Combine Advisors - Leader or Slave?

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With the menacing and intimidating depiction of these grub-like creatures, it's easy to assume them to be of the higher Combine hierarchy, or even the true face of the Combine, but Advisors are synths like gunships, dropships, striders, stalkers, etc, right? Observe the dramatic differences of the larvae stage to the assimilation of technology and cybernetics. There's an eye, muscle fat, it almost resembles something bipedal, but amputation leaving it bounded to land, so with it's intelligence it created technology to survive or the Combine made this initiative possible, maybe even influencing them to become the floating space potatoes they are today with their 'Technology makes you better' philosophy, being synths, they possesses more power than a lone stalker in the Citadel or gunships and dropships aiding fleets, in a way, they are the true example and maybe even the only example of a life form becoming Superior to it's previous organic form, but, are they also slaves to the Combine? would their great power have come with a price? the way Marc Laidlaw's breengrub twitter describes them, they were once benevolent and compassionate beings with an extraordinary intelligence, described as philosophers, scientists, poets, sages, dreamers, but at some point the World of the Shulathoi came under the attention of... the ones that can't be named.

With an unerring eye for weakness, THEY pursued not the host but the parasite. This is what THEY are after all.
Their psychic strength is such that they can imprint upon their cells and dictate the form which they will take upon hatching.
Dreamers, sages, composers of intricate artforms that exist only in their minds. An invisible culture that persists--or persisted--for eons.
This was instead something that formed of their own thoughts. A malformed thought with physical ramifications. An encystment.
There was a winnowing, of course. The strongest of the race survived, with natural defenses that kept the parasite in check.
The weak fell victim to "thoughtpaths of depravity." Their molts were untenable. They failed to reproduce.
These quotes put a whole new spin on them, their species, Breengrub refers to them as Shulathoi because apparently it's a term they aren't aware of, the Vortigaunts also use this term, usually he refers to them as a culture, of creators that use thought to create things in their minds, and it was a normal thing for a long time, but with their abilities they were at risk of annihilating themselves, and this 'thing' came about, that wasn't exactly a parasite but instead something that came from their own thoughts, like they created a disease that infected their own minds, it had a connection to their telepathic ability and psychic powers, apparently the healthy grubs were able to ignore the 'parasite' and the strongest survived while the weaker victims fell to thoughts of moral corruption and wickedness, they failed to reproduce, and the ones that were 'severed' from telepathic ability own telepathy didn't spread beyond it (only internal) which left the parasite to die, but then the World of the Shulathoi came under the attention of the... ones that can't be named. (leader of the Combine or the Combine philosophy possibly) And this seemingly allowed the parasite to thrive and infect millions of their race, this could explain why they are hostile and pain inflicting, whatever they are in the games, they bear no resemblance to the philosophers, controlled by the parasite to create chaos and destruction, suffering for all species, which is exactly what the Combine does, and these quotes actually suggest that their bodies can be hosts for other things.
I may have been moved. Physically? Or decanted, to another host. But why? Have They become aware of me? Or is someone looking out for me?
Like Breen said before the Dark Fusion Reactor blew, he needed another body to survive the Combine Overworld so the Advisor he was speaking to suggested a 'host body' meaning Advisor body, he was hesitant but had no other choice, probably because he was aware of the risk that came with the pathology of the Shulathoi, but how curious, the after result resulted in giving him new memories, he also suspects that the mind he once was (Breen) is gone, and he has more than one host body, but each time he is
advisor-ized he loses old ones (human memories?) with the possibility that he is actually more useless than useful to them, whoever is moving him from danger and into these host bodies to safer places.
Not many of me left.
A more sinister possibility occurs. I may have been terminated, and another instance activated. There is no limit to storage hosts. Unclear.
THEY weaponized the parasites, which were not physical entities recall but patterns of thought.
By what means I cannot comprehend...I am not that much one of them. Little of this knowledge is shared or shareable. But they flew/fled.
There is some indication that once they understood the process of parasitic engineering, they embarked on a desperate course of subversion.
He learned about the Shulathoi history, and they apparently fled their infected World and they learned how to engineer the parasite within them, changing their society, using amplifying devices for locomotion (levitation?)
As for myself, I believe there were several copies made. The first was made as a condition of surrender. Part of the bargain.

This quote above is actually a mind blowing fact (canon or just the drawing board of ideas) that Breen actually made a bargain with the Combine when forcing Earth to surrender, where he would have his mind (apparently one of the finest of his generation) imprinted and backed up in a host body, even when City 17 was established he had occasional backups, is that why he did all this? is that why he caused Black Mesa? to meet the Shulathoi in person? has he always known about them?
Take from it what you will, Lore, fanfiction, professional fanfiction, scrapped, but just let all this sink in. And think about how connected and intricate the Half-Life lore really is.





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