Euhm, was the objective of the HECU not kill everybody accociated with the project?
HECU was sent in to mop up everything. Be it civilian, alien, technological or otherwise their job was first and foremost containment and extermination with the second objective being the destruction of all captured resources from equipment to personnel and non-human entities.
As I understand it the Assassins are basically another level of HECU above the run-of-the-mill HECU faced by Freeman during his escape from the depths of Sector C. They were sent in to first aid HECU in an attempt to get containment back on the agenda, and then to eliminate all HECU Marines attempting evac to prevent them from telling the outside world anything about the incident.
Effectively, in both cases the idea was to completely eradicate everything. The fact that the Combine was following the Xenian forces was unexpected and after the Nihilanth died, here come the Combine pouring out using Superportals placed in various locations and unloading Gunships, Striders, Crab Synths, and sundry other Synths and the like on an unsuspecting, unprepared and already somewhat battered (E.T.-Fighting Forces anyway) Earth.
Yes it does seem the orders were to kill everyone associated with the project. I don’t recall if that was ever confirmed outside the game, but inside the game I believe the most direct confirmation of that is the marine in the rocket control room, who says something about he was fine with killing monsters but not civilians, and he wonders who ordered the operation in the first place.
I would guess that it was a Standing Order given the nature of the research being done involving Xen. The scientist just outside the AMS chamber knew about the possibility of a Resonance Cascade Scenario and of course was ethically required (along with all the rest) to submit a report of the potential danger. My guess is that there was a suggestion of a contingency plan being ready just-in-case even though it was highly unlikely (read as ‘imminent’) and the scientists/Dr. Breen had no clue what-so-ever what the actual plan was, just that there was one.
It would be a fairly standard idea when dealing with a creature likely reported as being telepathic and the potential for a world-ending catastrophe in the form of a Resonance Cascade to make a plan involving getting rid of those who were involved to insure no one was brainwashed by the telepath.
In the box for Blue Shift it’s stated that the HECU is supposed to work with Black Mesa in the event of an emergency, which would be in everyone’s best interests. Obviously in Half-Life that doesn’t happen, and we don’t know the reason why, some Soldiers even question it.
Pure speculation, but I’d say Gman could have changed the orders. After all, what good is a disaster if the Military rescues and “decommissions” Gordon from his fighter role in We’ve Got Hostiles, and work with the Science Team to fix everything before Surface Tension? It’s in nobody’s interest but Gman’s.
That makes no sense though, why would the HECU be sent in if they could not be trusted at all? Why would the HECU send in Assassins to kill it’s own men, the ones they sent in, the ones they tried to evac? The HECU and the Black Operators are not the same entity, they work independently of each other, and againt’s each other’s interests. The HECU were sent in to contain, the Black Opers were sent in to destroy.
I’m not saying they couldn’t be trusted, but the ground-commanders would have had control over bailing out if things got too heavy so the upper echelon would’ve probably been saying, “Okay, we have to avoid a bail out at all costs, so we’re going to send the Assassins in to make sure things work out, if they can’t salvage the operation then we’ll set up the warhead and cut our losses.”
HECU was intended to contain, yes, but ‘containment’ seems to have meant eliminating anyone who might talk. I think the main reason for the total cutting of losses was down to the highest levels not wanting the evac communications as HECU was bailing out to get back to other military installations and making the rounds as scuttlebutt or otherwise as interoffice memos and the like between bases. It would’ve been disastrous for what seems to have been a covert operation.
And yeah, HECU probably was a special detachment there to support the Black Mesa security personnel and scientists in the event of a Hazardous Environment Breach, I think their orders got changed behind the backs of the people running Black Mesa when it came to something like tests on potential super-weapons that might or might not violate treaties in existence around the world.
Wait a minute, is there any proof of the Black ops trying to kill the HECU in Half-Life ?
I don’t remember that, even their IA are scripted not to attack each other. I think the only reason why Black Ops attack HECU is that Opfor needed a main enemy as dangerous as the HECU in HL. I don’t think it’s really entirely canon. And even so, I’d guess HECU and Black Ops are working together at first (the trap where Gordon gets captured, right after the first Black Ops encounter), but the Black Ops’s orders change after the failed pull out
That’s pretty much the general idea of what I was saying. I think they probably were sent in as support or a contingency, but when everything went to shit their orders changed. I mean, I don’t think after Apprehension they were ever seen again (I don’t remember more than one more encounter and I’m not even sure of that one) in Half-Life, and they were basically the worst threat, so where’d they go?
Actually you get attacked by Assassins a second time later on, in a storage facility in the Lambda Complex. Interestingly enough, the HECU never made it inside the Lambda Complex, while the Black Ops apparently did.
I have a detailed explanation of who I believe the Black Ops are is and their motives here.
HECU never made it inside the Lambda Complex because they are ordered to flee out of the battlefield or pull out by the time of Forget about Freeman.
There wouldn’t be a game without the HECU. If they’d been smart, and if they were really told to cover everything up, they would have just used the proverbial “nuke the site from orbit” technique. After all, it’s the only way to be sure.
Yeah, but wouldn’t it seem sketchy that a nuke was dropped on some random research facility in New Mexico? Try covering that up.
Nuke it and say it was an accident on their end? The BMRF does use alot of nuclear substances, so it’d come as no surprise if they were to one day, out of the blue, blow up.
Yeah, but then you’d loose a perfectly good nuke you could use to threaten other countries with. Who knows? Maybe calling in the HECU was slightly less expensive than launching a nuke. You gotta save as much money as you can these days.
Haha, I sure know that.
No, maybe because if you launch a nuke bomb you’ll destroy a thousand million research facility, all that money won’t be recovered. So they just tried to save the facilities at first. Anyways I don’t think they can just launch a nuke because most of the facilities are underground and it wouldn’t be damaged from an outer impact. So they had to put the bomb inside the facilities(as they did in OP) in order to work.
A thousand million? You mean… a billion? Anyway, Black Mesa probably cost several hundred billion, seeing as how ridiculously large it is and everything that goes on in it. I base this on absolutely nothing, but the number sounds about right.
The HECU Operation itself no doubt racked up several billion, in the Half-Life series alone we witness the destruction at least 2 billion dollars in military
vehicles alone.
Anyway they could have tried something like a B61 Mod 11 Nuclear Bunker Buster delivered via F-15E Strike Eagle, but they wanted to salvage Black Mesa.
Yeah, sorry, where I come from we use the word “billion” in another way(Our billion is a thousand billion of yours, metric system and that stuff…).
Anyways, I don’t think they had in mind they would lose no vehicles when they started the operation. I mean, they wouldn’t imagine weird flying mantarays appearing in the skies nor a badass scientist that would blow up their tanks and helicopters. It would seem the most reasonable answer(Also I think just one of the machines that are seen in BM is worth more than all the equipment the HECU loses, I mean, how many teleportation machines are there in the world?)
While playing Half-Life and Black Mesa, (Especially Black Mesa due to the radiation being green water that hurts) my brother and I would joke around that the nuclear waste was actually Mountain Dew. Maybe the HECU are part of Pepsico. and didn’t want to loose the biggest soda making factory in the world.
EDIT: In fact, I should do a reskin for that. It would be hilarious. At least for me.
If I knew how to edit textures, I’d totally give the Soldiers Pepsico patches on their sleeves.
And I’d give the Assassin Coca-Cola patches.