Would Gman have hired another person to defeat the Combine if Gordon had refused?

[Sledgehammer]

The shortest I could sum it up in a title.

You know, at the end of Half-Life, you get a choice on whether or not to work for the Gman. I was wondering if the Gman would have hired another person to kill combine instead of Freeman, if he had refused.

Personally, I think he would. No idea who. Alternatively, we could also debate just how many "mercenaries" the Gman control, and what he otherwise uses them for. Pure speculation. So lovely.

 

[gFrohman]

Possibly.

Lke OMG HE WULD US ADRIAN SHEPHARD!!! LULZ

But seriously now...

He would have seriously considered Shephard (since he went through about as much crap that Freeman did & survived) or maybe he would pull Alyx when she matured (I think the latter is more far-fetched though imo).

 

[Barnz]

Gordon was never, ever tasked to defeat the Combine.

 

[Sledgehammer]

Gordon was never, ever tasked to defeat the Combine.

I meant "the combine occupancy on Planet Earth", which I believe is fairly accurate. Truth be told though, you are correct. And we don't really know what his task is, it could be defeating the entire Combine race, though that is very unlikely. It's probably just liberating humanity on Earth.

 

[Grodan Freechman]

Hah. He never had a choice, only the illusion of one.

 

[Darkside55]

Lke OMG HE WULD US ADRIAN SHEPHARD!!! LULZ

He would have seriously considered Shephard (since he went through about as much crap that Freeman did & survived)

You're now remembering that Adrian Shephard was the G-man's first choice, not Gordon Freeman.

G-man scouted Adrian for months. Gordon was someone who just happened to be in all the right places to cross the G-man's path during BMRF. The G-man ultimately decided that Freeman had more potential (and, quite possibly, could be bent more easily) than Shephard.

Had Freeman refused at any point, or died, Adrian would've appeared on the scene in seconds.

 

[amaranth]

Had Freeman refused at any point, or died, Adrian would've appeared on the scene in seconds.

This.

 

[ríomhaire]

You guys talk like Gordon single-handedly brought down the Combine occupation and anyone else with the same combat skill could have done it it. I'll admit, Gordon did more than any one ordinary combatitant could have, but he was also far more than that. He was what every revolution needs; a symbol. An idea to rally around. He was the One Free Man that people believed could bring the Combine down.

 

[Darkside55]

Adrian could have single-handedly brought down the Combine. He would've shown up in City 17 and seen that shit wasn't right and when the first metrocop told him to pick up that can he would've grabbed the stunstick out of his hands and shoved it down the cop's throat, then hijacked an APC and driven it through the forcefield walls right up to the citadel and mowed down a strider and used its body like a ramp and then he'd hit a gunship in mid-flight and send his APC crashing into the citadel with a big fucking BOOOOOOOOOOM and then he'd jump out and tear the head right off a stalker I mean seriously twist its head right off like a bottlecap and then use the laser beam on its head to slice up the overwatch elites and make his way to the top floor and he'd grab Dr. Breen and Judith Mossman and throw them right into the reactor core and then leap off the citadel right as it exploded and he'd have a parachute because Adrian is always prepared and the force of the blast would have guided him safely to White Forest where he'd launch the satellite before the Combine could even get their message out and he'd hunt down every single one of those advisors and he'd build himself a nice house in the countryside and mount their heads in his den.

And the resistance wouldn't even know what happened.

 

[Hobopro]

Adrian could have single-handedly brought down the Combine. He would've shown up in City 17 and seen that shit wasn't right and when the first metrocop told him to pick up that can he would've grabbed the stunstick out of his hands and shoved it down the cop's throat, then hijacked an APC and driven it through the forcefield walls right up to the citadel and mowed down a strider and used its body like a ramp and then he'd hit a gunship in mid-flight and send his APC crashing into the citadel with a big fucking BOOOOOOOOOOM and then he'd jump out and tear the head right off a stalker I mean seriously twist its head right off like a bottlecap and then use the laser beam on its head to slice up the overwatch elites and make his way to the top floor and he'd grab Dr. Breen and Judith Mossman and throw them right into the reactor core and then leap off the citadel right as it exploded and he'd have a parachute because Adrian is always prepared and the force of the blast would have guided him safely to White Forest where he'd launch the satellite before the Combine could even get their message out and he'd hunt down every single one of those advisors and he'd build himself a nice house in the countryside and mount their heads in his den.

And the resistance wouldn't even know what happened.

Valve should hire you.

 

[Maturin]

Adrian would have been useless because he is anonymous. Gordon Mother****ing Freeman is a legend. It's not Semper Fi you see sprayed everywhere- it's a lambda.

Gman wanted Earth as a trap for the Combine, and the Gene Worm almost got to it first. Shepherd's reward for killing it was his survival.

 

[Darkside55]

Gman wanted Earth as a trap for the Combine, and the Gene Worm almost got to it first. Shepherd's reward for killing it was his survival.

what.

 

[Maturin]

what.

What?

I never played Opposing Force, but wasn't the Gene Worm going to screw up Earth. And didn't Adrian kill it without prompting from the G-Man?

 

[Darkside55]

I never played Opposing Force

Go play it.

The Gene Worm is a glorified personnel carrier. It was a tank with tentacles that could open portals to bring in shock troopers. It was likely only barely sentient and didn't have an agenda like "take over the Earth." That was the shock troopers.

And nothing has ever pointed to the G-man wanting to use Earth as a "trap" for the Combine.

 

[Maturin]

The Gene Worm is the final boss of Half-Life: Opposing Force, and the most mysterious of the Race X aliens. This life form is the equivalent of a "biological resource management factory." It's capable of taking any of Earth's natural resources and assimilating it to make them useful to the aliens' needs. If one fully entered Earth and became productive, it would effectively alter the planet enough to become useful as a new homeworld for Race X. However, this was never shown in action.

That's what Overwiki says anyway. That sounds like it would have messed up Earth, disrupting any plans the G-Man had.

The G-Man's machinations caused that Black Mesa Incident, enabling him to gain control over Xen. He waited for his moment and unleashed Gordon to destroy the Combine garrison on Earth. He still has interests and plans there.

Since it's sort of hard to believe that he never foresaw that Combine invasion and completely improvised his attack after it happened, we can conclude that he planned everything. If G-Man wanted to inflict a defeat on the Combine, then he succeeded. If he just wanted control over Earth or something on it, he had to disrupt the Combine after their arrival, which his resonance cascade made possible. And he did. So that's a kind of trap.

 

[Darkside55]

You're correct up until the G-man acquired Xen. Everything after that is speculation. Gordon was up for bid and he was contracted to the rebels, that is why he ended up destroying the citadel.

Assuming that the G-man knew of the Combine ahead of time is just that: an assumption. We can't "conclude" anything from something that only has basis in speculation, with absolutely no facts to support it. There has been literally NOTHING that says the G-man knew of the Combine prior to the events of Half-Life 2. Nothing. Nothing he says during the course of HL2 and its episodes indicate that he knew of their arrival, or even their existence, prior to HL2.

Nothing he has said at any point indicates that he's out to defeat the Combine. Nothing he's said or done at any point throughout any of the HL games has indicated that he wants "control over Earth."

As it stands, we know of only two reasons he engineered the BMRF incident: first to gain control of the Border World, and second to secure an 'agent' that he could use.

With regard to the events of Half-Life 2 we can only assume that either Gordon destroying the citadel fit into his plans somehow, and/or the resistance offered up something of greater value than what the Combine could offer.

 

[gFrohman]

I agree - there's nothing out there to prove that the G-Man even knew of the Combine. Hell, for all we know, the G-Man could be just another pawn for his employers (just as Gordon is a pawn for the G-Man).

 

[Maturin]

So G-Man is just a neutral party renting you out to some pathetic insurgents? That's just strange. You are working for the G-Man, who is working against the Combine. Why would he constantly watch a mercenary working on some assignment he cared nothing about? Did Kleiner or Magnusson hire Gordon? How do you contact a G-Man? Eli knows about the G-Man, but what could he possibly offer the G-Man?

We don't know that the Resistance explicitly hired Gordon as an asset and it doesn't really stack up well. Kleiner and Barney were expecting Gordon's arrival, but the idea that they knew about the G-Man is just weird. It would have been an awkward conversation in that lab. It's possible that the G-Man contacted Eli, but only because their interests coincided.

