Conflicting storylines

[Llama]

Pkay im playing Half-Life for some nostalga :afro: , and ive currently started Level On a Rail. Anyways, i go to a securitty guard and he tells me i have to launch a 'salellite delivery rocket' for the Llamdba team to clean up this mess. Now, why are their aliens running around in HL2? What happened to the Satellite? ;(

Your thoughts please or DIE :sniper:

 

[Jabberwocky 2D]

you fire the missle but it doesn't stop aliens from invading.

 

[Chubchakes]

Actually I've read somewhere...cant quite remember exactly that the satellite was the cause of the ensuing portal storm and thus full combine invasion.

Edit: Heres the link http://fragfiles.org/~hlstory//index.htm it says it in the timeline.

 

[Is This Tea]

My guess would be that the lambda team and Gordon stopped the resonance cascade (xen) with the satellite and your assassination of the nihilanth (sp?). However the resonance cascade drew everybody’s attention to earth. Everybody from the other dimension’s (combine) that is.

OR

Combine controlled xen at the time of the resonance cascade. Lambda team and yourself fix the problem. Unfortunately now the combine knows about earth and sends an invasion force, tunneling through from their own dimension without any need of the cascade.

Raising the bar include a neat section about a sequence that was cut from the game was to explain a lot what happened during you’re absence. It was cut from the game so it’s not a definitive part of the story but it might help get us on the right track.

Eli shows Gordon a slide show of the events:
“After the disaster, well… lets just say the ripples kept spreading.”
“the countryside, the suburbs, all those hard to patrol place, got pretty much inhabitable. People started crowding into the cities for protection.”
“There was an illusion of safety, for a time. And then the citadels appeared. It happened in a split second, all over the world. A chunk would disappear from the center of a city, to be replaced and instant later by one of these…headquarters for the combine. Invasion central.”
“Say hello to you’re new masters.”
“Oh we resisted.”
“Earth put up a fight that lasted all of seven hours.”
“And then, one man who had seized all of the power a man can seize in a crises, used that power to arrange our surrender.”
“they call him consul now. It worked out fine for him. He speaks for the combine, he shares their power. As for the rest of us…”
“Well, you’ve seen the state of things. They’re replacing the air with something we can hardly breathe. They’re draining the ocean. We don’t know if they’re preparing the planet for new resident, or just stripping it of every possible resource. All we do know is that we have to stop them. And that’s where you com in, Mr. Freeman. It’s up to you to….”

Obviously this script includes a lot of ideas that were scraped, indicating that it was an early concept and therefore not accurate to the official plot that was in hl2 but only indicative of how the idea of hl2 evolved. Still, I think it provides some tantalizing glimpses at what we are discussing here.

Actually I've read somewhere...cant quite remember exactly that the satellite was the cause of the ensuing portal storm and thus full combine invasion.

Edit: Heres the link http://fragfiles.org/~hlstory//index.htm it says it in the timeline.

I like that page a lot and Marc has spoken highly of it. I just want to add for good mesure that, “It remains, however good, one man’s speculation.”

“Good job! Marc Laidlaw pointed this out to me as being pretty darn accurate for the most part."
- Gary McTaggart (Valve)
High praises of overall idea. Some mistakes in detail. He could be right… but let’s not jump to conclusions.
Ps. Welcome to the boards! :thumbs:

 

[Mechagodzilla]

The portal storms started more or less the moment Gordon pushed the sample into the test chamber, and it took over three days to completely stop them.
By then, the entire world was more or less in the same shape as Black Mesa. There are aliens everywhere, and there's no way to get them back home.
So, that's where the aliens in HL2 come from. Gordon closed the door, but a lot of stuff was already through.

The satelite was part of a plan to reverse the resonance cascade.
It's detailed in the Decay expansion, and carried out by Gina and Colette.
It doesn't completely work though, since Nihilanth was jamming the rift open to let his invasion force through.

However, the resonance reversal did stop aliens that weren't part of Nihilanth's forces from warping in.
No new houndeyes or bullsquids warp in after the procedure ends (around the same time Gordon gets knocked out by the grunts), and you can assume this also stopped the antlions, snarks and tentacles.

A couple headcrabs warp in, but I'm certain they were being used as a weapon by Nihilanth in a similar way to what the combine did to Ravenholm.

