Vortigaunt quote (ain't gonna post the quote in thread title, spoilers)

[SpotEnemyBoats]

When I played Episode 2, the line "You bear traits thought innate to Vortikind." it got me thinking. I know I should've posted this sooner, since it's kind of late (having been played Episode 2 +10 times already).

Seriously though, do you think this quote should be taken seriously or is it just some random Vortigaunt quote thrown in there?

Imagine having Vortigaunt abilities: Gordon having a purple aura around him (super Vortigaunt form), teleport anywhere, shoot lighting and what not. Sounds silly doesn't it?

 

[z0mbin3]

When I played Episode 2, the line "You bear traits thought innate to Vortikind." it got me thinking. I know I should've posted this sooner, since it's kind of late (having been played Episode 2 +10 times already).

Seriously though, do you think this quote should be taken seriously or is it just some random Vortigaunt quote thrown in there?

Imagine having Vortigaunt abilities: Gordon having a purple aura around him (super Vortigaunt form), teleport anywhere, shoot lighting and what not. Sounds silly doesn't it?

And stupid.

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

I hate it when people think one dumb little quote is "Ohhhhhh ***SPOILER!!!!***" becasue its not.

 

[CaptainNemo]

Does anyone else find the mental image of a glowing purple Gordon kinda funny?

 

[jobizzie]

Does anyone else find the mental image of a glowing purple Gordon kinda funny?

lol, speaking in vortigese 'cthulutltu!'

Imagine pronouncing that!

or maybe it is because Gordon can shoot electricity from his hands and he uses it to power his crowbar so that it does extra damage by electricuting enemies. maybe?

 

[Emporius]

They could be referring to the way that he has been affected/touched by his seperation from time and his encounter with Xen

 

[Gordon_X]

random quote. That's it.

 

[MattyDienhoff]

NEWSFLASH: GORDON IS A VORTIMAN!

It's just a compliment. Praise. It's not a suggestion that Gordon is a Vortigaunt.

 

[Darkside55]

It's talking about the vortessence. Now, while Gordon Freeman isn't likely to start glowing purple, traverse the astral plane, and shoot lightning from his extremities, the games have been consistently hinting that Gordon has a unique tie to the vortessence. The evidence:

• After placing the sample into the anti-mass spectrometer during Anomalous Materials, you're teleported back and forth from the test chamber on Earth to random locales on Xen. The final place you're teleported to before Unforseen Consequences is a black "room" where four startled vortigaunts are gathered. In light of recent games it suggests that this has been retconned to mean that Gordon Freeman, during all his portaling back and forth, somehow hit the vortessence.

• Vortigaunts like the one who upgrades your airboat and the All-Seeing-Vort (basically any vortigaunt who will speak when you press 'e') say a couple telltale lines:
  
  "You leap, you fall, you flash between the barriers."
  "For a brief time you joined with us. You are one, between the worlds."
  "Communion of the vortessence."
  "We call you sib, although your mind and meaning are a mystery to us."
  "Far distant eyes look out through yours."
  "We are a tapestry woven of vortessence. It is the same for you if only you would see it."
  "How many are there in you? Whose hopes and dreams do you encompass?"
  "Could you but see the eyes inside your own, the minds in your mind, you would see how much we share."
  ​
  
  Now, "far distance eyes" and the last two lines are a fourth-wall joke; it's referring to the many players who see through the eyes of Gordon Freeman. But in a gameworld context, it's suggesting two other things: one, that humanity's hopes rest on Freeman's shoulders; and two, when coupled with some of the other lines it again suggests his connection to the vortessence.

• In Episode One, nothing prompts Gordon Freeman's view of the citadel's explosion and Alyx Vance. The last thing he should have seen was the G-man's departure. Now, evidence from the first game and some documents from RtB suggest that Gordon Freeman doesn't dream while in stasis, and of course HL2 shows that stasis passes undisturbed in the blink of an eye. And yet for some reason Gordon Freeman not only had a "dream" of Dr. Breen, but suddenly his vision is rushing up the citadel and he views Alyx Vance being saved by the vortigaunts. How? How can he see this? Ah, but we know some creatures who can remotely view things through the eyes of others, don't we? And it would seem that the vortigaunts didn't call him there; rather he did it himself. I can say with a fair certainty that they didn't will his eyes there because they don't have the ability to know his mind--the vorts themselves confirm this. So Gordon Freeman, quite unconciously, viewed an event through the vortessence.

