Half Life 2 episode 3 discussion

The latter sounds highly unlikely, they must have had backups somewhere else, I mean, c’mon

c’mon what?

It’s where they take ALL of their prisoners to either be turned into stalkers or the information in their heads ripped out ( assuming what the advisers do IS that ).

Why would they need backups? What would be the point in their eyes? They are an occupation force, occupying a species that has literally no chance of getting with 5 miles of the place, let alone getting in and destroying it. Why waste the resources?

They are a species so powerful by comparison they can ‘put all their eggs in one basket.’

And if they did have backups they would have been in the Citadel, which is now a pile of charred scrap metal.

It’s not legendary any more - Mossman is there, and IIRC her transmission held the coordinates. It’s just a case of travelling there. Building another teleporter would have taken months at the very least, and this is while they have their hands full with the Uprising. After that, they’re busy setting up the superportal and getting rid of White Forest.

You’re assuming the telekinetic grubs knew how to make one in the first place. They’re advisors; their job is to oversee the planet-wide strategy, not deal with the fine tuning of teleportation devices. That’s what their human subordinates are for.

Goddamnit, give a warning before you link to TVTropes, I just blew half a hour.

You’re all overlooking the biggest problem with the Borealis having teleporter technology; It’s boring. Teleporting is so mundane at this point in the story that they’re literally using teleporters as vending machines by the end of Episode 2. Whatever’s on the Borealis, working properly or otherwise has got to be dangerous enough that it could pose the same threat as the Resonance Cascade even when used in the right hands otherwise Eli wouldn’t look like he was on the verge of shitting himself when Kleiner said they should use it against the combine.

We’re talking about the Nova Prospekt teleport that was a copy of eli & kleiner’s teleport, not the giant teleport atop the citadel that breen tried to use. The only known difference between the two is the rise-time, which was obviously just an excuse for an endurance-based arena battle.

Well, there was the little hinderance of being constantly on the run from their alien overlords & trying to replicate the new & highly funded teleporter made with an advanced reseach facility from inside a cave with a box of scraps.

There is nothing to say the Combine don’t have any of the teleport information. As far as has been shown in the games, the teleporters require a reciever, (except for the malfunction at the start of hl2) like the magnusson device spawners. In order for the teleporters to be useful to the combine, they’d have to already have one whereever their intended destination is & even then it’d pop soldiers out one at a time at a slow, vulnerable rate.

The number of people explaining it has no effect on how laughably wrong it is.

Ok, so the Advisor stole teleport info from Eli at the end of Episode 2. So now what’s in the Borealis?

Because it requires virtually no effort at all & can be a total life-saver.

What resources are there to even waste on saving a blueprint? What human resources could the combine possibly even care about wasting?

People thought the same about the Combine Dispatch, whose voice somehow lived on in Episode 2.

Let’s assume they sucked the knowledge out of Eli’s brain. If not that, I see no reason why they couldn’t get any other sentient unit at their disposal to take a look at a damn back-up file.

^This

Oh, and you’re in hold of the secret, unpublished Half-Life Universe guide ?

I don’t mean to insult you or start a flame war here, but all the conclusions we draw here are just ASSUMPTIONS simply because there is no in-game explanation…

Arguing over things is ok, that’s what this thread is for, but this shit is slowly getting ridiculous…

Because you find it boring it doesn’t mean it’s a problem. LOL. Perhaps your in the wrong forums if you find the story of Half-Life boring. What would you do to liven it up?

If you’d of actually read the thread through you’d of noticed I’ve already said I believe the only real thing that could stop the combine would be a resonance cascade on their homeworld, which is perhaps what the Borealis is capable of? What if you were to use it to teleport to the homeworld and then set it into ‘resonance cascade mode’.

Perhaps if you’d of played the games you’d know you really don’t need a receiver at all for teleportation. How then, if teleportation needs a receiver, did the Combine get to earth? GOOD ONE!

Perhaps the fact the Combine AREN’T teleporting in soldiers wherever the please shows us they don’t have the information needed to create a teleport and is perhaps one reason why they are going to the effort to FIND THE BOREALIS.

Assuming Eli had important information the Combine didn’t already know, he certainly wouldn’t of known EVERYTHING required to build teleporters. Science usually requires MANY minds, which is very apparent when it comes to the technology at Black Mesa.

A total life saver in case of what? A group of rebels get into nova prospekt and manage to blow it up? Do you realise there is literally NO chance of that? You simply don’t seem to be able to contemplate the Combines over confidence when it comes to these things, even after Freeman arrives.

TBH I’m bored of explaining shit to people who refuse to hold their sense of disbelief in regards to a science fiction computer game. It’s just sad that you can’t overlook these minor details that aren’t even contrived when you actually THINK about it and simply enjoy the story.

The combine interdimensional teleporters probably operate on a different set of principles than local ones. Punching through between universes is different than just hopping around in one.

And you do need a receiver. At no point in the games do you teleport without one. True, the portals in the Lambda core had no visible projector, but then they were inside the portal reactor. It’s not that hard to imagine where they came from.

The Portal Storm seems to be a natural phenomenon* triggered by big quantities of energy, weird crystals and powerful tecnology, the combine did not just use teleporters to get to Earth they also took the superportals for the masive invasion, those citadels came directly from the combine world, the invasion was similar to the one of BM just way bigger on a Global scale.

phenomenon*

I’ve always imagined the portal storms to be a result of uncontrolled tunneling between universes, temporary disruptions in the laws of physics.

The combine superportal in EP2 - which seems to be just a really big, controlled tear in the fabric of the universe, whereas a normal portal would be careful and precise - and the completely-out-of-control resonance cascade would both fit this description.

