Shu,ulathoi, Gman, the Combine and Aperture?

Like, it sounds crazy at first, but Breengrub got me thinking, the Shu,ulathoi carry innate psionic ability which allows them to create worlds and universes in their heads, thoughts become reality, so to speak. They’re essentially on a higher plane, it sounds like, sharing non-physical things among themselves to the point where physical-things held little to no value to them at that point. But within their thought power, came the tools of their own destruction, and through psionic concentration, they infected themselves with a parasite, a malicious thought with great influence, an ideology that came into existence…
“A malformed thought with physical ramifications”… something that doesn’t have complete power but can influence people to do things and influence other people, control and manipulate.

Could this ‘malformed thought’ be referring to the Gman? or maybe the Combine itself? but just the way Gman can appear on TV screens, plant sub-conscious images and messages in people’s heads, like the Gman monologue which we see the Black Mesa front desk with him sitting in the chair and a flicker of Breen flashes on the monitor behind him, then shows us the northern outpost Dr Mossman and her team are currently stationed at, who have discovered the Borealis, and… well. Gman seems to be very interested in that, I wonder if it’s been his goal to get us to the ship ever since we we’re hired and put in City 17? maybe he used us to place all the domino pieces where he needed them and the path leads to the legendary Aperture Science research vessel.

It’s mysterious nature is intriguing enough, with the blueprints of said ship’s designer specifically signed by GLaDOS. Then of course we finally we see the infamous ‘rocket’ that will foil the Combine’s plans for regrouping with their off-world forces, he makes it very clear that he’s quite limited in his abilities at this point in time and can only observe but presses firmly that we must get Alyx safely to White Forest to serve as a medium to relay a message of some importance to her father, the final mind-trip ends as we see him whisper those cold words to Alyx, and he looks down at her like an angel of death, then she jerks awake, with a look of shock and fear, then returning to the living world. It’s a very chilling scene, you have to admit, and it’s even more creepy when you come to find that the soundtrack playing in that very sequence is called ‘Inhuman Frequency’ with an even more ominous ambiance track in the background. Like, he’s truly not of this world nor this existence, and just waits in the void, seeing us as items to be bid on a multiverse black-market. Maybe he or it enjoys misery and death, destruction?

