Now I know why I got best actor in class and a D average! 
Can’t believe I forgot that!
So the 4th wall is basicly the “wall” between the 2nd (or third) dimension from the 4th dimension!
Mmmm, not really. We live and are aware of the 3rd dimension, but there are upper dimensions that are very complicated for us to understand or even imagine.
For more information try watching these videos. They totally blow your mind!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkxieS-6WuA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySBaYMESb8o&feature=channel
Length, width, height is the 3rd dimension…
Length, width, height and time is the 4th dimension!
Also, it is the super-string theory you are currently talking about… I did not get amazed by the vid because I know about the theory from the beginning!
No, not in the slightest. The 4th wall was explained perfectly well before but I’ll reiterate. With a stage or TV set, only three walls of a room are shown as the audience watches ‘through’ the fourth wall but simultaneously imagines it still being there. Anything in the performance, such as characters talking directly to the audience or acknowledging their fictional existance is considered ‘breaking’ the 4th wall.
There’s also the concept that I’ve come up with I call “leaning on the 4th wall”; referencing either their fictional existence. For example, at the end of the Neverending Story movie:
SPOILER IN THE BLACK TEXT:
[COLOR=‘Black’]When the Childlike Empress tells Atreyu brought Bastian to the Childlike Empress, she was breaking the fourth wall to talk to Bastian, but then she leaned on the other 4th wall (ours) when she said, “Just as Bastian is observing your adventures, OTHERS are sharing his,” referencing the audience watching the movie while staying in character.
Watching those vids was actually very illuminating.
It also gave me an insight into the possible nature of the Combine, specifically their homeworld.
The Combine homeworld, Earth and Xen all occupy different dimensions based on different timelines from the Big Bang: different universes. Or possibly a separate set of universes based on a different form of creation. The scientists at Black Mesa and the Combine both linked to different universes through tunneling between the universes (using Science)
Now the Combine can only move between fixed points between universes. (though the work Mossman did for them in HL2 might have changed that). It’s impossible, through their technology, to travel between two points via portals in the same universe.
On the other hand the Black mesa scientists used another universe: Xen, the border world, which is kinda like a universe that didn’t quite make it sandwiched between other, more robust, universes, and used it as an interdimensional slingshot. So every time you teleported in Half Life and its expansions and in HL2 You are going to xen, or at least the xen universe, and then immediately returning to a point in our own universe. It’s long-winded but until we can work out how Aperture Science achieve their portals between different 3 dimensional points in the same universe (wormholes?) it’s the only way in the half-life universe.
Now, 3 dimensional spaces need not correlate between universes but lets assume they do. For interdimensional tunneling purposes the shortest distance is always a straight line. So the combine homeworld has thousands or hundreds of portals between different universes but all the portals occupy the same relative point in the multiverse. Space travel, within a 3 dimensional space, is a costly, almost impossible endeavour compared to simply tunneling between dimensions. The Combine on Earth don’t seem to have made any inroads into colonizing the solar system or don’t appear to have a space program if the actions of Earth’s remaining satellite system and a cold-war rocket can shut down their superportal in Ep2. So no space travel beyond the Combine homeworld within their own universe. Why bother when Science has given them portal technology.
Maybe you can see where I’m heading with this. Basically, if the combine can’t leave their homeworld, or home system, through conventional means then they are restricted just as humanity is restricted to Earth and nearby space. If Portals are the shortest connection between two points between universes then, if the Combine homeworld is a planetary body, rather than something else entirely, it’s possible that the Combine homeworld is simply an alternate version of Earth itself. Or at least occupies the same point in spacetime.
This is all random speculation but the implications are interesting.
Now how on earth did discussions of the theatrical 4th wall lead to all that?
There was something in Raising the Bar about how Advisors were conceived as something similar to humans that then became dependant on technology and became grub-like. That works pretty well with that theory.
It’s probably unlikely that they were, actually, human unless heavily modified, but something similar to human in their technology and society, much like the Vorts in certain aspects. If we assume the Combine homeworld, and the homeworlds of the Vorts, synths and other xen creatures are all alternate Earths or places that correspond with Earth’s location that have just gone along a different evolutionary path. In HL2 Breen mentions alternate dimensions that are utterly alien to our solar system: sentient fungi etc. So the alternate Earth hypothesis may be wrong.
Though it might explain why the headcrab seems to be so well adapted to taking over and controlling humans. It possibly came through a portal from an Earth where hominids existed and were hosts to the parasite and have just been surviving off other means on Xen until the BM incident took them back to their ‘natural habitat.’ It also might explain how the vorts, an alien species, can cope so well in an Earth environment.
And it all started when the Combine invented motorized carts for the disabled, and the fat started using them because they were lazy…
They developed portals as a way of reaching the fridge without having to get up
So, how 'bout that “greater master?”
For what I have seen playing hl2 and looking some beta videos, I don’t think that. They are taking the water and oxigen from the earth. (Water seen in hl2 coast levels and oxigen seen in hl2 beta air exchanger) That would mean that the combine homeworld probably did not have water or even plants before they found the earth. This would mean that the Advisors needed to adapt somehow and being like a grub would propably be the best option. Now after finding all this resources in the Earth. They can send other kind of creatures to their world like humans, to build and research for them. After all the arms that an advisor can only have, must be robotic implants. We already saw an advisor before getting this implants (As seen in ep2.) and only can do some telechinesis. Also it’s completely blind while another with technology have robotic eyes. (Seen in hl2 and all the episodes.) They needed something or someone to build that for them. So I suppose that the ones who builded it for them were the human race and that’s why they needed Earth resources in their planet. To allow humans to stand on there and build/upgrade things for them. Also to transform the biggest part of them into stalkers/combine soldiers. Now it can also be done in the Earth but maybe before they did not have those machines in Earth to do so.
