No, I really think Gman’s badassness went up by at least 33%.
When EP2 ended I started swearing g-man, I mean, it wasn’t Gordon’s /mine/ fault, it was his!!!
I always just assumed G-man was responsible in some way for the equipment malfunctioning earlier that morning - and that whatever he did (or had someone else do), it was done knowing that a resonance cascade would follow as a direct consequence.
I’d be pretty disappointed if we later learn that it wasn’t actually his doing.
Way back when, Marc Laidlaw had said that G-Man had given the crystal to them to test.
This is one reason why I HATE Blue-Shit, as it is utterly un-canonical. It shows that the scientists mined the thing. (Why, yes canonical is a word.)
Well Valve could forge the plot to say that the Gman showed the scientists where to mine thus, in a sense, “giving” it to them…
Actually they’ve announced Gearboxes’ expansions were null and void in terms of being part of the story. Nothing in those games technically happened, aside from the nuke that destroyed the facility.
of course. i was just saying if they DO adopt something from that storyline
And I still find the Shepard reference in Portal funny.
Maybe the G-Man didn’t think that the crystal was going to turn everything to shit, I mean he was arguing with a scientist at the beginning of the game. It could have been about them ramping up their equipment to dangerously high levels. So in reality the crystal was not supposed to cause a resonance cascade, the scientist just fucked up.
The Gearbox expansions cannot be stated to be canon, nor can they be dismissed either. Valve did have a hand in them, but they were made with the focus on making them fun and interesting; canonicity was barely considered. So now, because they were made that way, Marc Laidlaw (the main writer) says he feels he doesn’t have to abide by every idea they came up with to make their games more fun. So essentially, yes, the ‘pure’ canon of Half-Life would only include Valve’s games (and Raising the Bar), but Marc has stated if there was a good way to make use of some of elements from Gearbox’s games they might do so.
Also that whole ASHPD thing was a great troll by Valve. 
I love this part from an interview about Portal:
"[b]GFW: The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (ASHPD) looks like a pun on Adrian Shepherd [Half-Life expansion Opposing Force’s protagonist].
KS: That was a complete coincidence. We think it’s funny.
GFW: What are the odds, though? And then the keyboards’ A, S, D, E, R, H, N, I, and P keys are highlighted in the Aperture observation rooms.
KS: We added those after people pointed out the ASHPD stuff.
GFW: So you’re feeding the significance junkies, then?
KS: [Laughing] Yeah. It’s a red herring, a tribute to the hardcore.
GFW: I’m hardcore. How do you explain the Combine energy orbs in Aperture’s labs?
JB: Here’s my explanation: Within the Half-Life universe, pure forms of energy just happen to form into balls.
KS: Perhaps the Combine stole it from Aperture. You never know."[/b]
Freaking Valve lol
Well the GMan did appear at the beginning of HL1, in the tram, and then talking to a scientist behind a glass window. When everyone was complaining that everything is going bad today (Barney with the system crash, etc…), that was probably a hint towards the fact that something bad is going to happen. It wasn’t necessarily the system crash and all that caused the accident, it was more like an “unlucky day”, where everything goes bad. The “unluckiness” was possibly brought on by the GMan. Before the experiment, Freeman is informed that the possibility of an RC is extremely unlikely. Even the pessimistic scientist admits that. So the fact that the RC did eventually happen means that something turned the odds around. It was possible for an RC to happen, but no one expected it. I’m guessing the GMan did something to make sure the RC would happen.
He had his plan all along HL1, and everything worked the way he wanted it. Same thing in HL2, where he makes you fight the Combine, however, in Episode 1, you’re supposed to stop after destroying the citadel, but thanks to the Vortiguants you don’t. I’m not sure WHY the GMan doesn’t want you to continue fighting the Combine, but my hypothesis is this:
HL2 ended the same way as HL1 did: GMan says kthx, puts you to sleep “until next episode”. However, After HL2, Valve thought of making Episode 1 and making it closely follow HL2. This means that you can’t be put to sleep after all, so something had to happen. GMan isn’t going to say “Oh Mr. Freeman, by the way, I won’t put you to sleep after all because I just realised that there’s still some Combine left.”. So they had to figure it out somehow, and they did it in a bit weird way with the Vortiguants.
So now that the Vortiguants, who are on your side, turned against what the GMan wanted, from now on, the GMan and Gordon are opposed to each other. In EP1 he doesn’t even appear much anymore, and in EP2 he appears to bring bad news.
EP2 SPOILER:
I’m not sure what the GMan and Eli had in common, but it’s very possible that the GMan killed Eli. He knew he was going to die and he got Alyx to warn Eli right before it happened. I’m thinking that Eli knew the GMan back in Black Mesa and he knew that he might have caused the RC.
There isn’t much information to work with, and I’m sure most of it is manipulated by release dates and everything. Valve definitely adapts story lines to when they are going to release the next episode, and so they often deviate from what makes sense and what the original role of the GMan would have been.
Well, at the start of the game, the black sci arguing with gman is Eli.
Is it really Eli or is it just the same model? We can’t know that for sure I think, it could be Eli but I don’t think anyone has officially stated that.
Pretty sure they have. It’s in a thread on some incarnation of these forums somewhere…
Useful, I know.
Surely if he’s also the one in the control room he’d have to go pretty fast to get there without Gordon seeing him on the way?
Well Eli in EP2 says that he was at the test chamber when the Gman spoke to him, (whispered it into his ear) so I dont think Gman was talking to Eli.
“No, Brad, the scientist arguing with the G-Man was certainly not Eli Vance. Eli was, as you pointed out correctly, the chap who first told you to reach the surface and seek aid. I’m pretty sure we made that explicitly clear in Half-Life 2, unless I’m very much mistaken. Any plot holes that people have supposedly identified are not holes – merely gaps that we have intentionally refused to clarify until such an appropriate time comes along that it can be done so in the games when it’s relevant. I understand that a certain level of confusion may arise in regards to the aspects you highlighted but, as I have mentioned to you before in previous emails, it isn’t worth scuttling over. Half-Life 1 may have started on a whim and ended on a whim, but it led to a whole series of sequels. And although elements from those sequels were certainly not conceived at the time the original game was shipped, they were ultimately constructed in a logical manner that did not disrupt ‘continuity’, and I use that term lightly because I’m not particularly comfortable with labeling things as such. I certainly understand your frustration. We get a lot of those questions daily.”
Email from Marc Laidlaw.
https://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=920482
It wasn’t Gordons fault!
He was ordered to push the sample into the anti-mass spectrometer.
Also the scientists assured him before, that nothing will go wrong.
So in the end, it was the fault of his superiors.
So I kinda overdid it, and actually asked the Man himself XD
Here’s my question:
So there you have it folks, I’m to blame for the creation of amazing games
I think that the Gman took the crystal to Black Mesa because his “employers” knew the Black Mesa Incident would happen and that it would benefit them in some way. He did say to Eli (according to Episode 2) “Prepare for unforeseen consequences”, so he had to know it would happen. I think he noticed how well Gordon was doing along the way and decided he could be useful just like with Alyx.
I know it’s perfectly possible that I’m wrong but I don’t think that the Gman caused the Combine Advisors to kill Eli because he mentions in Half Life 2 that he can’t control Breen and the Combine Advisors are higher rank than Breen. I don’t know if that’s true but I think it’s possible.