Nihilanth

[GiaOmerta]

"I want you alone. Want you alone." (I think, might be 'I dont want')

"Come to Nihilanth."

"Deceive, will deceive you."

"Die, you will die, you will die."

"Done, what have you done?"

"Freeeee maaan."

"You are the last. You are the last. You are."

"You are the man. He's not the man. For you he waits, For you."

"Now die... now die, now."

"There slaves. We are there slaves. We are."

"The last, I am the last."

"The truth, you can never know the truth."

"Thieves, you all are thieves, you all are."

"Win, you can not win."

This is all quoted from Nihilanth. I heard a few a theories.

I.E "Ninilanth is part of the combine." Things of that nature.

I was thinking maybe Ninilanth isnt that different from Breen.
We see factories producing 'Alien Grunts' towards the end of Half-Life. The 'Vorts' enslaved, overwatched by controllers. Mining resources, producing the 'Alien Grunts' things of that nature.

Just a thought. The quotes are interesting, several that grabbed my mind were:

"The truth, you can never know the truth."
(Awwww)



"You are the man. He's not the man. For you he waits, For you."
(Maybe a reference to the GMan.)



"There slaves. We are there slaves. We are."
(Maybe a reference to the Combine, the GMan, ???)

 

[sirchee]

Hmmm.. I only clearly made out 3 of those when I was playing them, and I through other clues (Nihilanth's scars, possibly surgical, and robotic underparts, not unlike the robotics that surrounded the grub-like creature on the monitor in HL2)

It makes me think Nihilanth was put in charge of the world of Xen by the Combine or maybe took it over and was making his own military. The more I think about it, though, the more it seems like Nihilanth was somehow affiliated with the Combine to and saw through the G-man's plotting. Nihilanth seems to be the only character in either game to see through the g-man's scheming (besides maybe Dr. Breen and his higher ups, and possibly one of the rebel leaders. However none of these seem to see the g-man's scheming nature).

"The last. I am the last"

This one always caught my attention. Last of what? Last defense against Freeman? against the g-man's plotting? Last of his race?

 

[Death Spike]

"You are the man. He's not the man. For you he waits, For you."
Perhaps this means that the G-man isn't human, he does meet with you at the end of the game.

 

[Keeper105]

Ive ben going through the HL2 vort sound clips and found alot concerning the Nihilanth.

"We see you still, in Black Mesa, clearly we see you in the Nihilanth's chamber, we bear witness to the bright eternity of the Nihilanth's demise, you leap, you fall, you flash between the barriers.... While our only, are scattered at your feet, you severed the vortal cord that bound the Nihilanth to life and to us! .... Something secret steers us both, we shall not name it.... We are you Free-Man and youuuu areeee ussssss!!!"

Interesting speech, to say the least, it goes on for a while too, those are just the relevant parts.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

That 'we are slaves' sentence makes a lot more sense now the combine are on the scene. I reckon the combine had something to do with xen somehow. Maybe not, but it could work. I've said it before, but Nihilanth could the like the administrator of Xen, the slaves are like the civilian populace and the grunts and controllers are like the combine Peace troopers and soldiers.

 

[Kristafon]

He's da man, you 'nots da man
fo' shizzle
(Nithalith is obviously a gangsta')

 

[Eejit]

Nihilanth certainly has combine-y features...
But how does the relatively inferior teleport technology fit with the Nihilanth spitting out singularities (or whatever they're called).



Crazy idea just popped into my head to fit Race-X into a "Combine Control Many Many Races" theory: Combine seem to like robotics/biomechs etc... and Shocktroopers shoot electricity. That might be why if the Combine like to take over other planets and steal their teleport technology that there was no sign of combine influence among Race-X.
In fact theories that the Gene-worm from OpFor was an example of genetic engineering to produce weapons seems almost an opposite to turning humans into cyborg-things like the Combine do in Nova Prospekt.

- What a tangent eh?

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

The combine "inferior" teleporting has something to do with them being on earth (as opposed to Xen or the combine's own universe), and the fact that they didn't pick up on the slingshot/boosting effect of Xen (or something like that). Their superior technology doesn't mean they will have figured out everything humans can. Thats just some random ideas really.

I think the engineering that the combine undertake is suited a lot to the species. The turned humans into cyborgs, because that was basically easier to do...but perhaps Race X (if indeed they are under the control of the combine, maybe they aren't and Xen is...so thats why they fight) then it might have been easier to simply alter their their bobies on a genetic level.

