There’s absolutely no chance whatsoever that humanity could’ve lasted any significant amount of time.
From a purely scientific perspective, we’re nothing but ants in comparison to what kind of uniform race the combine appears to be.
To put it in perspective, we’re a type 0 civilization that has yet to stop fighting amongst ourselves. The combine is a type 3 civilization, an immortal race with technology reaching far beyond anything we have, stretching across what I imagine would be several galaxies.
Our most powerful weapon, the nuke, has an energy output of what… 1%? That’s our most powerful weapon.
The combine has most likely mastered weaponized anti-matter, which gives them weapons with an energy output of 100%, that is… They can wipe out our entire planet before anyone can even say “Fuck’s that beeping noise?”.
Which of course poses a few other questions… Why would the combine even be interested in our planet? For our water? Water is commonplace in space, it exists in abundance. Oxygen? Gold? …Proteins? Hell, I don’t know.
And why would a race as superior as the combine even talk to humans? Would you ever walk up to anthill and spend 7 hours trampling them, then come to the conclusion that Ant no. 4128921 should represent you from atop a giant pillar rammed into the anthill?
The story of half life 2 makes little sense. But I actually like the idea of a “7 hour war” just to show how arrogant we are with our primitive chemical weapons.
Anyone who can travel anywhere in space, can conquer us, because we’re nothing but apes waving torches at the stars.
I think the thing about the Combine is that they have no real motive to invade. I see them as having started with a militaristic regime bent on world domination. Once they came into contact with another civilization they knew they had to invade them too. Just in a perpetual state of war with anything they come in contact with & anything that tries to resist it.
Very reminiscent of Oceania from 1984 & Chief’s description of The Combine from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
It’s been discussed in the Gman thread. I think they stopped the 7 hour war at 7 hours instead of the 10 hour destruction of the entire planet and extinction of the human race because Breen gave them the possibility of teleportation technology.
If you were destroying said ant hill and one of them managed to talk to you, then told you how there were a couple of ants who knew where the arc of the covernant is, would you try and find them?
I imagine the resources of the planet were their original goal and humanity didn’t even factor in, but they got sidetracked.
Why would they even care about earth’s resources? It’s not like earth has anything unique to offer other than the life on it, which they seemed pretty content with wiping out. An advanced civilization that can make giant dark-energy reactors probably know enough about fusion & fission to split or combine any elements into any other elements that they could possibly need.
There’s a pretty big plothole. But you could say that about almost any alien invasion film or game.
It’s because we imagine that since we’ve invaded and conquered almost every piece of land on our planet, that others would do the same in space.
But the same logic does not apply in space since the requirements to even travel such distances would require more from you than you could possibly gain from invading a planet.
But hey… Half Life 2would’ve been a pretty boring game if they all came here and said “Hey, we invented wormholes! Let’s all be friends!” and the G-Man put no one in stasis.
Half life 1 made more sense, since most of the invaders were nothing but animals unwillingly thrown into Black Mesa.
I think you’re giving the Combine too much credit. They don’t even have teleportation technology that allows them to teleport within a single dimension. I’m sure there is plenty of technology that they don’t possess.
Now, what their motives are, I don’t know. Maybe they’re trying to find a way to save their world and our teleportation technology could be the key to saving them. Who knows?
That’s a pretty big assumption even by my standards. Resources are pretty damn important, you just assume they literally don’t need anything at all to sustain their planet scale invasion armies? They can just conjur that up from thin air? The citadel is made in a giant element combining machine? You did think that through before you typed it yeah?
@memphage: As mankyman said the Combine don’t travel within dimensions like we would assume you’d have to, traveling faster than light etc. It’s established they can only use teleportation to travel between dimensions, not within them. So I’d assume resources are still damn important as they don’t have space fleets zipping about star systems transporting resources. Much easier for them to build a dark fusion reactor and send it through from the actual planet straight to their hq planet/war planet.
I do wonder though, if they travel between dimensions, do they travel from one, to the another to go back to the original but in a different place on a different planet? That makes sense right?
Regardless of their travelling capabilities, I’d assume they live in a universe that is built the same way as ours. And all the resources you can find on our planet, exists in abundance in the cosmos. All you have to do is get out in space, and start harvesting asteroids, planets, moons, and comets. Put solar panels in space and you’ve got unlimited power from the sun.
So… In his defense, there’s nothing on our planet that they could possibly want that doesn’t already exist everywhere else in their own dimension. Neighbouring planet, moons, their sun… Given their vastly superior technology, then applying our own technological development and evolution, you can only come to the conclusion that not only have they reached the space age, but they’ve most likely already conquered their own solar system and probably beyond.
Take our solar system for example. We have everything we could ever need here. Every single thing from the periodic table exists within the boundries of what we consider “traversable space”.
So… What agenda do the Combine have? Why are they conquering us? Humans seem fragile in comparison to the forces they already have, so it can’t be because they need troops. Our resources are common. Water is common…
All I can think of is what someone else said, that they’re essentially just a perpetual war machine with a compulsive need to conquer everything in space.
Kinda like the trolls of the multiverse.
Everyone is assuming that there was actually fighting during the Seven Hour War, it is possible that it was a Cold War style stand off, eventually ending in Earth’s surrender and disarmament at the negotiation table.
Maybe it was just a good old pre-emptive strike? They might of thought that we were planning an attack 'cause of the teleportation tech. Maybe they didn’t know so much about us, so they went all in. And once they were here, they said “Fuck it. Let’s use them instead of wiping them out completely.”
