Synths

[ríomhaire]

Indeed, but you're so full of yourself sometimes if we cut you open you'd only multiply.

 

[Darkside55]

Good thing I'm not emo then. I couldn't stand having other me's around, hogging the limelight and being yes-men to my theories.

I much prefer my yes-men to be other people.

But, the point I'm trying to make is, sometimes there's just no deeper you can go or only so far you can argue against a theory. At some point there's got to be a place where opinion or preference just doesn't factor in, and you've (meaning people in general, not necessarily you) got to realize what's being said is what's being said. That applies to all theories on SPM.

This particular theory, I mean, ever since hunters were seen in EpOne I thought it was pretty clear what they were meant to be. The more evidence that piles up, y'know, it's hard to keep taking a grain of salt with it. Eventually you end up with a desert full of salt (and a good thing I'm not getting cut open in a desert full of salt). Valve said "hit it with momma's leg"; it's its mother's leg.

 

[kupocake]

Striders and Hunters have nothing in common aside from their three legs. The only evidence there is can hardly be labelled conclusive though you are so keen to do so. One level designer spontaneously cracking a joke doesn't make for a particuarly good piece of evidence.

 

[586FAC75]

Right now, both schools of argument can neither be prooved or disproved...But it doesn't hurt to ponder now and again.

 

[Ophiguris]

A mix between a gorilla and a giraffe, if i recall correctly.

*shrug*

I want to know what the Combine are doing with our whales and elephants and stuff.

Good point... But i think Samon's next message solves the problem... My question is, 'Why is there such little Xenian involvement... I mean aside from the headcrabs, that fish thing from the beginning, and the carniverous leeches off the shores of Highway 17, what happened to the Houndeyes, Alien Controllers, Tentacles, Flying Manta Rays, Gargantuas, and the Gonarchs???

(kupo's last post) uhh, baby rabbits look NOTHING like adult rabbits, so who's to say that the hunter Doesn't go through a metamorphisis kind of state???

 

[Darkside55]

Striders and Hunters have nothing in common aside from their three legs. The only evidence there is can hardly be labelled conclusive though you are so keen to do so. One level designer spontaneously cracking a joke doesn't make for a particuarly good piece of evidence.

That evidence isn't circumstantial. Same sounds, same physical structure, they're called ministriders, they work in packs with striders, they have the same movement of a strider, scaled down. "Self-replicating robots that evolve." And you just because Casali was joking about it doesn't mean it's not true, or that he's somehow misinformed. Sometimes I wonder if Valve comes on these forums and laughs, because I know I would.

"They don't think it's a strider."
"What? But they're called ministriders. And we drew all these parallels to connect the two."
"Yeah but they still don't believe it."
"But Casali JUST said..."
"They think he was joking."
"This forum is silly."

My question is, 'Why is there such little Xenian involvement... I mean aside from the headcrabs, that fish thing from the beginning, and the carniverous leeches off the shores of Highway 17, what happened to the Houndeyes, Alien Controllers, Tentacles, Flying Manta Rays, Gargantuas, and the Gonarchs???

Houndeyes and bullsquids do still show up on Earth. In Lost Coast the fisherman's cage that you see in the beginning was used for catching bullsquid to eat, but apparently the bullsquid don't come by any more. We're like to see both houndeyes and bullsquids again.

Tentacles, eh, probably gone or they're in places that've been completely blocked off by humans. Out in the wastes, in the desert, maybe you might find one kicking around in the sewer with (or fighting against) a hydra. But we're probably not going to see them again.

Gonarchs are still around, in two ways:

1. Free, prowling the wastes.
2. Captured by the Combine, sacks ripped off, used as a headcrab production factory.

There are also some gargantuas loose in the wild, but I dunno if we'll ever see them again. I dearly hope we will, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

As for controllers, they're dead. Without the Nihilanth they straight-up died out. Them AND the grunts. So we don't see those two or the flying mantas (their ships) because their entire species was wiped out. After Gordon was done in HL1, there were only a few of them remaining, and they couldn't get to food or resources or something so they perished. Check the Laidlaw Vault; pretty sure it's mentioned in there.

 

[Asknoone]

We haven't really ventured outside the confines of City 17. Sure, we've been in and around the canal system, we've been so far as the coast - but you can hardly expect these things to hang around when it is an antlion zone and so close to the City.

Grunts? Mass produced, and now extinct (most likely). Controllers? Dead, if you ask me. Gargs? Still roaming the Earth, far out in the wastes. Manta Rays? I'd like to see one fly over. Tentacles? Far out in the wastes.

I'd imagine all of these things simply live in the deep wasteland, rather than near the City.

 

[Ophiguris]

"They don't think it's a strider."
"What? But they're called ministriders. And we drew all these parallels to connect the two."
"Yeah but they still don't believe it."
"But Casali JUST said..."
"They think he was joking."
"This forum is silly."

I would laugh too.
" they think Gman's a ghost? Heh, how stupid!"

That's also a good point. Same like seals, or frogs, or insects, or any number of things that don't resemble their adult forms in infancy. Hey, here's one: headcrabs to gonarchs. What do they have but four legs to connect them? And yet everyone knows, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the gonarch is the mother of the headcrabs.

