Just how bad is The Combine?

[@Leadhead]

Hey guys! If you wanna join in on some games, and get involved with this cool community, you can join my discord at discord.gg/PVvXESU7WU As long as I'm throwing out links, I've got new merch that you can pick up at leadheadshop.com/ plus you can support me over on Patreon if you wanna show some more love. www.patreon.com/leadhead

[@Leadhead]

And yeah, I know I make a *lot* of Half-Life 2 vids. There's just a ton to dissect there. I mean I haven't even *touched* on the episodes yet. Plus, Source Engine's command console makes them super easy to edit together, and do cool shots and stuff with, so they kind of serve as a nice break for me. Even the writing is way easier than most stuff, because I just know these games like the back of my hand.

[@2spoopy4u33]

@@Leadhead pick up that can

[@apostoldimov9856]

@@Leadhead And we love you for that! Take your time and keep up with the good work - I am sure that your videos for the episode One and Two will be Gems, can't wait to see them!! Much love Leadhead ❤️

[@rockhound3.14]

@Leadhead i love that you mention how amazing humans were able to break the combine grasp. i feel it was humans uncanny nack for conflict that ended up saving themselves. the need for competitiveness. Our unpredictable nature

[@ramrot666]

I'm really looking forward to what you have to say about LSD! It's one of my favorite games because of its unpredictability. Kind of makes my brain hazy though honestly. Something about the stepping sound effects and the bright colors and overall vibe just fucks with me.

[@non1263]

I once saw someone describe Half-Life as "when you're playing a first person shooter but the antagonist is playing Stellaris."

[@keerf255]

So this is what it feels like being on the opposite end of my boot😂

[@macklinbutcher3145]

@@keerf255 Shut up.

[@KlaussMarcellus]

So Freeman is the Crime Boss adding Deviancy and Crime to our colonies...

[@keerf255]

@@macklinbutcher3145 no. Purge the xenos.

[@OccultistOfTheBloodMoon]

@@keerf255 smh just use the colossus on earth lol

[@Fipsh]

The combine is bad in both ways: 1. Torturing an entire species. 2. Can't kill a jumping scientist in an orange suit.

[@CeoMacNCheese]

Well the combine underestimated humanities creativity and determination although determination can be dead for a while but when someone like gordon comes around and shows humanity that if we do this then we can survive. But we need him to do this first ie. Close the portal from earth to wherever it leads to, to cut off reinforcements and stuff. As for our creativity the resistance used combine tech and weapons for their own. Like for example instead of using a human medkit we used the combines much more better medkits. Instead of using a human battery we use the combines battery against. Weaponry could be used as a double edge sword if used properly (I think)

[@mrswishadank2329]

Also eugenic supporting fascism. That’s a pretty big red flag haha

[@stachman9531]

@@mrswishadank2329 i don't think the combine are fascist, i think thy are beyond fascism.

[@jwithextrajj]

@@stachman9531 Very far beyond that. This isn't a system of government they've built, it's a slaughterhouse with us as cattle on the conveyor belt.

[@tragedyplustime8271]

@Дамир Птицын Nope, the Combine can't kill Gordon because he's both under the G-Man and the Vortessence's protection. Both entities far outmatch the Combine.

[@nunoosorio3832]

This makes GLaDOS seem like a caring mother.

[@cheatsykoopa98]

well, glados is cruel, but the combine believes they're doing the right thing, hence all their medical speech

[@cheatsykoopa98]

@Matthew Rendenm they wouldnt spend all these resources just to fuck with us. they are the combine, they want to make every part of their empire act as one single organism, which is why they treat rebels as cancerous cells and gordon as an outside individual

[@cheatsykoopa98]

@Matthew Rendenm except you cant prove they are. I just showed the medical speech and the way they make breen talk to the citizens. what do you have?

[@cheatsykoopa98]

@Matthew Rendenm you're comparing to animal slaughter for food, do you think the people who produce it do it to be cruel? no, they do it the most efficient way possible because people gotta eat, they dont think of the ethical implications of breeding animals just to kill them to eat. if your logic is that the combine do the same then you agree they're not doing it just to be evil

[@cheatsykoopa98]

@Matthew Rendenm also your rebuttal is based just on your word, it would make sense depending on what you believe they're doing, but someone with a different opinion is gonna have a different view, such as they really use medical speech because, just like the slaughter comparison, they believe is the best and most efficient way to deal with the situation also be respectful, I havent offended you, so I expect the same from you if you wanna talk politely

[@risdio51]

Shoutout to that one guy in the apartment who managed to hold the door down and give you just barely the time you needed to escape

[@TheGabrielryu]

He's an unspoken hero, even more considering he probably died in a gruesome way right after you left the building

[@UnclePhil6705]

You can hear the sound of them breaking through the door, and a gunshot if you're close enough to the staircase.

[@OljeiKhan]

​@@TheGabrielryuhe's really REALLY lucky if they finished him there :/

[@fishslayer3528]

Rest in piece Legend!🫡

[@O5MO]

@@UnclePhil6705 he is actually killed, you can return and see it

[@duckve0322]

“yo why he hopping like that” -combine soldier, moments before death

[@sami_irl]

its only been 3 hours but this still needs to be top comment

[@duckve0322]

@@sami_irl haha thanks

[@cozonacel36]

Overwatch, he's doing it sideways.

[@evieisleavie]

Citizen, you're breaking the speed lim-*riddled with buckshot from both barrels of a spas-12*

[@Vilotaa]

@@cozonacel36 *Thé á la Menthe plays in the background*

[@mattstorm360]

When you mentioned the miscount, i feel the need to mention that most of the CPs used stun-sticks. If you got hit by a stun-stick earlier in the game after getting too close to a CP the screen would go white and you would wake up a bit away from where you got hit. Most of those people aren't dead, just beaten down, probably viciously. I mean you meet the crying couple later in the game so they survived but probably got beaten down. To add to the CPs, You get beaten down constantly but hey, you got the chance to do some beating on your own. Barney even tells Gordon he is behind on his "beating quota" meaning they probably have to rough up a set number of civilians every month or so.

[@flintfrommother3gaming]

The crying couple actually died in like Half Life: Episode Two or One I think.

[@mattstorm360]

@@flintfrommother3gaming That skeleton was more like a running gag. You actually see them at white forest. They run out to a cliff and talk about how far they came. Along the lines of: Told you we would think of something.

[@flintfrommother3gaming]

@@mattstorm360 Oh thanks for the explanation, sorry for misunderstanding

[@duckfilms3662]

I think the "beating quota" is sarcasm on Barny's part.

[@ceu160193]

@@duckfilms3662 It could be just cruel joke from Barney, or it could be actual quota, that you have to complete for promotion.

[@Tim_The_Dim]

The combine is really scary, and the more you look into it the scarier they are

[@AustinDallasPictures]

What's amazing is that even though they are an interdimensional army, they resemble the tyrannical forces that our world has!

[@glampson5159]

leadhead is the throat GOAT frfr

[@silver6kraid]

I like how he didn't even touch on how the combine rolled over humanity in 7 hours and left the bare minimum of infrastructure once they were done with us. Conquering us was trivial and they couldn't care less about us past the resources they stole. Now we're just another spent resource that will rot away.

[@masonnotjason8214]

That's why I love learning more about them

[@mattstorm360]

@@silver6kraid The only reason the Combine didn't exterminate all humans was because of the local teleport. Combine can travel universes but we rely on local transportation. Humans figured out how to teleport in our universe by accounting for the Dark energy equation and using Xen as a slingshot.

[@TinyDeskEngineer]

With how much the Combine wants to prevent rebellion, it's surprising that Barney is able to work undercover without being detected immediately.

[@joseislanio8910]

He barely does his beating quota.

[@TheWinjin]

That is an interesting thing indeed. And it shows that their grip is far less strong that they think \ want to show. Of course it's needed for the game too, but the point is that there's this whole underground network in the Canals that is perfectly working for, apparently, years, as they have whole operation set down there that is being destroyed just as you're leaving the city. It looks like the whole thing wasn't important enough for Combine to look into for years. Maybe it's because Breen and Mossman were helping, and also G-Man was obviously working against Combine, though it seems that his team is even stronger than Combine - or at least on par and works differently.

[@guifdcanalli]

@@TheWinjin also because truly they dont care that much for the mankind, they have earth, the resources and the citadel intact, some people trying to scape is really a mild inconvenience to them at this point... Until some crazy man with a crowbar started to fly through the region killinf everyone and literally destroying the Citadel in a matter of hours

[@ShadeUnderTheSoul]

I don't think the Combine itself really monitors them that closely, as long as no anomalous behaviors trip Overwatch's system.

[@AlejandroLZuvic]

As others commented, I don't think they actually care at this point. They know they have control of Earth resources, they're keeping humans around as a bonus but if the rebellion ever gets out of hand the Combine wouldn't even doubt of blowing up the remaining cities, striping the fee resources left, and on to the next planet.

[@Storyteller543]

Careful leadhead, or you'll have a civil protection team kicking down the door of your current residence.

[@fatis2745]

Permanent Off-World Relocation

[@axiolot5857]

@@fatis2745 off world relocation to the underworld lmao

[@pricegaming2411]

@@axiolot5857 actually, probably their overworld

[@Gideon_the_Seraph]

That’s how it always starts. First a building, then the whole block.

[@Gogglesofkrome]

@@Gideon_the_Seraph if they don't have a reason, they'll find one

[@CrraVideos]

this made me realized that half life is much darker as i original imagine. I mean the original beta story was dark but the implications of the entire combine invasion is..out this world

[@triplehelix3207]

read about the breengrub, its so much worse. The Combine don't want just you to become part of them but your soul.

[@zexa252]

This also made me ralise how well written HL2 is and how sad we never got to so episode 3 in the form of a fully made addition to the Game

[@unchpunchem8947]

To be honest I find the current half life 2 story to be just as dark, if not even darker than the beta story. The current story is just more subtle and less cartoonish in how dark it is. It isn’t just child murder and genocide in the way we typically think about an evil oppressive force, but instead a total suppression of the human spirit and soul

[@CrraVideos]

@@unchpunchem8947 Yeah, the beta story was dark but was literally dark. Was very obvious, this story is dark but not as obvious as the first one. And i love it

[@lizardlegend42]

@@unchpunchem8947 thank you. This is exactly my thoughts whenever someone says they wish we got the beta story instead. The beta's atmosphere is, as you described, cartoonishly dark. I absolutely love how unique the atmosphere of half life 2 is compared with any other piece of media. It's probably my favourite aspect of the game tbh. The feel of it is entirely its own

[@jangxx]

Considering how dark and hopeless this world seems, it kind of makes those sub 1h speedruns even funnier. While The Combine is throwing the entire force of its hive against Gordon, the guy is just flying through everything and breaking the laws of physics left and right, blowing up the citadel faster than The Combine can even realize what's happening.

[@TheSwerAlmighty]

"7 hour war? I can do better."

[@kocant1274]

Combine: we defeated all the worlds militarys in 7 hours Gordan: hold my beer

[@royalecrafts6252]

The gman is guiding Gordon in half life 2 tho, so naturally Gordon can cause all these, a man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world

[@iLiokardo]

Amazing.

[@selohcin]

Given that Gordan only had to fight a tiny fraction of the Combine forces throughout the two Half-Life games, it makes sense he was able to go quickly.

[@karona303]

One of the spookiest parts is that we have never actually seen in cannon what the real intelligent life behind the combine look like.

[@aprender1952]

Well, we have the advisors, so that’s something

[@olympian3]

i think its the advisors , their mechanical and ai systems and other enslaved races such as vortigaunts, and possibly striders, hunters and gunships could be the radically altered versions of enslaved species, i.e. what the stalkers are compared to humanity. I think the idea is that the combine is a machine in itself, soulless and leaderless

[@dusky6280]

They're too busy playing inter-universal chess with the G-Man's "employers".

