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Half-Life: Don't Pay the G-Man |
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This article contains some lengthy speculation about the plot of the
Half-Life series of
computer games.
If you're not familiar with them, none of this will make any sense to you.
The G-Man is first seen in a tram during the opening sequence of HL1. The tram is on the Yellow Line, which according to the route map seen in "Blue Shift" goes to Administration, the High Altitude Launch Center and the Lambda Complex. Before the disaster more than one scientist refers to pressure from the "administrator" to obtain a result, and the dialogue between the two scientists outside the test chamber shows that they are aware of the risk of a "resonance cascade". Immediately after the cascade the injured white-haired scientist says "why didn't they listen... we tried to warn them", further suggesting that they were forced into doing something that they knew to be dangerous. This prompted speculation that the G-Man might be the mysterious "administrator", who is never seen or named in HL1, but the introduction of Dr Breen in the opening chapter of HL2 confirmed that they were two different people. But it is reasonable to assume that the G-Man was visiting the administrator to make final preparations for the experiment, and that he was the ultimate source of the pressure to proceed. It is also possible that he was making final preparations at the Launch Center and Lambda Complex, both key locations in what was to follow. In the "Opposing Force" training level Adrian Shephard learns that he has been "mysteriously bumped to the top of the advanced training list", and although he is not told who is responsible for this the G-Man is the only plausible candidate. The fact that he can be seen talking to an officer in a building at the training facility seems to confirm his involvement. This means that he wants Shephard to play some role in the disaster, which in turn means that he knows when it will happen. The G-Man uses other people to achieve his ends, and at the start of HL2 he suggests that Gordon's role is to be "the right man in the wrong place". He would have needed Freeman, Shephard and the other major characters to be in specific places to ensure a particular outcome to the Black Mesa Incident. The disaster would therefore have to occur during a narrow window of opportunity in which everything was arranged correctly. It is probably the complexity of these arrangements that the G-Man is referring to when he tells Shephard that "a great many matters require my attention". But it also means that the G-Man would have to put considerable pressure on the administrator to ensure that everything he needed was ready in time. Numerous system failures are seen or referred to in HL1 and "Blue Shift", and as Barney arrives for work he is told that there are "problems all over the facility this morning". In HL1, a computer bank near the lift down to the test chamber explodes and one of the scientists can be heard to say "what the hell is going on with our equipment", indicating that they don't normally have these problems. There is no obvious reason for everything to go wrong on that particular day, unless the equipment is being sabotaged to ensure that there will be no chance of stopping the resonance cascade. The G-Man could have done this himself or manipulated others into doing it for him, but the latter seems more his style. It would also explain the argument that the G-Man can be seen having with an unidentified scientist before the disaster. The player cannot make out what they are saying, but the tone of their voices and their body language is consistent with the G-Man trying to browbeat the scientist into doing something that he is reluctant to do. It is also possible that this scene was intended to show the G-Man putting pressure on the administrator, but in either case it emphasises his role in precipitating the disaster. He would therefore need to have the science team killed and the facility destroyed to eliminate all evidence of how the disaster had been caused. The G-Man's description of Black Mesa as an "embarrassment" and his reference to "the lingering matter of witnesses" at the end of "Opposing Force" confirms that he is anxious to conceal something incriminating. The fact that Barney and a group of scientists are allowed to escape in "Blue Shift" shows that the G-Man is concerned about witnesses to his activities rather than witnesses to the disaster. After all, the whole world will soon know about the aliens and any surviving scientists who talked publicly about what they'd been doing would risk getting lynched. The site at which Freeman launches a rocket must be the "High Altitude Launch Center", and the killing of all the scientists there should be seen as another act of sabotage. At the start of the "On A Rail" chapter in HL1, Freeman meets a security guard who tells him that the Lambda science team need to have a satellite launched if they are to have any chance of halting the invasion. Later, a soldier at the launch site is heard wondering "who ordered this operation", with obvious disgust. This implies that the orders came from outside his normal chain of command, and they must have been from someone who wanted the invasion to continue. That points to the G-Man again. It implies that he has some authority over the soldiers of the HECU (Hazardous Environment Combat Unit), which in turn implies that he really does hold some official position rather than just adopting the appearance of a government official on his visits to Black Mesa. The fact that he is seen travelling on the tram system before the disaster suggests that he enters the facility like a normal visitor instead of just teleporting in, and it would certainly be far easier for him to make his preparations if he could move around Black Mesa openly. Nuking the facility is the only way of getting everybody who might have seen him behaving suspiciously, and it allows the G-Man to disappear suddenly without anyone wondering what had happened to him.
