Advisors

[nofreeman]

Do advisors run cities like dr breen in city 17

 

[Avoidist]

That's actually a surprisingly good question. I'm guessing that Advisors only advise their respective puppet (or puppets), act as military leaders when needed, and otherwise keep a low profile.

 

[Darkside55]

The hierarchy is Dr. Breen runs all the cities, supported by the Overwatch forces. Dr. Breen gets his orders directly from the advisors, so the majority of the public never sees an advisor.

When you get off the train in the beginning of HL2, listen to the two men standing at the gate. "Dr. Breen? I saw enough of him in City 14." Dr. Breen is in charge of all the cities left on Earth, he simply resides in City 17.

 

[Narvi]

Who are the local governors then? Overwatch commanders?

 

[Cheomesh]

I figured either an overwatch commander, or an advisor group.

There are an awful lot of them on earth, from the 15 some pods that where leaving at the end of Ep1; I have figured they're not all rulers. Maybe some are here to study X, others Y, etc.

 

[nofreeman]

would advisors have the ability to control a human??

 

[Darkside55]

Who are the local governors then? Overwatch commanders?

Likely, yes. The world is like a police state with a figurehead.

would advisors have the ability to control a human??

Unknown.

 

[Asknoone]

There are an awful lot of them on earth, from the 15 some pods that where leaving at the end of Ep1; I have figured they're not all rulers. Maybe some are here to study X, others Y, etc.

That there are. I'm going to go ahead and say that only the City 17 Citadel had any Advisors present; maybe one or two somewhere else on Earth, but certainly no more than that.

 

[nofreeman]

yeah but u only see 1 advisor were it could of been working and thats part were u first encounter 1 so iwonder were they are all stationd

 

[Avoidist]

They were all stationed in the citadel, in the red chamber that you see in Episode One. The one in the barn had a crashed escape pod that you can see just outside the barn enclosure, really difficult to miss. Somehow the life-support setup there was made in about 3 or so hours with the help of the overwatch.

 

[Darkside55]

Nofreeman, please be a little more coherent in your posts. I can barely understand what you're saying.

The advisors are all stationed within the citadel, although the particular one Breen speaks to could have been off-world. Unlikely though given the fact that it is presumably the same one that is tracking you during EpOne, when the advisors are cut off from Earth. But most of the advisors at that stage are supposed to be larval according to EpTwo...bit of a contradiction there.

 

[Narvi]

Define larval in the Advisor context.

 

[Asknoone]

Without mechanical augmentations?

 

[Darkside55]

And not fully adjusted to their powers. The advisor Breen speaks with seems to not only possess full mechanical enhancements, but also seems to be cognitive and in control of its abilities.

 

[Asknoone]

That too.

 

[Avoidist]

I think we might actually be getting to something here... So,

1. There is (as far as we know) a single mature Advisor who communicates with Breen during the course of Half-Life 2. It has full mechanical enhancements and communication powers. At the fall of the citadel, it monitors us and sees that all the hatchlings are seen safely out of the citadel, most likely along with itself. It is safe to assume it is on earth, given that the combine find it difficult to send communications across universes, and are entirely cut off during Episode One.

2. Atleast two hatchlings are shown through their various stages during the course of Episode Two, slowly adjusting to their abilities and recieving mechanical augmentations and various help throughout the episode likely due to the overwatch.

So, given that these advisors have gone through their natural life cycle as they are, they would have fully matured within about 2 weeks of us arriving in City 17. Had our intervention not occurred, these creatures would have undoubtedly become the new dominant species on the planet. Perhaps this is strongly connected to or indeed is the combines true goal?

 

[Narvi]

Alright, next question: why were the advisors in a larval state in the first place?

Wait, if the advisors were about to "hatch" a few weeks after HL2 started, and Gordon arrived just before then to eventually destroy the Citadel... hmmmm... Gman's goals would be much clearer in that context.

 

[Avoidist]

See? Told you we were on to something.