If I said yes, you’d never believe me…

You misunderstand(as ususal) I don’t find Half-Life boring at all, just the idea that the Borealis houses a teleporter to be incredibly dull. Honestly, almost anything could be better than something so mundane at this point. My money’s on a Time Machine, but I’m shure their writers could come up with something far more interesting than another teleporter.

For starters, we know the Borealis didn’t cause a resonance cascade, but did something else entirely & if the resistance wanted to cause one, I’m sure the science team already knows how to do it. You’re taking the “Not another Black Mesa” line too literally.

Like what Pyro said. That’s inter-universal teleportation, not local. It uses a different method, “dimensional slingshot” around xen & whatever.

He worked on it with Mossman & Kleiner. When Alyx confronts Mossman in Nova Prospekt she even says “That’s my father’s work you stole!” So yeah, I feel pretty confident in thinking he knows all about how it works. Hell, they could possibly even reverse-engineer a magnusson-teleporter. If they can bother to abduct the Dune Buggy, I’d imagine they could take one of those too.

Anything. You ever have a harddrive crash? Total pain in the balls. Always remember to back up your shit.

You simply don’t seem to be able to contemplate the idea of “literally NO chance of that” in reference to something that happened.

A time machine? God damn. Lets hope not.

Yes we know that, and? You’l remember then that to cause a resonance cascade ‘easily’ you need decent Xen crystals, so even if they KNOW, it’s out of their reach. Another reason the teleporter on the Borealis may be important, in order to acquire one.

But sure, stick with your time machine theory. Because that wouldn’t be contrived BS in comparison to all the insignificant shit you nitpick about would it? Lol!
[/QUOTE]
Like what Pyro said. That’s inter-universal teleportation, not local. It uses a different method, “dimensional slingshot” around xen & whatever.
[/QUOTE]
Actually there are plenty of times we don’t need one, such as in the original games. It would also seem the Gmans use of teleportation doesn’t require a receiver. The mere fact, as you’ve stated, that we don’t need one during the HL2 teleport going wrong, again goes against your points.

They could, but this would somewhat destroy much point in the overall theme of them trying to get one, but as I’ve already said, your inability to hold your disbelief in regards to these things is laughably sad. Also, you taking what Alyx says in a fit of rage at face value is amusing. So the entirety of the science team the resistance has, including the Vorts has little impact on teleportation, as it is all in Eli’ head.

It would very much go against any kind of security the resistance has in these matters if they entrusted all the information on the Combines most sought after tech to ONE man.

Yes, because I’m sure the Combine were worried about a hard drive crash. There is literally no evidence of the Combine having any problems with the resistance destroying ANYTHING before Freeman arrives.

Gordon Freeman ≠ A group of rebels who don’t seem to of managed to touch any combine forces in 20 years of occupation, let alone attack and destroy the largest installation besides the citadel in the area, guarded by endless combine forces with a perimeter of dead no mans land infested with ant lions.

Lol, good one.

That’s somewhat different - they probably have lots of those stationed in various areas (my pet theory is that they’re pretty much the female version of stalkers). The Combine are unlikely to have any machine schematics backups outside Citadels - the chances of them being destroyed by rebels is hugely smaller even than Nova Prospekt.

It’s possible, but that happens at the end of Ep2 so it’s a separate issue, and again, they’ve got more important things taking up their time at this point than building another in-universe teleporter.

I think what it comes down to is: through some fastidious logic could the Combine conceivably have managed to regain in-universe teleportation during the Uprising? Probably. Considering how the story has been presented is it likely or going to have any significance if they have? Not really.

maybe half life 3 will have a un-traditional template where the ending of the hl2 series will serve as hl3’s very long prologue

hl3 will extend with whatever comes next

Acording to Marc Laidlaw, he prefers to make new worlds for his stories than just make sequels of the same thing, maybe HL3 will wring something totaly new, Valve opts for the writers freedom when making a story rather than stick with the same thing, if that is correct the could make a whole new story just like HL2.

https://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Canon

Wow, I didn’t realise how long it’s been since Episode 2 came out. FIVE YEARS!

I hope so, because you seem to hate the idea.

[quote=“Mented;517292Yes we know that, and? You”]
You think there’s a xen crystal in the Borealis? That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.

So the time travel that happened in the end of HL1, the end of Nova Prospekt & the start of Episode 1 is all just irrelevant?

Are you talking about the random ones that were caused by the resonance cascade, or the ones that always had a emitter somewhere near it?

The gman can also freeze time & contoll people’s minds. What do you have to say about that?

The teleporter malfuncion caused Gordon to teleport into three other random locations before actually ending up at the reciever, which is uncontrollable & hardly useful. The process still required a reciever for him to be sent to, but the connection broke.

What destroied the theme of them trying to get one is the fact that they already got one. Having them try to get it again is just repetitive & lazy.

Why?

How big do you honestly think the team is, would they not have shared the information with him & why wouldn’t they?

You mean the same security that allowed one woman to completely recreate that same teleporter for the combine?

Who said it had to be the resistance? If you’re going to build more than one teleporter you’re going to need to send the schematic to different locations to build other teleporters. Unless of course you think the teleporter can also teleport something back without a platform & send multiple things at a time to boot.

Why? Nova Prospekt had one & that was a building for turning people into combine soldiers, not the combine’s laboratory. If they would build one there, they’d probably build one anywhere else they needed it.

Or acquiring one for that matter.

Whatever happened to that?

What the fuck are you talking about?

Going forward in time through stasis or teleporter glitches isn’t time travel. It’s waiting. ‘Time travel’, as used in this context, usually implies the violation of causality or going backwards in time.

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.