What is a Portal Storm?

Kinslayer

Kinslayer

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Alright, simple question that I feel really stupid for asking:

What exactly IS a portal storm?
 
A portal storm is a relatively random atmospheric event that is a minor result from the dimensional instability and rip which were caused at Black Mesa. A portal storm will open and allow organic matter to be transported from Xen to Earth, though, in random manners. A side affect of portal storms is "seismic activity," which is capable of destruction of man made buildings and structures.

It's not officially known how they are, though, theoretically, they started in a small area which was rather unstable at Black Mesa, and eventually grew worser and worser, until it spread across the United States and eventually other areas of the world. Although they started fifteen years ago roughly, they continue to this day, and it's unknown whether there's any organic matter (as in lifeforms) that is left on Xen to be sent during a storm. If there isn't, they are still responsible for quite damaging seismic activity.

Or, in a shortened version, a random occurring dimensional instability which has the ability to transmit matter from Xen to Earth, and may cause seismic destruction of structures such as bridges and buildings.
 
The first portal storm was caused by the death of the Nihilanth. Notice after you kill him, multiple portals spew from his head. This caused a rift between earth and Xen allowing Xenian creatures to spew forth into our world. The combine used this interdimensional hole to force their way through to our plane, at which point they decimated earth's militaries in 7 hours.
(if I'm wrong or missed something important someone pwn me)
 
LandStander said:
The first portal storm was caused by the death of the Nihilanth. Notice after you kill him, multiple portals spew from his head. This caused a rift between earth and Xen allowing Xenian creatures to spew forth into our world. The combine used this interdimensional hole to force their way through to our plane, at which point they decimated earth's militaries in 7 hours.
(if I'm wrong or missed something important someone pwn me)
Click to expand...

Interesting theory, but I thought you were sent to Xen to kill the Nihilanth because he was the source of the storms and killing him stopped them. Where are your sources and am I on to something.
 
DoctorWeeTodd said:
Interesting theory, but I thought you were sent to Xen to kill the Nihilanth because he was the source of the storms and killing him stopped them. Where are your sources and am I on to something.
Click to expand...

He wasn't creating a portal storm perse, but he was keeping the rift between earth and Xen's dimensions open despite the satellite sent up. The resonance cascade was the initial tear, the Nihilanth was just keeping that particular one open.
 
LandStander said:
He wasn't creating a portal storm perse, but he was keeping the rift between earth and Xen's dimensions open despite the satellite sent up. The resonance cascade was the initial tear, the Nihilanth was just keeping that particular one open.
Click to expand...


"Despite the satellite sent up"? I pretty sure your thinking of HL2: EP2 the Nihilanth was long dead by then dude.
 
No, there was a satellite in HL1. Play it again.
 
me. LOL



ok, seriously, it is a controlled portal that is made by a haxored satalite in space that the combine somehow got their hands on.

Hey, just a question. Was the first portal storm made by the nuke at black mesa making a hole in the dimension like blowing up the citadel did, or simply by the nhil?
 
Just big head...

Anyway, a portal storm is a mass of energy which is concentrated onto a specific point, the portal. A super portal is simply a huge version of the portals normally used by the combine, only bigger. This portal storm was created because of the massive amount of energy forced out of the citadel core by the overwatch forces still inside. They are known as Storms because of the large gathering of clouds above, forming a ring around the portal with huge uncontrollable bursts of energy fired out at random intervals.

AND, the satelite is simply key for the gateway, with that in place and operation the combine could swarm through, with the new satelite, lauched in episode 2, which shut down the satelite and will prevent another gathering of energy. So, now the earth combine are cut off from the rest of the empire, an event which hasnt happened for nearly 2 decades...
 
z0mbin3 said:
"Despite the satellite sent up"? I pretty sure your thinking of HL2: EP2 the Nihilanth was long dead by then dude.
Click to expand...

Don't you remember in HL1 after you get pass all those red trip mines linked to dynamite? You send up a satellite just like the one in Ep 2. Alyx even says the one Magnusson is sending is going to link with the display sent up at Black Mesa years earlier.
 