[@Shovel_lover-j8g]

@@aprender1952yeah

[@williambutcher7429]

The advisors are definitely high up in the combine but they might not even be the actual leaders of it. They could just be high ranking officials

[@asinski324]

It's even darker when you remember that Earth is just a little dot in the entire combine infrastructure. Even if the Earth wins, it would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.

[@93bd9]

damn...

[@balledup]

Epistle 3 from Mark Laidlaw touches on that subject near the end

[@feeler6670]

And if the combine decides to retake earth... Humanity wouldn't even last 7 seconds.

[@paulssss5463]

No it doesn't mean nothing. If the word that humanity managed to destroy the combine presence on Earth got out to other Combine occupied worlds, a universal widescale revolt could break out.

[@DarkestMirrored]

@@paulssss5463 that's... questionable. Remember that the Combine presence on Earth is basically a skeleton crew. It took them seven hours to crush our entire global military resistance when they first opened a portal in - everything we see is just the bare minimum required to keep order afterwards and oversee extraction and conversion procedures. Even if we liberated a HUNDRED similarly enslaved worlds (something I don't think a post-Combine resistance would necessarily be up to in the first place), that's... nothing to them. The Combine's industry is UNFATHOMABLY vast.

[@michaellamas1497]

Really makes the pervasive isolation of Portal 1 hit harder when, just before you kill GladOS she says: "Are you trying to escape? Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out there will make you wish you were back in here."

[@nataliecameron]

God I wish portal and half life overlapped a little bit more

[@miguelmalvina5200]

@@nataliecameron There should be comics or books of that tbh, would be really profitiable or something

[@JJJayyyy]

She also says something like "I am the only thing standing between us and them. Well I was.." right before she dies.

[@unclelarry8842]

Fun fact: the Overwatch voice is voiced by Ellen McLain, the same voice actor for Glados!

[@George-zj9rr]

@@nataliecameron I hope the saga concludes with Alyx/Gordon looking for a McGuffin, something that can cripple the combine and at least make them leave earth alone. from the leaked Episode 3 story outline, it could roughly keep the nature of the combine the same, that they are so vast and powerful, no nuke, no weapon, no jury-rigged portal machine could ever take them out. but they don't have to be destroyed... the player has to go into space, and they finally find a technology that can help them... Wheatley. They hook him up to a node in the combine's network, he redeems himself by mismanaging the combine's network of portals, reactors, military organization, so they are thrown into perpetual disarray with no way of detecting that he's doing it all. He's a bug in the system, and he finds joy in the work. That was everyone's role in this big 4D chess match, Chell, Wheatley, Glados, Alyx, Gordon, you. You get to say goodbye to the best damn character valve ever made as you head back to earth.

[@expendableround6186]

“[Half-Life] isn’t just something [Valve] just threw together; it’s calculated, it’s actually thematically relevant. Imagine that! See what happens when you _hire writers?!”_ -Civvie 11

[@RandomThings12]

@fucku weebsnfurries he wrote the entirety of hl1 and hl2, and gave specific instructions to the other writers regarding the story

[@sipeb587]

@fucku weebsnfurries “they’re cringe” says a person with “weeb” and “furry” on his name.

[@0D_D0]

@@sipeb587 what does that have to do with anything? How is his nickname affecting his right to tell his opinion because I don't get it.

[@evan8654]

@@0D_D0 if you have 'weeb' or 'furry' as part of your username, your opinion is automatically invalid.

[@UltimateEnd0]

Have you ever read Gabe Newell's 2011 PC GAMER April fool's joke? The one where he says he got abducted by interdimensionals and they telepathically told him the write the Halflife story. P.S. Game Newell is a ponykin.

[@GenericProtagonist7]

I remember someone on /v/ pointed out that the Civil protection officer that tells you to pick up the can may not have been trying to antagonize you for no reason. Rather he could've been making a mutual transaction, where he gets a stim boost for a show of power and you get a boost to your social standing for obeying the officer.

[@omegahaxors9-11]

That is a painfully /v/ prospective.

[@LaputanMachad]

Interdasting

[@gamejunk1e]

This is the most elaborate way to say that the cop gets off on a power trip

[@williampan29]

Not likely. If there's altruism motive, he wouldn't chuckle after you throw the can. He'd more likely say nothing or something like "thank you, citizen.". Besides, I don't think Valve would make it that complex.

[@allseeingirene]

​@@williampan29 Valve does try to flesh things out a huge amount. The comment is supported by how complying with the CP in the trash can scenario at the start is followed by a CP/Overwatch reporting/acknowledging a compliant citizen. Leadhead's vid glosses over a lot of things that don't support their words lmao.

[@comradeshadles4967]

The Combine as a whole are perhaps the most Lovecraftian-military faction. The more you look into them the more horrifying it becomes and the more hopeless and insignificant you start to feel.

[@Illegiblescream]

And you almost have to wonder. What horrific pressure forced such a nightmarish adaptation.

[@destubae3271]

@@Illegiblescream Gabe Newell's inner demons

[@patchwurk6652]

I'm actually convinced that the Combine might be the result of a dumb AI being given sloppy instructions. The original creators just needed to make a dumb drone to go out with the instruction "Bring back resources", but forgot to tell it when to stop. Only to keep getting more and to adapt if some obstacle impedes them. It would definitely explain the weirdly automated way in which the Combine operates, organizes, and deals with obstacles: almost as if they literally can't learn in any way except by machine-learning.

[@DisgruntledPeasant]

@@Illegiblescream Whilst its possible that there is some 'great other' that the combine are at war with, I like the imagine that the entire war machine is kinda like the 'paperclip machine' metaphore. Their system may once have had a rational purpose, but now theyre in the loop of expansion for expansions sake, desperately consuming everything in fear of an enemy that never comes.

[@alexisvillanueva1570]

Lovecraftian-military faction. Imma coin that. Thank you.

[@exorikk]

Freeman riding the coffin to Breen's office is like a blood clot heading straight for the brain.

[@RedDingo777]

Breen’s a neurocluster at best, not a brain cell.

[@CubicApocalypse128]

*stroke time*

[@TheFunniBaconMan]

@@CubicApocalypse128 Stroke the administrator for more time on the clock

[@DanielGalimidi]

I think it's more an inversion of how Half-Life 1 starts: you start riding the tram, just another day at work. But the administrator of Black Mesa (Breen) has actually created the conditions for the Resonance Cascade to start, and when you push that cart you fulfill them. However, you don't know any of that yet, and it seems like nothing'll go wrong. 20 years later, in Half-Life 2, when you get on that coffin, Breen thinks he's got you right where he wants you and he's won again. However, he doesn't know that this coffin will give you an ace up your sleeve: the weapons disposal system, which supercharges the gravity gun, allowing you to defeat Breen. Even when he sees and briefly uses the gravity gun, he doesn't understand its power, but you do. It's all dramatic irony.

[@damonnugent1993]

Ha, I like that. And the core at the bottom levels in EP1 sort of resembles a heart starting to fail, contracting rapidly and preparing to go into flatline (collapse) but Gordon successfully restarts it with his gravity gun.

[@keilerbie7469]

I for one can't wait for Monday to receive my next water flavored Desiccated Sustenance bar!

[@J0hnHenrySNEEDen]

Now we just need a rat to mix it up

[@acemagalor2519]

God, i wish I had pre-ordered that

[@knowtheplan472]

I would genuinely buy a water flavored sustenance bar just for the novelty.

[@matth4557]

Just make sure you eat it in the next 9000 years

[@fireaza]

@Epic Man Darling Yep, in that game, you can find desiccated sustenance bars that claim to be "water-flavored".

[@Eldrich09]

I can’t get over the fact that in Half Life Alyx, Alyx had a globe with the Americas crossed out. Basically implying that the Americas were completely eradicated.

[@lilian-pvz5126]

Yeah, in the lore, America was nuked by the combine during the 7 hour war because the combine were having a pretty tough time dealing with it's military.

[@Gravy_seal-r3l]

​@@lilian-pvz5126America just being based

[@concept5631]

Even at the end of the world, the US refused to go down without a fight. Perhaps they got a merciful fate compared to the rest of the world.

[@JakeBaldwin1]

@@lilian-pvz5126 It would be cool if some American and Latin countries' militaries partially survived metro style. Maybe they became so much trouble that the Combine simply isolated the area and marked it as not worth the effort. They hunt the Combine troops in the nuclear wastes and sometimes supply the resistance when possible.

[@Bravoanim]

@@JakeBaldwin1thats my new hl2 headcanon, thank you!

[@thaddacusmaximus6706]

“But I have a shotgun...” is one of the most powerful versions of “and?” I’ve ever heard

[@ther6sshieldmain937]

"It’s double barreled, with shortened barrel and a stock." "I can also load 100 shotgun shells into my classic shotgun which is supposed to hold an average of 4 to 6 shotgun shells."

[@totallynoteverything1.]

I never used tactics when playing HL2, I just rushed in with the shotgun, and when the shotgun runs out, I rush in with the gravity gun and some objects

[@2BrosOfficialGaming]

“Screw you! I’m going to go play Minecraft!”

[@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan]

AND? AND I´M ALL OUT OF GUM

[@robinthomasg6240]

@@ther6sshieldmain937 Mistake of the game, its a spas-12 model, these things dont have double barrels, the tube below the barrel is the ammo reservoir. Firing 2 shells at once is not possible with a spas-12..

[@CelestialSwann]

What baffles me is that you made me become horrified of the Combine without even mentioning their inherently alien elements like the Synths or the Advisors themselves...

[@johnnyrats7083]

Thanks

[@darkravenbest8970]

Well biologicaly ingeneered weapons and larva like advisors adds a little horror, cuz its nothing compare to combine doctrine and their views on other species, cuz living weapon is just living weapon, nothing more, what is important is who use it and how it used.

[@jennklien6980]

@@darkravenbest8970 I disagree, the Synths have a lot of morbid implications that foretell an impending doom for useful species under the Combine, to put it simply the creatures were rendered ambiguous in cybernetic/organic appearance and function, they ultimatley envision a horrible fate for humanity as to having any traces of their history and existence to clones of transhuman soldiers spread across dimensions, why else do you think the Combine have a stockpile of Striders and such on Earth? They grow them after they were done with the base premise of the species, the same will happen to humanity.

[@chaosvolt]

Cherry on the top if you want a lil extra nightmare fuel: the synths are most likely what's left of other species who've been through what humanity is going through. No one left to remember their names, their home planet, what their people (those that might've developed a culture) was like. No trace of identity or origin. All that's left are tools that serve the Combine. That's what humanity has to look forward to under them.

[@oidontmesswithmycountry54]

well, "living weapons" could mean any animal used in combat.

[@CoreyLaddo]

The fact that people are analysing and picking up on subtleties 17 years after HL2 released speaks volumes for the masterful worldbuilding that Valve created

I love all of your videos :3

[@microwaveno7368]

Oh it's a random verified KZbinr guess I'm a fan now

[@bernabo9115]

holy shit at first i thought it was an exaggeration but it's actually been 17 years

[@MajinMist603]

yea

[@yourewallsareveryconvenien8292]

@@microwaveno7368 Its more than a random youtuber you swine! Its the guy who made G-man dancing and singing the song "Once in a lifetime" and the guy who gave me nightmares with his Alyx model.

[@jareddixon9108]

In regards to “Civil Confusion” as you call it, in the original novel “Utopia” something similar was actually done in utopian society. People would constantly be moving from household to household and every home would be communally owned. This was supposed to make the utopians feel one with each other and break the desire for personal possessions and to form cliques.

[@MuantanamoMobile]

Sounds horrific.

