Bricks in doorways

[okidoki]

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/8237/d3c17130013qt4.jpg

Who is doing this and why? I overlooked this for a long time without thinking about it. I assumed the combine were doing it to confine the citizens into certain places. But now that I've tried to analyze it, I realized they could just do this:

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/7140/d3c17050010jk1.jpg

They have better technology than that. It seems too crude to be a combine method. This is seen as early as the tenements near the trainstation in HL2. Is this some insight into the paranoia caused by the portal storms? Did people quarantine rooms to protect themselves from headcrabs?

And when you return to the tenement building in Anticitizen One you see doorways outside that were once functioning bricked over. Were the citizens resuming this practice during the uprising? Was it to protect themselves from the combine instead? It still seems so strange.

 

[The Brick]

 

[Jintor]

I did not expect that at all.

Who says the combine don't do it? Just because you have awesome totally advanced ways of keeping bags of protein and flesh inside doesn't mean that a simple brick wall won't work just as well - and maybe be cheaper, too.

 

[Tagaziel]

Their purpose may have been quarantine, of parts compromised by headcrabs, before the Combine arrived in full force, or were used in the initial stages of occupation, as a crude yet simple barrier, set up by slave labour.

Also, the devices the Combine utilizes on doors means they might still have to use it from time to time, so it's just a lock. However, obsolete passages might as well be bricked up, for they serve no real purpose.

 

[Link]

/me takes shotgun and shoots wooden door with combine lock on it
/me walks through bloody great hole where door used to be
/me takes shotgun and shoots brick wall
/me spends next week digging bits of wall out of his face

 

[kupocake]

/me takes shotgun and shoots wooden door with combine lock on it
/me walks through bloody great hole where door used to be
/me takes shotgun and shoots brick wall
/me spends next week digging bits of wall out of his face

True, though apparently not the case in HL2 itself...

I'm going with the "zombie / headcrab infestation" theory. Tenement maintainace was most likely the responsibility of the Citizens. They go to a metrocop to report a death or infestation in their block, at best they'd be hit in the face, at worst they'd be shipped off and experimented on. The combine would probably actively encourage zombification of citizens. A few less free-minds are always good.

edit: oh, and the first person to suggest that the bricked up doorways are part of the "g-man's influence" forfeits a couple of hours G-Modding a picture of the G-Man with a trowel and a cement mixer, bricking up a doorway.

 

[Bill Lumbergh]

This is much like the Schrodinger's Helmet theory. Doorways are bricked up so you can't go through them, because most often there's nothing of the game world on the other side.

Then why put the door frame there at all? Because most buildings have doorways. A building without doorways would appear odd.

 

[d00d]

Maybe they are blocked off, either to stop headcrabs or to prevent citizens from escaping or exitting the building from raids.

 

[Flyingdebris]

its probably nothing as fancy as that. Seeing as how the buildings are run down its probably a matter of. Room is trashed, ruined, etc, and no one wants to live there any more. So the room's door gets bricked up.

 

[Darkside55]

I think it's more along the lines of:

"No one lived here. Ever."

Combine comes in and smashes suspected resistance member's apartment to pieces, don't need to lock down the entire building yet, so they barricade the area and treat it like no one was ever there. It's like, "There's just a wall here."

 

[Hullu]

Grizzly is probably right. Locked doors can be opened but not brick walls. It's the only reasonable explanation to go along with the story because in the beginning you see a door locked but when you come back to it later, it's been bricked. They wouldn't do that just because there's nothing behind it in the game world. And perhaps they just make citizens do it.

 

[Absinthe]

There's brick walls to give the illusion of a multi-roomed hallway when there's, for all practical purposes, just a narrow path.

Think of whatever reason you want for their existence. Barricading out headcrabs and other nasties when the portal storms first started, Combine containment, whatever. I highly doubt Valve made them with some angle of canon in mind since any of the above do just fine.

 

[Azner]

Damn that thing is a ***ing lock

I think

OR atleast it is also planted on walls also... so are they barricading walls too?... Anti-Citizen 1... the part before you Rush the first combine gate barricade, look around

 

[Jintor]

But... Valve think of every little thing! EVERY LITTLE THING!