• Episode Two:
  
  "You bear traits thought innate to Vortikind."
  "Almost vortal, this bond between you."​

And what's interesting about these little pieces of evidence is they're all very subtle--you might miss a line if you don't continue to click on a vortigaunt in HL2, the fly-by in Episode One would seem nothing more than a recap if you didn't question it, the bit on Xen in the first game would seem as just some random dark room unless you looked at it in context with the new games as well as knowing that the original script called for a connection between Freeman and the vortigaunts, leading them to freedom. The power of retroactive continuity, that's what that is. So they're all little clues that are easy to overlook, but then you put them all together and ah, there's something. It all seems to be leading up to Gordon using the vortessence in some way.

 

[Avoidist]

Are... are you God?

 

[Darkside55]

A reasonable facsimile.

 

[CaptainNemo]

It's talking about the vortessence. Now, while Gordon Freeman isn't likely to start glowing purple, traverse the astral plane, and shoot lightning from his extremities, the games have been consistently hinting that Gordon has a unique tie to the vortessence. The evidence:

• After placing the sample into the anti-mass spectrometer during Anomalous Materials, you're teleported back and forth from the test chamber on Earth to random locales on Xen. The final place you're teleported to before Unforeseen Consequences is a black "room" where four startled vortigaunts are gathered. In light of recent games it suggests that this has been retconned to mean that Gordon Freeman, during all his portaling back and forth, somehow hit the vortessence.

• Vortigaunts like the one who upgrades your airboat and the All-Seeing-Vort (basically any vortigaunt who will speak when you press 'e') say a couple telltale lines:
  
  "You leap, you fall, you flash between the barriers."
  "For a brief time you joined with us. You are one, between the worlds."
  "Communion of the vortessence."
  "We call you sib, although your mind and meaning are a mystery to us."
  "Far distant eyes look out through yours."
  "We are a tapestry woven of vortessence. It is the same for you if only you would see it."
  "How many are there in you? Whose hopes and dreams do you encompass?"
  "Could you but see the eyes inside your own, the minds in your mind, you would see how much we share."
  ​
  
  Now, "far distance eyes" and the last two lines are a fourth-wall joke; it's referring to the many players who see through the eyes of Gordon Freeman. But in a gameworld context, it's suggesting two other things: one, that humanity's hopes rest on Freeman's shoulders; and two, when coupled with some of the other lines it again suggests his connection to the vortessence.

• In Episode One, nothing prompts Gordon Freeman's view of the citadel's explosion and Alyx Vance. The last thing he should have seen was the G-man's departure. Now, evidence from the first game and some documents from RtB suggest that Gordon Freeman doesn't dream while in stasis, and of course HL2 shows that stasis passes undisturbed in the blink of an eye. And yet for some reason Gordon Freeman not only had a "dream" of Dr. Breen, but suddenly his vision is rushing up the citadel and he views Alyx Vance being saved by the vortigaunts. How? How can he see this? Ah, but we know some creatures who can remotely view things through the eyes of others, don't we? And it would seem that the vortigaunts didn't call him there; rather he did it himself. I can say with a fair certainty that they didn't will his eyes there because they don't have the ability to know his mind--the vorts themselves confirm this. So Gordon Freeman, quite unconsciously, viewed an event through the vortessence.

• Episode Two:
  
  "You bear traits thought innate to Vortikind."
  "Almost vortal, this bond between you."​

And what's interesting about these little pieces of evidence is they're all very subtle--you might miss a line if you don't continue to click on a vortigaunt in HL2, the fly-by in Episode One would seem nothing more than a recap if you didn't question it, the bit on Xen in the first game would seem as just some random dark room unless you looked at it in context with the new games as well as knowing that the original script called for a connection between Freeman and the vortigaunts, leading them to freedom. The power of retroactive continuity, that's what that is. So they're all little clues that are easy to overlook, but then you put them all together and ah, there's something. It all seems to be leading up to Gordon using the vortessence in some way.

My God. A believable theory backed up by evidence! 'Tis the end times!!!

......

But seriously, good job.

 

[Narvi]

My god.

The Episodes make sense now.

Darkside55! HUGS!

...

I mean, manly embrace!

 

[Avoidist]

I think it may be important to stress the fact that Gordon, if he did witness Alyx's extraction through the Vortessence, has only shown this ability whilst in the G-Man's realm. Combined with the fact that the Vortigaunts are able to enter the realm, I think this at the least should be described as a link between the Vortessence and his realm, at most, that they are effectively one and the same, or that G-Man draws his apparent powers from the Vortessence as the Vortigaunts do, from this realm itself.