The presence of a supply canister on a ledge in the Nihilanth's chamber shows that the Black Mesa survey teams did penetrate that far, but it is very hard to believe that they could have successfully retrieved the crystal. The remaining crystals are fixed to the wall, high above the ground, and even using the teleport gun seen in "Opposing Force" it would be virtually impossible to remove one intact while under constant attack from the Nihilanth. It could only have been done with the assistance of the G-Man or his "employers", and for reasons that will become clear below it is unlikely to have been them. There is also the question of how the Black Mesa scientists even knew that this chamber existed, given that anyone who got that far was very unlikely to get out again, and why they thought it so important to obtain a sample of the crystals. One of the scientists operating the "anti-mass spectrometer" emphasises that "they went to some lengths" to get the sample, the proof of which can be found in the number of human bodies scattered around Xen. The fact that the experiment goes disastrously wrong so quickly shows that the scientists really have no understanding of what they're dealing with. Therefore it is also likely that the administrator only found out about the crystals from the G-Man, and that whatever he was told convinced him that it was imperative to obtain one. But it must have been obvious to the administrator that his mysterious colleague had access to knowledge and technology that could not be of earthly origin. He must have known that he was dealing with an alien, or at the very least a human with alien allies. In HL2, Dr Breen talks at great length about humanity's destiny "among the stars" and claims that it cannot be realised without the help of "the universal union that small minds call the Combine". He talks in the same terms in private and in public, indicating that it is what he really believes rather than just propaganda to pacify the remaining human population. In his own mind he is saving the human race from "instinct" and "superstition" and offering it transcendence through the agency of the Combine. His speeches express a deep loathing of human nature, portraying "the dark pit of our species' evolution" as something to be escaped at any cost, and the conditions in City 17 show how little he cares about the "unworthy branches of the species". Eli Vance describes what has been happening to the human race as "genocide". It is clear that Breen is a fanatic, who will go to any lengths to bring about humanity's "transformation". Such a man would have no qualms about working with an alien of unknown motives, and would see an alien invasion as an opportunity to save the human race from itself. To get his co-operation, the G-Man would simply have to tell him the truth about how the "resonance cascade" would bring the Combine to Earth. Of course, the G-Man would have to lie about some things, such as his plans for Gordon Freeman. He would probably have told Breen that Freeman had outstanding abilities, to ensure that he got the job at Black Mesa and that he would be chosen to take part in the experiment on the Nihilanth's crystal. Breen's comment in HL2 that Freeman had "hardly earned the distinction of his PhD" at the time of the Black Mesa Incident certainly implies that Freeman was far too inexperienced to have obtained such an important post on the basis of his academic or professional qualifications alone. The G-Man would probably also have suggested that Freeman was going to play a vital part in bringing about Breen's vision for the transformation of the human race. That would explain why Breen seems so personally aggrieved at Freeman in HL2, and accuses him of squandering his potential to "embark on a path of ignorance and decay". Freeman's violent revolution would appear to him as both a personal betrayal and a betrayal of everything that "a man of science with the ability to sway reactionary and fearful minds" should stand for. Breen's links with the G-Man also explain how he is able to negotiate an end to the "7 hour war", as described by the newspaper cuttings in Eli's lab, and subsequently become administrator of the whole planet. If the Combine had wanted to find a leader with the authority to speak for the human race, if only to offer its surrender, they would hardly have contacted the administrator of an obscure scientific installation. Breen must have contacted them, persuaded them that it would be best to allow a human to administer Earth on their behalf, and presented himself as the ideal candidate. It is hard to see how he could have done any of this without the assistance of the G-Man, especially since every major government would also have been desperately trying to make contact with the alien leadership. But if a surrender was only negotiated after Breen contacted them it is likely that the Combine had not demanded one, suggesting that their original intention was to