I wonder what is going on int he universe of Half-Life...When is ay universe, I mean literally out among the stars.

 

[ohkiyi]

After both.

After playing both games, my understanding is this. The G-man represents a "group" of aliens that have power over multiple universes. Look at the difference between Black Mesa vs. City 17. City 17 has a MAJOR Eastern Bloc, Balken feel about it and Black Mesa is any ol' American secret base in the West. I think this game is all about time/space, hell for all we know the whole story line is like SD Orguess. :naughty:

BTW The Xen could easily kick the Combines ass, striders or not. Thats why ater you kill the Xens leader Nihilanth, the take advantage and invade earth.

 

[Frist]

Nihilanth really looks like a stalker also. looks closly at them or if you have the guide look in there at a good picture of them. the face part really scares me =/

 

[Revenge]

I really do believe that that the combine invaded Xen, they tried to fight back and lost in a suprisingly short amount of time, then the Nihilanth was set in place as the liason between Xen and the rest of the combine, and the Xen population was slowly but surely enslaved and fitted with control collars, and then the enslaved were used to work in the factories that created their main combat unit, the Alien Grunt (that fired the seeker hornets).

After the Nihilanth was taken down, the Xen rebelled. This really angered the combine who came in to crush it. The Xen retreated to Earth, formed a quick and dirty alliance with the humans, and so the combine decided to enslave earth while they attempted reaquire their Xen assets. They tried to fight back and lost in a suprisingly short amount of time, then Dr. Breen was set in place as the liason between Earth and the rest of the combine, and the Earth population was slowly but surely enslaved and brainwashed, and then the enslaved were used to work in the factories that created their main combat unit, the Combine Elite (that fired those combine machine gun energy balls).

Funny coincedence that the same thing happened to two different races, huh?

 

[ohkiyi]

how about this...

I really do believe that that the combine invaded Xen, they tried to fight back and lost in a suprisingly short amount of time, then the Nihilanth was set in place as the liason between Xen and the rest of the combine, and the Xen population was slowly but surely enslaved and fitted with control collars, and then the enslaved were used to work in the factories that created their main combat unit, the Alien Grunt (that fired the seeker hornets).

After the Nihilanth was taken down, the Xen rebelled. This really angered the combine who came in to crush it. The Xen retreated to Earth, formed a quick and dirty alliance with the humans, and so the combine decided to enslave earth while they attempted reaquire their Xen assets. They tried to fight back and lost in a suprisingly short amount of time, then Dr. Breen was set in place as the liason between Earth and the rest of the combine, and the Earth population was slowly but surely enslaved and brainwashed, and then the enslaved were used to work in the factories that created their main combat unit, the Combine Elite (that fired those combine machine gun energy balls).

Funny coincedence that the same thing happened to two different races, huh?

Think of it...the G-Mans "employers" are probably a (forgive me) master race of a multitude of races. And they get their kicks by pitting one race against another. They are the founders of the dimentional tech and they use it to cross worlds and make them fight with one another. BTW, near the end, Breens talking about "planets colonized by intelegent fungi, gaseous planets domintated by a meterological conscience (funny if Jupiter was like that ) dimentions in which the universe is one huge plane (Steven Kings Dark Tower Series?)" Comments?

 

[rose 1138]

i kind of get that, it does make you wonder if valve had ideas down on paper about the combine for HL2 when they were finishing HL1, difficult to comment as they did not know if the game would be a success

however George Lucas did star wars, no idea if he could do emp and jedi, but he had the storuy written out all the same, gabe could have something similar especially as HL3 seems a pretty obvious reality!

Anyhoo still looking forward to getting game, must play HL1 again to get into swing of things

 

[JamesPicard_007]

I honestly wonder whether or not the Combine is behind the troubles on Xen. I'd have to play that chapter again, but didn't. Dr. Mossman say something to the effect that the Combine came from another dimension rather than our own?

It's questionable, in my mind, because if the Combine are as hungry as we know wouldn't they have checked out Earth when the Black Mesa team appeared and not until a short time after the resonance cascade?

 

[JimmehH]

dimentions in which the universe is one huge plane

Sounds like String Theory to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

 

[HEaP]

I don’t think the combine had anything to do with xen, well during the first half-life anyway. Why? Well anyone notice that the combine are all to do with technology, it their life. So during the xex invasion did anyone see the aliens carrying any technology??? I didn’t, everything way organic, the hornet gun, that plasma insect, the bull squid spitting , teeth, claws, not a sign of technology, no metal, no computers, nothing! And at the end of HL2 you clearly see them combine creatures with technology grafted onto them.