Not to disprove the mini striders, but We KNOW the Gonarch's the mother because in 'XEN' after you destroy Gonarch, little baby headvrabs show up. I still haven't seen any striders giving birth in any screenshots (mainly because I don't have a computer of my own that's fast enough to play EP1

As for controllers, they're dead. Without the Nihilanth they straight-up died out. Them AND the grunts. So we don't see those two or the flying mantas (their ships) because their entire species was wiped out. After Gordon was done in HL1, there were only a few of them remaining, and they couldn't get to food or resources or something so they perished. Check the Laidlaw Vault; pretty sure it's mentioned in there.[/QUOTE]

I know it mentioned about Nihinlanth's death and the border world, but I didn't see it mentioning what happened to the controllers, except that they are Nihinlanth's "cerebrates" (relation to Star Craft), in other words, they help watch over the other Xenians.

 

[586FAC75]

On page 109 of Raising the Bar there is a concept drawing for the Combine Elite. It's original form was more Synth like, Ted Backman goes as far as liking it "to a small bipedal Strider".

Aparently the original design was shelved due to the fact that they felt the design of the Synth Combine Elite and the Citadel where it would be encountered in numbers, would clash.

What if, seeing as the Citadel wont be encountered in Ep 2, the design team have dug up this original idea, give it a paint job, another leg and a new name? I.e. a Hunter.

From a creative point, its sounds like it was always a direct result of the Strider design...

 

[Darkside55]

Not to disprove the mini striders, but We KNOW the Gonarch's the mother because in 'XEN' after you destroy Gonarch, little baby headvrabs show up. I still haven't seen any striders giving birth in any screenshots (mainly because I don't have a computer of my own that's fast enough to play EP1)

Very true. And no, they don't give birth in Episode One.

In fact I question how a strider self-replicates anyway. It's stated that they can but...who knows, y'know? They're all built in factories now anyway. So really, the likelier scenario is that hunters are built, but they're what the offspring look like anyway. Eh, but it says they self-replicate, so maybe for whatever reason they actually give birth to these things. Who can say. Maybe they give birth, a machine takes over and augments a hunter with all the weaponry.

I know it mentioned about Nihinlanth's death and the border world, but I didn't see it mentioning what happened to the controllers, except that they are Nihinlanth's "cerebrates" (relation to Star Craft), in other words, they help watch over the other Xenians.

However, without access to a steady food supply (whatever it is they eat), they may well have simply died out.

The Nihilanth was responsible for teleporting them around and gathering resources. They had a few standing portals remaining to them, but who knows where those went. Plus, I'd imagine perhaps the slaves were responsible for cultivating some food; with all the vortigaunts apparently on Earth now, there go their crops. That's terribly speculative though. I will say that most things on Xen were carnivorous, including the sentient species, so maybe food supply on Xen was reduced that way, thanks to the portal storms bringing over so many of Xen's fauna.

 

[kupocake]

That evidence isn't circumstantial. Same sounds, same physical structure, they're called ministriders, they work in packs with striders, they have the same movement of a strider, scaled down. "Self-replicating robots that evolve."

Even if most of the above wasn't factually incorrect, it still wouldn't be conclusive. The Ministrider has an entirely different sound set to the Strider. Where did you get any other impression? Their physical structure is not the same by any leap of the imagination. The only continuity between the forms is that they're both tripedals. You've even adknowledged this fact elsewhere by excusing the fact that they look nothing alike to each other by pointing out that young animals don't look so much like their parents. Working in packs with striders matters nought. What has military tactics to do with familial relations? Elites, Shield Scanners and others are despatched with Striders in many situations in Half-Life 2. Are they then related? Their movement couldn't be more different from the Strider. They bound along, they jump in the air, they swipe at you with their legs. A Strider stomps slowly forward and occasionally spears things.

Please point at one thing that proves that a "mini-strider" is adolescent and not a fully grown example of its species. First person to say "but it's called a mini-strider!" gets branded a moron. The G-Man is called the G-Man, but we've long accepted that that isn't indicative of anything other than a vague likeness to a G-Man. Is an AlienGrunt to be assumed to be an Alien descendent of the Human Grunt? No. It's just a name.

Doesn't the concept of growth seem almost entirely ridiculous in a biomechanical "race" bred for its destructive properties? Also, if a Strider is an adult Hunter, where is its face? You would have thought something as utterly crucial, central to the design that Valve is making would correspond with a later, adult stage. To have "it looks nothing like its parent" as a criteria is extremely wobbly. Simply, you're not winning me over with an arguement over a detail I'm quite happy to believe if you can in anyway prove it, you're just being incredibly stubborn. Frankly though, I can't imagine Valve ever actually clearing this one up, because it's such a minor detail... thus you shall forever hang upon:

1) A filename, when in other notable cases you wouldn't do so.
2) A single point of Physical Resemblance when every other detail of movement, physicality and sound bears zero resemblance.
3) A spontaneous, tongue in cheek joke made by a level designer (how can calling a giant walking wing-wong beast "mom" be anything less?).
4) An over-readiness to interpret a military tool's effective deployment as some mark of familial loyalty.