*runs screaming into the night*

 

[Langolier]

It's obvious that the Combine bricks over buildings that are no longer being used for anything. True half-life-ophiles would know this. In the begining of the game two citizens are talking about a Civil Protection raid...

"First one building, then the WHOLE block..."

When you come back later in Anticitizen One the doorway both men were standing in is now bricked over.

So... it's pretty obvious what the Combine does.

 

[Absinthe]

What?

 

[Link]

It's obvious that the Combine bricks over buildings that are no longer being used for anything. True half-life-ophiles would know this. In the begining of the game two citizens are talking about a Civil Protection raid...

"First one building, then the WHOLE block..."

When you come back later in Anticitizen One the doorway both men were standing in is now bricked over.

So... it's pretty obvious what the Combine does.

Yeah, they were talking about the combines brick work.

Citizen 1: "First one building, then the WHOLE block..."
Citizen 2: "Yeah, can't wait, they do beautiful brickwork"
Citizen 1: "Actually, I meant he way they come in and beat the crap out of everyone with stun sticks, but yeah, your right, their brickwork pwns..."

 

[Ophiguris]

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/8237/d3c17130013qt4.jpg

Who is doing this and why? I overlooked this for a long time without thinking about it. I assumed the combine were doing it to confine the citizens into certain places. But now that I've tried to analyze it, I realized they could just do this:

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/7140/d3c17050010jk1.jpg

They have better technology than that. It seems too crude to be a combine method. This is seen as early as the tenements near the trainstation in HL2. Is this some insight into the paranoia caused by the portal storms? Did people quarantine rooms to protect themselves from headcrabs?

And when you return to the tenement building in Anticitizen One you see doorways outside that were once functioning bricked over. Were the citizens resuming this practice during the uprising? Was it to protect themselves from the combine instead? It still seems so strange.

I'm pretty sure that the combine didn't do this, either it was the citizens, or the housing company way before the seven hour war... I've seen it in houses today, it normally means a room is too unsanitary, or just not needed.

 

[Narvi]

I would wonder where the bricks came from myself. Do the combine have a manufactury up at the citadel? Or is the human industrial base still hard at work... making brick?

 

[Jintor]

Dude, look at all the ruins around you.

 

[Narvi]

And I suppose those ruins come with working cement too?

 

[ríomhaire]

I imagine they just use human factories.

 

[function9]

Is the masons union still intact though through all this? Could be a sh*tstorm if they had scabs come in and do it. D:

 

[Darkside55]

*Combine radio click* There will never be a union in City 17. *click*

 

[Narvi]

Heheh, would explain what all those bored citizens do all the time. I wonder if we will ever see a factory run by citizens? Making stuff, sort of thing. Because, you know, buildings start to crumble after ten to twenty years.

 

[bigburpco]

Maybe the rebels did it. They blew the ruddy lock off, and then replaced it with bricks so that Combine infantry couldn't pass. They'll just stand around and wonder that convinient lock went.

 

[Darkside55]

I would find it highly amusing if all the resistance had to do to keep the Combine out was to brick up their doorways.

*Click* "Anticizens suspected in this sector. Apprehend."
*Click* "Can't. Door's blocked, sir."
*Click* "Well...shit."

 

[bigburpco]

I mean, it would stop them... for a while.

 

[Darkside55]

Last I heard, bricks aren't too effective against grenades. Or manhacks down your chimney. Or APC rockets. Or calling in a strider to blow open the side of the building. Each one of which is readily available within minutes.

 

[Jintor]

(It all depends on the type of Brick, Darkside. )

 

[Darkside55]

Let's just be safe and say all types of brick confuses and hinders the Combine. They cannot comprehend the red, baked clay, and are powerless before it.

I move that henceforth all resistance shields, vehicles, and armor must be made of brick. Furthermore, dispose of those useless SMGs, AR2s, shotguns, and RPGs; our men will carry bricks into battle. The Combine won't know WTF.

 

[Jintor]

And that's why they bow to the power of the concrete brick.

 

[Ophiguris]

Maybe the rebels did it. They blew the ruddy lock off, and then replaced it with bricks so that Combine infantry couldn't pass. They'll just stand around and wonder that convinient lock went.

Possible. But you see these brick early on, and that means the rebels would have to have gone through the combine controlled area. Not to ention that the rebellion didn't really start until AFTER 'Entanglement'