I don’t think people actually realise the problems with gathering and using resources between planets in a solar system. I also don’t think people realise the amount of distance there is between solar systems and how difficult it would actually be to traverse space with all the needed equipment to mine a planet, then send the materials back. The Combine have clearly found a much more suitable option to their technological level. They don’t need to traverse space, they can just send it through a portal. So literally any planet is up for grabs. I wouldn’t say they need to conquer for conquering sake, but they have the ability to easily take over the planet and it’s not like it costs them anything with the return. It’s cost effective simply put.
People are saying ‘Why would they?’. Well why not? They are completely unopposed morally, ethically and politically. Think manifest destiny.
On the topic of resources: if the Combine are from another dimension, it’s possible that the elements are different there. Not likely, since all of their tech seems to work fine on Earth, which means the same or similar laws of physics and the same common elements, but possible. That could explain why the water level in the oceans is lower. Another possible explanation could be that it does seem like the climate is a bit cooler than Earth today, causing the polar ice caps to grow, then again we don’t know what month HL2 is supposed to take place in.
They are from different dimension, yes. But that doesn’t mean that their is Soo different from ours. For instance, the resources they take from Earth can be found in their own dimension but in the other end of their galaxy, so we the better source.
The game takes place Autumn if you ask me. Look around the countryside of City 17. Also, if it was an 20 year monoseason winter/autumn, the vegetation should’ve been in less diversity than we see now. Maybe the presence of the Combine have brought a new mini-iceage over the planet, by changing our climate. But surely there should be some kind of short summer.
The whole universe has more resources than anything could ever need. All that’s needed to produce just about anything is energy, which they have giant dark-engery reactors to power, labor which they have robots for & elements, which can be turned into one another through nuclear fusion/fission provided by the reactors. Hell, I’m sure we could accomplish the same in real life if money didn’t control the world.
If the little peek we got of the dimension breen was going to travel to is any indicator, showing a bunch of citadels in close proximity, they could all connect to a homeworld or possibly to some kind of hub-worlds.
Really? You think that any sane government would nuke cities just because several unknown non-intelligent lifeforms appear and start melee-attacking civilians??? What the hell for? Give me a well-supplied platoon of 100 soldiers and I’ll clean any city of antlions and headcrabs in couple of days. What’s so difficult about it?
It is hinted throughout HL2 and Episodes that The Black Mesa Incident made Combine aware of Earth’s location, and they were able to use Xen to “slingshot” to Earth, because Xen, the borderworld, is a place between dimensions, thus significantly shortening distances. Imagine it this way:
Take a piece of paper and draw two dots near opposite corners. What’s the shortest distance between the two dots? Normally, people answer “a straight line”, but that’s not entirely true. A borderworld slingshot, in effect, serves as a shortcut, similar to bending the paper in such a way that the two dots “touch”.
The BM portal to Xen shortened the distance from BM to Xen to ZERO, making it feasible for Combine to invade Earth.
Therefore, even though G-man informs Gordon at the end of HL1 that “The borderworld, Xen, is in our control - thanks to you.” … that control didn’t last long, probably, or alternatively, Earth’s government didn’t last long enough to enjoy that control, once the Combine started their invasion.
Nihilanth’s death had the effect of creating portalstorms on Earth. Combine calibrated their technology to use Xen as slingshot and were able to teleport to Earth.
I personally envision the War as a series of massive destructive blasts. Bang! There goes New York. Bang! The Alps just disappeared. Seats of Power would be probably eliminated simply because rulers tend to be located in largest cities, and these should be easily detectable even by someone who doesn’t speak our language or decode our broadcasts. So, within few minutes, it is entirely possible that there was not a single RULER on the entire planet. As such, when Breen contacted (no doubt with G-man’s help) the invaders, he might have been the only one doing such thing, and so they agreed to his surrender, in order to preserve the valuable resources they wanted to exploit. Subsequently, Breen has sent a broadcast explaining to all humans that Earth surrendered and that we must not fight back, Combine placed an occupational garrison (Synths) on Earth and appointed Breen as the administrator, they placed the citadel on Earth, and went on to conquer other worlds.
Well, we know that New York didn’t go “bang” because the United Nations building is where the surrender took place.
Also, I doubt the Combine just banged up Earth with explosions if they needed resources; but I doubt they came to Earth for resources. I’m sure they took plenty while they were campaigning on Earth, but they’re not called the Combine for nothing. They probably took Earth for the same reason they conquer all planets and dimensions – desired control and combination-evolution. They probably spared humanity to gain insight to portal technology. This is why you hear Breen and Mossman constantly bickering about it before Judith turned.
And if you were implying that the Gman represents humanity, I don’t think you should make such assertions just yet – his motives and whereabouts are still a mystery.
Even if they managed to occupy all larger cities in Europe - I can’t agree to a war jsut lasting 7 hours in total, I mean even the movements of the troops takes time, and I’m not going to speak of the guerilla fights occurring normally in city streets.
Maybe it took seven hours to destroy Washington and Brussel or something like that so the USA and the NATO and all the others lsot contact to eachother, but the actual war would have lasted way longer.
I like the idea of the Combine forces moving away after the successfull invasion of Earth, so they leave beack a “few” troops organizing the Cities and the resource gathering. I don’t think that the actual Combine army is that weak, they just create soldiers for each specific environment they have to deal with, and on earth the troops weren’t as strong as on their homeplanet.
We never saw them on their own planet, so there’s no clue on their actual force.
And when I think of the Cities with all the wasteland around, the broken and destroyed buildings and the starving people, it really looks like the Combine’s best days on earth are over. The sea’s drained, and mainly all ressources are gathered, so they called back to troops and left Breen and his troops back in City 17 to maintain the city until they loose interest in earth.
I would say Breen’s teleporation and the Gman. It’s obvious he has plans for Gordon. Who’s to say he didn’t help the combine come here and set up shop?
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