[@destroyer1667]

@@MuantanamoMobile nah, free vacations and moving, sounds great

[@tashajoykin5192]

@@destroyer1667 😐

[@AlejandroLZuvic]

Utopia, by whom? I may read it.

[@noneofyourbusiness43]

yep communists do it too. Move populations away from their homes to divide and confuse them.

[@coenisgreat]

Actually, Breen himself mentions that The Combine is not its official name. It’s referred to ambiguously as a ‘Universal Union’. Breen says ‘the universal union that small minds call the Combine’. The small minds in this case being humanity, not referring to the Union as the combine for their combining things together, but more akin to a Combine Harvester or a thresher, taking in and chewing up anything in its way, and spitting out anything it doesn’t deem important.

[@spoiledpasta977]

Or it could just be a script of propaganda that Breen is being commanded to read from. The name "Universal Union" could just be a name made up on the fly to simply make the Combine seem more friendly than they actually are to the brainwashed civilians. He would describe their actions as giving humanity a shove into evolution, sugar coating the obvious tyranny as a tough love. For all we know, the Combine is probably just a nick name made up by the resistance. The idea of them being more like a nameless, faceless anomaly rather than an all-powerful empire that goes by the name "The Combine" makes them even more terrifying for me.

[@omegawilliam95s36]

@@spoiledpasta977 Except only the rebels and Breen refer to it as the Combine every time it’s mentioned, the latter using it as a mocking term. It’s literally just a name they gave it. I never heard any CP, Overwatch or anything else related to the UU mention it as the combine.

[@DogsRNice]

What about all the “CMB” labels they use? Though it might actually be the origin of the term “combine” in universe and it actually means something else

[@ceu160193]

@@DogsRNice Most likely it's some coded language, and everyone who belongs to Combine doesn't see "CMB", but instead sees something useful, like name of certain outpost. Kind of like QR code.

[@Michoss9]

@@ceu160193 Yeah, I would say that the name "combine" actually came from confused people seeing the "CMb" written all over posters and equipment, reading that as if it was latin letters, and then turning it into a pronounceable word.

[@nomercy8989]

I recognized how messed up the world is in portal but never realized how horrifying it is in Half Life 2

[@Mrbird321]

Half LIfe 2 was a little more in your face about it, that's funny.

[@Kapin05]

@@Mrbird321 I think they're equally subtle. In both, you can just pay attention to gameplay and ignore the lore and nothing would feel wrong, and yet they also present horrific details right to your face if you wanna look at it. I like media like that, where you don't have to think about it but you can, and there's emotion to be found in both approaches.

[@detectivepayne3773]

they're the same world lol

[@darlekkiller2630]

Chell want back in after seeing the world

[@3333218]

Same universe. So no surprises there.

[@tristensullivan6478]

When you were talking about how the combine views humanity as a singular and you pointed out how they refer to Gordon as a singular, that Fucking shook me to my core.

[@slothbaby2104]

same

[@smithonme1888]

Makes us seem as if we are the last human alive.

[@Gogglesofkrome]

Aye, it's like having the eyes of a giant peering down between the clouds. You're the only man in the entire world who has managed to capture his murderous and individual, undivided attention, and he's doing everything he can to strike you down.

[@Dynvali]

Gordon Freeman, the one free man.

[@ThePigeon5734]

They view Gordon as their only equal. That's a scary thought.

[@sodagirl1092]

I think the scariest implication is that Dr Breen is the only thing keeping humanity from total extinction or integration into the Combine. Its not perfect, but he managed to negotiate with the Combine to spare some of humanity, maybe in the hope that it would one day be strong enough to fight The Combine, or maybe he knew Gordon would turn up one day. And we end up killing him, removing any sort of restraint the Combine had about killing every last human on Earth.

[@Man_Aslume]

​@@barf2432 Your final sentence is probably what breen thought

[@charlodynatimberheart4860]

Breen's line, "you need me" is true. Without him, humanity would've been completely destroyed by the 7 hour war.

[@Z38_US]

@@charlodynatimberheart4860Maybe but the combine's grip on earth isn't as strong as one might think. I mean the destruction of the citadel forced the Combine to try and open a portal, which we prevent to a degree in Episode 1. Episode 2 then has a super portal opening, but not being open yet and that is, because of the destruction of the citadel, the only entry point for more combine forces which leaves all the combine forces left on earth basically stranded and cut off making them very vulnerable until the Portal is actually open, which also gets prevented at the end of Episode 2. As we also find out the Combine haven't really gotten the hang of teleporting within earths borders yet, which is why they are so interested in the borealis and is also the reason why the borealis is so important and why Eli wants it destroyed. So yes in the 7 hour war without Breen, Humanity might have been destroyed but at the time HL2 plays out there is a very real possibility of ridding Earth of the Combine and thus Breen is no longer necessary for humanitys survival.

[@human26]

Breen is a scientist, not a good negotiator. Besides, with Eli and Gordon under his control, he wanted to dictate the terms of the deal to the CMB, logically, by offering them the technology of local teleportation, that milti-universe empire of course didn't had.

[@williambutcher7429]

If I recall correctly, Breen is also partially responsible for the black mesa incident, since he was the one who received the xen crystal from Gman and ordered the scientists to run the generators at 110%

[@Neo2266.]

Oh I never realized that miscount was Gordon, I thought it was just the police making an excuse to sweep the house for Gordon

[@slushiegoreluna]

I mean, it can probably be interpreted that way

[@MrSadisticLlama]

I remember seeing a youtube video that basically describes the Combines process of finding out about Gordan, and causing the Miscount announcement within minutes of Gordan arriving, its honestly really amazing.

[@Name-ps9fx]

They weren’t looking for Gordon specifically, they had noticed a “miscount” of people in the building and went in to determine who was the extra (and why he was there). I think it was in the “Anticitizen 1” chapter that they were able to name this...extra person.

[@iug5672]

@@MrSadisticLlama do you recall the name of that video?

[@DeathnoteBB]

@@MrSadisticLlama What was the video?

[@JacF6734]

"When you see an insect lying on the ground, do you stop to consider it a fool? No. Because the life of an insect is so beneath you that it would be a waste of your time to even consider judging it. That would be an accurate summation of my feelings towards you humans."

[@mr.cup6yearsago211]

Ironic, considering most people wouldn’t explain to the insect how lowly they consider it.

[@humanman2358]

Reminds me of that dialogue in HxH in the chimera ant arc

[@dwsimmy2599]

For some reason I read this in the voice of Bender from Futurama.

[@JacF6734]

@Anti Everything Father, from Fullmetal Alchemist.

[@FranciscoLaprea]

Except, you don't stop to talk to an insect. That's why those dialogues always seem silly to me. If the antagonist really thought of themselves as such a higher being, they wouldn't even bother to explain shit nor give them a second of their time.

[@boonekeller5275]

What interested me about the Combine was how it used trains. You'd expect it to put in some fancy new transport technology but no, the trains work great and the Combine even makes its own rolling stock. It realized that humans had good transport technology and simply took it over and expanded upon where it was needed, and let rot anything that wasn't deemed useful.

[@juanausensi499]

That's because trains are the most efficient (weight / energy) ground transport we have.

[@krebgurfson5732]

fancy new transport technology? i think you're missing the point of giving the combine trains. An enemy has to be reasonable to be fun. If they could just teleport 50 troopers around gordon it wouldn't be interesting. "realism" can be important in games. the same way horror movies can't let the antagonist be a god, it has to have some weakness or there's no real reason to be scared or feel tension.

[@Praxid]

I also love the idea of Combine conversions, of a sort, or even combine remakes of specific tech. For example, in Alyx, you can upgrade the pistol with combine resin and by the max upgrade it looks completely different. The AR2 is a good example as well, and showcases just how insanely powerful the combine are; that rifle fires 5.56mm, standard issue for Elites, but it casually comes with a dark matter projectile system that, in the words of a rebel, is "How you kill Hunters.".

[@grumblebee]

the thing with the combine is that once they captured earth they used up as little of their own resources as possible. the soldiers are humans transformed into soulless husks. the other alien things they use like the gunships or the headcrabs are different races they captured. they develop their teleportation and gman's prison using vortessence. you can probably count on one hand the number of advisors you actually see on earth, and presumably one of them is actually dr breen. their homeworld probably has technology we can't even dream of. the only things that the combine actually created on their homeworld were probably the citadel and dark energy. the normal helicopters they use are probably still built on earth using plans humans left behind.

[@Seriona1]

Alyx mentioned that The Combine have the tech to jump between universes but rely on local transportation once they are inside of it. This means that The Combine is a feared superpower however once inside the Milky Way, they have to use starships if they want to explore based on whatever tech they have or can find. On Earth, two resources are used for The Combine, water and humans, we make excellent foot soldiers for their military. I think trains just solve a problem they have, once again, they have to rely on local transportation once they are in our universe. Earth is covered in rails, it's a system already set up that works.

[@TheOwnpwn123]

Half-Life 2 has always had my all-time favorite catastrophic event for mankind. The Universal Unions ultimate invasion and destruction of Earth and its Governments within 7 hours is astonishing. A force so incredibly powerful that most planets cannot last a day. The Combine are easily one of my favorite game factions created. They have such an evil yet well-developed governing power that just make them fun. I'm not always one for roleplay but HL2 and The Combine always make me drop by and have fun on HL2RP servers within Garry's Mod.

[@freshrot420]

7 hours is pretty good! If their star or planet is bigger or older they already have a huge advantage, but they have a dyson sphere somewhere, so lil ol us lasting that long is actually respectable.

[@ishthewall1915]

​@@freshrot420tbf, they more than likely used restraint since they didn't want us fully dead

[@Man_Aslume]

I made houndeye gaming to be this half life shit post A houndeye from half life 1 that throws a CP unit helment by throwing it on it Put puts on a tie with emojis

[@Apes_TogetherStrong]

reminder that what the combine used to Bring Earth to it's knees is not even 2% of the combine's forces.

[@ScorpoYT]

imagine the amount of families died because of your gameplay

[@rey4874]

Oh my god

[@apotato6278]

But imagine all the families we've saved. We must all make sacrifices for the greater good. A million families, a billion comrades, there can be no price too steep for the survival of the Soviet Union! Uhm... i mean "The Human Species". That aside, am i the only one who thinks human wave tactics might be just what we need to beat the combine?

[@rey4874]

@@apotato6278 actually that's pretty true. You raise some good points! Also r/suddenlycommunist

[@apotato6278]

@@rey4874 All jokes aside, as i see it those families were already doomed. The combine wipes out humanity and then what? It's not like they'll reward the soldiers with long lives together with their loved ones in some utopian space city. As soon as they cease being useful the combine brings out the completely brainwashed troops to liquidate anyone in their armed forces who still knows what a family is. The only difference is that either you and your spouse die now as casualties of the liberation movement or you die in a few years in a far bleaker world. At least through the hard work of Gordon, his buddies and your sacrifice your family might be the last one to be killed. That's also what makes Half-Life so bleak. It's between an awful option or a really awful option. You can either die now and be 95% sure your family will be exterminated or you can die with them once the combine's done with their plans. Of course, you won't have the luxury of physically being there to die with them but you'll both die at roughly the same time when you're no longer deemed useful...

[@rey4874]

@@apotato6278 that's true, anyone who is sane would choose to die as part of a liberation movement instead, there isn't much to live for in the Half-life universe

[@bobograndman]

The combine *combine* all the species they conquer to add to their ranks. Gunships, the assorted random creatures, are all conquered species. The combine probably see humanity as good mobile foot soldiers, so they don't want to exterminate humanity, they want to farm them

[@KizaruB]

Earth is probably a very good resource planet. It has an abundance of water and a high population Also, it’s probably clear to them that humanity is one of the more intelligent species they’ve encountered, since they have even managed to figure out local teleportation before them.