So, the satelite does stop half the portal storms, and the other half are stopped by killing Nihilanth.

 

[Walter]

Combine controlled xen at the time of the resonance cascade. Lambda team and yourself fix the problem. Unfortunately now the combine knows about earth and sends an invasion force, tunneling through from their own dimension without any need of the cascade.

Correct , Ninhiliant is the Synth's leader on Xen ( at least I think so ( he kinda looks like a Synth ) ) . And when Gordon killed him , the Combines got pretty angry with that .

 

[Asknoone]

Correct , Ninhiliant is the Synth's leader on Xen ( at least I think so ( he kinda looks like a Synth ) ) . And when Gordon killed him , the Combines got pretty angry with that .

I doubt this, Nihalnith is xen alien, he has the third arm on his chest. Also, the Synth is an alien race of self replicating robots which were enslaved by the combine long ago.

Striders, crab synths, mortar synths, dropships/gunships etc

 

[zinquaff]

compare the nihalnith to breen. They are the leaders, but not in the interst of their own race. What about gronach? Do the crabs have any say in this? Are they as stupid as they look? I dont think so because gronach had a portal insinuating the crabs made it or had an alliance with someone could could make it.

 

[Is This Tea]

I doubt this, Nihalnith is xen alien, he has the third arm on his chest. Also, the Synth is an alien race of self replicating robots which were enslaved by the combine long ago.

Striders, crab synths, mortar synths, dropships/gunships etc

Just to clear this up before somebody asks… the “3rd” arm is a trait typical to many xen fauna…
Vortigaunts
Grunts
Controllers
The nihilanth.
And possible the gargantuas…. Can’t really remember.

This would suggest 3 possibilities to me:
1. They all share a common evolutionary ancestor (#1 because it best fits Occam's Razor)
2. They are all one form of a multi stage organism. (like how insects change from larva-pupa-adult)
3. They were originally one species that was genetically manipulated (presumably by the combine) for other purposes. (this is my personal favorite but I objectively rank it third in probability.)

 

[Sid Burn]

I believe the combines used the lambda satellite to create portal storms. well, it did help Black Mesa(a little)... but that's one of Combines most critical mission and Gordon did it for them... lol

 

[Asknoone]

And possible the gargantuas…. Can’t really remember.

No, i do not think they do...but i cant be too sure

 

[Sid Burn]

No, i do not think they do...but i cant be too sure

wat happened to them anyway? are they a combine manipulated species too? :smoking:

 

[Asknoone]

wat happened to them anyway? are they a combine manipulated species too?

Theyre roaming around the wastelands of earth, you dont see any in the game because the combine defenses around the city hold them back..

In Raisign the bar, theres a script marc laidlaw wrote that mentions a garg throwing a tractor across a nebraska field

 

[kirovman]

I was under the impression that the satellite was mearly for communication...but why would the scientists build a satellite that would help the combine?

 

[Asknoone]

I was under the impression that the satellite was mearly for communication...but why would the scientists build a satellite that would help the combine?

Agreed. the only reason it is there is so they can connect it with the lambda tech, to keep it working, that is all.

 

[kirovman]

Agreed. the only reason it is there is so they can connect it with the lambda tech, to keep it working, that is all.

Yes and the half life uplink demo (if it could be considered part of the story) involves going to a radar dome to tune into the satellite. Then you allow it to allign to the lambda lab. They also have other stations such as nasa, pentagon, etc.

 

[Jus]

If the satellite wasn't supposed to be launched, the Gman would have made sure it stayed on the ground. Assuming it helps the combine invasion and he's anti-combine (which all signs point to), why would he have even let you launch it?

 

[jimmyjam]

synths are not an enslaved alien race...they are synthetic beings whose genetic structures are informed by the various races absorbed into the combine
just sayin'

 

[Asknoone]

synths are not an enslaved alien race...they are synthetic beings whose genetic structures are informed by the various races absorbed into the combine
just sayin'

Allow me to quote raising the bar:

"The synths, self replicating robots that evolve, were created or taken over by the combine through thier wars and conquests."

"We kept in mind that they were once organic creatures enslaved by the combine."

I think synth is pretty much a race. But then again who knows, you might be right but have you any source?