exterminate the human race immediately rather than take time to assimilate the most useful parts of it. It follows that Breen plays several crucial roles in the plot. Firstly, he helps bring about the disaster at Black Mesa. Secondly, he saves humanity from extinction at the hands of the Combine. Thirdly, by persuading the Combine to let him rule on their behalf he minimises the Combine presence on Earth, making it possible for Freeman to lead an uprising. Breen clearly believes that he is pursuing his own agenda, and his remark in HL2 that with Freeman and Vance in his power he can "dictate the terms of any bargain I care to make with the Combine" shows that he does not have any genuine loyalty to them. All that matters to him is his own vision for the human race, although like most fanatics he is ready to sacrifice any number of actual human lives for the sake of humanity in the abstract. However, Breen is just a pawn. He could not have done any of these things without the G-Man's involvement, and like Freeman he is simply the "right man in the wrong place" to bring about a particular sequence of events. This suggests that Breen's apparent death at the end of HL2 was also planned by the G-Man, because once Breen had ceased to be useful he would just be another witness to silence. It also suggests that the G-Man was responsible for Breen's appointment as administrator of Black Mesa. He may even have influenced his earlier life to ensure that Breen developed the beliefs that make him useful. This raises the question of just how far back the plot goes. In "Blue Shift" Doctor Rosenberg states that the old teleportation labs date from before the Lambda Complex was built, so the teleportation experiments must have been going on for several years at least. It is possible that it was those initial forays into Xen that first attracted the attention of the G-Man or his "employers" to Earth, or even that the G-Man covertly guided the research at Black Mesa to ensure that teleportation would be invented in the first place. It is possible that the Black Mesa Incident was planned decades in advance.
He cannot be working for the Combine as he uses Freeman against them in HL2. Doctor Breen is excluded for the same reason, and also because the G-Man always refers to his "employers" rather than an "employer", suggesting that he is working for a group or organisation rather than an individual. There is no evidence that any of the other human characters had a motive to employ him, let alone the means to do so. That only leaves the Vortigaunts or some other alien race that has yet to appear, and the evidence so far points to the Vortigaunts. Firstly, the Vortigaunts are the immediate beneficiaries of the events of HL1, despite the many casualties they suffer. Their enslavement to the Nihilanth is ended and they get the chance to escape from the "border world" Xen to the less hostile surroundings of Earth. There are several Vortigaunt lines in HL2 which suggest that they are determined to win their freedom at all costs, such as "life is worthless unless spent on freedom" and "let this war end in either total victory or our extinction". Another line states that Vortigaunts "do not fear the interval of darkness" because it is merely "an oscillation", suggesting that they do not fear death because they do not see it as final. It is therefore plausible that they would be willing to pay a very high price for freedom. The line "we are a tapestry of vortessence...it is the same for you" suggests that they see human life as similar in nature to their own, in which case human death would also be a mere "oscillation". This helps explain why they would be willing to let the Combine plunder Earth. Doug Lombardi of Valve stated in an interview (PC Zone magazine, issue 160) that while they were working on HL1 they had already decided that "some immense threat had chased the Nihilanth and its creatures out of their own world and into Xen", so the Vortigaunts must have known that the Combine would pursue them. The human race is collateral damage in an alien war. This question of what a person will do in order to survive is one of the recurring themes of the Half-Life games. For example, Freeman is a scientist who has become a ruthless killing machine, and Breen does terrible things in the name of the survival of the species. Related to this is the theme of freedom, which virtually all the characters are seeking in one way or another. The Vortigaunts sought freedom from the Nihilanth, the humans want freedom from the Combine, and Breen wants to liberate humanity from the tyranny of "instinct". They all have to decide what this freedom is really worth, in terms of personal sacrifice and harm done to others. Secondly, during the final sequence of HL1 the G-Man says that "the border world Xen is in our control for the time being", with a scene of dead soldiers in the background. This could be taken to suggest that "our control" means US government