[@DreamVikings]

I think the same. Humans are not big a threat as IE a strider, but they are versitle and smart enough to use different weapons and operate equipment. Kind of how they use vortigaunts for sweeping streets.

[@greycat930]

I think it also means like a combine on a farm, churning up anything it finds

[@DiveTheseClips]

I thought the reason the combine were interested in Earth is the teleportation technology of humanity, which was superior to combines at the time.

[@stinkybaka6661]

I always thought of what other crazy alien species that the combine have enslaved and added to their ranks. Just imagine what kind of crazy shit the combine is capable of doing.

[@redvelvett22]

What hit me the hardest was when you mentioned how The Combine refer to Gordan as an individual. That was deep.

[@Dr.Failtastic]

The FREE.MAN.

[@mapleflag6518]

Meanwhile when you are near death and the Overwatch AI sentences you to death, she calls you an infection or something like that.

[@Dinoenthusiastguy]

Imagine if the Combine use life extension to prevent their assets from dying. The only thing worse than being turned into a Combine synth would be existing as one for hundreds or thousands of years

[@ManiacMayhem7256]

Don't give valve ideas

[@lameless3254]

@@ManiacMayhem7256 Immortality is mentioned by Breen as being very close to being an actual thing in the game

[@SuccubusSlayer]

I'm sure the combine can make people immortal from aging but not from sustaining damage. That's why they treat their soldiers so robotically, because they can store them when they need them.

[@dusky6280]

Not like you'd be aware of the passage of time as a synth though, just about every even slightly modified combine asset is mind scrubbed. Save for CPs.

[@ohno4106]

The combine actually can do this. Read Breengrub. They can make multiple copies of people’s consciousness and upload them into advisor host bodies.

[@AsrielAsItGets428]

Imagine what this must be like for Gordon. He was once just some tardy, nerdy scientist, and is now the last "human". He went from just some guy with a crowbar to the absolute last hope for humanity in the span of (for him) just a few minutes. He basically woke up to find everything he ever loved or cared about gone, and now he has to fend off a massive space empire basically on his own.

[@Gnidel]

And if he didn't feel passage of time in stasis, it's even worse. He pushed a cart into a laser and few days later humanity is nearly extinct. HL1, HL2 and Episodes felt like the worst week of his life.

[@eddyheaddrascal1858]

@@Gnidel He hasn't even slept this whole time unless you count being knocked unconscious in HL1. At least his suit gives him stimulants just like the Overwatch soldiers.

[@Lugbzurg]

@@eddyheaddrascal1858 And quite possibly between Episode One and Episode Two.

[@humanman2358]

Shit happens real fast for Gordon huh.

[@PewPewPlasmagun]

No, there are several wrong people that could end potentially in the right place, Alyx is another. The G-Man uses these gifted individuals to destroy the Combine, but he and his 'employers' (representatives of his race - he is obviously not human) use humanity rather than working with it.

[@AmyDentata]

What I love about Dr. Breen as an antagonist is that he is eloquent in how he rationalizes surrender. He's not a cartoon collaborator-and that's why he is believably dangerous.

[@juanausensi499]

True. Not only that, he maybe was right all along, and he is the only thing that prevented human extinction at that point.

[@Fastcurrents]

@@juanausensi499 exactly my point.

[@bugjams]

I really wish there was a canon alternate timeline where Eli was the one who was in charge of humanity. It would be interesting to see how he would be different than Breen, but also the same. Say Breen didn't even exist, and Eli was the next best candidate to negotiate humanity's surrender. Eli would likely see our surrender as a temporarily, necessarily evil, while it seems like Breen is less optimistic and sees the surrender as permanent (or if you really don't like Breen, it's easy to read how he just negotiated the surrender to ensure himself a better life at the expense of everyone else). Eli probably wouldn't accept a spacious, luxurious suite at the top of the citadel in exchange for giving the CP more power. Maybe he could've agreed to just be a step above the average citizen in terms of quality of life, in exchange for making the CP go a little easier on humanity. It would also allow him to be closer to the citizens, slowly and secretly weaving a plan of rebellion that would only be sprung once everything was in place. The story could revolve around you helping to set up this rebellion, and only really starting the uprising when it's ready (or perhaps when the Combine find out about Eli's plans, which could blend seamlessly into the Nova Prospekt chapter where they capture him). If Breen took Eli's place, I also wonder what he would do... would he be helpful, like Eli? Or would he be secretly working with the combine, like Mossman? Maybe the teleporter "malfunction" at the start of the game would really have been _his_ doing, and after he realized you weren't captured and/or killed, he disappears.

[@doctorstarline5647]

@@bugjams I'm only getting into the Half-Life lore but this idea seems to be SO good

[@Archone666]

@@juanausensi499 Honestly, there's a moment where Breen had the chance to prove his ultimately benevolent intentions... and he failed. It was when he learned that Freeman had the opportunity to actually close off the portal and free humanity from the Combine... that was the perfect opportunity to melodramatically declare, "of course I could never participate in such a scheme... oh no, I seem to have accidentally pushed the button freeing Gordon! I'd better call for help... woops, I just slipped and fell down, I think I hurt myself... I sure hope Gordon doesn't rush off to shut down the portal while I'm recovering..." (notice how this way he can claim Freeman was an independent agent, a "tumor" as it were, so even if Freeman fails he can still try to protect humanity) Instead, he not only refuses to even entertain the notion, but later screams and begs the Combine to save him personally, making it clear that he's mainly focused on saving himself.

[@b.c.s.o4169]

i've finished this game numerous times for more than ten years and this is the first time i hear about the line overwatch says to the CPs "family cohesion is preserved"

[@Leadhead]

Let's be real, who gets killed by the CPs?

[@commodore7331]

it surprised me that there are even lines for killing Gordon at all. Based on how allies like Alyx ignore your death I just assumed the game just pretends it didn't happen.

[@kingp260]

@@commodore7331 Allies don't ignore your death. Rebels have various lines like "Someone grab his crowbar" when you die. Only main characters have no lines because it wouldn't make sense in the story.

[@pled8395]

@@commodore7331 Played through it recently and when I died at the lighthouse fight I heard a rebel say "Dibs on the suit". Was a good one

[@rabbitdrink]

these words are so far away from english that they feel like an entirely different language, so they probably do that a lot

[@JaxontheOkay]

a thought i had on the bare minimum sustenance idea - it would also make sense why the civil protection are so easy to piss off. we all know how antsy people get when hungry. now imagine the constant stress, and demands, and BEATING QUOTAS. they don't even get actual food. they basically get pills that will allow them to survive. the amount of rations administered before battle is about the amount of a large pill. beating the shit out of someone for just bumping into you seems a pretty reasonable reaction.

[@flydrop8822]

Another thing to mention is the Combine synths. You know those Gunships, Striders and Hunters you fight in game? Well they aren't really just robots, or rather they didn't use to be. They were living alien creatures the Combine enslaved and cybernetically altered them to the point they were unrecognizable from their living counterparts. Humans were awaiting the same fate if they were to be reigned for a few more decades.

[@g--stef4756]

Humanity is basically already in that state in-game. Overwatch Combine, Elites, and Stalkers are all human Synths-in-progress, proto-Synths if you will, part of Breen's bargain with the Combine to try and preserve the human race. HL:A shows us even earlier versions of "synth" humans, the Grunts, Ordials, etc. are all progressions of humans being turned into cyborgs connected to the greater Combine whole; they're just not as advanced as "successful" mass-produced synths like your typical Dropship or Strider. It'd be very interesting to see what new developments of human proto-Synths we might see in Half-Life entries to come.

[@Wyrmver]

i always wondered why they looked so alive

[@MisterJohnDoe]

And let’s not forget the Stalkers, if things weren’t bad enough for humans.

[@andyfriederichsen]

At least one of the synths, the strider, has been confirmed to be a synthetic copy of a living creature that the Combine scanned and then synthetically cloned for use as a living war machine.

[@andrewnebz]

It's also worth thinking about the species that get integrated into their arsenal without as much/any synthetic alteration. When they shell a place, they let headcrabs run rampant and make droning, simple-minded cannon fodder out of a smart, sapient enemy. Had the Combine figured out bugbait, they'd likely have made squads out of antlions before the resistance did.

[@stroyed4229]

In case you're curious, there actually is a historical term for the relocation! It's called diaspora. While I don't believe it was ever implemented exactly like the combine did it, with the constant and periodical relocation, I know the Roman Empire did it a lot whenever they conquered a new land. Once conquered, they would force the people of the region to relocate and spread out all across the empire, effectively preventing them from forming any organized body of resistance.

[@RonnieMcNutt_Mindblowing]

bovine spongiform encephalopathy

[@SocktheWorm]

Huh... I wonder if Diaspar from 'The City and the Stars' got its name from this...

[@Autrx_]

I might be completely wrong but the USSR employed similar tactics when they had control over the Eastern Bloc.

[@Janfon1]

@@Autrx_ From what I've read they instead utilized snitching, propaganda and growing mistrust to reward people for basically killing each other off for the regime and their own survival. It resulted in cultivating generations of people who are suspicious, biased and mean-spirited toward their neighbors

[@UNSCPILOT]

The most recent book in the (we are Legion, we are Bob) Bobiverse series has a similar concept used for similar reasons, just less severely, they refer to it as a "scattering". It's only really done when hints of rebellion are noticed and everyone gets nonlethally knocked out and redistributed over a wide area with no idea where they ended up, all orchestrated by an AI that's just trying to prevent its alien makers from whipping themselves out. Deffinitly not as malicious as the combine but the effect and intent to confuse is the same. Course it gets the even more confusing problem of a bunch of post-human digitized minds running around in android copies of said alien race trying to find something and just generally causing a mess as they go. The book is called "Heaven's River" and I am most certainly not doing it justice, I'd recommend starting with "We are Legion, We are Bob" first though otherwise it's hard to know what's going on, all and all though much more lighthearted and optimistic than Half life, love both either way

[@R0dLentini]

"Are you gonna pick up that can?" Fuck dude...Came for half-life, stayed for the existencial crisis

[@toakovika]

Damn right, dude. Pick up that can and punch a CP in the face with it.

[@jacksongibbs8998]

When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons BACK! Get Mad!!! I DON’T WANT YOUR DAMN LEMONS WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE?!?!? DEMAND TO SEE LIFE’S MANAGER!!! MAKE LIFE RUE THE DAY IT THOUGHT IT COULD GIVE CAVE JOHNSON LEMONS!!! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!?!? I’M THE MAN WHO’S GONNA BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!!! WITH THE LEMONS!!! I’M GONNA GET MY ENGINEERS TO INVENT A COMBUSTIBLE LEMON THAT BURNS YOUR HOUSE DOWN!!!

[@SeasonsMad042]

I think it speaks to how simultaneously useful and dangerous regular humanity is that the Combine didn’t simply either exterminate or forcibly integrate via technology all humans on Earth. They’re so threatened by the thought of humans working together against them that they put forth immense effort to prevent it. Yet, humans are so adaptable and skilled that turning them into a bunch of lobotomized slave cyborgs isn’t worth the loss in productivity. It’s actually impressive.

[@TheStalkeRuuuuuus1]

They didn't do that because Borealis and local teleportarion. If you just killed all humans you would lose precious information that would make travel in-dimension much easier. It's cool to glaze humanity in stories, but in Half-Life humanity is weak. Weaker than our enemies at least.

[@higuys7576]

​@@TheStalkeRuuuuuus1i think that the combine and others similar multi dimensional empires are the great filter so effective at Conquest Earth Was simple extremely Lucky allowing of sort of have some telaportation technology before invasion

[@commodore7331]

The best thing about all of this is that its almost entirely speculation. The game gives you just enough hints to connect the dots yourself and theorize about what's happening around you which is a great way to keep you invested in the world, as well as it just being fun to come up with ideas of what's happening on your own and share them with other people.