Now about the Combine, they’re a multiversal collective of races, they lack successful local-teleportation technology and the very basis of their operations is to assimilate organics into data-forms, break sentient life forms down and digitize them, you could say. There’s a higher purpose in what they strive for, as hinted by the Evolution graffiti around the city which depicts the stages of Darwin Evolution, first Ape, then Man, then a Combine Soldier, it’s interesting to see how the brain becomes more and more ‘cybernetic’ and the body slowly loses all signs of Humanity, isn’t this the very idea of Breen’s talks about Instinct being our downfall and the Universal Union will expunge all humanely desire, like reproduction, hence why they placed a field that was capable of preventing the development of certain ‘protein chains’ that are responsible for the development of an embryo, that’s no longer the case as hinted by Dr Kliener,
Breen saw the ‘suppression field’ as liberation of our demons and primitive urges, weaknesses, which we’re holding us back from realizing our true potential, if aligned with the plans of the Universal Union, it’s almost ironic how Breen saw the Combine as something akin to a god-like being, who would bring us salvation and ‘deliver’ Earth, it’s like a mix of Trans-humanism and Christian faith, in a way. Who knows, maybe Breen saw them as god? though they possess a transcendent ‘immortal’ status, it’s at a grave cost for the synths are just mere artillery and janitors to do menial work for their Benefactors, the Advisors, are also slaves to this parasitic ideology, the ‘Technology makes us better’ motto which has turned them into slugs, which have probably survived for a long, LONG, time, biologically immortal due to their larvae-stage which the Combine are forcing them into via hibernation (pods in the Citadel) and possess great intelligence and mental power, like Telepathy, or Telekinesis. It makes you wonder… are the Combine truly evil or are they more aware and enlightened compared to us cavemen? funny, that’s literally how they see us as, less evolved and inferior, though we managed to beat them in developing successful local teleportation technology, maybe it’s the division between the Shu,ulathoi (philosophers) that ascended to a higher plane of existence and become a mindless and insignificant cloud-entity, whereas the Combine refused to go down that path and instead went the technological route, much like we did, but it’s lead them to thought-paths of depravity and war-mongering. Did Humanity become what we know as the Combine in another reality? Hmm. And of course, we have Aperture Science, the mad house of science, being run by an psychotic AI that was built for the express purpose of testing and gaining results through experiments, by any means necessary, Aperture did some pretty sick stuff with their testing, half the time the CEO didn’t know what he was doing and admits that they’re throwing science at the wall to see what sticks, they’re infamously known as being the rival company to Black Mesa and their severe lack of safety for employees and participants in their projects, but it sure led to some pretty thrilling technological developments, like the ASPHD, perfect form of intra-dimensional travel, it’s exactly what the Combine desire, am I right? and we’ve seen parallels between the Combine’s technology and Aperture technology, (as well as Black Mesa technology) nd themes of the Combine and Aperture Science seem to encompass this crippled moral-infrastructure and Trans-humanist ideology, GLaDOS is a very good example of this. She performs experiments on the people who are still alive, to further the progress of Science, her appearance bridges the organic-digital worlds together, a human-conscience stored inside a computer, driven to insanity and possessing a sadistic personality, physically she bears the resemblance of a human female upside down, bound and gagged, imprisoned in disks and lines of code, it’s like her personal hell, really. Ironic fate for a woman who loved Science.

…I wonder if Aperture Science was lead to become the chaotic mad house of Science, by the hands of Gman? Cave Johnson was bankrupt yet they still managed to build Circa-2000 upper sections of the facility, and become bigger and better, I mean, Gman used Black Mesa to orchestrate his plans, I don’t see why he’d ignore second-best of Aperture, hell, (he used a Xen crystal to cause a Resonance Cascade once, maybe he knows there’s another crystal on board the Borealis?) he could be in control of it, one thing we do know however is that Aperture, though humorous at times, it has a very dark and chilling backstory, I also wonder if Aperture is related to the Combine in some way, perhaps it’s what the Combine started off as and became so powerful, it gained control of the multiverse, then plunged further into downfall and corruption. (Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative) It makes you think. This was really just a collection of my fan theories and thoughts of the Portal-Half-Life Universe lore, what are your thoughts? :lambda:

I think breen was just a scheming d-bag that bit off more than he can chew. I think the G-mans employers are not combine, so there is another element we haven’t seen. I don’t believe breen was counting on the entire population being enslaved, reminds me of Burke from the Aliens film.

Well, perhaps his employers aren’t necessarily ‘employers’ but maybe the Shu,ulathoi that lay dormant and are waiting to be awaken so they can take out the Combine for good?

I think it is an interesting Theory, even if I viewed the whole Aperture/Black Mesa canon timeline more as a smirky easter egg in the games UNTIL the end of HL2E2… I dunno if it has not logical fallicies anywhere, but the idea is very interesting… I agree about the real advisors being on some sort of higher plane as indicated by the breen casts, sadly, I think Laidlaw will have not that much of an Impact any more on the Story… if we get a new installment in the HL franchise at all. I think it still has so much potential, even for spin-offs, with the Vortigaunt homeworld, the Nihilanth, the Combine… imagine Strategy games in the like of starcraft where you conquer universes combine style or an Vortigaunt adventures or a Nihilanth/Xen puzzle plattformer… the whole universe still has so much potential not only game-play but also story-telling wise ! (I don’t wanna see it turn into Star Wars or Deus Ex or anything like that with Books, Action Figures, what have you, but a little bit more would still be nice)

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.