Influence in the affairs of Earth is obviously on the G-Man's mind. He gives you a mission in Episode Two because you're still working for him, or at least working toward the same short term goal. He wants to affect what happens on earth. He wants the rocket launch to succeed and has designs on Borealis. He's a puppet master, not a mercenary captain. There's no important difference between "control over Earth" and influence over Earth.

Given his portrayal, it is ridiculous to resist making the obvious assumption that G-Man actually makes plans. Unless you think that he knew nothing about the Combine, did nothing with Gordon for years, rented him out on a whim to some pitiful underdogs with nothing to offer him, then decided to help save the planet.

I never claimed to be doing anything other than speculating, but they're some pretty safe guesses. G-Man has always been portrayed as near-omniscient, calculating, and knowledgeable. He has contacts and associates and clients. There's no evidence that he knew about the Combine beforehand, but there's also no evidence that he is aware of the presence of the moon, or anything else in the solar system. We only see him around in the daytime, after all. Half-Life's story is told in a vague, minimalist way, but no writer intends for his audience to completely ignorant. The whole scheme of hints and cryptic intimations invite speculation, and often there are implicit conclusions that the author intends for people to reach. Flailing around because nothing is definitive and not making the most obvious guesses because hard facts are scarce is silly. Vague settings and stories have to interpreted differently. The most compelling "evidence" is that the image of the G-Man acting spontaneously, in ignorance, is inconsistent with the image Valve has created of his character. It creates a clumsy continuity between the first game and the sequel, and is generally bad storytelling. When there is a choice of possible scenarios, you choose the one that fits.

 

[gFrohman]

What could be happening (and this is just a shot in the dark here, I'm thinking out loud) is maybe the G-Man didn't know about the Combine, but perhaps the G-Man's employers did. I think there's a much bigger force out there than what we're aware of.

 

[Darkside55]

So G-Man is just a neutral party renting you out to some pathetic insurgents?

As far as we know, yes. Breen hinted that the Combine could've contracted Freeman if the price was right. At the end of HL2 G-man mentions that he'd received offers that he initially would not have even considered, but because of the events throughout the game he was open to negotiation. There was also the chance that he might Gordon use you for quite awhile, which would imply that he'd let things play out without him involved. ("If and when your time comes around again")

You know why Half-Life's story is told in a minimalist way? It's so that Valve has a lot of "empty space" to work with in terms of continuity. Right now, we know nothing about what the G-man's real intentions are, what he gained from the resistance, what his stake in humanity and Earth is, nothing. We know next to nothing about him. And Valve wrote him like that so they can go back and retcon things without people saying, "Hey wait but in an earlier game you said..."

Consider that he was fine letting Alyx die on top of the citadel and then two games later he was like, "Oh btw she was really important and I saved her life in Black Mesa please make sure she gets to her father and delivers my cryptic message that could mean almost anything."

And Valve's happy writing like that because the fans go off and try and fill in all the gaps, like right now. "Obviously the G-man knew of the Combine and he set up a trap for them on Earth." What? Where? When? Who said so?

And who're you to say that the rebels had nothing to offer him? Who's to say that it was done on a whim? Maybe they had something that he couldn't get from the Combine. Technology, potential...who knows? Maybe he doesn't care about Earth at all. Maybe he doesn't want to have "influence" over Earth.

Maybe all he's interested in is a big cargo ship with a MASS TELEPORTATION MACHINE on it, and to hell with Earth.

 

[Maturin]

G-Man's comments don't explicitly state that the offers were from the Combine and in competition with a Resistance contract. Now you're speculating too.

G-Man had designs on Earth, this much is made clear by Episode 2. It is logical to assume that this is not a new development, given his portrayal and actions. This may be a retcon, but you make sense of the story based on current understandings, not out-of-character continuity hiccups. Since the story is supposed to interest the fans, the fans should fill in the gaps in a way that makes sense, not a way designed to pass muster for Wikipedia.

Since we don't know what the Resistance could have given, we shouldn't entertain the possibility of their giving anything; not when the G-Man's own vested interest is more likely. And the G-Man seems pretty good at MASS TELEPORTING without infantile human technology.

If G-Man is interested in influencing events on Earth (or getting any advantage from it), which he is, then he would not have hired out Gordon as an asset, heedless of what he did in his contract. Since the Resistance could not have foreseen Gordon's destruction of the Combine teleporter, they did not give him that mission. That means that under your theory, the G-Man repossessed Gordon when he accomplished a mission his clients never gave him. That makes no sense. It was the G-Man who wanted Gordon to lead the uprising and deal a blow to the Combine, then extract him. Gordon was never a client of the Resistance, except perhaps on paper. He simply allied with old friends by choice. If G-Man wants technology from Borealis, and the destruction of the Combine or the cooperation of the rebels in necessary for that goal, then he is NOT "as far as we know "a neutral party renting you out to some pathetic insurgents." And this in deductive reasoning, not speculation.

It's possible that the G-Man did not foresee the formation of the superportal and simply extracted Gordon when he had dealt an appreciable blow. The imminent Combine return would have nullified all Gordon's progress. If the G-Man did not care what the Resistance set Gordon to do, he would not have supported the effort to close the superportal.

 

[G(ordon)-man]

PEELS HERE!!

 

[Darkside55]

G-Man's comments don't explicitly state that the offers were from the Combine and in competition with a Resistance contract. Now you're speculating too.

Dr. Breen states that the contract was "open to the highest bidder." Whether the Combine made a bid for him or not is irrelevant. And considering that currently we were only aware of two parties at that point that could make bids for Gordon Freeman--the resistance and the Combine--it stands to reason that the contract was open to either of them. There cannot be a bid if there is only one party.

Thus while it is an assumption it has actual basis in fact. There was at least the opportunity for the Combine to bid on Gordon Freeman.

G-Man had designs on Earth, this much is made clear by Episode 2.

At what point? Listen, at some point in the future G-man might be shown to have an interest in the Earth. The gman.cpp file might be true and he really is the "servant of the people." Maybe he does want to rule the world.

But AT THIS POINT IN TIME we don't know that. And nothing he's said has given any indication otherwise. Nothing Eli said gave any indication otherwise. The only thing he may have an interest in is the Borealis itself.

And consider this: in Half-Life, he took control of the border world. Xen is the bottleneck for ALL dimensional travel in the universe. In ANY universe, across ALL universes. Xen is the key to long-distance local teleportation. And in Half-Life he and his employers took control of Xen, and you did such a marvelous job securing it for him he asked permission to keep you on retainer.

In Episode 2 he's got interests in the Borealis, which houses long-distance teleportation technology that is fundamentally different from the BMRF teleportation tech.

If you wonder what the rebels could offer that the Combine could not during the events of Half-Life 2, well, there's one thing the rebels had that even the Combine was after, something they could not duplicate...TELEPORTATION TECHNOLOGY. And while it's just speculation as to whether or not the rebels offered this, or if the G-man even asked for it, it has basis in fact. In the first game he was interested in Xen, the dimension that controls teleportation. In Episode 2, he's after a ship that holds portal technology. In Half-Life 2, what did the rebels have that they could offer? Certainly not money, manpower, or resources. Not more than the Combine could have. Certainly not influence or power over Earth.

One could argue that the Combine (or Dr. Breen) might have been unwilling to offer him power or control, and the rebels could have offered that (provided they beat the Combine), and the G-man could have taken that offer...but again, nobody knows one way or the other.

Again, he's never said anything about the Earth. He's never shown to have plans for Earth. If anything he's shown a complete disregard for Earth and the goings-on of this planet.

Since we don't know what the Resistance could have given, we shouldn't entertain the possibility of their giving anything; not when the G-Man's own vested interest is more likely. And the G-Man seems pretty good at MASS TELEPORTING without infantile human technology.

I've argued that same point in the past, you know. "It's possible the resistance didn't give him anything." It certainly is, still, plausible. But then, we don't really know that. That's just fan speculation again. Trying to tie things together without knowing the whole picture.

And the G-man has never mass-teleported anything. Himself, and Gordon Freeman. But this is not mass teleportation. We do not know the actual limits of his technology. The Borealis, at least, has been shown to take an entire ship and part of the drydock and portal them from Ohio to the arctic north. A ship and all its passengers. Plus part of the dock. This is far beyond anything we've seen ANY teleportation technology do in any of the games.