control, and that we are seeing the aftermath of a successful invasion of Xen. However, while there is a Xen sky in the background the soldiers are lying on the kind of sandy terrain found around Black Mesa, suggesting that this is simply a montage of images evoking different aspects of the Black Mesa Incident. There is also nothing else in any of the Half-Life games to suggest that such an invasion took place, and it is hard to see how it could have occurred before the facility was nuked anyway. In that case, "our control" can only refer to the Vortigaunts, and the G-Man qualifies it with "for the time being" because he knows that Xen will soon be invaded by the Combine. Thirdly, there is an obvious parallel between Breen's description of the Combine as "our benefactors" and the way that members of the human resistance refer to their Vortigaunt friends. The similar language implies a similar relationship: in each case, the human thinks he's pursuing his own agenda when he's really serving the agenda of his alien allies. This parallel is further reinforced by how the Vortigaunts and Combine both refer to humans in impersonal terms. The Vortigaunts talk of "the Freeman" and "the Eli Vance", and when the player kills a member of Civil Protection a voice on the radio announces that a "unit" has been "deserviced". Fourthly, during the "resonance cascade" in HL1 Gordon is transported to an unknown location in which he appears in front of a group of Vortigaunts in a circle of light surrounded by darkness. The fact that they are standing in a semicircle around the point at which Freeman appears, in the only available light, strongly suggests that he has been sent there specifically for their benefit. The obvious interpretation is that the G-Man is showing them the man he has chosen to be their liberator. It isn't clear where this encounter takes place, but it is notable that Freeman only appears there after being briefly teleported into Xen. At the end of HL1, Freeman meets the G-Man in what looks like Xen and is then teleported to a tram flying through a dark void. At the end of "Opposing Force" Shephard has a similar experience, but in an aircraft flying over New Mexico, then through Xen, and then through the void. This dark place is presumably the dimension in which the G-Man keeps Freeman between missions and in which Shephard is "detained", and the similarities between these sequences imply that it is accessed via the "border world" Xen. The start of Episode One confirms that the Vortigaunts can access this dimension, which also makes them the only characters who would definitely have had the means to contact the G-Man and employ him. What he would want as payment for his services is unclear, but it could simply be control of Gordon Freeman and his "limitless potential", with Shephard as a bonus. Whatever the exact terms of their deal, the closing sequence of HL2 suggests that the contract has been completed by that point. The G-Man states that he has "received some interesting offers" for Freeman's services, and that he will choose Gordon's next mission for him "if and when your time comes round again". He also says that "I" will choose instead of referring to his "employers". Therefore when the Vortigaunts release Freeman from his control at the start of Episode One they are quite blatantly double-crossing the G-Man, which is another clue that they are much more ruthless and devious than they superficially appear. In an interview with IGN.com before the release of Episode One, Eric Johnson of Valve stated that the G-Man would lose control of Freeman "due to the rise of a third power". Episode One confirmed that this was the Vortigaunts, but they are only in this position due to Gordon Freeman. He freed them from the Nihilanth and led the uprising against Dr Breen, and remains crucial to the fight against the Combine. The Vortigaunts free him because they need him. But if the Vortigaunts are a rising power they may also be future adversaries. They were already exiles when they were in Xen, and have nowhere to call home other than Earth. Once Earth is finally freed from the Combine, the Vortigaunts might decide that they want it for themselves, and we already have evidence of how ruthless they can be. However, it is not clear if all the Vortigaunts were involved in the plot with the G-Man. They appear to have some form of telepathy, as in HL2 Alyx states that when a Vortigaunt is captured it sends back information from Nova Prospekt, and one Vortigaunt says that it is "rude of us to commune by flux-shifting" in front of humans. But the fact that they need to "commune" at all and the fact that one refers to "our finest poet" shows that they are individuals rather than a single hive-mind, in which case a group of conspirators could hide their intentions from the rest. If the conspiracy is revealed, it might cause the Vortigaunts to split into warring factions as well as causing the humans to turn on them.