[@theknight1573]

Couldn't agree more. Its the same reason I am so invested in Hollow Knight lore, nothing but crumbs and it is up to us to connect the dots

[@commodore7331]

@@theknight1573 I just found out about the little nighrmares series and it features a really similar method of storytelling. It's really fun to see all the different theories and interpretations people come up with to explain the universe of the games

[@reimuhakurei2123]

i really love that about half life

[@BlueAmpharos]

I tried showing this game to my stepdad years ago and he was like "What's the point of this? You're just walking around. There's no action" near the beginning parts of the game. I skipped to the chapter with the copter dropping bombs on me but I felt he completely missed the point, or I didn't give enough context. I might show him this to explain why I stopped at a playground for a couple seconds before moving into an apartment and being chased and having characters talking to me about stuff instead of instant action. He doesn't play videogames so I can't blame him too much but I wanted to show him that videogames could be more than fighting stuff, that they could have story and meaning, and he was just confused about there not being action so that failed.

[@BlueAmpharos]

@@limited3502 A war that lasted only 7 hours because of the Combine's technology! What did that look like!?

[@CheeseYourself]

Those CPs act all cool and tough until they get that _non-mechanical reproduction simulation_

[@robertsmalls2293]

It’s what all CP’s strive for.

[@unused7629]

@@robertsmalls2293 your never gonna break my stride

[@destubae3271]

@@robertsmalls2293 Dr. Breen to Gordon: Mai boi, this peace is what all true humans strive for

[@robertsmalls2293]

@@destubae3271 I just wonder what Gman’s up too?

[@MrAsaqe]

Until they are so mechanized that they don't need it

[@TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

"We even hear the ghostly echoes of children's laughter if we get close to this playground" That gave me absolute chills

[@natgarret]

At that point, I would have most likely just gone on an absolute rampage without any intent of survival.

[@orangutank626]

So they killed all the children? because children are not affected by the embryotic suppressor since they are already born

[@joshuawiley6506]

slaughterhouses....we have a much worse situation with the rest of earth's species...this is only scary because it is happening to humanity

[@angryasfman9077]

@engineer with the drip we all played half life 2 here but only one has played it on android

[@1ztype343]

I thought bots couldn't feel?

[@gressivekom]

Everytime I hear the word, "Combine", I immediately thought of the farming vehicle/tool and the Combine in Half-Life does kind of portray it at a much larger scale. To me, it boils down to a large "farming tool" harvesting resources till there isn't much left.

[@qwertyiuwg4uwtwthn]

"I've seen better sides of beef run over by a combine." - The Engineer

[@harbour2118]

@@TheDudeFrom2077 yeah, by the winglet, it’s the taunt fortress video. It literally has a combine driven by a combine soldier

[@RRVCrinale]

_They_ have the combine harvester. And _NOBODY_ is given the key.

[@nullstudios2989]

That analogy is.. horrifying. And adds another meaning to the name.

[@Stickman_Productions]

I'm also pretty sure there's a track made by Valve for Half-Life called "Combine Harvester"

[@evdestroy5304]

This takes place in the same universe where a guy records himself talking about lemons

[@Ultra04channel]

Not just lemons, EXPLODING lemons

[@TheDoomMaster]

@@Ultra04channel Exploding lemons that burn your house down, at that

[@MailMainbutnot]

While dying to the moon

[@sovietunion7643]

if cave johnson had been around the 7 hour war would have ended with cave johnson executing the combine leadership in the combine capital with a sawed off shotgun and some lemon grenades

[@MailMainbutnot]

@@sovietunion7643 lemonades, if you will

[@FrahdChikun]

I'm a stickler for dystopian antagonists, and good God I just adore the entire concept of the Combine

[@XenoWalkerEVE]

They have done this to billions of words turning everything into mechanical puppets. The only thing with true individuality are seemingly the advisers, with their addiction and worshipping of technology have turned themselves into fat husks who need artificial arms and telekinesis to move while everything else are basically a hivemind all in but name. The Universal Union is one of the most terrifying sci fi empires to ever exist and make the borg look like pussies. They conquered universes. UNIVERSES!!!! They have uncountable trillions upon their beck and call. They will stop at nothing until all existence has been combined into one cohesive union. They are even elderich in aspects. The 7 hour war was the most important war in its existence. But for the combine, it was Tuesday.

[@CBRN-115]

Well, we are living in a dystopian nightmare irl

[@русланбуйло-ъ8т]

compared to hl its less then nothing

[@chchnm4n176]

the combine are a bunch of alien nerds with a god complex

[@KEJA06]

I think it would be interesting if whatever is the top of the chain of command of the combine was an advanced AI. Like, advisors, administrators like breen and maybe some beings who are part of the original species(there could have even been multiple og combine species in my view) that started the UU are more spread out parts of leadership, but the mastermind or whatever is an AI, or something alike. Kind of like The Supreme Intelligence for the Kree species in Marvel comics/movies, but not necessarily the same.

[@ronank.6608]

Oh I get it now, Gordan 'Freeman' is the only Free man.

[@ACatCalledBaudelaire]

It's important to remember that we know very little about Gordon's intentions. G-Man awakens him, and we find Gordon silent on the matters of the world and those around him. He acts, but for what purpose? Resistance? Compassion? Survival? Gordon has been inserted into circumstances unknown and is too controlled by something beyond him--the player.

[@ther6sshieldmain937]

In other terms, about 97.85% of main characters? (if not more)

[@ACatCalledBaudelaire]

@@ther6sshieldmain937 You are, of course, correct. But I'm thinking about Gordon in terms of the narrative specifically--to the Vortigaunts, he's "The Freeman," and also a folk hero to what remains of mankind. There's some dramatic irony in the fact that G-Man pulls Gordon in and out of space and time to serve some unknown purpose. The Resistance interprets that as a messianic mission, but one for which they're largely just cannon fodder. Without any voiceover or dialogue, we don't know what Gordon cares about. Gordon could just be some reluctant hero propelled along by the expectations of those around him and/or a man with the simple will to survive (what we see in the first Half-Life). That's what makes the series so great for me, that narrative ambiguity. Does he care for Alyx? Does he care about humanity? Or is he just some dude with a gravity gun trying to launch a gnome into orbit? As the player, I get to decide--but that's about all the control I really have because it's just a linear world. I can choose to play a part or not, and that's all Gordon Freeman can do too.

[@kommentier9884]

@@ACatCalledBaudelaire And what really wonders me, is Gordon even in control or is he just G-Mans puppet and simply fulfills his wishes? Is he even a "free" man?

[@michaeldykes9138]

@@kommentier9884 Are you saying that... G-man is a representation of the player?

[@captaindishman9126]

4:00 Everyone says it is laughter. I hear screaming. No, not like children's laughter screaming... hellish, painful screaming.

[@weaponized_toaster]

Its supposed too be a memory

[@synonymdave]

I also just heard screaming.

[@jindrichsander7271]

​@@weaponized_toaster says who? Who's memory would it be? In half life 1 there is a part in on a rail that has screaming human "ghosts?" that are 100% screaming. By that point in time many have died because of gordon. Many children died because of gordon and the combine so I see it as a screaming rather than a playful memory. I doubt gordon the american has ever been in city 17 which is in eastern europe so it cannot be a memory.

[@database_enjoyer3000]

me too

[@shopnil4]

Wow, combine soldiers have better AI than most games nowadays lol

[@skrljr2934]

And the game was back in 2004, (At least from its release), and it's better than current day AI. Other games don't have AI communicating to eachother.

[@t.m.m.8137]

It's not that the AI is smart, it's that in the encounters the Combine are in are scripted and made in a way that makes them look smart. Put Half Life enemies in a open field and they'll most likely act like the usual dumb video game AI. What makes the Combine feel smart is that the encounters there in are handcrafted and beautifully designed, and they also do what FEAR does where they make them feel dynamic with the huge amounts of voice lines.

[@derpythean-comdoge8608]

@@t.m.m.8137 yeah half life AI sucks, just play gmod and you’ll understand lol

[@jerry12314]

Funny thing is because most negative criticism of this game was the AI. A game called Vietcong made by a small Czech company in 2003 had better AI and of course Stalker that came out a couple of years later. HL2 is really just a visual and atmospheric experience but you hardly feel it because it requires you to move always that it was exhausting and arcady.

[@derpythean-comdoge8608]

@@jerry12314 pretty big paragraphs to just say you’re bad at computer games.

[@PsychoMuffinSDM]

Interesting interpretation of "The Combine." I always thought of it as like a farming combine. The Combine is a giant machine, harvesting planets, sorting the resources, whether people, or whatever, like wheat from chaff. It feels like a farm, in which people are moved about like cattle, and corralled into butchering stations.

[@whnvr]

it is! it’s supposed to be a double entendres

[@salsamancer]

The moving walls around the citadel also invoke the image of a wheat combine, the way they trample down and take in everything in front of them

[@PsychoMuffinSDM]

@@salsamancer I was thinking a bit about that too!

[@sami_irl]

when i first heard engie say the line i thought he ment combine from half life lmao

[@NotASpyReally]

@@sami_irl same lol

[@Rune.]

"Contact confirmed... uuhh... target is flying on a barrel.... target has reached the speed of light..." - Combine Soldier, in an HL2 speedrun

[@omegawilliam95s36]

Also combine soldier, a few minutes later: Uhhh....target has entered the Citadel.

[@Mask_Guy]

@@omegawilliam95s36 in half life 2 you leave the city to enter in the city again, lol

[@WinterBoi-]

@@Mask_Guy lol

[@capt_noo]

"Now that we have the pallet, we basically beat the game."

[@albaraqahtani]

I’m both amazed and terrified at the CP’s AI tactics, never realized that when i played the game and it’s extremely impressive to see such thing from a game made in the 2000s!

[@TheWinjin]

I'd say that it's got more with the fact that moderner FPS all feature stupid enemies to cater to worse players. I specifically remember the fist Unreal game as having very different shooter situations - every enemy you face is a singular miniboss, basically. All of them aren't numerous, but are deadly and smart, but none are as deadly as Skaarj. They jump away from your line of sight, take you from multiple angles and everything else, especially if you encounter multiple from different clans - and it was like that in 1998. I remember being SO BAD at this game. Honestly I only got better at shooters in general after CODMW. No amount of CS before that really helped.

[@Loromir17]

"The Combine as a parasite upon the organism of Earth" narrative is really reminiscent of Pathologic's "city as an organism that is stricken by a disease". It's interesting how both games came out at about the same time and also share this bleak, eastern european, baroque-vs-brutalism aesthetic

[@ODESSARAMBO]

Who will win: - a perfect oppression system specifically designed to destroy the human race once and for all - one nerdy boi with a crowbar

[@ThePigeon5734]

Gordon and the Combine are supposed to be individuals. equals.

[@Prometeusz]

Right person at the wrong place makes all the difference

[@theinternetpolice2078]

He isn't just any nerd with a crowbar. He's a nerd with a crowbar in the source engine.

[@jockeyfield1954]

gman put gordon on earth at a very opportune time, if gordon were to arrive just a year after the combine took over, he would've been located almost instantly and killed, but instead, he arrived 20 years after and when the resistance was gonna make a technological breakthrough

[@angryasfman9077]

@@Prometeusz The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world

[@AbdulazizAlmawash]

When you were talking about how freaking intelligent the AI was in terms of movement and coordination...DUDE... i was literally thinking about the INTELLIGENT programmers behind it, hats off to those people!!

[@comraderave]

A cool little fact: When writing the AI of the game the developers had designed a degree of self-preservation into the enemies. When this was play-tested they saw that the Combine Gunships would deprioritize Gordon and turn their fire to incoming rockets which were deemed a greater threat. This surprised the developers and led to them including the behavior into the game by making the rockets destroyable. The enemy AI in HL2 was, just like HL1, way ahead of it's time.