Since the Resistance could not have foreseen Gordon's destruction of the Combine teleporter, they did not give him that mission. That means that under your theory, the G-Man repossessed Gordon when he accomplished a mission his clients never gave him. That makes no sense. It was the G-Man who wanted Gordon to lead the uprising and deal a blow to the Combine, then extract him.

The G-man repossessed Gordon WHEN GORDON WAS ABOUT TO DIE. The G-man was not going to sit idly by and have his most valuable asset destroyed because of some contractual agreement. No one can be sure what the contract actually entailed in the first place. Perhaps the terms of the agreement were for the rebels to be liberated from the Combine occupation of City 17. Perhaps the agreement was something as simple as helping Eli work on the Xen relay teleporter, as that was supposed to be Gordon's original task.

With regard to the Borealis we might very well assume that the G-man simply changed his mind in wanting it. Perhaps he doesn't want it at all. He certainly hasn't said anything on the matter aside from giving triggering Alyx to say "Prepare for unforseen consequences."

The point of all this is, talking about the G-man at all is a pointless waste of time. Trying to deduce what his goals are is a waste of time. Trying to theorize and speculate what he's after is a waste of time. We only know a few things about the G-man and his relationship to Gordon and the other characters, and for the time being without any additional info it's utterly pointless to go around saying things like "This is obviously what the G-man is after," "He wouldn't have done this if he wasn't trying to reach goal x" "Obviously he knows about this because of the way he's characterized," etc.

When it comes to the G-man the best rule is just to leave it and not speculate, deduce, theorize, hypothesize, infer, imply, reason, guess, or ponder. Just leave it.

 

[Maturin]

Dr. Breen states that the contract was "open to the highest bidder." Whether the Combine made a bid for him or not is irrelevant. And considering that currently we were only aware of two parties at that point that could make bids for Gordon Freeman--the resistance and the Combine--it stands to reason that the contract was open to either of them. There cannot be a bid if there is only one party.

Thus while it is an assumption it has actual basis in fact. There was at least the opportunity for the Combine to bid on Gordon Freeman.


At what point? Listen, at some point in the future G-man might be shown to have an interest in the Earth. The gman.cpp file might be true and he really is the "servant of the people." Maybe he does want to rule the world.

But AT THIS POINT IN TIME we don't know that. And nothing he's said has given any indication otherwise. Nothing Eli said gave any indication otherwise. The only thing he may have an interest in is the Borealis itself.

And consider this: in Half-Life, he took control of the border world. Xen is the bottleneck for ALL dimensional travel in the universe. In ANY universe, across ALL universes. Xen is the key to long-distance local teleportation. And in Half-Life he and his employers took control of Xen, and you did such a marvelous job securing it for him he asked permission to keep you on retainer.

In Episode 2 he's got interests in the Borealis, which houses long-distance teleportation technology that is fundamentally different from the BMRF teleportation tech.

If you wonder what the rebels could offer that the Combine could not during the events of Half-Life 2, well, there's one thing the rebels had that even the Combine was after, something they could not duplicate...TELEPORTATION TECHNOLOGY. And while it's just speculation as to whether or not the rebels offered this, or if the G-man even asked for it, it has basis in fact. In the first game he was interested in Xen, the dimension that controls teleportation. In Episode 2, he's after a ship that holds portal technology. In Half-Life 2, what did the rebels have that they could offer? Certainly not money, manpower, or resources. Not more than the Combine could have. Certainly not influence or power over Earth.

One could argue that the Combine (or Dr. Breen) might have been unwilling to offer him power or control, and the rebels could have offered that (provided they beat the Combine), and the G-man could have taken that offer...but again, nobody knows one way or the other.

Again, he's never said anything about the Earth. He's never shown to have plans for Earth. If anything he's shown a complete disregard for Earth and the goings-on of this planet.


I've argued that same point in the past, you know. "It's possible the resistance didn't give him anything." It certainly is, still, plausible. But then, we don't really know that. That's just fan speculation again. Trying to tie things together without knowing the whole picture.

And the G-man has never mass-teleported anything. Himself, and Gordon Freeman. But this is not mass teleportation. We do not know the actual limits of his technology. The Borealis, at least, has been shown to take an entire ship and part of the drydock and portal them from Ohio to the arctic north. A ship and all its passengers. Plus part of the dock. This is far beyond anything we've seen ANY teleportation technology do in any of the games.


The G-man repossessed Gordon WHEN GORDON WAS ABOUT TO DIE. The G-man was not going to sit idly by and have his most valuable asset destroyed because of some contractual agreement. No one can be sure what the contract actually entailed in the first place. Perhaps the terms of the agreement were for the rebels to be liberated from the Combine occupation of City 17. Perhaps the agreement was something as simple as helping Eli work on the Xen relay teleporter, as that was supposed to be Gordon's original task.

With regard to the Borealis we might very well assume that the G-man simply changed his mind in wanting it. Perhaps he doesn't want it at all. He certainly hasn't said anything on the matter aside from giving triggering Alyx to say "Prepare for unforseen consequences."

The point of all this is, talking about the G-man at all is a pointless waste of time. Trying to deduce what his goals are is a waste of time. Trying to theorize and speculate what he's after is a waste of time. We only know a few things about the G-man and his relationship to Gordon and the other characters, and for the time being without any additional info it's utterly pointless to go around saying things like "This is obviously what the G-man is after," "He wouldn't have done this if he wasn't trying to reach goal x" "Obviously he knows about this because of the way he's characterized," etc.

When it comes to the G-man the best rule is just to leave it and not speculate, deduce, theorize, hypothesize, infer, imply, reason, guess, or ponder. Just leave it.

There are multiple parties and entities besides the Resistance and Combine. It is unwarranted to assume that the contract was open to the two we know about, because the G-Man has vested interests concerning them. It is possible, yet the G-Man received "interesting offers." Since Gordon is on the side of the resistance, and the Combine is unlikely to do business with the agent who just hijacked one of their dominions, the bidders are other, anonymous factions.

And I thought I already made it clear that I meant the G-Man has interests concerning Earth, not necessarily a specific desire to control or exploit Earth. Do you get it now? It is untrue that the G-Man has shown disregard for Earth. He appears to have intimate knowledge of it and its inhabitants. He communicates with Eli before the resonance cascade, keeps tabs on Adrian, cultivates relationships with potential pawns. In the written intro from Raising the Bar, he waxes poetic about humanity's situation. It is incongruous that after manipulating Black Mesa and taking control of Xen, he would suddenly act as a neutral captain of mercenaries.

Aperture accidentally moved a ship. The G-Man can toy with time itself. I'm more inclined to think that instead of acquiring some new ability that the humans stumbled upon, he wants to use the Borealis to further his plans for Earth, Xen, or the Combine. He is motivated by politics, not solely greed.

Generally speaking, when you hire out a mercenary, it is understood that he might get killed. But anyways, since no one in the Resistance gave Gordon any instructions, just what has Gordon "done so well?" Is the G-Man expressing such grim satisfaction over Gordon's completion of a mission he was never given? Unlikely. Everything points to the G-Man's manipulation of events, leading to Gordon accomplishing what the G-Man wanted him to accomplish. If the Resistance hired him, it was irrelevant to events almost from the start.

If speculation is a waste of time, I don't know why you are arguing with me. I'm just, in the end, arranging hard facts and best guesses in a way that tells the best story.

 

[Darkside55]

No, you're arranging the facts in a way that you feel tells the best story. "The G-man is omniscient so obviously he knew about the Combine and engineered a plot to trap them on Earth and systematically destroy them over the course of 20+ years."

And I don't know why I'm arguing with you. Maybe it's because I haven't argued with anyone in Singleplayer Games in a long time. Ah well, continuing on...

Multiple parties and entities: we know of a grand total of four: the resistance, the Combine, the vortigaunts, and the G-man's employers. Because the vortigaunts are allied with the resistance they are often considered one party. The G-man's mysterious employers have only been mentioned once and hinted to in Half-Life 2 and its episodes, and information on them has been so vague that one cannot accurately say in what capacity they employ the G-man or what their control is over him, only that they're able to place restrictions on him and allow/deny him things, such as hiring Freeman and saving Alyx Vance. Assuming, though, that they are the G-man's superiors we can say for the sake of argument that they could probably order the G-man to let them use Gordon Freeman, and not have to bid on him. So they're out.