Which gets back to what I was saying about the satelites cancelling each other out...
 
you know if you play ep 2 you see portal storms (2 i think) its the shockwave things, Alyx says they are portal storms.
 
No, the original satellite was supposed to close the link. It just wasn't as effective as you'd think.
 
Moonraker said:
you know if you play ep 2 you see portal storms (2 i think) its the shockwave things, Alyx says they are portal storms.
Click to expand...

Yeh, it was 2, one at the start, which destroys the bridge and another later on, during Freeman Pontifex which destroys the bridge and creates a ramp to jump across.
 
tbh I always imagined portal storms as a bunch of randomly opening portals like we saw in HL1 bringing in foes, only over a large area.
 
I think there's a few definitions of what a Portal Storm is. It's a pretty broad term.
 
So, what caused them at first? The nuke at black mesa creating a rift like the citadel exploding? Or maybe just random openings over time?
 
Nobody really knows the exact nature of a portal storm, all info has been relatively vague on the subject save the start of Episode Two.

It sure as hell doesn't have anything to do with the nuke though, I honestly don't know how you made that connection.
 
Citadel had a fusion explosion or something. It's as close to a nuke as you're going to get. Point is, when the citadel blew up, it punched a portal through the stratosphere. Perhaps the same for Black Mesa?
 
Well we can't produce fusion anyway only fission. The only thing we really know about dark energy is that it probably exists.
 
we can produce fusion, just in limited fashion because at its current level of development it takes more energy to create the fusion than it produces.
 
Point being that they both explode. SO COULD a nuke fracture a weak dimensional rift?
 
A dark fusion reactor explosion isn't the same thing as a nuke. At all.
 
It seems to be a few things. One would be the events that ravaged Earth and Xen after the events of HL1. The two worlds were linked together and random portals opened between them, causing stuff from each world to be teleported to the other (thus all the Xen creatures inhabiting Earth). The resonance cascade seems to have been a form of portal storm, dragging so many Xen creatures to Black Mesa, as we see in HL1, BS, OP4 and Decay. In Decay a group of scientist try to close the portal storms caused by the resonance cascade (the satellite Gordon launches in On a Rail is used for this). Similarly, Magnusson uses another satellite to close the super-portal. We see a different sort of portal storm in EP2, which seems to just be a large energy burst with a portal as its epicentre. It doesn't seem to have much concussive force, but it causes seismic activity.
 
One blows atoms away, the other b rings them together. Both explode, though, so they should have the same effect.
 
Calhoun said:
A portal storm is a relatively random atmospheric event that is a minor result from the dimensional instability and rip which were caused at Black Mesa. A portal storm will open and allow organic matter to be transported from Xen to Earth, though, in random manners. A side affect of portal storms is "seismic activity," which is capable of destruction of man made buildings and structures.
...
Or, in a shortened version, a random occurring dimensional instability which has the ability to transmit matter from Xen to Earth, and may cause seismic destruction of structures such as bridges and buildings.
Click to expand...
Only burst of portal energy from damaged Citadel core caused seismic activities. First Days Portal storms were atmospheric events, I guess.
 
PortalStormzzzz said:
Citadel had a fusion explosion or something. It's as close to a nuke as you're going to get.
Click to expand...

No it's actually different in every conceivable way. The explosion of the Dark Fusion Reactor at the end of HL2 was the discharge of who knows what other-worldly elemental particles; a force so strong it tore a rift in space (later converted into a Super-Portal). The Citadel explosion itself was also totally different.
 
Everything is atoms moving outwards. I am a nuke, technically.
 
The nuclear force would disagree with you.

"Outwards" depends on your frame of reference..
 
Use the FORCE, the NUCLEAR FORCE :D

:|

I wonder if that rocket cured all the portal storms?
 
Plaris, no duh. I'm verbally lazy, but you get the point.


anyhow, the question still remains. Would a nuke at a resonance cascade create a super portal, aka, portal storm.
 
Because explosions really don't open portals to other terrible places.

Unless nuclear testing has its secrets...
 
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