I guess they wanted to see some nice eastern European architecture.
It does seem strange that Vance and Kleiner would want to hide out in the very same city that happens to be the Combine HQ. At least Magnusson was smart enough to hid in a forest.
It could be that they wanted to have their operation close to Breen in case they ever got the chance to take him down.
While it was plot canon in HL2 Beta that the oceans were getting drained, it wasn’t brought up in the retail release. However, when you play the levels Highway 17 and Sand Traps, it is obvious that the ocean levels have decreased significantly. Something on the order of ten feet or more.
Also, I suspect that there has been global climate change in a cooling trend as well. Global cooling has three effects: Ocean levels fall, the size of the ice caps can increase and glaciation/glacial advance. See: Bering Land Bridge.
Before ANYONE tries to flame for Climate Change hoax BS, lets look at the facts:
Ice core samples from Antarctica contain a historical record of CO2 levels.
The periods of reduced CO2 levels correlates to glaciation periods.
Consider: In Half Life, 90% of the global population has been wiped out. Fewer people, reduced (if any) industry, restricted to prohibited travel, therefor little to no CO2 getting pumped into the atmosphere. Little to no human produced CO2 will reduce atmospheric CO2 significantly. This could increase glaciation and further the reduction of ocean levels. (possibly sparking another ice age.)
This seems to me to be a good way to open up possible land routes.
(To forward this idea, I really needed to cite my sources, but I suspect that I will regret doing so. If you find these ideas and concepts controversial, fine. I will not however, debate the subject. There is no such thing as opinion, debate and balance in science. Even if there were, I would not do so here. I will not respond unless you stoop to ad hominim attacks.)
I’ve also been very curious as to why they’d all be in Eastern Europe. I guess City 17 is supposed to be one of the “safest” cities to live in, so it may have been somewhere that people were generally rounded to. Perhaps it was just an area of the world that wasn’t so brutally attacked in the Seven Hour War, thus one of the few remaining cities, ideal for the Combine to set up in. All very speculative though. Not sure if this will actually be addressed by Valve, as it’s probably not perceived as vital information for the game. Would be nice to know though.
I’m with Blushot69;
If you think about it, the portal storms originated @ Black Mesa in the United States. Towards the end of HL1, the Gman shows us that the HECU, who were initially dispatched to contain/clean up the situation, have failed quite miserably.
It stands to reason the US military would opt to strike with full force at the invasion, possibly by any means necessary which would lead to the Combine using increasingly more force until the country is devastated…
I’d say that North America gets fragged first, followed by Britain/the EU, then China/Japan/N. Korea(Asia), leaving the Russians to say “whoa” and stop attacking-- thus all the major Combine citadels are in Russia or eastern block countries because they didn’t get f’d up as much
So my real question is: How did Eli, Issac, Barney, and the rest manage to escape the facility and then the country with all this going on? Via Mexico perhaps?
Hopefully Valve will make a backstory comic, similar to what they did for Portal and Portal 2. Or maybe include a couple of bonus missions in CS:GO?
Hasn’t this been asked more often? I’m sort of surprised considering all the countless theories and questions and discussions people have on the Half-Life series. Just one of those things that isn’t really brought up by anyone.
Yeah it’s curious, aye? I thought the same thing, but this is the first thread I’ve come across about it. But, to be fair, I’m not a hardout forum guy. Valve would have to confirm City 17 is in Eastern Europe before answering this, though. So I wouldn’t be too confident of an actual answer. I wonder if New Zealand ever got touched by the Combine…
Well, this isn’t silly. But I’m speculating cut enemies from HL2 will return. I remember one of the HL2 writers said “The Bullsquid isn’t over yet, they are coming back.” And, I’m just going to speculate but… does anyone else think after Borealis we might visit The Wasteland?
I am really hoping that there will be a return to a Combine-controlled Xen to one of the offworld relocation facilities referenced in HL2. Perhaps something could happen onboard the Borealis that would transport you to Xen?
I feel like the Half-Life series has always had a sort of emphasis on slavery. Vortigaunts had apparently been labourious slaves to another given species throughout most of their evolutionary development. The Combine enforced subjugation throughout the entire human race, an element of slavery. Now, Gordon Freeman had freed the Vortigaunt race from their bondage to the Nihilanth, and (in HL2) is working to do the exact same thing for the human race. HL1 is a parallel to the supposed end of HL2-3.