So PRIOR TO THE EVENTS OF HALF-LIFE 2, there were two factions that we know could have bid on Gordon Freeman: the resistance and the Combine. We know this because Dr. Eli Vance, head of the resistance, knew about the offer, and so did Dr. Wallace Breen, consul to the Universal Union. This means that both parties had knowledge that Gordon Freeman was up for bid. AFTER THE EVENTS OF HALF-LIFE 2 the G-man receives interesting offers that he normally would not have considered. This means that PRIOR TO THE EVENTS OF HALF-LIFE 2 your contract was not open to these anonymous factions. The G-man's willingness to accept other offers is a direct consequence of your performance in City 17--"You've done so well, in fact, that I have received some interesting offers for your services. Ordinarily I wouldn't contemplate them but these are extraordinary times, hmm?"

So, again, the only two factions able to bid on Gordon Freeman would have been the resistance and the Combine.

Of the G-man and his pawns: I'm not even sure what we're arguing here anymore. You're saying that he has an interest in the affairs of Earth because he talks to a few people? Listen, there was a point in him talking to Eli Vance. There was a point to him being at Black Mesa. The direct result of that was control over Xen and two pawns he could use. I don't really know where you're getting this, "He has designs for Earth, he has interest in Earth, he wants to be involved with the affairs of Earth." All I'm seeing is a guy who, as far as we know, manipulated a few situations to get what he wanted.

In one post you're saying "There's no important difference between "control over Earth" and influence over Earth," and in the next you're saying "I meant the G-Man has interests concerning Earth, not necessarily a specific desire to control or exploit Earth." Are you waffling on your argument?

And exactly what interests would you say that he has with Earth? "Hey look I got ahold of the dimensional bottleneck," "Hey look I got two agents that I can use to do my bidding" "Hey look I made an unknown profit renting you out" "Hey look there's this ship that who knows what I want to do with it but you know I'm involved somehow." None of these say "I have interests in the Earth." All of these say "I am getting stuff that I can put to personal use."

And you also can't say that all of this stuff isn't just greed. Politics? The old Episode 1 site listed him as an interdimensional bureaucrat, and he's known to have employers. He works for someone else. So whatever he's doing he's either doing for himself or whoever he works for, and we don't know anything about the people he works for.

On the Borealis: Accidentally moving a ship is no small thing. And the G-man cannot 'toy with time.' He can operate in and out of normal space time. He is not, in any way, messing with the flow of time. And again, THE ENTIRE SHIP TELEPORTED. That is huge. I don't just mean that in the literal sense I mean in terms of technology, that is a huge leap from teleporting one or two people at a time to moving a massive object long distances, and quite possibly without using the Xen relay.

On Gordon's instructions: You actually don't know what the resistance's plans for Gordon were. You don't know what the contract was. You don't know, I don't know, maybe Marc Laidlaw never even wrote it down so it's possible he doesn't even know. Maybe, that's what he's writing about right now for Episode 3, going back and inserting that little bit of info in there. Maybe it will never be mentioned again and we'll all just have to assume that the resistance wanted to rally behind Freeman and overthrow the Combine.

Gordon's given several missions throughout the game as well, if you notice. And furthermore any satisfaction the G-man might have had with Gordon's accomplishments might have coincided with what was put down in the contract. You can't actually say "The resistance didn't give Gordon a mission because Gordon didn't hear about it." Man, the resistance tells you NOTHING in the game. You don't know what the hell you were supposed to be doing from the time you got there. All you know is that everybody else knew you were coming and once you got there a bunch of things were set in motion and it led you to the citadel to blow the damn thing up. That's all you, the player, knows. You can't say one way or another that the resistance didn't tell the G-man, "Listen, creepy briefcase guy with unclear motives, we'll give you x in exchange for Gordon to do y." 'Y' could just as easily be 'Blow up the citadel' as it could be 'Make Eli a sandwich.'

On G-man's extended RtB intro: Using colorful descriptions of the way the world once was does not mean he actually cares about humanity's current straits. He was riling Gordon up to achieve a task. Obviously his intent was to make Gordon feel a sense of anger toward the Combine.

Listen, I'm going to let you in on something...I troll these forums. A LOT. Like, a whole lot. I'm very happy just sitting around and saying things to people to incite an argument; arguing one position in order to inspire a certain feeling in others and watch them go to work. But you know what? Most of the topics I troll? I DON'T ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT THEM! Do you see where I'm going with this?

Maybe the G-man is just an intergalactic troll. Doesn't actually give a shit about the Earth or the Combine at all. He just uses Gordon Freeman as a bartering chip, gets something out of him, lets his agent go to work and sits back and watches events unfold. But at the end of the day, he doesn't care. Not. One. Bit. 'Cause he already got the satisfaction of watching something interesting happen and getting paid for it.

You can't say that it isn't like that. At least no more than I can definitively say that the G-man doesn't have a stake in Earth. Hell like I said I've argued that point with a whole lot of people for a whole lot of years. "The G-man is the misunderstood servant of the people," "The G-man probably wasn't paid by the resistance at all," "The G-man cares about humanity"; go look it up I've said all those things for six years on this forum.

So why am I arguing with you? Because you don't know and I don't know what the G-man is really after. We can sit here speculating until the end of time (read: when Ep3 comes out) but we're not actually going to know what he's up to until Valve explicitly tells us "This is what the G-man was doing all this time."

You need to be able to accept a little devil's advocacy, you know.

 

[flamingdts]

The only thing that can be concluded in this thread is if Valve does consider Gearbox characters a canon, then Shepherd has been G-man's primary target for hiring, whiles Gordon did just appear at the right place at the right time.

This can be seen when G-man ignores Gordon multiple times, acknowledging him as simply a scientist who survived longer than others. This continues throughout the game until the very end where G-man realized he could ignore Gordon no longer. On the other hand, G-man is shown to not only acknowledge Shepherd, but assist him in several occasions. He prevented Shepherd's evacuation from Black Mesa, he rearmed the nuke, he even saved Shepherd at one point. G-man has directly interfered with Shepherd, but Gordon is simply at "the wrong place at the wrong time" (ironically).

Also, there is every reason to believe that G-man did not expect Combines appearance. We know that he and his employers want control of Xen (since Xen appears to be an instantanious relay that allows immediately teleportation, not to mention the Xen crystals), but we can also assume that G-man intended to have Shepherd kill Nihilanth, and let Earth overrun by the Race-X. However, his plans were altered significantly when Gordon killed Nihilanth first, and Shepherd killed the Gene worm.

Obviously, the G-man appears to be letting things play out on there own at the moment. For whatever reasons, it is very possible that G-man has gone "rogue" and has decided to use Gordon for his own biddings (or even to assist and save humanity). He may have been intrigued by humanity and vortigaunts alliance, or he may have been intrigued by humanity's uprising in hopeless times.

Whatever reasons G-man may have for Gordon, we know they changed. What G-man intended for Gordon in Half Life 2 is not what he is intends for Gordon now.

PS: Don't forget the job "offer" G-man gave to Gordon. Even if it was "an illusion of freewill", he obviously intended for Gordon to replace Shepherd if he accepts the offer. There is also a reason why Shepherd has not been given an option, but is immediately detained, since Shepherd has been G-man's main interest all along. Gordon just came along and he gave him the "oppourtunity".

 

[Acepilotf14]

JESUS ****ING CHRIST TEXT

 

[Darkside55]

YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE IN FOR WHEN YOU SAW MY NAME

 

[Acepilotf14]

GMAN IS GORDON

/THREAD

 

[Darkside55]

racex.png

 

[Xevrex]

*pokes head in*

Isn't Race-X non-canon?

 

[Maturin]

Multiple parties and entities: we know of a grand total of four: the resistance, the Combine, the vortigaunts, and the G-man's employers. Because the vortigaunts are allied with the resistance they are often considered one party. The G-man's mysterious employers have only been mentioned once and hinted to in Half-Life 2 and its episodes, and information on them has been so vague that one cannot accurately say in what capacity they employ the G-man or what their control is over him, only that they're able to place restrictions on him and allow/deny him things, such as hiring Freeman and saving Alyx Vance. Assuming, though, that they are the G-man's superiors we can say for the sake of argument that they could probably order the G-man to let them use Gordon Freeman, and not have to bid on him. So they're out.