 

[Asknoone]

Prior to the teleport explosion I don't think off-world communication was that much of a hardship; Breen gives the far-side “control” over the Citadel in the final moments.

That's a pretty interesting theory that certainly has some credit to it. Breen did state that humanity was close to its transformation date, and that the assimilation period was almost complete. HL2 did seem to mark the beginning of the end in terms of the Combine/humanity transition. I was under the impression that the Advisors were simply in a less than advanced state when inactive.

 

[LandStander]

Nofreeman, please be a little more coherent in your posts. I can barely understand what you're saying.

The advisors are all stationed within the citadel, although the particular one Breen speaks to could have been off-world. Unlikely though given the fact that it is presumably the same one that is tracking you during EpOne, when the advisors are cut off from Earth. But most of the advisors at that stage are supposed to be larval according to EpTwo...bit of a contradiction there.

But there are other citadels on earth. I'm sure it would take at least one advisor to watch over the difficult operations at a citadel.

 

[Omnomnick]

I wouldnt call them young advisors, they are just a new skin

Yeh, the advisors at the end of EPisode 2 look slightly older, its just a different skin, making it look like there is variation in the combine.

 

[McCoy]

Does this mean that every person that is part of the combine an advisor> Or advisors rare or something.

 

[Asknoone]

What?

 

[nofreeman]

in some sort of way they seem to really never change in form from seeing as they have been around earth 10 or 20 years

 

[Cheomesh]

I had always figured we never saw larval forms of the Advisors, and that the ones we did see with variations in their augmentations where tooled up for different tasks.

 

[nofreeman]

ok.......um i was just thinking bout this possble inquiry into advisors turning on gman seeing if they can suck knowledge ..................why not him. mabye theve made a deal with him or hes just to superior .......

 

[Iron_cube]

lol yes

 

[Darkside55]

But there are other citadels on earth. I'm sure it would take at least one advisor to watch over the difficult operations at a citadel.

The citadels are automated. All the synth construction, scanner building, monitoring of the system itself seems to be regulated by the citadel's AI. It's a factory running itself.

Things like operating the core of the citadel, that's handled by scanners. Any menial tasks like monitoring the core, routing power orbs, etc., the scanners take care of that.

Overwatch soldiers also seem to be trained in monitoring the facility and have (at the very least) a rudimentary knowledge of what to do in case of 'difficult operations.' They have protocol ingrained into them when they become members of the Overwatch, it seems. We can tell by the way they respond in Nova Prospekt and in the citadel at the beginning of Episode One. Though I will say that those particular orders (upload the packet) might have been influenced by an advisor, rather than being standard protocol during the destruction of a citadel.

In all likelihood I wonder if the Combine even HAVE guidelines for what to do in such a situation. They strike me as the type of creatures who wouldn't give a second thought to the idea that one of their citadels could be destroyed.


Avoidist, Narvi, I like what you two are thinking, especially that the G-man's goal might have been the destruction of the unhatched advisors. I wonder though if we're perhaps reading too far into it...it's such a good theory, and it would really be an amazing revelation if the G-man were to say such a thing to Gordon, but maybe Valve hadn't even thought of that. That's a funny thing about Half-Life speculation: sometimes theories are put forward that are great, but they might not be what Valve intended.

 

[Narvi]

You mean stalkers, not scanners.

And yeah, speculation, even untrue speculation, is lots of fun.

 

[Avoidist]

Avoidist, Narvi, I like what you two are thinking, especially that the G-man's goal might have been the destruction of the unhatched advisors. I wonder though if we're perhaps reading too far into it...it's such a good theory, and it would really be an amazing revelation if the G-man were to say such a thing to Gordon, but maybe Valve hadn't even thought of that. That's a funny thing about Half-Life speculation: sometimes theories are put forward that are great, but they might not be what Valve intended.

The thought had crossed my mind, but I guess it comes down to how much the writers planned out in advance (case and point: are we currently playing Half-Life 3 as it would have been in non-episodic format or a sort of spin-off series to kill time and add more backstory?)