Fourteen years.
That's how long its been since the Combine occupation began. Since the last ever news broadcasts showed the world's soldiers standing dumb amongst countless dead as faceless men clad in armour, with strange new weaponry and cold blue eyes filed and pushed past them, effectively annihilating in a handful of days an enemy which we had struggled to survive against for two years.
That day, the Earth went silent. For how long? Forever? I don't know.
The confusion became thanks as we tried to communicate. It wasn't long before the sharper of the world's population realised that they weren't there to help; They were here to conquer and quell at our cost. That didn't stop the survivors of those bloodshed two years from accepting food and water. What stopped me was a tonne of rubble which had fallen on me when I'd returned to the city my unit had been sent to defend. I stayed alive in it for several days. Then, as I thought it was all over, it wasn't; People were dragging rubble off me and helping me up. Except, they weren't the people I'd recognised several days ago.
They were different. When I first came to Russia's border, I could see the rich and poor alike united by the horrors which had befallen the world. It was as if there was more life in their eyes than there had ever been for centuries. But these people were different; They were bound by dull blue uniform clothing and haircuts. Skin colour, gender and other factors were the only things I could identify them with. Their eyes were another matter. They were grey and cold and devoid of anything you could call humanity. And they worked to fit that bill. People who I thought should have been dead for days were up and working, heaving debris back into what remained of the city. They pushed past me as if I were nothing but an obstacle. Not one of them stopped.
Those first six years were the most harrowing of my life. I ran into the hills and the wild with only a sidearm and precious little ammunition. I killed headcrabs to survive and relied on the kindness of people who still lived in the Urals, still surviving. People who I learned later were hunted down by the same soldiers who had left us alive and yet left us for dead. I was a United States Marine, but even that couldn't prepare me for the horrors and wonders I saw. Creatures straight out of science-fiction books and film. Three legged walking tanks, plasma weapons, biological-technological hybrids. Things which sharpened my senses to such a degree that I didn't need to dodge their shots; after I found myself a decent weapon of someone who didn't have the sense enough to use it fast enough, they were the ones who hid.
Then I realised that I couldn't keep this up. They had floating cameras now and they came at me with the creatures they had been sent to exterminate. They set floating sawblades on me like dogs and spat acid in my direction. I did the unthinkable. I didn't just flee further into Western Russia; I conformed.
I learned more than those six years could possibly have taught me. More than any university or school or boot camp or battlefield. I learned the human race had been subjugated. The water and supplies they had charitably given out were tainted. It had made them work without memory, emotion or recollection. The fearsome alien troopers I had seen had been replaced by different characters. Of course the 'striders' and 'scanners' still roamed the streets, but these people were weaker. Simpler. I found some whose will was weak and others who were willing to co-operate. They were Civil Protection and trust me, they did exactly the opposite of their name except when it threatened them.
After five whole years, I found something even more astonishing; I hadn't been the only man who had survived the Dead Years. I found people who had the courage to stop me in the street or nudge me on the train to bring me through winding back alleys, just to tell me that 'they knew'. It was something I hadn't known for over a decade; allies and friends. Conspiritors. And soon I found myself drawn beyond black and white and good and evil. I found people who knew my identity. Some who were fascinated, some who were awed and others who wanted my talents for their own needs. I remained completely neutral for one reason; These were seperate factions. Ragtag groups of people who were to afraid and just met and talked about what was unfair and outright psychopaths who hoarded weaponry and killed (as well as the Combine, a name I found them to be called) anyone who disagreed with their values, or disobeyed their orders for food or shelter.
I watched. Some groups subsided, but those which truely meant something rose up into something more than I could possibly have thought possible. Some of them were the good little golden boy meeting groups gone bad, people with moral values and guns and others were now organised guerilla forces. But I still felt I couldn't commit to anything. I found out, however, that people had commited to me.
Very soon, I began as many 'resistance movements' had. Simply sitting in a basement discussing the new world order and of a world we found would never come about unless we did something. It began small, but eventually, I found almost a hundred people answering to me for everything. I felt like a commander - no, a lord. Except I was willing to show them how it was done. For a year, I trained those I thought were capable how to kill silently, how to operate all and any weapons. How to cheat flatline alerts, how to evade scanners; how to resist.
As I reigned the ruler of these renegades, I also found out more disturbing things which few people dared to uncover. I found out about Nova and Hub Prospekt and the sickening experiments that went on beyond City 17's walls and within them. I exposed the inhuman treatment of our citizens and the alien races that they had also enslaved. I showed these people why we were fighting. Not just for freedom, but to escape this daily attrition.
And two years later, today, I find myself the secret master of perhaps one of the few surviving factions. The Resistance. Men and women and even extra-terrestrials who are willing to give their lives for a noble cause at the drop of a hat. People with the courage, determination and the know-how to subvertly tip the balance of daily life in the favour of Earth's true native people. Under one logo, all those who wish to see freedom have seen it.
And yet, I feel the end is almost at hand. An end that may be accompanied by a beginning.
Most of it my take on the Half-Life series and chronology of the games from the P.o.V. of the fictional mastermind of the Resistance you see in Hl2. More explanation on what I mean by this to come.