So PRIOR TO THE EVENTS OF HALF-LIFE 2, there were two factions that we know could have bid on Gordon Freeman: the resistance and the Combine. We know this because Dr. Eli Vance, head of the resistance, knew about the offer, and so did Dr. Wallace Breen, consul to the Universal Union. This means that both parties had knowledge that Gordon Freeman was up for bid. AFTER THE EVENTS OF HALF-LIFE 2 the G-man receives interesting offers that he normally would not have considered. This means that PRIOR TO THE EVENTS OF HALF-LIFE 2 your contract was not open to these anonymous factions. The G-man's willingness to accept other offers is a direct consequence of your performance in City 17--"You've done so well, in fact, that I have received some interesting offers for your services. Ordinarily I wouldn't contemplate them but these are extraordinary times, hmm?"

So, again, the only two factions able to bid on Gordon Freeman would have been the resistance and the Combine.

You're suggesting that only factions who we know about can be considered as possible clients of the G-Man? That is absurd. Unless you think that the ONLY sentient life in the universe is that which is directly portrayed in-game, it should be obvious that there are more actors at work in the universe than we will ever know about. There are many species and nations in space. Otherwise, what would Xen connect to? Who would the Combine combine? Who would make up their enemies? You're taking absence of evidence as evidence of absence by supposing that the only possible bidders are active participants in struggle over Earth. Any other sentient life in the universe could have petitioned the G-Man for Gordon's services. You just made a more baseless assumption than I ever did.

Dr. Breen stated that Gordon's contract was open to the highest bidder before the end of Half-Life 2. G-Man received offers presumably at that time. None of this suggests that Freeman was contracted to the Resistance. In fact, that quote supports the idea that Gordon is the G-Man's personal pawn for his own aims. Normally he wouldn't consider hiring Gordon out, but he was so successful that he may consider it now.

Of the G-man and his pawns: I'm not even sure what we're arguing here anymore. You're saying that he has an interest in the affairs of Earth because he talks to a few people? Listen, there was a point in him talking to Eli Vance. There was a point to him being at Black Mesa. The direct result of that was control over Xen and two pawns he could use. I don't really know where you're getting this, "He has designs for Earth, he has interest in Earth, he wants to be involved with the affairs of Earth." All I'm seeing is a guy who, as far as we know, manipulated a few situations to get what he wanted.

And he's still manipulating as of Episode Two, so we'll see on this one. "manipulating situations for gain=influence over the affairs of earth," since the two are intertwined.

In one post you're saying "There's no important difference between "control over Earth" and influence over Earth," and in the next you're saying "I meant the G-Man has interests concerning Earth, not necessarily a specific desire to control or exploit Earth." Are you waffling on your argument?

And exactly what interests would you say that he has with Earth? "Hey look I got ahold of the dimensional bottleneck," "Hey look I got two agents that I can use to do my bidding" "Hey look I made an unknown profit renting you out" "Hey look there's this ship that who knows what I want to do with it but you know I'm involved somehow." None of these say "I have interests in the Earth." All of these say "I am getting stuff that I can put to personal use."

No, you're quibbling over wording. Having a hand in events on Earth is a form of control, and vice versa. G-Man has never directly mentioned Borealis. For all we know he wants to conquer Earth, embarrass the Combine on it, or just scavenge a fridge from an icebreaker. If it's any of the above or anything like it, it precludes him inserting Gordon just because the rebels asked him to. "He's not as neutral party as far as we know."

I originally said "control over Earth or something like that," which is vague and imprecise. One post later I said "influence over the affairs of Earth," and that's all I meant and mean because we don't know his intentions, only his actions.

Unless destroying the citadel reactor was a means of collecting scrap metal for resale on the Alpha Centauri Black Market, the G-Man is not looking primarily for material gain but for political objectives.

On the Borealis: Accidentally moving a ship is no small thing. And the G-man cannot 'toy with time.' He can operate in and out of normal space time. He is not, in any way, messing with the flow of time. And again, THE ENTIRE SHIP TELEPORTED. That is huge. I don't just mean that in the literal sense I mean in terms of technology, that is a huge leap from teleporting one or two people at a time to moving a massive object long distances, and quite possibly without using the Xen relay.

Mass teleportation is not exactly unheard of. We witnessed a Resonance Cascade. The Gene Worm was pretty big, and I don't think the Combine built the citadel in City 17. They drained the oceans with huge portals. That's pretty massive. If I had to guess, the disappearance of Borealis was a side effect, and the ship has more threatening powers. Such as disrupting other teleportation devices, potentially strangling the entire Combine empire.

On Gordon's instructions: You actually don't know what the resistance's plans for Gordon were. You don't know what the contract was. You don't know, I don't know, maybe Marc Laidlaw never even wrote it down so it's possible he doesn't even know. Maybe, that's what he's writing about right now for Episode 3, going back and inserting that little bit of info in there. Maybe it will never be mentioned again and we'll all just have to assume that the resistance wanted to rally behind Freeman and overthrow the Combine.

Gordon's given several missions throughout the game as well, if you notice. And furthermore any satisfaction the G-man might have had with Gordon's accomplishments might have coincided with what was put down in the contract. You can't actually say "The resistance didn't give Gordon a mission because Gordon didn't hear about it." Man, the resistance tells you NOTHING in the game. You don't know what the hell you were supposed to be doing from the time you got there. All you know is that everybody else knew you were coming and once you got there a bunch of things were set in motion and it led you to the citadel to blow the damn thing up. That's all you, the player, knows. You can't say one way or another that the resistance didn't tell the G-man, "Listen, creepy briefcase guy with unclear motives, we'll give you x in exchange for Gordon to do y." 'Y' could just as easily be 'Blow up the citadel' as it could be 'Make Eli a sandwich.'

We don't know that any of that happened at all. So I don't act under the assumption that it did, because the way you propose it is, in my opinion, a bad story. My first post in this topic was primarily my own opinion.

On G-man's extended RtB intro: Using colorful descriptions of the way the world once was does not mean he actually cares about humanity's current straits. He was riling Gordon up to achieve a task. Obviously his intent was to make Gordon feel a sense of anger toward the Combine.

I never said he cared, I said he was intimately acquainted with the planet and its workings, as an manipulator is before he invests in anything.

Listen, I'm going to let you in on something...I troll these forums. A LOT. Like, a whole lot. I'm very happy just sitting around and saying things to people to incite an argument; arguing one position in order to inspire a certain feeling in others and watch them go to work. But you know what? Most of the topics I troll? I DON'T ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT THEM! Do you see where I'm going with this?

Maybe the G-man is just an intergalactic troll. Doesn't actually give a shit about the Earth or the Combine at all. He just uses Gordon Freeman as a bartering chip, gets something out of him, lets his agent go to work and sits back and watches events unfold. But at the end of the day, he doesn't care. Not. One. Bit. 'Cause he already got the satisfaction of watching something interesting happen and getting paid for it.

You can't say that it isn't like that. At least no more than I can definitively say that the G-man doesn't have a stake in Earth. Hell like I said I've argued that point with a whole lot of people for a whole lot of years. "The G-man is the misunderstood servant of the people," "The G-man probably wasn't paid by the resistance at all," "The G-man cares about humanity"; go look it up I've said all those things for six years on this forum.

So why am I arguing with you? Because you don't know and I don't know what the G-man is really after. We can sit here speculating until the end of time (read: when Ep3 comes out) but we're not actually going to know what he's up to until Valve explicitly tells us "This is what the G-man was doing all this time."

You need to be able to accept a little devil's advocacy, you know.

I can say most of that by virtue of the law of BATW. (Boring and therefore wrong)
Devil's advocacy is just a challenge anyway, and my own kind of fanboyism is interpreting the mysteries in order to put together the most coherent story, without really caring whether it's proven or not. And then you had to say some stuff that is almost certainly wrong, so here we are. As far as we know, Gordon really is the G-Man after all.

Edit: Wait a minute. Wasn't it revealed that the Nihilanth and his Xen servants were fleeing from the Combine into Earth? And given that the Nihilanth knows all about G-Man, and the G-Man knows about the Nihilanth, isn't it obvious that all these near-omniscient actors are aware of each other? So of course the G-Man knew about the Combine.

 

[Darkside55]

*pokes head in*

Isn't Race-X non-canon?

