What Exactly Are the "Combine"?

Half-Life Series
#1

I’ve been looking at many discussions talking about the intentions and plans of the Combine, but I haven’t seen a discussion as to who the Combine are, and why they call themselves “Combine.” I’d like to discuss what they are, and what sets them apart from Xen aliens.

Thins we know:

  1. They’re from one of the Border Worlds.

  2. They have plenty of headcrabs like Xen and use them a lot.

3)Their technology is not purely biological, as with Xen’s technology, but they are partly bilogical, like some of their ships and the Striders.

  1. They can brainwash or genetically engineer humans to become their soldiers.

  2. Even though the Vortigaunts have been enslaved by the Combine before, the Combine doesn’t use any Vort slaves in their army.

  3. They don’t have as large a variety of alien soldiers as the Nihilinth has. (Must account for the Nihilinth being able to keep the Combine off his turf pretty well)

  4. They just refer to themselves as “Combine.” Is it short for something, or do they just like “Combine,” because they just want to combine? Why not something after their name, like CHOAM from Dune? You know, the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles? I’d much prefer to know what their real alien name is. Perhaps “Combine” was the closest approximate translation for what their alien empire is in their native language.

  5. They really like using altered humans a lot for their plans. More so than they like using members of their own species.

What we don’t know:

  1. Why they like to take over everything.

  2. Why the G-Man and his employers’ control over Xen didn’t stave off the Combine, if they wanted to.

  3. Why exactly do they find Gordon a threat, since Gordon only took out their enemy the Nihilinth.

  4. Where the Combine’s homeworld is.

  5. Who the Big Bad Ultimate Leader of the Combine is.

Any thoughts?

#2

They are a metaphor for urinary tract infections.

#3

I’ll try to answer this in all seriousness because I’m pretty bored right now…

First of all, they don’t call themselves Combine, it’s a name presumably the citizens have given them (heard during the breencasts, where he refers to them as the Universal Union, who “small minds call the combine”), most likely because they “combine” technology/biology, different races, etc.

  1. What do you mean by “one of the border worlds” ? Xen is constantly referred to be a borderworld. The combine are from another dimension in fact.

  2. I don’t think they have Headcrabs on their homeworld. It’s true that they use them as biological weapons, but I guess they just came in handy for them after the portal storms. However, as nothing is native to Xen, we don’t know where the Headcrabs originiated from.

  3. You observed that right, however, “Xens technology” (keep in mind nothing is…) wasn’t purely biological… Remember the fabric of the AGrunts or the “thumpers” the Vorts guarded in the very first Half Life ? This wasn’t biological in my book.

  4. Also a correct observation

  5. To be honest, that tickled me in Half Life 2. After you had seen the one enslaved Vort right after you hopped off the train, you encountered no other (alive) enslaved vortigaunt in the whole game… And in Episode 2, you already have an army of Vorts to back you up ! I mean, did anyone free them during the uprising or what ? Did they just hide until Gordon showed up and were like, ok, it’s time to kick some ass now ?

  6. What makes you think that ? I guess they have plenty of different soldiers, as earth isn’t the first world invaded. They just have the forces they deem necessary and appropriate for coping with earth’s citizens me thinks. On another note, the Nihilanth had “only” the Vorts, AGrunts and Mantas as military forces… The Rest was like he let the wildlife that inhabitated Xen go loose also.

  7. See my initial statement

  8. It makes totally sense to use resources of the world you enslaved rather than touching your own, so I’m not surprised about that at all. Also, we don’t know what “their” species is, because they intend to merge themselves or their technology with every species they invaded. I think the Advisors may be the “original” Combine or at least the closest to them we know yet.

What we don’t know

  1. Because they can ?

  2. Either, they hadn’t the resources or it was their plan to lure the combine to earth (There are a lot of theories going on on the G-Man and his motives in regard to the combine and Xen, I won’t delve into any of these here)

  3. They didn’t even noticed or cared about him (on a bigger scale, I’m aware that they “knew” him since his escape in the Beginning of Half-Life 2, being rescued by Alyx), until he started to invade Nova Prospekt and wreak havoc on the combine’s resources I guess.

      1. These are the prize questions… likely to be answered in HL3… or not at all.

Additional to 5) If there is any ultimate leader at all. Until now, the Combine appeared to me rather like a big hivemind kinda thingie (there doesn’t seem to be a bigger command hierarchy, the Citadels are linked and NOT autonomous - they better had been and Gordons destroying of the citadel wouldn’t have had these disastrous effects on the whole combine network, since their other citadels all over the earth -, aside from the Advisors)

#4

The reason why I said one of the Border Worlds is because that was the term for all the different dimensions which border on Earth’s reality. Granted, that could be a term for dimensional worlds which exist between the “Universal Union’s” dimension and Earth’s dimension. I just thought that all the other dimensions other than Earth’s were known as the Border Worlds. That’s all.