No, the xen invasion was them counter attacking the earth (US J)invasion of xen, do you not remember the ending of HL with all the dead soldiers, down planes and tanks. Even the g-man says we have captured the border world, bla bla bla, you don’t capture the enemy strong hold so quickly after being invaded by them, and how did the US forces get to the xen world??? They must have had portal devices before the xen invasion, plus all then hev suit bodies and specimens on xen creatures on earth based zoo’s!

 

[Eejit]

I don’t think the combine had anything to do with xen, well during the first half-life anyway. Why? Well anyone notice that the combine are all to do with technology, it their life. So during the xex invasion did anyone see the aliens carrying any technology??? I didn’t, everything way organic, the hornet gun, that plasma insect, the bull squid spitting , teeth, claws, not a sign of technology, no metal, no computers, nothing!

Except for their leader the Nihilanth. See the anti-gravity machine where his ass should be.
And the Gargs armor seemed metallic IMO.

Also: the entire factory level on Xen. Which reminds me; weren't there forcefields on that level similar to the ones the combine use? I can't remember how similar but they definitely had technology along those lines.

 

[Planeforger]

Maybe Xen was under Combine control. Nihilanth is probably just some Xen alien that caught the Combine's attention, so they made him the leader to keep control of all of the Vortigaunt slaves and other creatures (as well as using headcrabs as weapons). Gordon killed Nihilanth, slaves were freed, and now they join the resistance against the Combine.
Same thing with Breen. He was just a human being used by the Combine to keep control. He was also using headcrabs as weapons.
Nihilanth and Breen are of equal rank. They are both Lesser Masters, under the rule of the Greater Master (or whatever the hell the vortigaunt said).

Edit: didn't bother to read other posts. Me just repeating what people said, but i did come to the same conclusion.

 

[nrjizer]

I really do believe that that the combine invaded Xen, they tried to fight back and lost in a suprisingly short amount of time, then the Nihilanth was set in place as the liason between Xen and the rest of the combine, and the Xen population was slowly but surely enslaved and fitted with control collars, and then the enslaved were used to work in the factories that created their main combat unit, the Alien Grunt (that fired the seeker hornets).

After the Nihilanth was taken down, the Xen rebelled. This really angered the combine who came in to crush it. The Xen retreated to Earth, formed a quick and dirty alliance with the humans, and so the combine decided to enslave earth while they attempted reaquire their Xen assets. They tried to fight back and lost in a suprisingly short amount of time, then Dr. Breen was set in place as the liason between Earth and the rest of the combine, and the Earth population was slowly but surely enslaved and brainwashed, and then the enslaved were used to work in the factories that created their main combat unit, the Combine Elite (that fired those combine machine gun energy balls).

Funny coincedence that the same thing happened to two different races, huh?

Eh, I disagree. If you remember what the Prima book said, there was a sequence cut from the game in which Eli explains what happened between HL1 and HL2. Basically, Xen aliens continued to port in all across the world. Rural/suburban areas became uninhabitable, since there simply wasn't enough manpower to guard them from the various creatures attacking humans. So people crowded into the cities for protection... then came the Combine.

During this sequence, Eli shows you pictures of headcrabs jumping off supermarket shelves at shoppers... and a family being chased down the street by a bull chicken - despite the fact that Nihliath has been killed at this point. But when you think about it, the Vortigaunts seem to be the only Xen creatures capable of rational thought (and thus were the ones inslaved). The headcrabs, bullchickens, barnacles, etc, are just lower animals that act on instinct, I.E. "mmm let's go eat/attach to those weird bipedals over there"

As for my own personal theory... well, I don't know what to think about Nihilath. It seems to me that the Combine only came through well after he was disposed of, so it leads me to beleive he might not be on good terms with them. But anything at this point is pretty much pure speculation.

 

[BillMcdougal]

"I really do believe that that the combine invaded Xen, they tried to fight back and lost in a suprisingly short amount of time, then the Nihilanth was set in place as the liason between Xen and the rest of the combine, and the Xen population was slowly but surely enslaved and fitted with control collars, and then the enslaved were used to work in the factories that created their main combat unit, the Alien Grunt (that fired the seeker hornets).