[@AbdulazizAlmawash]

@@comraderave that’s so cool!!!

[@adaskalov]

As someone taking a university class on AI, this part had me truly appreciative of the game!

[@MisterJohnDoe]

Even HL1 had remarkable AI. This may have already been said a hundred times, but these games were ahead of their time.

[@cherrydragon3120]

@@comraderave thats really cool. Give different things a different threat level and make the enemy AI prioritize self preservation. Basicly, a rocket coming right at your face is indeed clearly at that moment a higher threat level then Gordon who stands there reloading a gun.

[@kimurain6956]

Half life 2 is a masterclass in storytelling. The game doesn’t tell you much about the Combine, you’re slapped into this city, and things are horrible, and everyone is just so used to it that it means nothing to them, this is how life is.

[@thatladfromthe40s82]

I like to think of it more as an allegory of what our modern life could look like if we continue on the path we're on. Think about it for a moment. An average human today is working a job that's probably barely paying a living wage. He probably has a manager that yells at him and gives him mindless menial tasks for the privilege of getting a yearly bonus. Nobody's interested in having a family because they can barely afford to buy or rent a place to live in. All we're missing is the Civil Protection troops randomly showing up on your doorstep for a conformity check.

[@zbsfm]

@@thatladfromthe40s82of course! like all good dystopian fiction

[@thatoneguy9615]

The combine calling Gordon an individual strikes me as a bit strange. He's capable, sure, but there are other capable humans with more training who could have at some point or another gotten their hands on equally advanced equipment. What makes him different from other humans antagonistic to it? That's when it struck me that they're likely aware of his association with the G-Man. The G-Man only uses individuals that they take and place in advantageous positions. Gordon isn't a stray human, he's a foreign agent working for an enemy that is explicitly not a hive mind. Keeping Gordon alive to be changed isn't an option, he belonged to the enemy before humanity belonged to it.

[@ells101]

Even Breen is shocked and terrified in equal measure: "Obviously I am not on the ground to closely command or second-guess the dedicated forces of the Overwatch, but this does not mean I can shirk responsibility...How could one man have slipped through your force's fingers time and time again? How is it possible? This is not some agent provocateur or highly trained assassin we are discussing. Gordon Freeman is a theoretical physicist who had hardly earned the distinction of his Ph.D. at the time of the Black Mesa Incident. I have good reason to believe that in the intervening years, he was in a state that precluded further development of covert skills. The man you have consistently failed to slow, let alone capture, is by all standards simply that--an ordinary man. How can you have failed to apprehend him?"

[@snooziii]

@@ells101 "W-well sir, he seems to have the Mark-V Plot Armour"

[@johnadler6987]

@@snooziii "well... shit... regardless, keep trying!"

[@hoangblox9991]

Well he is that quiet kid , the one that will brought a freaking Rpg to school to finish anything in silence

[@coletrain411]

@@hoangblox9991 freeman’s mind rewatch incoming in 5…4…2episode2…1…

[@nbtwall7287]

Half-Life 2, in my eyes, is environmental storytelling at its highest standard. I have yet to see a game so rich in detail that is simultaneously so willing to go overlooked.

[@Pikminiman]

I would agree with you if I hadn't played Half-Life: Alyx a few times.

[@sulphurous2656]

There's something about Valve games when it comes to the detail put into the levels in order to convey a story that I don't see often in other titles.

[@yhavinmiles]

Bioshock?

[@Gameprojordan]

@@sulphurous2656 I mean with these type of games you need heavy environmental story telling to the get point across since there aren't any cutscenes and it would be a drag having to listen to massive exposition dumps from people explaining everything going on in the universe

[@theknight1573]

@@Pikminiman as in Alyx is better or it breaks the story telling of HL2?

[@Voucher765]

In Sandtraps there is a house with two burnt corpses outside after you exit the tunnel which could imply that Combine forces executed resistance members in barbaric ways like they did in Ravenholm with headcrab shells.

[@ThatGenericPyro]

Or hey: The seemingly fried body at that one checkpoint in Water Hazard (15:33) Perhaps he was being interrogated/tortured and they finished by melting his face ala Indy 1

[@LitEmbers]

There are examples of this ALL over. Use of biotics, fire, and other "scare tactics" and inhumane actions taken against resistance.

[@larrydaboi1841]

I think that the combine executed them with their guns and then burned the bodies for some reason, perhaps they wanted to put an outpost there and needed to clean it, otherwise it could atract xen creatures searching for food

[@randomtexanguy9563]

@@larrydaboi1841 they most likely just wanted to clean everywhere so its not infested with rotting corpses or skeletons that the land is completely rendered unusable for new structures to be constructed, and because of potential mass xen infestation. for existing defensive structures, they would definitely clean up corpses to prevent further xen infestation and to add more needed supplies and other things

[@civilprotectionunit8145]

Its actually a cremator that burned the body

[@ZaccoOfficial]

11:06 this whole sequence made me realize just how much more I love the combine's AI, not only from a gameplay standpoint but from a story telling standpoint.

[@jorts_master69]

I love stuff like that in games where the gameplay isn't just there to be fun but it also act as another detail in the story.

[@TheIlumintor]

the fact that metrocops received drugs before and during the combat explains why despite the collapse of the citadel in episode 1, they are not joinning to the resistance and still willing to fight on combine's side no matter if the entire citadel is gonna explode, definetly something terrifying, unable to think on yourself even if the world is falling appart

[@melgibson5029]

In Episode One we are told the metro cops, not being really brainwashed like the combine soldiers are, pretty much form their own faction and try to fight the resistance for control of the trains so they can escape City 17

[@bloodypine22]

Didn't the Civil protection units just fall into utter chaos during the fall of City 17 though

[@randomtexanguy9563]

@@melgibson5029 otherwise some metrocops would've actually gave up, surrender to the resistance and then either help them, be executed, or be put in something like a POW (Prisoner of War) camp

[@Rammkommando]

@@randomtexanguy9563 assuming the resistance can form a pow camp, which i doubt more than likely due to lack of resources and personnel to actualyl watch and hold any prisoners its shoot on sight, metrocops just got the really short end of the stick,

[@juanausensi499]

@@Rammkommando That. Metrocops can't surrender, because resistance isn't going to forgive them. Their only hope is keep fighting and hoping the Combine stabilizes the situation soon.

[@Elemtree]

Why did I read that tile as “Just how bad was Columbine” I think I need a sit down...

[@georgejoy7635]

At least it wasn't "was columbine REALLY that bad?"

[@that1pieperson80]

@@georgejoy7635 atleast!

[@randomnpc8828]

God I read "concubine" and my brain just stopped existing for a full minute

[@georgejoy7635]

@@that1pieperson80 you're wrong atleast isn't a word I'd be asking your auto-correct questions as it's putting in a poor performance which is important considering you can't spell ;)

[@that1pieperson80]

@@georgejoy7635 why so hostile man it was one mistake?

[@GearShockMirasu]

What i find interesting is that in the start of HL: Alyx, when the strider connects cables, you can see it could not care less about the buildings, it just steps on the rooftop, damaging it, but it doesn’t care, it goes up and connects the cable. Combine sees human buildings just like humans see some rabbit hole, or an ant colony. They see human structures just as another piles of dirt, because they practically are.

[@墓地鈍ら-o8z]

only a shitty human would see an ant hill as another pile of dirt

[@NeonDeity]

@@墓地鈍ら-o8z guess I'm a shitty human

[@aquaponieee]

@@墓地鈍ら-o8z ok yes but the Combine is such a shitty being that it wants to enslave and kill every single ant and drain all of their resources and kill their families no matter the cost so they'd practically be like a shitty human except way shittier so obviously they'd see the buildings as a pile of enemy dirt

[@jessh4016]

@@墓地鈍ら-o8z I agree with you in a sense, but you're so disagreeable and abrasive that I have an almost primal urge to argue with you.

[@LordVader1094]

@@墓地鈍ら-o8z You must see an ant hill as another pile of dirt then

[@fard6080]

2:50 the woman actually found her husband in the part where you fight your first guardian

[@Thugshaker101]

Combines: *killing all the humans on earth and drugging them* Man in orange suit bhopping: " *Did you say somethin?* "

[@donkey757]

take doom guy for an example, Demon: yo, i killed someone's pet rabit satan: You what?

[@ther6sshieldmain937]

Doomguy starts sprinting as fast as a car.

[@pixel22444]

Wait. Gordon can't speak

[@keentrasborg2566]

@@pixel22444 Yeah more like Man in orange suit bhopping: "..." *Brandishes crowbar*

[@Neo2266.]

This is a shit meme, should have used the “And I took that personally” one

[@loungegod]

I don't think I've ever heard someone describe Gordon's presence as "a cancerous cell" and that was the most accurate description ever.

[@wilsonno9675]

Yeah, but instead the cancer is fighting a much bigger cancer the Combine

[@JamesJJSMilton]

@@wilsonno9675 From the perspective of the Combine, Gordon is the Cancer. Hes a virus, turning everything he comes into contact with against the Combine. Where others become martyrs or are brought to heel, this one measly, insignificant biped has managed to go toe-to-toe with an entire occupation force.

[@michaelhenry3234]

@@wilsonno9675 You could easily describe humanity as a cancer too. Our rogue cells are just fighting a bigger, more destructive cancer.

[@drooskie9525]

@@JamesJJSMilton Also probably because the Combine is so massive that thinking and framing it in terms of biology is most appropriate. We have a currently estimated 30 trillion cells that makes us up, and each of those cells function like a city on a microscopic level.

[@theone14444]

It's really fun how you mention that the Combine architecture is like a tumor to the planet it invades. I am an industrial electrician, and one of the things i simply cannot get over is HOW LITTLE SHITS the Combine give. Look at what they do. They slam a hole in a wall and put a bridge there. They bolt a terminal to a wall and call it a control center. In HL:A we see a construction Strider simply drop cables over rooftops. When do you do these things? When you don't care about the system. The most orderly construction we see in HL2 is the citadel, and even that one feels kind of uncoordinated and random at times. None of this empire is built to last. Can't even imagine that the overworld of this collective of species looks like. Imagine how they got there? Augmenting themselves, others, invading and aquiring, discarding all morale for cold practicality. How strong must their overarching goal be?

[@NoNameTaken117]

Funny thing in is your right. Humanity is only alive because the combine need their teleportation technology.

[@cherrydragon3120]

There is just 1 goal in their mind. And nothing else matters. The planet can be harvested for materials later as well. So why bother keeping it tidy

[@ceu160193]

@@cherrydragon3120 More like keeping it tidy is completely foreign to them. Combine is all about functionality - functionality pushed to absolute. They do not do more, than is necessary. Even when it comes to local forces, they simply adapted existing human concepts everywhere, where it would be sufficient.

[@andrewnebz]

For all the Combine's horrific methodology and actions, it's evident that humanity (or at least some people) still tried their best to carry on like usual under the circumstances. I was just replaying chapter 8 of Alyx, set in the ruins of a zoo, and noticed a child's drawing of a Civil Protection unit on the wall among the other kids' illustrations of animals. Evidence that kids were allowed to visit the zoo and naively draw tributes to their oppressors does make me wonder what other facets of human society remained intact, at least for a time, before becoming irreparable. Banks/financial systems? Individual regions' governments? Other entertainment venues, like theaters or sports? 20-ish years is a lot of time for a lot of stuff to change, I'm certainly curious about how gradually it all could have happened between the Black Mesa Incident, Seven Hour War, and status quo seen from Alyx onward.

[@valance10]

I hope at some point someone writes a book about the Combine Occupation

[@concept5631]

​@@valance10Hopefully.