Universal Union is a more detailed name than Combine. Still, the title of “Combine” would have been more effective if it had other words after it, as it did with CHOAM. (The Advisors were influenced by the Navigators from Lynch’s version of Dune, which I find rather interesting). I still want to know what their original alien name is.

I’m glad that I’m not the only one aware of this. You’d think the Vortigaunts under Combine enslavement would be used against you, considering what a pain of a enemy they were in the first game. (I still miss how the Vortigaunts voices used to sound like in HL1.) But it might’ve enhanced the gameplay if Gordon could be given the choice to kill the Vorts, or somehow free them from their shackles with an alien weapon (The Nihlinth’s umbilical cord, perhaps?)

Those theories can get downright convoluted, but I like to think of the G-Man as being a part of some interdimensional bureaucracy without any real moral purpose. They just buy and sell services, and mediate between interdimensional aliens. If the G-Man is but a lackey for his Employers, I hate to see what the J. Edgar Hoover of his organization looks like.

Even if you did reply out of boredom, I really appreciate your replies. : )

#5

does nobody know about the option “Disable smilies in text” ???

So tired of seeing that nerdy face with the glasses instead of 8) everywhere.

#6

Truly interesting thoughts there.

I’ll only dare to swoop in for two facts:

a) Anything that doesn’t count as a dimension is a Borderworld, if my understanding of the canon is correct (Xen being one of them, bordering with at least two dimensions, if not more)

b) Combine both brainwash AND genetically engineer humans. Difference in outcome being Stalker or their transhuman troops.

I also agree with Advisors being as close to the “original” Combine as it gets.

#7

Another thing we don’t know is who or what really runs the Combine. It could be the Advisors but that’s never been proven. More than likely it’s whatever the Advisors are after they “hatch” from their larval form. Hopefully, if HL3 is ever released, we will find out.

#8

I think that Nihilanth is the fully grown form for advisors haha

Just throwing that one out there.

#9

And he was a renegade?

That’s actually a good possibility.

#10

Maybe he wasn’t a renegade, maybe all those aliens were used as an advance boarding party. Cannon fodder or whatnot, to test earths defenses while weakening them enough for the combine to come in and become the head honcho’s.

#11

Supposedly, the Advisors were similar to humans and they mutated into that grub form over time due to an over reliance of technology. I don’t know if that means they appeared human-like or were just some kind of bipedal race but it still interests me what it means when they ‘hatch’.

#12

Now that I think of it, maybe the reason the G-Man has you off Nihilanth is because Nihilanth knows that g-Man is a traitor to the combine, but none of the other advisors are aware. So G-Man had you do his dirty work haha

#13

Think it was more just because G-Man’s employers wanted access to Xen, and the Nihilanth controlled Xen at that time, to the point of being able to mentally control the fabric of reality there.

#14

Regarding the Vorts, and their ‘status’ in HL2:

Before HL1, the Nihilanth was the master of the Vortigaunts, which were enslaved. How the Nihilanth came to rule the Vorts is unclear. At some point, the combine invaded the Nihilanth’s home world. Unable to fend them off, the Nihilanth and it’s forces fled to Xen, since the Nihilanth was able to open and maintain dimensional portals.

During HL1, the resonance cascade opened a portal to Xen for a brief moment. The Nihilanth, pursued by the Combine, kept the portal open and began an invasion in an attempt to gain separation from them.

Fast forward to the death of the Nihilanth. With it gone, the Vortigaunts are no longer enslaved. Because of this, they view Freeman as their messiah because he freed them from the Nihilanth. Meanwhile, while chasing the Nihilanth, the Combine became aware of Earth, and launched their own invasion from Xen, presumably after exhausting the resources of the Nihilanths’s world. During this invasion, the Vortigaunts fled to Earth, and have chosen to ally themselves with humans and the ‘Free-man’. That’s why they are all cuddly and fuzzy in HL2, they were forced to attack Freeman in HL1, and they harbor no ill will toward him and forgive him for killing them.

#15

I wonder if we’ll ever see other races appear should another HL game be made? I kind of like the cut Alien Combine Soldier. I mean, they send humans to off-world locations as punishment so they must do it to other aliens to. Sending an conquered being from another alien race to Earth would probably be hellish for them.

#16

It was most likely a slave/tool of the combine that was used for its natural teleporting ability

#17

It coulda been. I was just remarking on how they kinda look similar in terms of how both use technology to move, or how their arms are kinda the same (though the advisors have metal arms) and how they both have those long tongue things.

#18

Nihilanth? Big tongue thingy?

Refresh my memory.

#19

I may be wrong, but I believe it had a tongue similar to the advisors. I might be wrong though, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen him.

Edit: never mind. However, in my searches to see if he had that tongue thing, I did discover how similar his modifications are to a Stalker.

#20

Yeah, quite so. I think it’s more or less safe to say he’s a Combine ex-slave.

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