G-Man Speculations

Half-Life Series
#141

I don’t think that’s a practical plan; the combine strategy, as far as we know, is to harvest the resources of captured worlds and use a planet’s own assets against it. They’re draining the oceans and turning humans into soldiers, heavily using existing weapons and infrastructure, etc, etc.

As far as I can tell, getting the combine to expand somewhere and then cutting them off there wouldn’t do much to destabilize their empire, which may very well be why the combine operate as they do. They don’t seem to have moved any unique, irreplaceable assets to earth, even going so far as to appropriate existing leaders, like Breen.

Getting them to expand somewhere and then destroying that expansion would most likely result in a net gain of resources for the combine. That won’t further any goals; it would hardly even be suitable as a method to delay them and work your own plans.

On the other hand, his strategy might be to aid earth just enough to create something - weapons, soldiers, unity between humans and vortigaunts - that can counter the combine, which might be a lot more effective.

#142

It seems that the Gman was hired by Breen for something in a faustian bargain while also working for the combine to remove the nihilanth from Xen. He brought the cascade crystal and has may have facilitated Breens contact with the combine. They were in close contact as per the heart to heart vid in EP2. Or he just used Breen while working for the combine. Either way, Gman got a hold of Gordan Frohman after the big N was dealt with and locked him away for a while. After the combine took over, and the humans and vorts found common cause in rebellion, the resistance was somehow able to outbid the combine for gordon’s services and then you have HL2. Breen says gordon’s contract was up for the highest bidder. It appears that gordon was hired to bring down Breen and destroy the citadel. As Gman was about to get his property back, the vorts intervened. No Gman for EP1. In EP2, after Alyx was gored and you get the antlion jelly, the vorts focus on alyx and then the GMan is able to talk to gordon. Gman tells gordon of agreements and saving Alyx and naysayers(breen) and a price to pay for stealing gordon. The price is usually assumed to be getting Alyx to white forest to deliver a message but I think that is more of a demand and the price is ELi’s life, given to the advisors. After that, gman sightings happen again. Eli mentions Gman to gordon after his collapse. Gordon saves the day twice and Eli is killed.

#143

You say you think the resistance outbid the Combine for Gordon’s contract, but none of the resistance leaders (Barney, Vance, Kleiner) seemed to expect his return: they were quite surprised. What’s more, none of them seem to like the G-Man. Certainly not Eli Vance, as he implies in Ep2. And the Vorts (who are part of the resistance) seem to be fighting with G-Man throughout Ep1 and 2 for control over Gordon. So I doubt Gordon was ever officially “working for” the resistance.

#144

It actually goes deeper than that. Remember the speech Breen gives to the overwatch in Nova Prospekt, where he chastises them for failing to stop Gordon Freeman? During that speech, he’s listing all the reasons why Gordon is pathetic, and he says something along the lines of “…furthermore, I have reason to believe that, in the intervening years [between now and the incident at Black Mesa] he was unavoidably indisposed.”

Breen knows that Gordon was in stasis for 20 years between the two games.

#145

Actually, Barney, Isiac, Eli and Alyx seem to expect his arrival. In HL2 you actually see The Gman and Odessa Cubbage talking right before you get to NLO and cubbage talks about the new rockets they Just got. As for the liking, the humans are near the end. They haven’t had a child born in two decades. They are on the verge of extinction and making cause with someone you hate out of desperation is nothing new. Gordon took out Nova Prospect, Sparked the uprising, brought down breen and took out the Citadel. Gman mentions interesting offers at the end of HL2, then gordon and alyx were pulled out of a fusion explosion by the vorts. He comes back in EP2 and mentions restrictions and how he is to abide by them

Yes he does. He evidently had a debate with the gman about the relative value of a child alyx offer the destruction of black mesa where he was the naysayer.
OH MAH GAWD IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS HOLE-E WHERE IS HALF LIFE THREE!!!

#146

I don’t think we can fully say for sure yet what the Combine’s plan for Earth is. If they just want Earth’s resources, why keep the Earth’s population alive? Why not just take what they need and kill the rest? If they intend to simply conquer and rule Earth indefinitely, why suppress reproduction? If they want the Earth to continue to produce resources for them, why prevent new sources of labor? Why not like a selective breeding program instead, breeding the best possible soldiers and workers?