That's how long its been since the Combine occupation began. Since the last ever news broadcasts showed the world's soldiers standing dumb amongst countless dead as faceless men clad in armour, with strange new weaponry and cold blue eyes filed and pushed past them, effectively annihilating in a handful of days an enemy which we had struggled to survive against for two years.
That day, the Earth went silent. For how long? Forever? I don't know.
The confusion became thanks as we tried to communicate. It wasn't long before the sharper of the world's population realised that they weren't there to help; They were here to conquer and quell at our cost. That didn't stop the survivors of those bloodshed two years from accepting food and water. What stopped me was a tonne of rubble which had fallen on me when I'd returned to the city my unit had been sent to defend. I stayed alive in it for several days. Then, as I thought it was all over, it wasn't; People were dragging rubble off me and helping me up. Except, they weren't the people I'd recognised several days ago.
They were different. When I first came to Russia's border, I could see the rich and poor alike united by the horrors which had befallen the world. It was as if there was more life in their eyes than there had ever been for centuries. But these people were different; They were bound by dull blue uniform clothing and haircuts. Skin colour, gender and other factors were the only things I could identify them with. Their eyes were another matter. They were grey and cold and devoid of anything you could call humanity. And they worked to fit that bill. People who I thought should have been dead for days were up and working, heaving debris back into what remained of the city. They pushed past me as if I were nothing but an obstacle. Not one of them stopped.
Those first six years were the most harrowing of my life. I ran into the hills and the wild with only a sidearm and precious little ammunition. I killed headcrabs to survive and relied on the kindness of people who still lived in the Urals, still surviving. People who I learned later were hunted down by the same soldiers who had left us alive and yet left us for dead. I was a United States Marine, but even that couldn't prepare me for the horrors and wonders I saw. Creatures straight out of science-fiction books and film. Three legged walking tanks, plasma weapons, biological-technological hybrids. Things which sharpened my senses to such a degree that I didn't need to dodge their shots; after I found myself a decent weapon of someone who didn't have the sense enough to use it fast enough, they were the ones who hid.
Then I realised that I couldn't keep this up. They had floating cameras now and they came at me with the creatures they had been sent to exterminate. They set floating sawblades on me like dogs and spat acid in my direction. I did the unthinkable. I didn't just flee further into Western Russia; I conformed.
I learned more than those six years could possibly have taught me. More than any university or school or boot camp or battlefield. I learned the human race had been subjugated. The water and supplies they had charitably given out were tainted. It had made them work without memory, emotion or recollection. The fearsome alien troopers I had seen had been replaced by different characters. Of course the 'striders' and 'scanners' still roamed the streets, but these people were weaker. Simpler. I found some whose will was weak and others who were willing to co-operate. They were Civil Protection and trust me, they did exactly the opposite of their name except when it threatened them.
After five whole years, I found something even more astonishing; I hadn't been the only man who had survived the Dead Years. I found people who had the courage to stop me in the street or nudge me on the train to bring me through winding back alleys, just to tell me that 'they knew'. It was something I hadn't known for over a decade; allies and friends. Conspiritors. And soon I found myself drawn beyond black and white and good and evil. I found people who knew my identity. Some who were fascinated, some who were awed and others who wanted my talents for their own needs. I remained completely neutral for one reason; These were seperate factions. Ragtag groups of people who were to afraid and just met and talked about what was unfair and outright psychopaths who hoarded weaponry and killed (as well as the Combine, a name I found them to be called) anyone who disagreed with their values, or disobeyed their orders for food or shelter.
I watched. Some groups subsided, but those which truely meant something rose up into something more than I could possibly have thought possible. Some of them were the good little golden boy meeting groups gone bad, people with moral values and guns and others were now organised guerilla forces. But I still felt I couldn't commit to anything. I found out, however, that people had commited to me.
Very soon, I began as many 'resistance movements' had. Simply sitting in a basement discussing the new world order and of a world we found would never come about unless we did something. It began small, but eventually, I found almost a hundred people answering to me for everything. I felt like a commander - no, a lord. Except I was willing to show them how it was done. For a year, I trained those I thought were capable how to kill silently, how to operate all and any weapons. How to cheat flatline alerts, how to evade scanners; how to resist.
As I reigned the ruler of these renegades, I also found out more disturbing things which few people dared to uncover. I found out about Nova and Hub Prospekt and the sickening experiments that went on beyond City 17's walls and within them. I exposed the inhuman treatment of our citizens and the alien races that they had also enslaved. I showed these people why we were fighting. Not just for freedom, but to escape this daily attrition.
And two years later, today, I find myself the secret master of perhaps one of the few surviving factions. The Resistance. Men and women and even extra-terrestrials who are willing to give their lives for a noble cause at the drop of a hat. People with the courage, determination and the know-how to subvertly tip the balance of daily life in the favour of Earth's true native people. Under one logo, all those who wish to see freedom have seen it.
And yet, I feel the end is almost at hand. An end that may be accompanied by a beginning.
Most of it my take on the Half-Life series and chronology of the games from the P.o.V. of the fictional mastermind of the Resistance you see in Hl2. More explanation on what I mean by this to come.