After the Nihilanth was taken down, the Xen rebelled. This really angered the combine who came in to crush it. The Xen retreated to Earth, formed a quick and dirty alliance with the humans, and so the combine decided to enslave earth while they attempted reaquire their Xen assets. They tried to fight back and lost in a suprisingly short amount of time, then Dr. Breen was set in place as the liason between Earth and the rest of the combine, and the Earth population was slowly but surely enslaved and brainwashed, and then the enslaved were used to work in the factories that created their main combat unit, the Combine Elite (that fired those combine machine gun energy balls).

Funny coincedence that the same thing happened to two different races, huh?

I was about to post something quite similar. My thoery is pretty much the same. Lets call Earth's home dimension Dimension A, Xen is the "borderworld," and I think combine come from a Dimension B on the other side of Xen. Besides the Vortiguants, Xen was inhabited by a bunch of mindless stuff that kills/feeds on anything it sees. I think the covenant had control of Nihilith, having him keep the vortiguants as slaves while harvesting Xen's resources. Meanwhile, Humans happen onto xen and start taking resources too. As for the Vortiguants attacking humans, they could either be doing it as a direct result of Nihilith's control over them, or perhaps they saw Gordon and took him as just another human coming to steal from their planet, unaware that he would Destroy Nihilith setting them free. However, I don't think G-Man wanted you to kill Nihilith for Vortiguant's benefit, but rather for control over Xen. He keeps you in time stasis or something to preserve him till he really needs them. Combine are outraged at what the humans have done at xen, so they invade and gain control within 7 hours. Like Revenge said, Breen seems to be humanity's false representitive placed by the combine. G-man pulls Gordon out of his sleeve to drive covenant out of earth by motivating our side's forces. Once Gordon makes an effective move and most likely inspires any surviving humans, he is put back into time stasis. G-man will just hold him there until he needs an extra push again. I think this theory is a good one when it comes to the relationship between Combine, Xen, and Earth, but there's still the question as to who G-man's "employers" are. He seems so in-control that it's hard to imagine someone higher up on the chain than he.

 

[Asknoone]

I wonder what is going on int he universe of Half-Life...When is ay universe, I mean literally out among the stars.

Agreed...

 

[whitie]

I don’t think the combine had anything to do with xen, well during the first half-life anyway. Why? Well anyone notice that the combine are all to do with technology, it their life. So during the xex invasion did anyone see the aliens carrying any technology??? I didn’t, everything way organic, the hornet gun, that plasma insect, the bull squid spitting , teeth, claws, not a sign of technology, no metal, no computers, nothing!

Really?... then how can you explain Garg? he sure as hell had metal on him, and came complete with flamethrowers

 

[AJ Rimmer]

I was about to post something quite similar. My thoery is pretty much the same. Lets call Earth's home dimension Dimension A, Xen is the "borderworld," and I think combine come from a Dimension B on the other side of Xen. Besides the Vortiguants, Xen was inhabited by a bunch of mindless stuff that kills/feeds on anything it sees. I think the covenant had control of Nihilith, having him keep the vortiguants as slaves while harvesting Xen's resources. Meanwhile, Humans happen onto xen and start taking resources too. As for the Vortiguants attacking humans, they could either be doing it as a direct result of Nihilith's control over them, or perhaps they saw Gordon and took him as just another human coming to steal from their planet, unaware that he would Destroy Nihilith setting them free. However, I don't think G-Man wanted you to kill Nihilith for Vortiguant's benefit, but rather for control over Xen. He keeps you in time stasis or something to preserve him till he really needs them. Combine are outraged at what the humans have done at xen, so they invade and gain control within 7 hours. Like Revenge said, Breen seems to be humanity's false representitive placed by the combine. G-man pulls Gordon out of his sleeve to drive covenant out of earth by motivating our side's forces. Once Gordon makes an effective move and most likely inspires any surviving humans, he is put back into time stasis. G-man will just hold him there until he needs an extra push again. I think this theory is a good one when it comes to the relationship between Combine, Xen, and Earth, but there's still the question as to who G-man's "employers" are. He seems so in-control that it's hard to imagine someone higher up on the chain than he.

That's a good theory, although it could be like this; All Xen-creatures are actually created/live with/used by the combine, except the vortigaunts, they are Xen's humans, they are obviously as intelligent as us, maybe that's what the combine want to do to earth and humans is exactly what Nihilanth did to the vortigaunts, under combine control?