Hmm, no. If they didn’t have them for …well …ever, they wouldn’t need them now. If they need those resources it means they have (had) them and either need more or have just fucked everything up and need (relatively) fresh suply.
Breen said the conditions there are completely FUBAR for the human body. And since the combine are way more advanced than humans I don’t see why they would even bother finding a way to make it work.
right… They’ve created striders 'n stuff and conquered a shitload of planets/races/dimensions and they need HUMANS to build them robotic arms.
Stalkers/combine soldiers don’t seem useful enough to transport humans to their homeworld. They need them on Earth to operate the citadel and contain the resistance. What would they need them in their homeworld for?
1 yeah, maybe you are right. They seem to need it desesperately.
2 that’s for what the masks seen in hl2 beta wasteland citizens are…
3 The synths are not created, are creatures modified with robotic implants.
4 They could also be needed in other planets as first striking force and be used as shields while the critical units strike (how they did in earth: they send headcrab cannisters to let the enemy bases go weaken and then they send soldiers to finish off any survivor/zombie). Also the combine homeworld seem to have connection of portals over all the worlds that hey conquered and I don’t think the Earth is the only one wich has a rebellion/resistance on it. Hell, they sended striders and other aliens to our world, why couldn’t they send Humans/Stalkers to their world and then send them to another planet to finish off the opposition/weak the enemy?
They’re for humans to survive on the earth while our atmosphere is drained (not sure why the combine would be concerned over our welfare, maybe that’s why it was cut), not for living in the combine homeworld. And it’s not canon anyway.
We’re arguing over copyrights now?
We don’t really know what strategy the combine used in the 7 hour war. I’d assume they used some very effective weapons at first to wipe out the earth’s military forces. They had to be quick and effective to avoid getting nuked 'n stuff (assuming they didn’t get nuked). What we see in HL2 is not the war, it’s the aftermath. The combine soldiers were created (ok, modified) to deal with what little resistance had survived. We can only fantasise over what kind of monstous war machines were used as the first strike in the 7 hour war. If how the combine handled Earth is any indication, they like to use local resources (humans, headcrabs) for minor damage control.
They could but would they? Compare a strider to a combine soldier. Is it worth the effort? Also, combine soldiers/stalkers probably can survive in combine homeworld, what with being modified 'n shit.
It was going to be cannon if wasn’t because of the hack. Also they were changing the Earth oxigen with the Combine one.
LoL I just wanted to mark that they not builded them, only modified them. And that the modifications don’t really need to be made by advisors. Could be made by the own creatures wich were going to be modified and then modify the others.
About effective weapons: do you really think that a strider/hunter isn’t an effective weapon enough?
About that of striking fast: they did not have human soldiers back in there, only synths like gunships, striders, mortarsynths, crabsynths, hunters and also portals, they could teleport inside government facilities and blow any human before they could react.
compare a Mortarsynth to a combine soldier. It does not really have to be the striking force, just a distraction or a shield.
Sure the soldiers can, meanwhile they have their masks on. Hell they still need to breathe.
No
Not canon, not relevant.
No. A hunter can kill a bunch of humans. A strider can blast a small building to shit. We have weapons that can blast a whole country to shit. A gunship is little more than a chopper. It doesn’t even hold a candle to a jet fighter. And we don’t even know what the latest top secret war tech the largest nations have.
Noone in this world knows where all the military bases of a single country are, not to mention the bases of all the countries. The combine couldn’t have known either. And I don’t think they went all stealth and minimum casualties on us.
If they used modified humans here, they would use modified insert subject race name here in insert subject homeworld here, wouldn’t they?
If the problem could be solved with a simple gasmask, I don’t think Breen would have freaked out. The term “host body” suggests the difference is way worse than just the atmosphere (extremely low/high pressure, temperature etc.)
Alas, I digress. I must admit I am arguing with you just because I see flaws in your reasoning and have a different opinion.
On topic: I agree that the parallels between the human race and combine are definitely intentional. It wouldn’t be Valve if they didn’t have a (somewhat) hidden message begind all the fun. (captainobvious) if we (humans) continue like this, we could end up being like the combine. (/captainobvious) As for the vorts, gman and gordon, the only thing I do know is that Valve is a pretty cool guy, eh criates an giant mysterie and doesnt afraid of anything.
The Overwatch voice does make frequent references to “permanent off-world relocation/assignment” as a punishment, so it does seem like they transported some humans to their homeworld or at least to another place they’ve conquered. Although its use as a threat implies that the process and/or result is not pleasant.
… You made me think about what I said. You right, they surelly have something better (Hell I would love to see a supah strider!)
No need to know, just to strike those wich were gonna send a freggin gigantic missile wich could destroy their portal. (To throw a missile like that on white forest you need… ‘‘some big space’’ even if it’s underground).
They can send them. But as how pettifogg said, seems to be send as a punishment.
you sir are… correct. But the combine implants on their bodies could make it easier for the soldiers and go with gas masks. One of the principal problems of Breen was that he had no time to put implants on himself because of Gordon, so a host body was the fastest and best option.
Yeah, I see we better stop and go back to topic.