G-Man mentions the ‘illusion of free choice’. I theorize G-Man’s true nature is that he has been tasked to truly enslave one man. To do this, he forced the poor guy into a position to save the world, and he could only do exactly what G-Man wanted in order to do it. Of course, it didn’t work out right, G-Man may have fucked up by making the choice an illusion, rather than allowing the possibility of the Freeman to freely choose his servitude, perhaps the entire point. Since he botched the ending, he stasis’d him until an opportunity to start over came up. When the window of time appeared when Freeman could be forced to free the human race in much the same fashion, he unfroze him and let him on his way.
Now, G-Man may have thought to give himself a backup tool for his second try. So he ensured Alyx’s safety by the time Feeman arrived, for purposes of protecting his life, and to eventually make a point to Freeman: when Alyx has expended her usefulness, G-Man plans to kill her, and convince Freeman that it was himself and his Agency that allowed him to make it so far, not her and not the Rebels, because their formation was merely a convenient side-effect to their own actions (appealing to Gordon’s scientific nature.) Of course, Freeman acts to save Alyx’s life, G-Man understandably reluctant to kill him.
The lesson is that we empower ourselves to do great things, and the forced influence of our ‘greater masters’ merely create conditions in which we can choose to live in or die in; and are not definitive of the value we put in our own chosen actions.
Or something like that…[/SIZE]
My speculation is based on what was revealed about the game so far, and from the hints offered by the HL2 games. The speculations I’m detailing are unusual, and may not be seen in the main game. Anyway, this is what I’ve speculated.
From the HL wiki, two revelations from Valve caught my attention:
So according to Valve, there may be a deaf NPC accompanying Team Gordon on the Borealis, and that the player will be subjected to the horror of being helpless and having their children die. The question which puzzles me is: whose children will die, or will be on the verge of dying? Are Alyx and Gordon going to propagate children before their mission, and bring them along? Just kidding.
I think that the “children” in question will be one character, grown up, who is in some way connected by blood to Gordon. It’s possible that this character may be hearing impaired as well. I know that many claim that the baby picture in Gordon’s locker is supposed to be Alyx. I think having the baby be Alyx was an afterthought, and should still be considered as someone else. What if the baby was Gordon’s daughter (from an arrangement with an old girlfriend?), who is deaf, and has grown up to become a Resistance Fighter, or an Aperture Science employee, which Gordon encounters in the Borealis? It may be unlikely, but if Valve threw at Gordon a lost child all of a sudden, who is also deaf, while he has to deal with Combine Advisors and other horrors lurking all over, this would add a new level of stress and responsibility upon the player. Offer a whole variety of ways Gordon could get crippled or rendered helpless by his opponents while his daughter is in danger, and you make it even more stressful. Having his child deaf would force the player to communicate with her in other ways. Dog could act as his translator at the beginning, and when Dog is no longer around, he’ll have to learn how to communicate to her by himself through simple signs and signals.
It would be interesting if Gordon were to have at his disposal sign language keys included in the weapon interface. On one of the number keys, you could have a small list of hand signs with written meanings inscribed on them.
As for my next speculation, I think that a handful of old enemies, and some new enemies, will make an appearance. Hopefully, maybe the hound eyes and bull squids will return, but there should also be wild critters from the Combine home world lurking in the Borealis. The recent concept art which has emerged suggests that the player may get to visit the Combine home world, or Xen again, so I’ll look forward to seeing the Border Worlds come back to life in the Source engine.
What I really hope would appear are new bosses. Valve sadly didn’t come up with any unique bosses to fight in HL2, or even in the episodes. (There are the flying vehicles and the ant lion guard as mini bosses, and Breen’s machine as a boss, but there was a larger variety of bosses in HL1). What I would like is for unique bosses to appear in the manner of the Tentacles and the Gargantuan in the Borealis, as well as a Nihilinth-style Combine advisor for the final boss.
Back to the plot speculation, I suspect that Judith Mossman will betray Gordon, AGAIN! I just don’t really trust her intentions with the Borealis. She’s obsessed with wanting to excel in her scientific research, so while she may be on the side of the heroes, she may desire to seize whatever technology she may find over the ethical consequences of her actions. (I think that Judith is not as smart as she claims to be. I don’t know why should thought she could handle the original Black Mesa experiment differently. It only involved pushing a damn Xen mineral sample on a cart into a beam!). Perhaps Judith could be a mini boss, but that’s maybe stretching it.