[@sevendrills4326]

I'd assume that after the war the combine set up overwatch as a sort of world goverment that very remaining govermnet had to lay down too out of fear It was pretty bad qt the start but I'd assume base level jobs still existed and people could still live in the cities that weren't fucked up by portal storms Eventually Overwatch started assimilating governments and shepherding the remaining public into smaller cities around the globe and by then everybody had lost their "normal" job and was just doing shit for the combine at that point Amd by the time hl2 starts nearly everybody is just doing basic jobs for the combine with barely any food with overwatch acting as the government

[@Pikminiman]

In true Lovecraftian style, the Combine are more insidious the more you know about them -- despite how little you ever actually learn.

[@thesha7447]

The fact that we have no idea of how an actual combine looks like is just staggering

[@mr.cup6yearsago211]

@@thesha7447 I mean, unless you want to go with Hunt Down the Freeman’s interpretation, but uh... no thanks.

[@fruitylerlups530]

@@thesha7447 theres prob no such thing as an actual combine, whatever was the original species may have been completely consumed by the combine they created and no longer exist in any recognizable form. The combine could just be the sum of its parts.. yknow.. we live in a society.

[@carcotasu081]

@@fruitylerlups530 Nah, there must be a capital solar system of the Combine. They must have a centralized government of sorts. The original species, the powerful invaders that took over other species.

[@ladyhm.6748]

@@carcotasu081 "Must be", 'Must have"... Why?

[@abyssalcrow8568]

I think you're being a bit hasty on the "kill civilians" part especially in the intro segment but as well as other parts. The combine have STUN sticks which they do use on Gordon and do not kill. and the apartment raid has no shots fired so it's likely they were apprehended. If everyone was dying like this then they'd have no manpower to work their factories or supply new CP units, no point in ruling over bodies and wreckage.

[@chewy99.]

Exactly, and we know the crying couple survives that because we see them again in Episode 1 and 2.

[@sintua]

Not that the fate that awaited them was any better - but yeah, the combine preferred not to just kill all the humans, because they were the harvest.

[@MOTHblank]

Noclipped into that first room blocked by combines and the guy looked pretty dead to me. I didn't notice the stun sound either. The others, yeah, they were stunned, but you can't ignore the meaning of that woman saying "run for your lives". You can't expect them to be just fine after opposing the combine.

[@martinkrejci3687]

yeah but after they stun u, they put u in a jail

[@JaxontheOkay]

i think they would be apprehended to be executed later. you do bring up a good point tho. i don't think the metro police have the authority to kill

[@spacesheep6547]

You know you made a good game, when people still talk about it 17 years after release

[@humanman2358]

Somehow Mat hasn't tried to theorize anything about the Half-Life universe...

[@CLNcoolguy]

City 17

[@wolf0184]

@@humanman2358 He has actually, he has a video about the G-Man.

[@nimarus3118]

_"It views all of humanity as a singular organism, a single body. If views dissident citizens as malignant and when sentencing one, it orders its troops to diagnose, amputate, and coagulate."_ Reminds me of the human body identifying viruses, damaged cells, or cancerous cells and attacking them.

[@iamrightoutsideyourwindowhello]

I think thats basically the premise of the Combine, they consider themselves doctors and whatnot and they consider the resistance to be the cancer cells and viruses

[@spookyscarysteve]

…That’s what they were saying??

[@ic0nic707]

Yeah, what do you mean it reminds you of that? That’s just what she said.

[@jessh4016]

"As you can see from this diagram, it's almost as if the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell." "Reminds me of powerhouses." I'll just choose to believe you were high when you wrote that.

[@allseeingirene]

​@Jess H The human body is just one huge dictatorship, cancer is, after all, begun when cells freely multiply and refuse/don't receive their orders to commit suicide

[@audiosurfarchive]

And to think, the Beta was even more grimdark than what we got.. The Air Exchange, child labor, even more monstrosities, the Wastelands..

[@mauzki-]

I'd say in some ways this version of the game is darker in the way its more subtle. You don't need all of this emphasis to show the power of the combine as in the beta designs, but a drained dead planet, the wind is all left of the once thriving civlisation. Stuff like air exchange looked cool but I think retail is better with being subtle. MInd you the weapons and cremator should have been in retail.

[@audiosurfarchive]

@@mauzki- That, ultimately, is still how I feel about the final product.

[@zhankazest]

@d R i have a _somewhat_ similar headcanon, but instead its that the beta was, well, sort of a "beta" version of the combine lol Basically it was how the initial combine presence, but after some amount of time before gordon came along, the combine were like "ok we dont need a lot of this stuff, lets just redesign and remove some stuff because its not like some guy is just going single handedly take us down, right? Right?" Also some stuff like the cremator do actually exist, (although that seems to be less of a headcanon because in Eli's lab [i think] there's a cremator head in a jar) and maybe like the beta citadel or something, its just you dont see them There's probably some plot holes or something in this but whatever

[@hlf-life2combinesoldier579]

The combine aren't all that bad, really.

[@audiosurfarchive]

@@hlf-life2combinesoldier579 hmmmmmmmmm 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

[@madmanmapper]

"You will own nothing, and you will like it."

[@sudonim7552]

Lol isn't that what that group of greedy rich people said when they claimed the solution to global climate catastrophe is to just make everyone rent everything instead of buying things.

[@madmanmapper]

@@sudonim7552 Yep, and if you pay attention, the phrase pops up quite often. It's scary.

[@mikeybroski3686]

"Don't eat the bugs, they put something in them, to make you forget! I don't even remember what gender I am!"

[@oldaccount1542]

I'm your 69th comment liker.

[@madmanmapper]

@@oldaccount1542 Awesome! Perv.

[@jamesbailey9760]

They do all these smart moves but “I have a shotgun”

[@sovietunion7643]

playing against soldier AI in HL1 in a nutshell

[@jinx8624]

the combine is one of the most evil and unsettling ideas i have ever known which definitely gives a whole knew meaning to the game that i didn't realise on my first playthrough where i didn't understand what the combine were and just saw them as fairly generic bad guys crazy how many signs i missed that there was something even more sinister going on the combine might also be a metaphor for humanity in real life how we are draining and destroying earth and how we kill indiscriminately when things like insects get in our way

[@dustmystic291]

I find it rather amusing that people get confused when I describe Half Life as Cosmic Horror. The stuff covered here is but one fraction of why I feel the term applies.

[@aedwynn6474]

Oh there's definitely a Lovecraftian feel to the series from the Great Old One-like Nihilanth to the Nyarlathotep-like G-man.

[@dustmystic291]

@@aedwynn6474 Lets also not forget just how alien the aliens look - one of my favorite things about HL and the expansions was that the aliens truly felt like the product of a foreign and strange biology. Even the Vorts have a barely compatible mindset and very weird appearance.

[@whiteface513abandonedchann8]

It's all very comprehensible by a human mind, though, so I really don't see that

[@Cushla-np4pt]

I think it’s 2 conflicting forces, man vs nature

[@diamondmetal3062]

It’s cosmic horror if the vast alien gods knew exactly how humanity thought and did everything in their power to specifically and methodically break humanity apart.

[@ronkledonkanusmoncher564]

G Man scares the entire combine, I think it’s safe to say no matter how much power they have, they can definitely be destroyed. All empires fall no matter how big, and G Man and his employers are unexplainably powerful beings stronger than any dimension big empire could ever be. They’re genuinely terrified of what him and his employers are capable of, and that’s saying something for such a powerful military force.

[@RsRj-qd2cg]

It's known that the Combine has difficulty teleporting within universes. They teleport between universes. Maybe the G-Man and the colleagues he alluded to are able to exist outside the Combine's reach because they can retreat to places like Xen, and the Combine can't follow. That would also explain how the Vortigaunts are able to resist.

[@Ace08745]

remember the end of hl alyx alyx wanted to destroy combines but gman said he cant do that

[@AGD_AwkwardGameDev]

He never said he couldn't, he simply said it would be too big a change. G-man is playing a whole other game, where the combine need to be in place for his employers plans to unfold.

[@juanausensi499]

The combine is unfathomable vast and powerful for us, puny humans. Still, the universe is infinitely more vast. So, in my mind, the combine is not the most powerful player out there. Probably G-man's employers are much more powerful. They don't destroy the Combine because the Combine poses no threat to them. But they have a curious disposition and like to 'nudge' things to see what happens. For us this is a epic battle for survival. For the combine it's business as usual. For the 'employers', both us and the combine are two strains of bacteria put together in a Petri dish.

[@wolfmarsh3069]

@@juanausensi499 I just wanted to take a second to appreciate how well written this comment is, the whole Petri dish statement is a great analogy

[@d3ltazer0judgement]

Chell: "finally i am out of this building" *sees the combine* Chell: "well shit"

[@arthureaterofworlds5176]

Combine: "Anti-citizen located!"

[@DavidLopez-en6el]

Oh shit that's right Apeture Labs is miles underground in a self-sufficent bunker system while the events of Half Life and Half Life 2 take place. Was the combine unaware of it?

[@d3ltazer0judgement]

@@DavidLopez-en6el Probably they weren't aware of it. Maybe the history about Cave Johnson and the aperture science just vanished. Knowing that Portal 2 have a giant time advance compared to Portal 1 (it was 200 or 2000 years?) probably the combines doesn't even exists anymore. But yeah, seeing all the events in Portal 1 happening and no alien or black mesa appearance is just strange.

[@Zorb1s]

@@d3ltazer0judgement i believe portal 2 takes place 50,000 years after

[@d3ltazer0judgement]

@@Zorb1s well, that's a lot

[@rabbitjack1990]

I also heard in the beta storyline children were collected and besides being enslaved they were also forced to play some "video games". In reality they were controling the Manhack drones, those flying razor-bladed robots ans hunting down people. Of course they had no idea and they were even awarded if they could score high points.

[@concept5631]

Seems to grimdark

[@Horny_Fruit_Flies]

I mean, yeah, the BEYDA was edgy garbage for boys who like to soyface at other over the top edgy settings like Warhammer 40k

[@oliverhenry4676]

I’m so glad the beta was never made… the real story of hl2 is so much more subtle and atmospheric

[@concept5631]

Honestly not having children in Half-Life 2 was probably one of the best things Valve ever did with the series.

[@Hongobogologomo]

Ive always wanted a spinoff of hl2, similar to metro or stalker, set beyond the combine perimeter, among the mutated wastelands. What is life like for people who arent in the cities? Who is left, what is left? The questions we have in our minds, the speculation of the unseen, this is what makes half life such an incredible gem. Its a novel, in video game form.

[@feelfreetoscreenshot1733]

That would be awesome

[@marklems5894]

Well in the short demo of "Lost Coast", at least people still leaving in little towns have a normal life and hunt and fish any xen form life is eatable.

[@KoeSeer]

IIRC, normal living human still out there outside City 17 or any cities. They're just living either underground, in hiding from Combine.

[@onemangamer587]

Well Metro exodus is a great example of that! In the other metros we barely go to the surface, let alone outside the city. But In exodus we see how people have been living all along outside of the cities and the metros. If you haven't played it yet I highly recommend it

[@navilluscire2567]

I mean Half-Life already has many similar elements to the Stalker series. Things like interdimensional shenanigans, *"portal storms"* that can kill or twist just about anything thats caught up in them, *"PSYCHIC POWERS"* are a thing, and just other general weird sh*t. Which is to say heck yeah I'd love to see a more open world Half-Life survival game!

[@Snow-dv7hx]

I feel bad for the Civil Protection officers, they need to live, they need their families to live, so they abandon their morals so they can live for just a little while longer. Maybe they'll get promoted and lose all sense of humanity, so they won't even need to think about their families.

[@Raycloud]

There is an Overwatch line for Civil Protection officers you hear sometimes; "Reminder: Memory Replacement is key to rank privileges." It implies to me that prior to undergoing full augmentation to a Combine Soldier, a Civil Protection officer first has large portions of their mind wiped. It'd be a great way to neutralize infiltrators like Barney.

