military.

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>we will never learn Gman's origins, who his employers were and what their ultimate endgame was

Fuck me.

It's probably best to leave his motivations ambiguous.

>i need something fully explained to me and all of the mystery ruined because i have no imagination
No. Take what's given in the details of the games and fill in the blanks yourself.

HECU so aesthetic

I like to imagine that Gman is like Nyarlethotep working to spread as much chaos as possible.

You're probably right. I wouldn't trust a sequel released today to hold up now that the original writing team are all gone and they would probably feel a need to pander to shit like regenerating health. If anything at this point I just want Valve to flat out confess that Half Life is dead, but we know that will never happen either.

He moves you through space and time, and is intimately familiar with the different alien races and organizations. He's not an earth-based NWO agent.

The taking away his weapons thing was a tongue in cheek excuse for doing so since he didn't want to run the risk of the murder-happy scientist murdering him.

They're just going to keep it on the back burner forever if they ever want/need to make another. Do they even have game devs anymore? I read (an admittedly dubious) post elsewhere where someone described working at Valve being a borderline joke where Gaben and his buddies all make an insane amount of cash from sitting around, playing cards, smoking and drinking while they whip interns to manage the Steam servers. They have no incentive to invest time or resources into any more big games because they already have their cash cows Steam and DotA 2.

Probably not. The edgetards on HL2RP like to think so, though.

>7’3 / Slavic Build / Muscular Accent / Dual wield PKMs [hidden] / glock [hidden] / bulge in pants / lambda tattoo [hidden]

>implying the earth NWO doesn't know everything
That's why they're the NWO.

The Combine specifically? Yes, they rely almost entirely on a human garrison for police and alot of the time military, if enough people snub them and if humans were too kill major parts of the Alien garrisons it'd just be humans vs humans. And that is 100% winnable, the combine cant even call re-inforcements of other aliens. All you would need is to take out the facilities where they modify civil protection and they'd have limited human soldiers as well.

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>played HL2RP once
>joined civil protection
>beat the shit out of civies because I want my extra reproduction simulation credits
>get banned
Fucking niggers

I agree with this. He always struck me as some sort of ayy lmao CIA agent equivalent who couldn't give two shits about humanity. He just wants to fuck over the Combine. It's the equivalent of the CIA giving Stingers to the Muj. What always intrigued me was the role the Vortigaunts played in this. Their intentions struck me as more altruistic and they seem to have an adversarial relationship with the G-Man, managing to co-opt Freeman for themselves.

Faid enough. It's just a same there won't be any sequel to at least imply what his motivation may have been the entire time, even without directly explaining.

People like to shit on HL2 for being so well regarded, and I agree that it wasn't an all-around masterpiece like some make it to be, but it fucking perfected the concept of "show, don't tell".

>muscular accent
Right on, these retards have no idea how voices work.

They were enslaved by Nihilanth, so when Gordon killed it they were freed.

Valve has developers, they had only one writers, and he himself has repeated many times that the story is always second fiddle to the game itself. Meaning, the developers will create a gameplay section, like the airboat levels, and it's his job to provide the context for that.

Like the Combine? It only works because some OTHER pandimensional insurgency knows about humans ass-backwardsly inventing super-teleportation and time travel, and those are the two technologies the Combine dont have. If those techs didnt exist, then no, its not really possible.

Realistically, Half-Life and Half-Life 2 were just giant tech demos for their engines regardless.

Staple bird-brain comment of someone desperate to sound intelligent. Every game is a tech-demo, and goldsrc was around a long time before Half-Life 1 come out.

This is the G-man. The Nihilanth must process so extra-dementional abilities like being able to view shit happing without being there himself. The Nihilanth is constantly following you through the game to test if you can go against the combine, the empire that forced him into Xen. Also...
>Nihilanth has third arm in the middle.
>G-man constantly fucking with his tie.
>Nihilanth has big arse head.
>G-man has a very square, large head.

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We've got enough projection here to fill a movie theater.

You fill a movie theater with people.

Not without something to watch.

>G-man is an inter terrestrial CIA agent working on behalf of multiple races from multiple dimensions
>they identify the Universal Union as a growing threat to them all, realize they can't face them in open combat
>elaborately plot Earth's subjugation as a mousetrap for the Combine
>the events of HL1 were merely a byproduct of phase 1 of this scheme to lure the UU to earth

They're very obviously two distinct entities, given the Vortigaunts reference both Nihilanth (who had enslaved them) and the G Man himself. Then later they cuck G Man and free Freeman.