If Judith were to do something really scientifically stupid on the Borealis, I think that the Episode 3 poster should have her in the center of it. Remember the classic HL1 poster where a Black Mesa scientist in crouched in a triumphant pose with the Big Momma behind him? There should be a poster where Judith Mossman assumes that exact pose, with a Combine Advisor lurking behind her.
As for the ending, I’m guessing it’ll involve Gordon to choose what to do with
the Aperture technology he finds. Preserve it, or destroy it (in the spirit of the first game). I hope that the G-Man may appear before Judith and Alyx at the end, because we may find out if those characters will recognize who the G-Man is. Maybe we can discover if he is an alien, or a very weird man who works for a paranormal organization?
That’s my speculation. What do you think?
If ep3 has anything to do with hearing impairment it’s gonna be the player who’s experiencing it. It would also be perfectly in line with the ‘fading of their own abilities’ thing.
johnyo, that was hilarious. 
I feel like this comic strip was just made to make fun of my speculation. Even if it wasn’t, I’m glad you found something so fitting as a response. Thank you, man.
I agree about the main character being hearing impaired being very fitting. Still, I’m wandering where the death of children comes into this game.
Except it’s not, because it’s already been said by Gabe that there’s a deaf character.
It would be more in line with making the game boring & more difficult.
Sounds more like a reason for Alyx to know sign language than an actual character.
IDK, it could open up some unique gameplay mechanics. Ofc, as with any other player impairment it could come off as frustrating and annoying if used improperly. Anyway, Valve is renown for polishing their games to no end so if they can’t make it work they’ll ditch it, we might as well see no sign of deafness (no pun intended) in the final game.
You want Gordon Freeman to be deaf? Turn off your speakers & captions.
I honestly don’t know how how being deaf could open up even a single unique gameplay mechanic that wouldn’t just be a less convenient way of doing something we could already do. Those are always annoying.
Maybe Alyx and Judith need to converse over a video screen but cannot be heard talking and they can’t type to each other because that would be detected by the Combine, so they use sign language to communicate.
Just a possibility.
Another possibility is… WHAT ABOUT NO DEAF CHARACTERS?! I mean seriously, if you are deaf I did not mean to offend you. And you do have the subtitles and stuff. I mean that’s what I use when I watch a Japanese or Spanish movie. And, what about in Half-Life 3…
What if they made the Combine MUCH more darker, much more sinister. What if they made a flag for the Combine that looked like this?!
What if they captured the darkness and the horror… what if they captured that of Half-Life 2 Beta/Alpha?! What if?!
Just imagine… Alyx Vance stays behind with her father (Barney guards her). And you go on the Helicopter. The pilot happens to be Adrian Shepard. You crashland in the Wasteland. Where you fight off houndeyes, and bullsquids, and Combine Soldiers. You then make your way to City 18. (At this point you see Metrocops acting like the Gestapo and they are wearing the Combine Flag on their arms) You walk through the city not disturbed not attacked. Then a Combine officer runs towards you and is about to hit you when all of the sudden Adrian Shepard shoots the Combine officer. It’s a shoot em up 80’s action movie moment and you run and run and kill Combine troops and more. Then you end up in a Mansion. A 1/3 of the game takes place in this mansion. And you find zombies, mutants, and other monsters. You find out that Breen was behind this whole operation. And that your friend Barney has died. Alyx Vance is still alive, but she is held in a cell in the mansion. You rescue her, and you kiss… but the romance does not last long as Breen bursts into the scene out of nowhere. Scaring the living daylights out of you. In a final battle you fight Breen. Breen dies… or at least so YOU think. Breen didn’t die. It turned out you fought a clone of him. Called Neerb. He controlled “Neerb” from the Borealis. That’s your next destination. You find another helicopter. You crashland on the Borealis. And you fight with Breen. This one is ALSO a clone. Then you find out where HE finally and actually is. In a castle. And in this castle which is enormous and stuff… it pretty much goes all Wolfenstein 3Dish. So basically, that’s my idea. Yeah. If anyone likes this then fine. And yes I know this is a long post. And so what?! What do I need to space out everything?! This isn’t an English class now is it?!
No