I will kill you and everyone you have ever known and loved.

You're suggesting that only factions who we know about can be considered as possible clients of the G-Man? That is absurd.

Man there is just no getting through to this guy.

You are playing a video game.

In this video game we have seen three distinct groups: protagonist, antagonist, and the 'unknown' faction of the G-man and his employers.

All other races that could be out there in the universe are irrelevant. All other sentient lifeforms that could be bidding on Gordon Freeman are irrelevant. You have not and likely will not be shown any of these outside bidders even if they were in the bidding for Gordon Freeman's services. Furthermore if your contract was up for bid and you ended up working for the resistance that obviously means THEY BID ON YOU.

Lex parsimoniae, man. Occam's razor. Do not overcomplicate things unnecessarily. We know Gordon was up for bid. Dr. Vance and Dr. Breen were aware of said bid. Dr. Breen taunts you with the fact that you were up for bid in front of the leader of the resistance, who tells you not to listen to him. Hence if the leader of the resistance and the consul of the Combine knew you were up for bid and you ended up working for the rebels then obviously YOU WERE CONTRACTED TO THE REBELS.

Other parties are irrelevant. Other factions are irrelevant.

Also, the G-man never once said that he wouldn't have hired out Gordon BEFORE the events of HL2...he simply says that the offers he has received AFTER the events of HL2 were now up for consideration. Why else would Breen stand there taunting you about bids that hadn't even come up yet? Duhr huhr.

And he's still manipulating as of Episode Two, so we'll see on this one. "manipulating situations for gain=influence over the affairs of earth," since the two are intertwined.

Again: what.

No, you're quibbling over wording. Having a hand in events on Earth is a form of control, and vice versa. G-Man has never directly mentioned Borealis. For all we know he wants to conquer Earth, embarrass the Combine on it, or just scavenge a fridge from an icebreaker. If it's any of the above or anything like it, it precludes him inserting Gordon just because the rebels asked him to. "He's not as neutral party as far as we know."

I originally said "control over Earth or something like that," which is vague and imprecise. One post later I said "influence over the affairs of Earth," and that's all I meant and mean because we don't know his intentions, only his actions.

Unless destroying the citadel reactor was a means of collecting scrap metal for resale on the Alpha Centauri Black Market, the G-Man is not looking primarily for material gain but for political objectives.

MAYBE HE IS LOOKING TO SCRAP PARTS

That's what I'm saying. We don't know. I don't know. You don't know. I mean you've pretty much accepted what I'm saying here: we don't know what he's up to. A couple posts back you were like, "He didn't want the gene worm to get to Earth because it'd ruin his carefully laid plans of trapping the Combine on Earth which he had designs on and he sent Gordon to do his bidding and destroy the Combine!" and now, y'know, maybe the G-man could be interested in a fridge.

Mass teleportation is not exactly unheard of. We witnessed a Resonance Cascade. The Gene Worm was pretty big, and I don't think the Combine built the citadel in City 17. They drained the oceans with huge portals. That's pretty massive. If I had to guess, the disappearance of Borealis was a side effect, and the ship has more threatening powers. Such as disrupting other teleportation devices, potentially strangling the entire Combine empire.

The resonance cascade was a completely unprecedented event, as were the portal storms. The Gene Worm was only capable of teleporting in one shock trooper at a time, one human-sized lifeform at a time. We never actually saw the Combine drain the oceans, that's RtB and alpha material. As far as we know from the game, all the Combine can do is punch a hole from their universe to ours and from that point they cannot create portals of any kind.

It's possible the Borealis has something else on it, but considering it's an Aperture ship and we all know what Cave Johnson was working on over at Aperture well that's a pretty good indication of what you're gonna find.

Maybe some shower curtains.

We don't know that any of that happened at all. So I don't act under the assumption that it did, because the way you propose it is, in my opinion, a bad story. My first post in this topic was primarily my own opinion.

Psssssst...nothing I've said to you has been out of line with what Valve has told us through the games.

Spoilers that aren't spoiler-tagged: VALVE'S ACTUALLY NOT AS GREAT AT WRITING A STORY AS EVERYONE BELIEVES

I can say most of that by virtue of the law of BATW. (Boring and therefore wrong)
Devil's advocacy is just a challenge anyway, and my own kind of fanboyism is interpreting the mysteries in order to put together the most coherent story, without really caring whether it's proven or not. And then you had to say some stuff that is almost certainly wrong, so here we are. As far as we know, Gordon really is the G-Man after all.

Darkside

wrong about Half-Life

Ha-HA, reactionface.jpg

The problem with all of this is that your type of fanboyism isn't interpreting mysteries and putting them together into the most coherant story, but rather the story that you'd like to have told. And this is evidenced by you pulling a whole bunch of shit out of your ass (something I'll return to after the next quote, so stay tuned!) and mashing it together with hamfists in order to make it sound good to your own ears.

I mean really if we start from your very first post...hell man you read something at Overwiki and didn't know what you were talking about in the first place, claiming the G-man had a plan to trap the Combine on Earth. And we've gone so far from that original point and we're arguing about whether or not there's a difference between "control" and "influence." Jeez. This argument is silly. You're silly.

And given that the Nihilanth knows all about G-Man

Where did you get this

and the G-Man knows about the Nihilanth

Where did you get this

isn't it obvious that all these near-omniscient actors are aware of each other?

Where did you get that either one was omniscient

So of course the G-Man knew about the Combine.

Logical fallacy:

The Nihilanth knew the Combine
G-man supposedly knows the Nihilanth
therefore the G-man knows the Combine

I'm having fun picking you apart. Are you having fun? I'm having fun.

 

[Acepilotf14]

JESUS CHRIST MORE TEXT

 

[Darkside55]

SECRETLY YOU LOVE IT

LOOK AT THAT SEXY TEXT

 

[ríomhaire]

Just finished reading thread. Must go now. Will respond later.

 

[Maturin]

Man there is just no getting through to this guy.

You are playing a video game.

In this video game we have seen three distinct groups: protagonist, antagonist, and the 'unknown' faction of the G-man and his employers.

All other races that could be out there in the universe are irrelevant. All other sentient lifeforms that could be bidding on Gordon Freeman are irrelevant. You have not and likely will not be shown any of these outside bidders even if they were in the bidding for Gordon Freeman's services. Furthermore if your contract was up for bid and you ended up working for the resistance that obviously means THEY BID ON YOU.

Lex parsimoniae, man. Occam's razor. Do not overcomplicate things unnecessarily. We know Gordon was up for bid. Dr. Vance and Dr. Breen were aware of said bid. Dr. Breen taunts you with the fact that you were up for bid in front of the leader of the resistance, who tells you not to listen to him. Hence if the leader of the resistance and the consul of the Combine knew you were up for bid and you ended up working for the rebels then obviously YOU WERE CONTRACTED TO THE REBELS.

Other parties are irrelevant. Other factions are irrelevant.

I don't even know where to begin. You keep harping on the face that so much is left blank and we just don't know, yet you make the most baseless assumptions. G-Man is the Intergalactic Bureaucrat. You can't assume that all his dealings are related with the current struggle on Earth. You can't deny that he has dealings that aren't related to Earth. In this vague setting where the interests of goals of other factions and species, like the G-Man's employers are intimated (we are not supposed to know the details), it is ludicrous to ignore their existence in favor of shoehorning known facts together. YOU JUST DON'T KNOW who was bidding on the contract, and insisting that only the factions we know about could and did actually bid is bizarre. And Gordon being contracted to the rebels fails Occam's Razor pretty badly, given that you need to invent all sorts of special conditions and justifications for a logically shaky conclusion. "G-Man wanted you to hurt the Combine so he delivered you to the Combine's enemies." Complicated as hell, right?

Also, the G-man never once said that he wouldn't have hired out Gordon BEFORE the events of HL2...he simply says that the offers he has received AFTER the events of HL2 were now up for consideration. Why else would Breen stand there taunting you about bids that hadn't even come up yet? Duhr huhr.

"Ordinarily I wouldn't contemplated them, but these are extraordinary times." It's right in there. He says he's received offers for your services. You can't draw conclusions on whether he's talking about the first offers for a contract or new ones previously ignored. But the former makes more sense. Gordon does not get hired out by the G-Man, until his success in helping the rebels becomes known, spurring interest in his services. Presumably the bids came up before the destruction of the reactor. An insurrection could be a pretty big embarrassment for the Combine.