The more the series develops, the more I see the G-Man and Vortigaunts as two sides of the same coin, the same mystical aura, the same path with opposing ends. If I didn't find it ridiculous when I first heard it I would support the "G-Man is a rogue Vortigaunt" theory out of the mysterious sameness between them, almost as if he were the anti-hero in their story.

 

[Narvi]

Actually, I think that realm is where all the major alien characters have a presence. Nihilanth, the Advisors, the Vorts, and the Gman; all otherworldy alien characters fighting outside normal time and space.

Their fleshy exterior might seem weak (like the Nihilanth or the Advisors) but in the outer realms, they are likely powers to be reckoned with.

Remember the Nihilanth caused the Portal Storms by himself. A trick that took an entire Citadel to do otherwise.

 

[Darkside55]

About the "realm" of the vortessence, it seems to be self-contained and accessible only to the vorts--and Gordon Freeman. I think it unlikely that Nihilanth and the controllers could pass there; I like to think of it as the last bastion of freedom for the vortigaunt race, a place they could commune and be free from their oppressors, if only for a short time.

Now the G-man's dimension, that must also be a separate thing, though not as secure. The reasoning is that while the vortigaunts can access the G-man's dimension, the G-man cannot walk into the vortessence. He cannot enter the vortessence and pluck Gordon out of it, nor can he access Freeman at all while he's under vortigaunt protection; he has to wait until they are "otherwise occupied." This states that the vortigaunts have a power he does not, and if their two realms were in any way connected then he should have been able to retrieve Gordon Freeman at any time. This is not the case.

One other interesting thing to note is that, in a very scientific game, vortigaunts are very mystical, almost magical beings. Their abilities border on the supernatural and they speak of the vortessence with a reverence that's like religion. This is in contrast to everything and everyone else in the game, who are very scientific and grounded in the real world. Now when you look at the G-man, he has similar "powers"--ghostly phasing, teleportation of himself and others--but none of the mysticism. He's cold and calculating and very straight-laced. So I think that, as a parallel, his abilities come from very advanced technology; science gives him his powers. The vortigaunts on the other hand have innate, inborn abilities enhanced through their "religion." It makes for a nice duality.

 

[Van Kayne]

I agree with the duality thing, but not really with the rest.

I propose that the vortessence and the Gman's realm are the same thing. After all, they didn't take Gordon anywhere else, except back to the 'real' world after they rescued him, and we all know that the Gman has power there. If the vortigaunts had just left him, then he could have taken Gordon right back.
Thus, they must have continually concentrated on blocking Gman's actions. Actually, that's a bad analogy. I thing it would be closer to say the Gman's powers were temporarily negated, whether they are from technology or Gman's own abilities.

Since the vortigaunts are "coterminous", I assume it would take a little concentration from each vortigaunt to keep this barrier up. When the Vortigaunts heal Alyx, their group mind bends itself fully to the task, and the power-negating was broken, allowing the Gman to roam free in a split second (and when you can control space-time, a split second is plenty).

The Gman then realizes that Gordon is in a handy place after all, and thereafter continues to monitor him, but not interfere with his actions.

 

[Darkside55]

But if the G-man were to access the vortessence, he should have vort-esque powers. Perhaps a barrier created by multiple vortigaunts might bar him through sheer combined power, but he should have been able to push and probe at that barrier if he had the same type of abilities.

Furthermore they can't be the same realm, for the simple fact that no doors exist in the vortessence.

You know, I begin to wonder if the vortessence is its own realm or dimension at all. We DID see that room in HL1, but as I said it's been retconned; that might be something that's changed, storywise. It'd still be the vortessence, but not like a separate area. And I say this because we know for a fact there's at least two dimensions: the real world, and whatever outside-of-time-and-space land the G-man operates in. The vortigaunts move through both of these.

...between these...

"You are one, between the worlds." "Joined with us," "between the worlds."

Heh, the cogs in my head are turning as I write this post. Anyone who's ever wondered, you're privy to watching how Darkside thinks. And right now I am thinking that the vortessence might not be an actual place at all. It's a weave, isn't it? A tapestry of the vortessence. Something underlying, something inbetween everything else, not a place but a STATE, a state where they're able to move freely in other dimensions and interact with things in other dimensions. And maybe if they somehow disrupted the G-man's dimension, which is how they blocked him...

I must ponder this further.

 

[Avoidist]

There's not that much left to ponder. You just perfectly described everything concerning the Vortigaunt's teleporting abilities that I have been pondering for so long. It explains why Xen was inaccessible to the Combine, gives a handwavey argument as to how they healed Alyx, everything.

You really are God, aren't you?