The combine are from a parallel universe and need to find a way to teleport without taking a detour through their universe? :what:
The Combine are reliant on local transportation once they tunnel through to our world (per Mossman). If they got their hands on rebel technology (with “entanglement”)… (though that will make you sound like a post-doc).
At the beginning of “Freeman Pontifex”, the vortigaunt says that the Combine “are moving north with great purpose”. Alyx assumes they’re heading to White Forest to stop the missile, but what if that’s only a side-benefit of going north? Maybe they’re heading to the Borealis (which is in the Arctic…“north” of where you are now) to get a hold of Aperture Science’s portal technology? Just imagine the Combine with access to portals.
I’m willing to bet Episode 3 is where you have to destroy the Borealis so that the Combine can’t get the portal technology.
So you guys think I’m right about the Borealis probably just holding Aperture portal tech?
I wouldn’t say “just.” We’re talking about the ability to warp reality here.
Well, yes. I say “just” because it seems like everybody else is assuming it’ll be something crazy and different.
I think you’re wrong. The Black Mesa facility had green portals in the lambda core portal puzzle. They were static and only went one direction but they were portals none the less. They just never mounted them on a gun, thats all.
There’s also the small teleports used to move Magnusson devices in Ep2.
That’s why it was guarded until Mossman turned on the resistance & gave it to the combine. The whole reason it was in Nova Prospekt to begin with.
Yes. That’s exactly what Mossman tells you in Black Mesa East.
I think I’ve heard this thousands of times before. Portal Guns aren’t going to appear in Ep3. The’re not practical weapons, they’re not practical teleportation & they’re certainly not the reason an ice breaker disappeared only to be seen over a decade later.
I do believe that the reason for Gordon being late at the beginning of Hl1 is that he time traveled in Hl3 or even Ep3 or something similar back in time. The Gordon we have been playing all along is a Gordon from the Future, which would explain his efficiency, skill and the fact he is too fucked up to talk to people. Also it explains why the G-man never introduces at the end of Hl1, as no doubt even Aliens would do upon first contact. He simply states: “Gordon Freeman, in the flesh”.
The sounds playing at the beginning of Hl2, while Gordon is teleported into the train, sound not like “ordinary” teleportation sounds but like a weird mix of the old Half-life telports, the Blue shift teleport, the Kleiner Teleport and the Combine teleport, making me assume that the G-Mans tech is incredibly advanced, especially as he simply slows time down to such extent at the end of Hl2 that it seemingly freezes, which ALREADY is time travel to the future, just like Kleiner’s accidental slow-teleport.
I doubt he could slow down the time for all matter in the universe. He is limited to the sphere around the Core and Gordon/Alyx in order to save them (or just Gordon). Might it be possible that the G-Man has a “very fast” teleport so to speak? One so fast he teleports into another string? Or even can close the current string into a circuit?
The vocabulary the G-Man uses is practically constantly hinting at time.
“Time, Dr. Freeman? Is it really that time again? […] No one is more deserving of a rest and all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until [pause] /usually followed by personal pronoun/ well let’s just say your hour has come again.”
“The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.” Clearly a reference to the BMS incident, as the G-Man orchestrated it to fight the combine, the orchastration including an artificially placed Gordon Freeman.
“I trust it will all make sense to you in the course of - well I am really not at liberty to say.” (Time?)
What do you mean by “string”?
I never thought of it that way. I always figured he was talking about putting him into Half Life 2, to fight the combine. What implies otherwise?
Also, I don’t really agree with the idea that putting Dr. Freeman in stasis for 20 years and then taking him out counts as “time travel.” That would imply that putting somebody in stasis and then driving them across the world and waking them up counts as “teleportation.”
There is nothing in any HL game to indicate backwards time travel, only forward by the slow teleport, and that plot device has been used already
One interesting question surrounding the Borealis is…Why did Aperture decide to use a giant freakin ship for their portal experiments? Was the tech behind it that big? or was there an ulterior motive other than experimenting with portals (a la the G-man had a hand in the Borealis’ creation and disappearance).
I’m guessing you may meet assassins in ep3, aperture had originally the advanced kneecaps replacements!
The Borealis appears to be a cargo ship, not a test ship. Maybe the were transporting GLaDOS or companion cubes or even test subjects on the ship. Then something happens and the ship and drydock vanishes to the Arctic, Tobermory discovered later.
@ Restless:
By string I was referring to a parallel universe, sorry. As all non-physicists I tend to use the vocabulary carelessly.
Why should the G-man teleport Gordon into City 17 (directly out of stasis or whatever), knowing he will cause the usual helpful trouble, and then say he put him in the wrong place (unless he assumes the point of view of the combine for whatever reason or knows he will fail).
The only “wrong” place, a place where a terrible (terrible from the pov of the PC) thing happened at, was the cascade at Black Mesa. And G-mans orchestration of this event DID include Gordon Freeman. He could have easily taken Gina or Colette, both having functioning Hazard Suits given the influence he has.
Gordon was the right man, in the right place, for Gordon a seemingly wrong place of course. The G-man thus plays with the proverb “The right man in the right place”. Thus I think he really meant the resonance cascade. And due to the fact that the G-Man labels Gordon the “right” man, almost KNOWING he will not fail, in any case putting a GREAT deal of faith into him, I think the G-Man knows things from the future.
Subjectively a coma is already a form of psychological time travel. That is why so many people who awoke from a coma have difficulties adapting, and even descirbe it themselves as time travel (apart from the usual neural damage). Physically it’s not a form of time travel, unless their body would have been moved to a different dimension or a different state of being (into an EM wave for instance) and teleport-like rematerialized at a later stage. Their information, genetics, their knowledge, character, looks, would have been removed from this world, and transferred to a later time. So if the G-Man put Gordon into stasis somewhere in the same universe as earth’s, it would have been a perfect induced biological coma, I would not call it time travel. However, the fact that Gordon did not age, and the way Shepard was put into waiting in the interdimensional flying blackhawk, makes me assume Gordon was removed from our universe by the G-man.
Thus I think it is a teleportation into the future, aka time travel.
I still fear that the G-man is in reality something far more sinister than the combine. It’s the way he disapproves of family and friendship. But who knows.
It’s a Polar-research Icebreaker.
The reasons behind the assassins being cut from the game had nothing to do with the Borealis being removed. They’re not going to be brought back.
Maybe they intended for it to teleport to the North Pole (South Pole?), but ended up teleporting too early.
Also, we know that Portal technology wasn’t the only thing Aperture was developing. Maybe there actually will be something incredibly useful on the ship. Handheld thermal discouragement beams, rapid-fire energy ball emitters, hard-light projectile weapons, you name it. (also, portals can be placed anywhere with conversion gel.)
you forgot the shower curtains
Or maybe they didn’t intend to teleport it at all.
And I know the portal gun isn’t what’s on the boat.
Que?
It was the last thing Aperture was testing before GLaDOS became active.
EDIT: Aperture probably developed the portal gun from the Borealis accident.