Again: what.

Innggg-lish

MAYBE HE IS LOOKING TO SCRAP PARTS

That's what I'm saying. We don't know. I don't know. You don't know. I mean you've pretty much accepted what I'm saying here: we don't know what he's up to. A couple posts back you were like, "He didn't want the gene worm to get to Earth because it'd ruin his carefully laid plans of trapping the Combine on Earth which he had designs on and he sent Gordon to do his bidding and destroy the Combine!" and now, y'know, maybe the G-man could be interested in a fridge.

For all I know. But that would be really stupid. And I don't really care about what is explicitly proven so much as what the best explanation is.

The resonance cascade was a completely unprecedented event, as were the portal storms. The Gene Worm was only capable of teleporting in one shock trooper at a time, one human-sized lifeform at a time. We never actually saw the Combine drain the oceans, that's RtB and alpha material. As far as we know from the game, all the Combine can do is punch a hole from their universe to ours and from that point they cannot create portals of any kind.

Unprecedented? Where do you get that idea? The human scientists not only know of them, they know about the conditions and risks of causing one.

And RtB material certainly takes precedence over your own personal guess that the Borealis involves mass teleportation and the G-Man wants it. If you're going to make guesses, make them with existing material in mind- all of it. Since we don't know, choose something less lame than "the intergalactic time-stopping G-Man is impressed by an ship breaking an Atlantic crossing speed record."

It's possible the Borealis has something else on it, but considering it's an Aperture ship and we all know what Cave Johnson was working on over at Aperture well that's a pretty good indication of what you're gonna find.

Not possible- obvious. Eli believes that the ship is as dangerous and destructive as Black Mesa's experiments. So it has to be able to do more than change location if it is as useful and hazardous as a resonance cascade.

The problem with all of this is that your type of fanboyism isn't interpreting mysteries and putting them together into the most coherant story, but rather the story that you'd like to have told. And this is evidenced by you pulling a whole bunch of shit out of your ass (something I'll return to after the next quote, so stay tuned!) and mashing it together with hamfists in order to make it sound good to your own ears.

I mean really if we start from your very first post...hell man you read something at Overwiki and didn't know what you were talking about in the first place, claiming the G-man had a plan to trap the Combine on Earth. And we've gone so far from that original point and we're arguing about whether or not there's a difference between "control" and "influence." Jeez. This argument is silly. You're silly.

coherent

You're doing just as much hamfisted mashing, only you like listing all the possibilities without caring that most of them sound stupid. Thus, they're wrong. And rehashing isn't very entertaining.

And if I thought the 'trap' thing was anything more than a 5% offhand-mentioned personal theory that has been kicked around before, then I would have explained it. You're silly for paying any attention to wording at all. I was being vague because we just don't know.

Where did you get this

He talks about him during the bossfight. Unless he was referring to Gordon's pet hampster waiting for him at home, which is possible.

Where did you get this

Duhhh, he wanted control of Xen, helped cause the Resonance Cascade with the (according to RtB) using the head crystal of a Nihilanth, and seemed quite happy when you killed one. The goddamn pathetic scientists knew about the Nihilanth. How could the G-Man not?

Where did you get that either one was omniscient

near-omniscient
I didn't get that from anywhere, it just struck me that manipulative beings who control entire species and do business on an intergalactic scale generally know who their neighbors are.

Logical fallacy:

It wasn't a logical argument. It was a "both answers are possible but wouldn't it be stupid if it was the first one" situation. And if you wanted to choice, you'd be pretty stupid to decide that the G-Man didn't know about the vast, expansionist empire engaged in active conflict with the creature he apparently sent you to kill.

 

[Sledgehammer]

Spoilers that aren't spoiler-tagged: VALVE'S ACTUALLY NOT AS GREAT AT WRITING A STORY AS EVERYONE BELIEVES

There's a few reasons they stories seem comparatively better than most other developers'.
First of all, the concept of the story itself. It's a very open-ended story, which leaves much to the fantasy of the player, this creates an illusion of a well written story.
Also, everything about the game is just great, which means that the story also seems great, at the very least acceptable.
And the important factors to bringing a storyline to life, such as acting and showing relationships are well done.

 

[Maturin]

There's a few reasons they stories seem comparatively better than most other developers'.
First of all, the concept of the story itself. It's a very open-ended story, which leaves much to the fantasy of the player, this creates an illusion of a well written story.
Also, everything about the game is just great, which means that the story also seems great, at the very least acceptable.
And the important factors to bringing a storyline to life, such as acting and showing relationships are well done.

It sets a scene, and has good characters and excellent dialog. That's enough, really, for the kind of game it is. It's not a movie plot or even a JRPG kind of plot.

 

[Darkside55]

Sigh

You can't assume that all his dealings are related with the current struggle on Earth.

Irrelevant

You can't deny that he has dealings that aren't related to Earth.

Irrelevant

YOU JUST DON'T KNOW who was bidding on the contract, and insisting that only the factions we know about could and did actually bid is bizarre.

Irrelevant as obviously if you were being bid on and you ended up working for the resistance you were obviously contracted by the resistance. Is there something you're not getting here?

IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY ALIEN SPECIES COULD HAVE BEEN OUT THERE THROWING BIDS OUT FOR GORDON FREEMAN ON THE G-MAN'S GALACTIC EBAY

THE POINT IS THAT HE ENDED UP WORKING FOR THE RESISTANCE

AND WHILE HE CERTAINLY MAY (and note, may, because you can't be 100% certain that the G-man deals with other races...perhaps he only deals with humans, you need to allow for that possibility) HAVE DEALINGS OUTSIDE OF EARTH, IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY MATTER BECAUSE NONE OF THOSE OUTSIDE FACTIONS HAVE SHOWN UP IN THE GAMES

THEY HAVE NOT BEEN TALKED ABOUT IN THE GAMES

FOR ALL THE GOOD IT DOES YOU TO SAY, "Well I bet the G-man deals with all sorts of other people that we don't see and you can't say that his dealings are limited to blah blah blah," IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY MATTER IN THE CONTEXT OF THE VIDYA GAEM

And Gordon being contracted to the rebels fails Occam's Razor pretty badly, given that you need to invent all sorts of special conditions and justifications for a logically shaky conclusion. "G-Man wanted you to hurt the Combine so he delivered you to the Combine's enemies." Complicated as hell, right?

No, because you're twisting it. First of all:

G-man wanted you to hurt the Combine

Speculation. I never said that. You're the one who's been saying that. From the beginning you're the one who's been saying that the G-man had a plan to trap the Combine and that it's ridiculous that he'd help a band of rebels if it didn't coincide with his plans, thus the G-man obviously was trying to stop the Combine. Those are YOUR words, not mine.

And there are no "special conditions." Listen: the game showed us two factions. The game told us that Gordon was up for bid. Gordon works for one of these factions. Ergo, if Gordon was up for bid and we were shown two factions and he works for one of them, logically the faction he works for is the one that won his contract. Do you even understand what Occam's razor means? It means to boil something down to its simplest point without over complicating things. Without adding anything extra onto it.

You're the guy who's saying "Well you need to invent all sorts of special conditions to make this work!" yet your argument is "You don't know if the G-man is working with all these other alien races and species we haven't seen yet and it's a whole vast universe out there and maybe all these anonymous factions might be out there bidding on Gordon Freeman." I mean you're either daft or you're an awesome troll, a man truly worthy of my praise.

I would give you an 8 out of 10 on the troll scale.

He says he's received offers for your services. You can't draw conclusions on whether he's talking about the first offers for a contract or new ones previously ignored. But the former makes more sense. Gordon does not get hired out by the G-Man, until his success in helping the rebels becomes known, spurring interest in his services. Presumably the bids came up before the destruction of the reactor.

If...Dr. Breen...taunted you about the contract...prior to the destruction of the Citadel...and Eli Vance...showed panicked emotion at you learning of said contract...oh lord.

Why on Earth would Dr. Breen say, "Did you know your contract was open to the highest bidder?" IF SAID CONTRACTS WEREN'T EVEN ACTIVE?! If the G-man didn't hire Gordon out previously, but only started to take offers after Gordon's successes, why would Breen even give a shit about mentioning it to you? "Hey BTW Gordon, you've done such a good job smashing up what I've tried to build here that the G-man called me up and he was like, 'H-h-h-hey, Dr....Breen, I am just CALLING to...let...you...know that Dr. FREEman's s-s-s-s-services will be available FOR A PRICE, due to his...hm...exemplary performance. Have...a nice DAY."

