How true is the Half Life Saga Story Guide?

[The Monkey]

http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/timeline.htm

It seems like a lot of people are using the information at the page as facts, but I've also seen lots of opposition to it.

So the question is, how much of the information is true, and what isn't?

 

[Narvi]

Most of it is good, but a few tidbits here and they are completely wrong. It's good to get an idea of what's happening after you finish HL2 though.

 

[Rapstah]

It says a lot of stuff on the Combine being on Xen and all of that is wrong. And the Laidlaw quote on it being right is taken out of context.

 

[Operational]

I haven't looked at the site for ages but as I recall he presents his theories as facts, which is never a good idea.

 

[Shift]

Id say a lot of it is accurate, but there are a few annoyances. First of all, I doubt the Xen wildlife teleported to Black Mesa for 'the fun of it'. Secondly, we dont know City 17 is the main HQ for the Combine on Earth, people play Half-Life 2 and assume just because we are in City 17, this must be the main base, there is no plausable evidence to suggest that and thirdly, I dislike the 'as the G-Man went back to save Alyx the Vortigaunts intervened', from the way I saw it and from what he said on his speech, the G-Man had no plans of saving Alyx from the blast at the end of Half-Life 2, and simply had an interest in Gordon saving her life EP2 as a mere changing of his plans.

 

[Darkside55]

There's a lot of bullshit in there that isn't backed up by anything. As Operational said, it's never wise to present theory as fact, but theory in itself should have some factual basis or evidence to support it. For example, if you write something like:

The Combine attempt to hybridize the dominant species of the planet (In Xen's case, the Vortigaunts) with their own technology to create a "Super soldier" that is adapted to Xen's environment and uses powerful Combine technology.

you better have something to back that up. That particular quote right there is bullshit of the highest order because there is evidence strongly in opposition to that, mainly: Who are these 'super soldiers?' Is he talking about the grunts? And the Combine had no idea about Xen or its location; how could they adapt synths to Xen's environment if they had absolutely zero knowledge of Xen? Furthermore, why do we not see evidence of super soldier vortigaunts being used by the Combine on Earth? It's like a bad work of fan fiction. "This sounds good to me even though I don't have one shred of evidence to support my theory, let me go ahead anyway and put it down."

Furthermore his timeline is off. Consider that he says GLaDOS is made operation AFTER the Borealis; if this is so, how did GLaDOS design the Borealis? Derp.

He also states that the G-man somehow engineered the systems crash at BMRF to cut off scientists' communication throughout the facility, and masked the sample used to create the resonance cascade. But that isn't true; everyone knew the sample he was bringing in because the administrator himself (Dr. Breen) authorized it. Which is entirely why scientists say, "The administrator went through great pains to get it," or something along those lines. The way it's worded makes it sound like he cut everybody off from coordinating and then switched samples, which just isn't true.

The parts about the invasion are mostly true. He does try to shoehorn the events of Portal in there, though, when nobody really knows when those events occurred. He also states that, "The employees of Aperture Science have fled, including their main enrichment center." They didn't flee. GLaDOS killed them. I can tell someone hasn't logged into www.aperturescience.com and read the part about, "When was the last time you left the building? When was the last time anyone left the building? I don't know why we're in lockdown."

After that, he pretty much gets it right by sticking to the events of the game, but then he throws his own suppositions in there like "The vortigaunts want Gordon to stop the reactor," and "G-man is probably trying to lure the Combine to Earth."


Well, at least he has the good sense in the FAQ to state that it's his interpretation of the events.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

Darksied done did it.

 

[Asknoone]

There's some solid points in there, and it's a nice look at events timeline wise. The Gman theory is awful though.

 

[AciD]

Timeline and additional info are good. I disagree at Gman too