[@liyifenn]

I wonder if that *did* happen to Barney in some way, but he has no idea

[@freindmaker4473]

@Demoman yeah they literally say that in the video dude

[@ceu160193]

@@liyifenn Unlikely, as those memory replacements clearly are done in way, that encourages you to continue. You would feel "incomplete" until you give up last piece of your humanity and emerge from Citadel or Nova Prospect as another soldier.

[@platypipope328]

he who feeds a crocodile hoping that it will eat him last is an individual not deserving of sympathy

[@TheWorldOf...]

- HλLF LIFE 1 changed my perspective about PC video games and blew my mind. - HλLF LIFE 2 and its two expansions were so realistic and absorbing that made me want to live there despite being a post-apocalyptic world. WTF Valve?? What kind of witchcraft is this?? XD - Now HλLF LIFE: ALYX and its VR... has left me speechless. The HλLF LIFE-PORTAL franchise has the best and memorable worldbuilding in videogame history. And it makes me very happy to see how it still lasts.

[@VideoGameTrailersDatabase_VGTD]

😭😭😭

[@W3Rn1ckz]

hlambdalf life

[@professionaltrainenthusias4945]

i fucking loved alyx, i just honestly have no words

[@kavokonkav]

@@professionaltrainenthusias4945 I started replaying it a few days ago. :D

[@TheWorldOf...]

@adumb , mmm, yes? XD

[@featgorgon3985]

shoutout that time Gordon got a whole apartment block killed because he walked into it

[@Shoxic666]

I think it's mentioned that should the Overwatch troops impress the Combine, humanity will be allowed to live on as breeding stock for future soldiers.

[@g--stef4756]

More or less. Breen talks about it in his prison speech: in the Combine's eyes, the survival of the species will be based on whether or not humans prove themselves to be useful as soldiers in the ranks of Overwatch- basically, that they be useful Synths like Striders, Gunships, Hunters, and of course Stalkers.

[@brickofwar9727]

And that was going on for two decades, humanity only had about another decade left before most of the population would become infertile or be at higher risk for birth defects

[@TheFloodFourm]

Wow, this just adds an entire layer to why people join the Combine.

[@mr.mysteriousyt6118]

@@TheFloodFourm they think they are doing the right thing and maybe they are who knows

[@carcotasu081]

As much as people shit on Breen, if you listen to his speeches, he does make sense. The guy is trying to make the best deal he can for Humanity. Breen knew that the situation is hopeless, and that if Humanity would resist, the Combine would completely destroy us.

[@mank89]

I like how the cps decided to band together and become their own group, I mean the rebels will never accept them for what they did and the combine is now outwardly hostile to all humans at this point so they really only have eachother and I think that if this game is further followed up on they should delve into this concept more cause I think its awesome

[@woppagangnamstyle]

I never could have guessed that they would cover Child Protective Services like this,left me speechless

[@Softpaw1996]

uhh did you play the game? Cp's are very much still part of the combine forces. they are however replaced by their superior brethren from the overwatch. you actually fight a few cp's when you return to the war torn city. They fight alongside overwatch soldiers.

[@NoNameTaken117]

@@Softpaw1996 No? You haven't heard what Barney said right? He said something about how the CP's are having second thoughts about saving City-17

[@falloutgamer347]

I always liked to think the cps that come in as the last wave of enemies before the strider in episode 1 were trying to get to the train themselves to escape the city. Think about it, why would the easiest enemies be the last wave especially after the apc? Sure they fire at you but they could just be desperate. Even if im wrong its just my headcanon. I also just realized this is the last time they appear in the games and the only time they are in episode 1

[@WisteriaNerium]

@@Softpaw1996 Half-Life 2 Episode 1, Barney mentions how a separate faction of Civil Protection is trying to take over the trains and escape City 17. They're not combine not resistance, just people who realize they're fucked either way and might as well make a run for it.

[@pointybits6496]

This is exactly why I love Valve's way of doing a story. It's not in your face and not intrusive. It's not overly explained to you with whats going on with someone giving you a whole run down of their world. It's organic and you pick up on it as your organically making your way through the world. You can either ignore these little nuances completely, or you can engage and pick up on every small bit of detail in these parts of the world of Half Life. There will almost never be a game like this.

[@jaykdos9521]

One with I find extremely messed up about Civil Protection is based on one of Overwatch's lines: "*Reward notice: CP Unit (insert here) your family cohesiveness is preserved.*" The idea that some work for the CP simply so they can keep their families together.

[@valance10]

When a cp unit dies you can hear overwatch say the unit is "non-cohesive". They kill your family if you fail.

[@ultra-papasmurf]

@@valance10 cohesive just means all together and working together doesnt mean they kill their family probably just immediately break it up beyond what it already is. Them being together is a oddity (i.e not a cohesive family unit), them being broken up is how the combine naturally has it and also since new kids hasnt been a thing for decades family cohesion is in itself probably just your spouse alone, you dying probably breaks it entirely naturally and they simply leave or relocate said spouse.

[@splinter6479]

The breakdown of their inhuman tactical coordination blew me away. Absolutely amazing.

[@danielzhang5395]

Noting here is beyond human capabilities. Basic coordination isn’t anything special.

[@DonRoyalX]

@@danielzhang5395 yeah I was gonna say our soldiers are capable of way more tactical thought than just that, what does he mean inhuman coordination? Haha that’s dumb

[@davidbarroso1960]

@@DonRoyalX i think the key part is that it’s done without communication

[@civilprotectionunit8145]

@@danielzhang5395 coordination under extreme pressure and stress is special, especially without a lot of communication

[@danielzhang5395]

@@civilprotectionunit8145 “Coordination under pressure” is practiced by all modern militaries plus, they’re only fighting one guy. You don’t need much communication to perform basic fire-and-maneuver tactics.

[@johnnybensonitis7853]

Jesus! How old are you?? I played this game (for the Xbox, oblivious) back in 2005, and all of the Half-Life content I could get up to 2009. I'm 37 now, and I've never came close to giving this much thought to the Combine. I understood there was some incredibly clever storytelling going on amongst everything else, but damn, I never realized just how much went into just the enemy. Holy fuck, man. This vid is most appreciated as it really puts the Combine into a new, more disgusting light.

[@Mgaak]

I will never forget this moment at 12:00. It was one of the most impressive tactics that AI used on me and damn, that was conceived in 2000s. I love Half Life and believe it or not but I'm like 2 months from getting my PhD in theoretical physics :D (not MIT though).

[@professionaltrainenthusias4945]

hey, good job!

[@zakkymiftahurrahman1665]

It's been 2 months now. How's your study?

[@Mgaak]

@@zakkymiftahurrahman1665 my PhD defense is set for 24.01.2022. It's going to be just fine :)

[@grummanf14tomcat40]

@@Mgaak godspeed Mate :D

[@nuwnjay]

@@Mgaak good luck random internet stranger! Hope it all goes well

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

I really like that idea that Gordon is considered the only single organism against the Combine BY the Combine.

[@A_R_V_I_N]

When you said that CPs do what they do to preserve their own families, that had me thinking because this thought never crossed my mind before. Shit... Imma have to start playing the game in "notarget" mode or some shit to leave all the CPs unharmed.

[@poisonshroom64]

Merely not killing Gordon is a failure in the eyes of Overwatch. Every CP you see ingame is dead, and so are their families.

[@TheCSJones]

I think Leadhead's assuming the worst-case scenario from a single line about cohesion. "Response team is non-cohesive" could just mean the team is broken up. In this case it's because you killed once, but since Overwatch is a robot, it might also throw up that code if one of them just got lost, broke his radio, or whatever. "Cohesion preserved" might also just mean that his family has been granted immunity from future execution, not that they would've been executed immediately. And it's likely that having your family killed would be be the punishment for letting Gordon run away, not for dying in the line of duty. It would be completely pointless and backwards to take posthumous revenge on a CP officer who gave his life serving them.

[@Franzinho_0802]

@@TheCSJones yeah, maybe he was talking about the worst case, but, the combine doesnt care if its pointless or if a CP gave his life serving them, thats the thing with the combine. They are not just evil, they just dont simply have any moral or something similar, they dont care about preservation, emotions, honour or humanity. We dont matter to them

[@johnz5359]

​@@TheCSJones They're not "taking revenge" on the CP that died, that's where you're misunderstanding. They don't care about the CP or their family. They keep the CP's family alive to motivate them to do things, once the CP is dead there's no reason to keep their family alive anymore.

[@breadsqueeze27]

I Always thought the Combine Is the greatest fictional faction of all time, in all aspects, their lore, their reign, their architecture, their power, their mysteries, their affects, Thank you for talking about it.

[@Awkward_Fox]

Both the Combine and The Borg are great to look into as they're both sort of similar. "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ship. We will add your biological and technical distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile"

[@silver6kraid]

@@Awkward_Fox I feel the crucial difference is that the borg ended up getting a lot of their mystery robbed from them as time went on making them a lot less cool. What makes the combine better is just how little we know of them. Their presence on earth is mostly them not even caring. Human imagination can't comprehend the sheer horror of their full force. The scary thing about the combine is their ambivalence towards us.

[@vanillaicecream2385]

if you think the combine are scary? look up anything about warhammer 40k

[@alexandre007opa]

Heretic

[@dadaeeaeeadada3301]

@@vanillaicecream2385 I know 40k , but let be real, the combine take over multiple dimensions

[@slyseal2091]

That "name given by a philosopher" you're looking for is just divide and conquer.

[@bogmanhimself4656]

as horrifying as the combine are, i feel like it's even more horrifying that they're just using classic colonial tactics. this video reminds me of reading about the invasion of the canary islands for the first time

[@tripatriperatriposa]

@@bogmanhimself4656 Why exactly do you mention the invasion of the canary islands? I'm bored at work and i searched for some info but couldn't find anything about "dividing" tactics or anything similar used at that moment.

[@xXRealXx]

@@tripatriperatriposa *grabs popcorn*

[@lizardlegend42]

@@xXRealXx just leaving a comment here as well so I can get notified of the response. Don't really know anything about this

[@bogmanhimself4656]

@@tripatriperatriposa mostly bc it was ground zero for european colonialism, kind of the first place it was used. Iberian sailors re-conquested spain from the muslim moors in the 1400s and continued on to the canaries, where they basically did what the Combine do and looted the entire island to the point that their ecosystem collapsed. Rather than draining the sea, almost every tree of a rare variety on the island was chopped down and replaced with sugar plantations, and a broad majority of the population was enslaved and used to lure stragglers back in. There was also a lot of divide and conquer used after the Guanche organized a cohesive rebellion in 1403 (and again but smaller in 1496), and Spanish/Portugese troops realized the Guanche were easier to conquer if they were left scattered. That began a series of night raids and pincer tactics to keep Guanche sleep deprived, cut off from one another, and generally unable to coordinate anything large scale. When they were enslaved, spanish also started to train some into Breen like figures that would go in and convert fellow Guanche to christianity under the false promise that christians don't enslave other christians. This detail also might be stretching it, but just like how combine launch headcrabs into deserter populations, Iberians started using biological warfare by intentionally spreading disease on the canaries to further divide the population up. Also used the tactic of offering sex and being reintroduced to family members if they were compliant with slavery the better example for the city police and soldiers would probably be the Maroons in Barbados, a group of rebel slaves that got rehired by french + english to put down slave rebellions. regardless tho, i think that given Gabe Newell's fondness for Noam Chomsky the Combine *have* to be some form of "what if colonialism happened on an interdimensional scale". it's almost textbook sometimes, though maybe I'm reading into it too hard also Alan Taylor's american colonies was my first source on it, you can find the PDF on libgen :p