Citadel portal explosion: how big?

[Anubis214]

Well everyone focuses on the boom what about the radiation, it might be hazardus enought to melt Barney and anyone else in that city to steaming pools of pink goo.
PS Alyx might no make it even if the blast isnt that big, if you notested it one of the portal's towers started to fall inward toward you and Alyx. ;(

 

[jmjneary]

the citadel is destroyed middle of city 17 is wrekage and


.....alyx survives

 

[Hercules331]

You need to read up on your relativity. Speed of light changes for noone, no matter how slow time is going.

Actually Dan, light can be slowed down, but it is very hard to do. Maybe you need to read up on your physics.

 

[baron insig]

HUGGE ANd very destrucitive it would be nice to see it fromna differenct angle tho doint you think like a cutscene but not included inthe game ( liek an SDK)

 

[FireCrack]

Actually Dan, light can be slowed down, but it is very hard to do. Maybe you need to read up on your physics.

Yup

c=Speed of Light in a Vacum


And even considering slowing time slowing down light particles that's not changing the speed of light anyways. Speed (or velocity) is distance/time. Sicne time is now slower speed can be the same. The light particles are still taking the same amount o time to ge there but if you're moving through time at a normal rate they appear slowed down.

 

[G Man]

It teleports all the things from the combine world and the explosion is really a time warp thingy.... anyway it doesn't blow anything up cept maybe breen lol....

 

[FireCrack]

Breen is destroyed in every way possible. And even some that are impossible.

 

[Dan]

sorry. I should have said in a vacum. If the explosion altered the air to become some kind of heavy goo or glass or something, then yeah it would slow down the speed of light.

But you're wrong about the light slowing down due to time. Light will always go the same speed relative to the observer. So even if objective time is slowed down. You still exist in normal time, (your thinking and interacting with the gman at the same speed) and thus light relative to you must remain at a constant speed.

It's the same idea as if you accelerated to a really really really high velocity. Time would appear to slow down, eg everyone else is moving really slowly but light will still be moving the same speed relative to you. Actually it's because light will always be moving the same speed that time seems to slow down.

 

[JavaByte]

cant see a teleport containing much that is explodeable - wheres the combustable/reactable material?, therefore the explosion is the energy that was released when the machine stopped working, not sure what the energy source was but it's build-up took some time and i would presume it's sudden release into our dimension rather than being channeled into a dimensional rift would be released rapidly but due to there being no reactable material nearby it would not do that much damage compared for instance to a nuclear reaction or matter anti-matter collision, also the main thing plot-wise seems to be that the combine have no portal to our dimension, therefore cannot re-inforce so all that matter is the portal is gone, so i vote

x Very top section of the Citadel vaporized.

 

[Epsi]

Just read this and got to thinking; If the citadel was destroyed does this mean the brainwashing (let's say it's using some sort of mind contol device) that the metrocops have to go through will stop working? They could regain their normal human thoughts/emotions and retain their combine implants? Then they could fight alongside the humans.

I doubt the metrocops are brainwashed. Man can opress his fellow man quite well enough without needing to be brainwashed. There are numerous psychological experiments that show that given a position of authority, people tend to become sadistic. Look at the Nazi soldiers who carried out the holocaust; the prison scandals in Iraq, etc. etc.

I think it's far more chilling that the metrocops are running under their own free will than being mind-controlled.

I think if the Overwatch are mind-controlled or have their mind altered is significantly more open to interpretation, though.

 

[verbose_mode]

Another thing to consider is what was really happening when Gordon was chucking
those plasma sphere thingies into the portal. Perhaps what those spheres were doing was
overloading whatever mechanisim the portal generators use to keep the portal stable
and safe to use. Take away the portal constraint systems and the far end of the
portal becomes an omnidirectional energy spigot, dumping the power used to create
a stable portal all over the place.

Once the far end Combine portal generator is reduced to molten slag by a radiation burst
equivilent to a mini-nuke, the portal conduit "breaks free" and starts to dump the power
from the dark fusion reactor into random dimentions and space as it collapses. Without an end
on the "hose" anymore the dark fusion reactor pours more and more energy into the
malfunctioning portal generators, running both to beyond their designed limits.
This would fall in the time period after Gordon hits the portal with the final plasma sphere
and when the explosion happens.