 

[HEaP]

the grunts came out of a drum barrel? The grunts were like wasp/bee/ant drones, and them barrels were like eggs (or similar to them bee hexagon things) where the grunts start off as larvae and mature to adults in the egg barrels things. And as for the metal amour, kind of primitive compared to combine technology, we ASSUME it is an alloy or synthetically made, but we see in the natural world where creatures use calcium or other types of minerals to create real tough shells for amour, even barrier reefs, living organisms, make use of limestone in its structure. So maybe the metal armour is un-combine related and created naturally, they are aliens and from anther dimension after all! J
Again with that big fire shooting mother of a thing, garg? Is it? Again in our own natural wild life we see creatures use harsh chemicals for self defence, (insects snakes, frogs etc) these chemicals can really irritate and even burn the human skin. So the garg creature can possibly create its own natural napalm.

And now the hover devise? This was the only thing that had me doubting my theories, the only piece of technology? Hmmmmmmmm, I have to see it again because its been awhile since I last met Nihilanth, after the first time of completing HL1, I never liked the xen levels that much so I got bored an stopped playing every time I reached them.
A theory that just popped to my head maybe, I don’t know, a few hundred, maybe thousand years before the black mesa “incident” xen was like earth, in mass anyway (not in great big floating chunks anyway) and then the combine came, put Nihilanth I charge, the administrator of Xen, he oversaw the combine plundering of xen’s natural resources until xen was reduced to floating debris. The natural resources depleted the bulk of the combine forces left xen, leaving a small occupational force, Nihilanth seeing his chance, he is overwhelmed with greed for power he seizes his chance for real power, and not being a servant of the combine, an independent ruler of a world, he stages a coupe some how cutting off xen from the combine. He then becomes an independent warlord. The combine seeing no value to xen, (they don’t know of earths existence…yet anyway) they have already depleted its resources, so they ignore him and xen.

Nihilanth, wanting to preserve his power, fearing a possible up rising in the future a repeat of what he has done, keeps all the technology for himself, no one else.

So maybe the combine made the mistake of modifying Nihilanth giving him to create portals, telepathy control over his subjects, giving him too much power, learning from this they don’t give the same modifications to Breen.

 

[Is This Tea]

What I find interesting about the Nihilanth and xen in general is that there appears to be a class of xen creatures who all are cycloptic and have a small third arm growing directly out of the middle of their chest.
The Vortigaunts
The Alien Grunts
The Controllers and by that token the Nihilanth
This can’t be a coincidence. They must some how be more strongly related to each other then to other xen fauna like headcrabs, barnacles, houndeyes or bullsquids.
My best guess would be that they are all the same species. The same way that ants can all have the same genes but be completely specialized for different tasks in the hive. Anybody else have any idea on why these creatures are so alike?

 

[mortiz]

I've posted before that I believe the Combine created the Nihilanth (which they could use to open portals) and it escaped to the border world somehow. In order to protect itself I believe it stopped the combine as well as others from using the border world for teleportation. When Freeman kills the Nihilanth he allowed the Combine into the borderworld again.

You can see that the Nihilanth has been engineered somehow since it also has the shackles on it's hands as well as having big metal rods poking out of its butt.

 

[Eejit]

Here a screenshot showing some example of Xen technology...

The selective forcefields in particular remind me of combine tech. Nothing however is exactly the same, but there are similarities.

 

[dæmon]

I think your idea that the Combine has left Xen as pieces of floating debris is a good one, Heap, but I doubt Nihilanth ever seized power. Nihilanth is obviously heavily modified and probably enjoyed lording it over the vortigaunts, with the alien controllers as the equivalent of Civil "Protection", but his main role was local teleportation for the Combine. This is what they are seeking on earth, which is why Eli and Kleiner are so important.

As for other pieces of technology, the alien grunts at one stage had some sort of cannon, and there are a number of drills similar to the ant lion thumpers scattered around Xen. I've always thought the grunts were being mass produced as an army to invade earth, in retaliation for Black Mesa scientists stealing samples from the Combine. Unfortunately for them Freeman arrived and killed Nihilanth, so they had to stage the invasion themselves.

 

[Revenge]

Wouldn't it be interesting if the Nihilanth could also do interdimensional teleporting as well? That would make the Nihilanth the equivalent of the Dark Fusion reactor, which

Spoiler

would mean that both games ended the very instant you destroyed whatever the combine were using to teleport from their world to the world you were in, as opposed to the first ending when you killed it's administrator and the second ending when you destroyed the teleporter