And then Breen's gonna do the evil monologue to you about contracts that may possibly be up in the future. In front of his friend-turned-enemy. Yeah ok.

And then before Eli's brain gets sucked out through an advisor's meat straw he's going to break down and tell you he has so much to tell you about his involvement with you and the G-man. Yeah ok.

And I don't really care about what is explicitly proven so much as what the best explanation is.

Ah, see, that's the crux of the whole thing. "I don't care about what's proven." So I could sit here railing away and poking at all the little holes in your logic but it ultimately comes down to the fact that you actually don't give a shit. Your "best explanation" is simply going to be the one that you want to hear.

But I am a glutton for a good argument so instead of just calling it at that and stopping here I'm going to continue on. I've pretty much accepted that your mind can't be changed by this point, and generally I hate arguing with the obstinate, but what the hell. This is the most use I've gotten out of this section in months. I almost never come into Mythology anymore, it's pretty sad.

Unprecedented? Where do you get that idea? The human scientists not only know of them, they know about the conditions and risks of causing one.

It never happened before though, did it? You might be able to say that these are the conditions for causing X event, but you might have never caused X event before.

"I never thought I'd see a resonance cascade, let alone create one."

Unprecedented means "without precedent." As in, without previous instance. No one had ever seen a resonance cascade before. There were theories. There were protocols to prevent ever creating a resonance cascade. But no one had ever seen one. No one had ever actually heard of one being created before.

And obviously this is true because the resonance cascade tore open a portal to the Border World. Any resonance cascade therefore would have torn open a portal to the Border World. And because no prior portals ever existed...gasp...UNPRECEDENTED!

And RtB material certainly takes precedence over your own personal guess that the Borealis involves mass teleportation and the G-Man wants it. If you're going to make guesses, make them with existing material in mind- all of it. Since we don't know, choose something less lame than "the intergalactic time-stopping G-Man is impressed by an ship breaking an Atlantic crossing speed record."

Boy are you going to feel stupid when Episode 3 comes out and that turns out to be what it is. Of course, you're not actually going to come back in here and apologize to me, or anything. You'll just quietly shut up about it and go on pretending like it never happened, and hopefully Darkside55 won't bring it up.

Which I won't.

But I'll know.

And you'll know.

Because really, "personal guess" that the Borealis involves mass teleportation? So I'm actually just "guessing" that a ship...whose blueprints were signed by GLaDOS, possibly even designed by GLaDOS, a ship that teleported itself far far away from its position, a ship built by Aperture Science whose only inventions were shower curtains, automated turrets, a malevolent-yet-motherly AI, and a GUN THAT SHOOTS PORTALS, a company that was racing against Black Mesa to develop teleportation technology for a Department of Defense contract, they build this big ol' ship that warps itself into a glacier...

And it's my personal guess that it has a teleportation machine on it. There are not enough HERPS and DERPS to accurately describe how retarded you are.

BTW in case you didn't guess RtB material was cut for a reason. It's to be considered non-canon and just a rough outline for what they used in the finished product, with ideas that might circulate back into continuity, but likely altered.

Not possible- obvious. Eli believes that the ship is as dangerous and destructive as Black Mesa's experiments. So it has to be able to do more than change location if it is as useful and hazardous as a resonance cascade.

And you don't think that a teleportation machine that powerful could be dangerous? Who knows what it's actually capable of.

But yeah there might be some other stuff on there too. An evil AI, perhaps. I don't know. You don't know for certain either. Might be all there is on that ship is a teleportation machine and some delicious cake.

coherent

I HAVE MADE A SPELLING ERROR THAT MY OPPONENT HAS UNCOVERED

MY ENTIRE ARGUMENT IS UNDONE

You're doing just as much hamfisted mashing, only you like listing all the possibilities without caring that most of them sound stupid. Thus, they're wrong. And rehashing isn't very entertaining.

Aww jeez, I'm sorry, Mr. Laidlaw. I wuz just try'na say that since we don't know enough we might as well not bother tryin' 'ta spekulate.

I din' knowed you wuz the expert on writin a gud story and that your ideas are the only 'ceptable ones.

And if I thought the 'trap' thing was anything more than a 5% offhand-mentioned personal theory that has been kicked around before, then I would have explained it. You're silly for paying any attention to wording at all. I was being vague because we just don't know.

Tee-hee, look everybody. He's actually trying to make me forget about a part of his argument in a roundabout way, then saying he was intentionally being vague in order to try and drop the issue and come over to my point of "we don't know." Isn't that cute?

"YOU SHOULDN'T PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT I SAY! IGNORE ME!"

He talks about him during the bossfight. Unless he was referring to Gordon's pet hampster waiting for him at home, which is possible.

HAMSTER

NO P

HAHA, I GRAMMAR NAZI'D YOU TOO

HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES

APPLESAUCE BITCH





Also, at no point does the Nihilanth ever specifically mention the G-man by name. A lot of people cite the old pak0.pak .wavs, that tired "You are man, he is not man, for you he waits, for you" soundfile. You know when the Nihilanth said that to me in game, man? He dropped me into a pit of water with a goddamned ICHTHYOSAUR waiting for my HEV-covered hide. He could have very well been talking about that fang-toothed fish. You don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows. Maybe not even Valve knows.

At no point does the Nihilanth ever SPECIFICALLY refer to the G-man. You cannot concretely, with 100% certainty say that the Nihilanth was talking about the G-man. You can't. You might quote me again and say, "It's obvious, blah blah blah" and yeah, maybe he was talking about the G-man. But you can't say for CERTAIN.

That's the argument I've been trying to make to you this entire time.

Duhhh, he wanted control of Xen, helped cause the Resonance Cascade with the (according to RtB) using the head crystal of a Nihilanth, and seemed quite happy when you killed one. The goddamn pathetic scientists knew about the Nihilanth. How could the G-Man not?

No no no, see, you're wrong. The G-man never used a head crystal from the Nihilanth, you're wrong. See, I've got RtB too, man. Practically everybody on this forum does. Please don't quote RtB like nobody else has got it. We've all had it since November 2004.

Now see, the G-man obtained a pure crystal sample, the purest they'd ever seen. There was supposed to be a tie-in between the crystals on Xen and a crystal in the Nihilanth's head, but they couldn't do it for some reason. They never ended up playing on that.

At no point has it EVER been said that the G-man took the crystal from the Nihilanth's head. You are mistaken out the ass right now and I'm not sure if you KNOW you're mistaken and just lying to support your point or if you genuinely didn't know that. Regardless, now you know, and knowing is half the battle.


Now, with regards to the G-man knowing about the Nihilanth, he might have very well known that Xen was under something's control, but maybe he didn't know what. Maybe he never knew, maybe he didn't care. Can't say for certain. The scientists only suspected there was a being over there controlling the portals because they'd already shut down the portals on our end and there was no other explanation.

Well, there might have been other explanations, but hey it's a video game. They're kind of obliged to tell you, "MASSIVE ALIEN BABY COMING UP, BE PREPARED."

near-omniscient
I didn't get that from anywhere, it just struck me that manipulative beings who control entire species and do business on an intergalactic scale generally know who their neighbors are.

I didn't get that from anywhere

I DIDN'T GET THAT FROM ANYWHERE

I don't actually have to say anything here.

It wasn't a logical argument. It was a "both answers are possible but wouldn't it be stupid if it was the first one" situation. And if you wanted to choice, you'd be pretty stupid to decide that the G-Man didn't know about the vast, expansionist empire engaged in active conflict with the creature he apparently sent you to kill.

It wasn't an active conflict though, now was it? The Combine couldn't access Xen. That is why they never pursued; it's not like they gave up interest. They couldn't FIND the damn place. And you don't know how long ago the Nihilanth and the Xenians arrived at the Border World. It could have been millenia for all we know.

Thus if I break into someone's home, ransack his shit, and hightail it out of there with my loot, does that mean I know his business?

Say I take the key to his house and the deed to his house and I get someone to forcibly evict him and now that house is mine, does that mean I know everybody he's ever encountered in his life?

It wasn't a logical argument