When the portal collapses completely there's nowhere for all the energy coming out
of the portal generators to go. The charge rebounds in a massive surge that destroys
the already damaged portal generators, along with half the top of the Citadel.
Meanwhile, on the other half: Without the load of the portal to sink its output into,
the dark fusion reactor flashes from dangerously overloaded to catastrophicly underloaded.
Power instead goes into the body of the reactor, in the form of a LOT of thermal energy.
The reactor core flash vaporizes, blowing the reactor spire into about a billion pieces,
and shattering the other half of the top of the Citadel.

This is just my description of one possibility of what happened. Feel free to comment or
post your own ideas, whatever keeps this thread going and on-topic.

 

[Combine CP]

Perhaps, a few microseconds after exploding, the massive gravity of an uncontained singularity at the centre of it caused it to implode? Half of City 17 got sucked into a point no bigger than the head of a pin.

Well, it'd look cool anyways.

-Angry Lawyer

That would be SO COOL :E

 

[ríomhaire]

If not an explosion something will happen, something BIG. Kliener said that the reprucustions of the Nova Prospect portal were felt far and wide. That was a dinky portal. Now Breens was MASSIVE. Someting will happen to C17.

 

[Asknoone]

If not an explosion something will happen, something BIG. Kliener said that the reprucustions of the Nova Prospect portal were felt far and wide. That was a dinky portal. Now Breens was MASSIVE. Someting will happen to C17.

They were two different types of portals, the reprucustions could range immensly between the two.

 

[Planeforger]

If not an explosion something will happen, something BIG. Kliener said that the reprucustions of the Nova Prospect portal were felt far and wide. That was a dinky portal. Now Breens was MASSIVE. Someting will happen to C17.

He might not have been speaking literally. It could also mean that the destruction of the portal encouraged the humans into rebellion, so they 'felt' the repercussions far and wide.

 

[Dinkleberry]

It's the same idea as if you accelerated to a really really really high velocity. Time would appear to slow down, eg everyone else is moving really slowly but light will still be moving the same speed relative to you. Actually it's because light will always be moving the same speed that time seems to slow down.[/QUOTE]

Time really does slow down when you are going fast. This has been proved by putting an atomic clock in a fast plane and going round the world. A clock on earth is synched at the start and there is a difference after the flight.

 

[Dan]

Yeah, that's what I just said.... my point was that even though time is slowed down light still travels the same speed (in vacum), ALWAYS.

 

[TopHunter2016]

That damn citadel is soooooooooooooo big, I don't think the explosion would even reach the ground. I mean it. Did you ever look down when that "cage" thing takes you up to the top of the citadel? I mean damn!

 

[Anubis214]

What about the combine side huh? i mean i missed with the energy sphears alot so they must have hit something when they went throught the teleporter. And the explosion must have had effects on where ever Breen was going.

 

[Asknoone]

What about the combine side huh? i mean i missed with the energy sphears alot so they must have hit something when they went throught the teleporter. And the explosion must have had effects on where ever Breen was going.

They don't go through, they implode. And i am unsure whether it effected the other side...probably not.

 

[Cole]

Alyx "I think the portal exploded as we were going through"
Kliener "That it did and the reprucsions were felt far and wide"
That was a dinky portal while Breens was GYNORMOUS. Do the math.
...ok I'll do the damn math...
...carry the 2...
...by x...
...done...
...oh s**t.

I'll do the math
x/e*y=d
Size of Small Portal/destruction by that small explosion x Size of Big Portal = Destruction Caused.
If we could get the size of both which might not be to hard infact.
If we import the small one inside an editor, that would give us the appropiate length(resetting the units in the editor aswell) for the small. Then for the big one, we could get how big it is x 16 and vollia.
then we need explosion scale.

 

[verbose_mode]

Kleiner's statement about the destruction of Nova Prospekt should really be taken on a
social/political level first, and a physical level a far second. While the explosion of the portal at
Nova Prospekt would have substantial physical effects, they extend only to the immediate area.
The far ranging effect of Nova Prospekt's destruction would be on the minds of the citizens,
as a huge symbol of the tyrany and oppression of Breen and the Combine is blown to hell and back.
That fits better into what happens in the last third of HL2 then if all that destruction in City 17
was caused by the Nova Prospekt portal explosion.

 

[CREMATOR666]

I would say the whole thing blowed up, they got what's coming for them!