Here’s another thought: We can see/infer from the game and the writings of Marc Laidlaw that the Combine have become so technologically advanced that they’ve essentially let their bodies go, sorta like the humans from Wall-E. Perhaps they’ve become stagnant in their intelligence or creativity, or maybe they’ve hit a wall trying to develop new technology. What if they’re purposely oppressing the earth to put pressure on the subjugated populace to create new weapons and technology? Breen says they could have taken Eli at any time, implying they knew about his location and activities, and only until Gordon arrived, only until there was a true, credible threat to the Combine, did they take action.

He says Gordon was in a state that precluded development of covert skills. Interestingly, while Breen knows that, he seems unaware of what Gordon is actually capable of, otherwise he would not have been so upset with the Overwatch (unless he was just trying to motivate them). Perhaps G-man purposely did not tell him everything in order to lead him into a trap?

#147

Actual speech from memory:

"Furthermore, I have reason to believe that, in the intervening years, he was in a state that precluded further development of covert skills. The man you have consistently failed to slow, let alone capture, is by all standards- simply that, an ordinary man. How can you have failed to apprehend him?!?

I will leave the upbraiding for another time to the extent that it proves necessary. Now is the moment to redeem yourselves. If the transhuman forces are to prove themselves an indispensable augmentation to the Combine Overwatch, they will have to earn the privilege. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that the alternative, if you can call it that, is total extinction - in union with all the other unworthy branches of the species. Let’s not allow it to come to that.[I had to look that bit up.] I have done my best to convince Our Benefactors that you are the finest the species has to offer. So far they have accepted my argument, without concrete evidence to back it up. My words sound increasingly hollow, even to me. The burden of proof is on you. As is the consequence of failure. I’ll just leave it at that."

I am suddenly unnerved at how easily I remembered that much of that speech. (Probably because it’s my favorite chapter of the whole game…)

#148

Wow that makes two of us, where did you get that brain of yours? I don’t remember what I had for dinner a day ago.

#149

No worries, I can’t remember my breakfast, but I could stick deep knowledge from AT LEAST two (maybe three…) universes in my brain + loads of stuff from real life that is nowhere near useful to me.

#150

I always wondered how powerful G-Man is? We can assume he has the following abilities:

  • Teleportation
  • Dimensional travel
  • Stopping or slowing time
  • Putting people into a stasis

But that is all we pretty much know.

#151

You forgot appearing on TVs and broadcasts.
EDIT: oh and also hypnosis.

#152

That was one of the best things in the game - showing that Breen didn’t just care about power, but that he cared about the human race… It made Breen seem a reasonable , and sometimes sympathetic antagonist… And sometimes it made you think if rebellion was really that good… He was ready to make sacrifices for the survival of the race… In the end, it made him seem more human, unlike many villains these days.
On topic : I personally think that G-Man has a tendency to double-cross his employers, or at least does his job so it ends badly for the employer - He was possibly first hired by Nihilanth to provide a new habitat for his race - which he did, in orchestrating resonanse cascade, but then he was contacted by Combine and it resulted in Big N’s demise and Combine’s capture of Xen, then Combine or , at least, Breen hired him to give them Freeman - contract was offered to the highest bidder, as Breen states and he has it, according to his words , to either use him , but G-Man didn’t give them him directly ( possibly on behalf of “people” behind that white door), which basically resulted in the uprising, or just to release him and make a show of his capture, in which case Breen heavily underestimated Gordon, which , again backfired spectacuraly…

But in the end, it seems clear that Breen knew a LOT about G-Man and his activities. He, if nothing else, was the one to order the Anti-Mass spectrometer to be run on 105% , playing directly into G-Man’s hands.

#153

G-Man is a hatched Advisor.

Okay, now that’s really pushing it. But if that were true, the world is doomed.

#154

:what: We.(and by “we” I mean the resisitance ).ARE.SCREWED. :fffuuu:

#155

I wonder about the encounter when Adrian Shephard finds him at the dam. The g-man is talking into a walkie-talkie… are there others like him around?

On the other hand I doubt the G-Man has any relation to the combine. He is working for… others. It is quite obvious though he wants to bring about the downfall of the Combine Empire.

#156

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I doubt he does too. I was just saying if the Advisors true form was like that of G-Man, it would all be over. I’m guessing a hatched Advisor is still something to be terrified of considering how powerful they are even in larval form.

#157

If that’s from OpFor, I think Laidlaw said the Gearbox expansions are non-canon except for the one detail of the base being nuked post-incident.

#158

My theory about his employers:

The G-man is self-employed.

#159

One question to ask: Is the G-man actually what we see, or is that an illusion presented by some alien creature in an attempt to communicate more easily?

#160

Would certainly explain the speech…

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.