>or if the entire time he was motivated strictly by necessity for the survival of the human race, but regardless he really was in an unwinnable situation.
True
>Pretty fucking great villain IMO.
Breen was never a villain.
youtu.be/u2yhqxyYLUQ

I think you are legitimaly over-thinking the design of the Nihilanth and the G-Man's mannerisms. G-Man was designed after the generic G-Man character from X-Files and shit, not to imitate the alien big bad. Also, the Nihilanth wants to be left alone, he escaped to the only place where The Combine can't get his people and he has no reason to try and get human scientists to fuck around in Xen.

You're assuming the Vortigaunts are able to tell the difference from an alien who had enslaved them generations ago and this man who is suspiciously helping them. If anything it'd make sense for the Nihilanth to want the vortigaunts to survive to protect his slaves.

Well the Nihilanth, Vortigaunts, and G-Man all share some unique characteristics.
>Teleportation in-dimension (combine could only teleport between dimensions, not within them, hence why Kleiners teleportation tech was so important
>A hatred of the Combine
>Third arm/tie

The Vortigaunts are clearly at odds with the G-Man, but they don't seem to be openly hostile to him. Also, the G-Man used you as a pawn to kill the Nihilanth for him. This puts him in an awkward position as he seems to not have any allies whatsoever, aside from Freeman and "his employers".

Not him, but it's not entirely out of the question that G-Man is a human and/or working for humans. If the ability to travel through space and time is what's at question here, Portal 2 established that Aperture had both of those technologies by like the 60s or 70s.

>Breen was never a villain.
Breen was a spineless and shortsighted fedora tier faggot who had his head so far up his own ass he actually believed that he could help humanity by being a bootlicker.

Alyx was a baby at time of HL1, to give you some scale.

Perhaps not the same but maybe a similar entity or apart of the same species.

It would be possible and it was shown possible. Only reason why it worked out was because of Gordon Freeman. Without him and the Gman's meddling then the policing garrison on Earth would have won out. In the game through dialogue and context, the resistance wasn't even able to make it to the citadel's wall even after a week of fighting. It was not until Freeman came along. Even Alyx got yeeted by a couple of overwatch soldiers who snuck up on her. And at the end of Episode 1 and in Episode 2, we see that the resistance numbers are getting worryingly thing. Epistle 3 gives us the final look into the Universal Union and just how powerful they really are with Gordon knowing that the fight was ultimately futile. Also, Overwatch Soldiers are chonky bois :3 when in battle rattle.

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Is Gaben the first trans-human recruit of the Overwatch?

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I do wonder if, without the portal, and with the combine only getting to earth through the portal storm, if they're actually able to create a new portal to earth if earth remains portal-less?
Maeks me think if a possible future game is just the combine forces on earth getting increasingly desperate as they slowly realize no backup is coming.

As per the whole "Combine gets back to earth and blows up the whole fucking planet" thing, well, at least thanks to portal 2 we know the planet itself is intact. As for the people on it, that's another story.

>intergalactic communist occupation force?

>has the means to casually travel among galaxies
>thinks a bunch of retards on a planet in the suburbs of the milky way will pose any threat

>Breen was never a villain.
To the perspective of the main characters he was. Really he's just a tragic antagonist with deep down noble intentions.

>they really are just dudes in uniforms.
Who on Jow Forums would go Metrocop?
You even get nonmechanical reproduction simulators, although Jow Forums is kinda an expert in that already.

Me but I'd be an inside man like Barney. Fuck those Alien tube things human supremacy.

Unless I'm wrong isn't this an inconsistency within the story? They constantly reference threats of failure by the overwatch and civil protection will result in "permanent offworld assignments". At the end of Half-life 2, atop the citadel, they open a portal to some other hellhole combine planet where Breen was presumably going to go to escape the wrath on Earth, gunships come through to attack the player, but somehow the combine can't come through?
Am I missing something? are the portals they make only capable of small transfers or what?

>The only reasons aliens would waltz over and anhilate us would be if we were the arseholes.
Or if we were showing signs of scientific advancement at a dangerous level.
Don't wanna just say "Well fuck urth and fuck that universe, close the portals and leave them fucking be" only for us to waltz into their univers 200 years later after having strip mined our entire galaxy to build a sol-sized death stat just for the sake of revenge and lulz in the name of the holy free man.
>dont start shit with what ever made Przybylski's Star
>Przybylski's Star
>Only 355 lightyears away
That's pretty close, I'm a bit scared...

Up until the end of Half-Life 2, the Combine network is fully functional, and the Combine on Earth can open portals and use teleportation at will because The Citadel is intact, once it's destroyed then they can't do it anymore and have to rely on brute-forcing a portal open by overloading the reactor.

/me puts a coin into the vending machine