Civil Protection ? missed narrative opportunity

[ZachAttack]

I guess spoiler alert if you haven't played half life 2 or ep 1....

so


yeah



why are you here if thats the case?


moving on...




I haven't played Episode One in a while and I suspect I wont for some time but I think I recall CP cops showing up near the end while you're escorting small groups of survivors. I love the CP. As a story element it's ripped right out of the Holocaust. Nazi Germany had a Jewish Police force in the early days of the war. But I would have liked to see the cop's abandoning the combine command when they heard the orders to blow up city 17. With all the shit hitting the fan I would have assumed they might just run away or...

...join the rebels.

Would have been neat and appropriate since we're probably not going to see them again.

 

[Ss_Bane]

I dont think they would, it seams they are fanaticly loyal to the combine, or have been presuaded by the combine to be so. Like what the Combine are doing with the water, the could be equaly influencing their cops to be loyal beyond normality as well.

 

[Operational]

Fear would have kept most of them in line I think, both the fear of the Combine and the Rebels.
Story wise I think it would have made things too convoluted.

 

[Gordonsglasses]

Despite the rebels needing as much help as they can get, i don't think they would accept any people that were former cp due to the fact that some of them willingly volunteered to be part of it. Though i understand that some were forced to join, i don't think the rebels would be too discerning about that fact.

 

[ZachAttack]

For all we know, Civil Protection officers undergo some of the same memory wiping/brainwashing/etc. that the higher-up Combine guys do. Valve has never detailed exactly what the process of creating Combine soldiers is, just hinted at it (we know that they're cyborgs, though not to what degree).

Civil Protection personnel are humans who join the Combine of their own free will in return for privileges and basic amenities like adequate food and living accommodations. Also known as CPs and Metro Cops, they are charged with keeping the local populace in line via intimidation and physical force. Interrogation, questioning, inspections, random beatings, and even outright murder are sanctioned as a means of policing their respective jurisdictions. Civil Protection personnel also patrol the canals outside city limits looking to apprehend escapees. Unlike Combine soldiers, they do not appear to be biologically enhanced, though they wear masks containing vocoders which alter the sound of their voice. The harsh, metallic character of their speech is used as a means of psychological intimidation, making their vocal utterances sound inhuman.

taken from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_humanoid_and_synthetic_Combine_in_Half-Life_2

But I'm willing to drop this whole thing based off what the first guy said about the water.

Forgot about that.

 

[ZachAttack]

Well...

If Barney was able to join their ranks I would assume that the Civil Protection are not augmented. The only reason they were there was to police the people so the uglier face of the combine could be hidden. If they had more extreme troops in the city a insurrection might be easier to quell but it most certainly would happen because of the panic their presence would cause.

 

[f_combineftw]

yeah i clearly remember hearing a citizen saying "Im joining CP jest to get some privileges". He was walking away with one of those packets that he got from one of those wall despensers after you "pick up the can".

 

[Lizardizzle]

If Barney was able to join their ranks I would assume that the Civil Protection are not augmented. The only reason they were there was to police the people so the uglier face of the combine could be hidden. If they had more extreme troops in the city a insurrection might be easier to quell but it most certainly would happen because of the panic their presence would cause.

Barney probably just did one of those "Beat up a guard and wear his clothes to pretend to be a guard" things. That could have gotten away from possible brainwashing because he is technically (Techniclly, Technicalley?) the guy he beat up.

 

[nurizeko]

For all we know some CP did join the rebellion.

They are called rebels.


Its just safer to assume any and all CP who would and could join the rebellion did so and now look and dress exactly as they should, rebels, the loyal CP's kept their uniforms and went about their business of dying at the hands of Gordon Freeman.

 

[Azner]

CP Uniforms>Possibly every other uniform, cept for Green Reb Uni and HEV Suit.

 

[f_combineftw]

i realy would like to see some kinda resistance CP or something.

 

[Azner]

i realy would like to see some kinda resistance CP or something.

As their own faction

 

[Omnomnick]

They kind of did, because they clearly are not working for the combine anymore and the ones we see are clearly 'Chicken shit metro cops' who are 'having second thoughts about defending City 17' meaning they want out.

 

[Apocalypse89]

I think that by the time of Episode One, nearly every CP in City 17 is either dead or had covertly joined the Resistance(since I doubt the rebels would have accepted the people who have been oppressing them for the last 20 years with open arms).

Also I think those three cops at the end of Episode One were just put there so that they could deploy manhacks.(although I wonder why Valve didn't just have the Manhacks appear out of thin air like they usually do, or coded the ability into the regular Soldiers)

 

[Mech Man]

The combine would have probrobly sent out a warning telling all units to make thier way to the train yard , which explains why there was such a mess of different combine. Those CPs might have just been nearby.

 

[Tenebrais]

I'd have thought the metrocops were only really there because the combine had more or less run out of infantry within City 17 (the rest being either evacuated or crowbar'd), and they were scraping the bottom of the barrel to stop Freeman and the other rebels from leaving the city. That's why the metrocops turned up last - they were the only loyal combine left, being largely useless by that point for any other purpose.

As for why CPs are still working for the Combine at all, I would put it down to a combination of brainwashing and fear. Although I doubt they had memory replacement or other cybernetic enhancements, there's still, as someone pointed out, the tainted water and no doubt other techniques Breen came up with to control the populace. Perhaps they also saw it as the only means for survival - most would probably remember the seven hour war, and think that with the citadel down the Combine army would return again.

 

[Mech Man]

Seems likely , i know that i would be scared crapless if Gordon made the combine mad again and so i can see why the cops would do that.

 

[LackingSaint]

It'd be great to see a character who was once a CP, but fled to join the resistance. Rather than being accepted into the ranks, it'd be interesting to see how the resistance feel to a ex-CP. Would they feel he betrayed his own kind, or accept him as one of them?

 

[Triopticon]

Barney probably just did one of those "Beat up a guard and wear his clothes to pretend to be a guard" things. That could have gotten away from possible brainwashing because he is technically (Techniclly, Technicalley?) the guy he beat up.

That's not possible. If he had merely beaten up a CP and taken his uniform he wouldn't have privelages. Besides, the Combine seemed to be keeping close tabs on everyone in CP.