An Episode Two preview in PC Gamer stated that the game will involve the Combine creating a "portal storm" as they did during the "7 hour war", and that the "packet" contains the data needed to open them. It follows that this information is also what the rebels need to close the portals, hence the Combine's relentless pursuit of Gordon and Alyx during Episode One to prevent them escaping with it. As Alyx tells Barney, "it's important enough that they've been hounding us the whole way here". This is effectively a second invasion of Earth. But the Combine are not mounting this huge assault in response to the loss of the Citadel or the destruction of their portal at the end of HL2, as the decision to send the "transmission packet" had already been taken. In Episode One, Alyx states that the reason the Combine have to blow up the Citadel's reactor to send their message is because it was "the only way" they could do it after she and Gordon "took out Breen's reactor" in HL2. This implies that Breen was going through the portal at the end of HL2 in order to send this same message in a less destructive manner. Just prior to this he had a hurried conversation with a Combine Advisor, which we get to see from the Advisor's point of view when Alyx finds a recording of it in Episode One. The fact that it was included at all suggests that it is an important plot point. Breen's lines indicate that the Advisor was sending him to "set the relay", and the obvious conclusion is that this is something they need to communicate with "wherever they came from" without overloading their reactor. It was apparently so important for the Combine to do this that they were sending the administrator of Earth, despite the fact that he would need a "host body" to survive at his destination. The question is why the Combine would be treating the situation as such a dire emergency. At that point, the Citadel and its portal were undamaged. The only thing they could be reacting to is the fact that Freeman has broken loose, but he is still trapped at the top of the Citadel with any number of soldiers and force-fields between him and the nearest exit. During the confrontation in his office Breen had seemed confident that the rebels could not win, and what we see of the Citadel in HL2 and Episode One suggests that the Combine must have had significant forces still in reserve, including many gunships and striders. To react as they do the Combine Advisors must see Freeman as a truly exceptional threat, which they would only do if they had found out about the G-Man and his connection to the Vortigaunts. However, they cannot have been aware of this at the start of the events of HL2. If they had been expecting this great enemy to appear they would have had a large number of troops positioned ready to go after him. If they were aware of the G-Man they might also have used their vast resources to buy Freeman's services, or even found a means to enter his dark dimension and attack him directly. They cannot have known what really happened at Black Mesa either, because if they had been aware of the G-Man's machinations they would probably have killed every human and Vortigaunt on the planet to eliminate any possible threat. Instead, they act as if it's just the routine conquest of another backward planet. Dr Breen also seems genuinely surprised to see Gordon Freeman re-appear. The only way he could have known that Freeman had survived his one-way trip to Xen would be if the G-Man had told him, and there was no reason for him to do that. But in the "Nova Prospekt" chapter of HL2, Breen tells the Transhuman Overwatch that Freeman has been "in a state that precluded further development", and when Gordon is held captive in his office he claims that Freeman's "contract" is "open to the highest bidder". He seems to know where Freeman has been between the events of HL1 and HL2 and who controls him, and to have learnt this since Freeman's re-appearance. It is more likely that the Combine Advisors found all this out and told Breen rather than the other way round, given the vastly greater resources at their disposal. When the G-Man remarks that he has "received some interesting offers" for Freeman's "services" he may be referring to an approach from the Combine. Breen's confidence that with Freeman in his power he "can dictate the terms of any bargain" he wishes to make with the Combine shows that he understands just how much the Combine fear Freeman. Enough, it appears, to send everything they've got after him the moment he escapes Breen's control.
Free will is another recurring theme of the Half-Life games, but with the many layers of deceit and manipulation in the plot it is hard to tell who really has it. This invites us to consider how free our own decisions really are, and whether it is even possible to tell if one genuinely has free will. There is a second aspect to Freeman's mission in HL1. We learn in HL2 that the scientist who told him to go to the surface for help after the "resonance cascade" was Eli Vance, so by killing all the hostiles between the test chamber and the surface exit Freeman is also making it possible for Vance to escape. Breen acknowledges Vance's importance when he states that with Freeman and Vance in his power he can "dictate the terms of any bargain" with the Combine, and a Vortigaunt states that "the Eli Vance is indispensable to the liberation". Presumably they see the teleport technology he is developing as the key to defeating the Combine. He is also important to the G-Man's plans, as it is Vance's capture by the Combine that ultimately results in all the key characters being gathered together at the top of the Citadel for the final confrontation. He is another example of the "right man in the wrong place". However, Mossman claims that the scientists at Black Mesa East are "closing in on a reliable local transport technology", which is "something the Combine still hasn't mastered". The G-Man must already have it, because he is able to appear and disappear at will, and any other faction that obtained it would become enormously powerful. An army that could teleport from anywhere to anywhere else would be unstoppable. The fact that Gordon and Alyx arrive in Kleiner's lab a week after teleporting out of Nova Prospekt also suggests that this technology might enable some form of time travel. Kleiner's comment that "this suggests an entirely new line of investigation" hints that this point will become important later, and if the G-Man can travel in time - even if only into potential futures - it would explain how he is able to manipulate the outcome of events so finely. But if Vance is really developing such powerful technology it is very unlikely that the G-Man or his "employers" would want anyone else to have it. So his work is repeatedly destroyed, firstly at Black Mesa, then Black Mesa East, then the Nova Prospekt portal and finally the portal in the Citadel. The explosion of the Citadel would also destroy Kleiner's lab. Teleport technology served to bring about the invasion in HL1 and manipulate the actions of the characters in HL2, but with his contract completed it would only be logical for the G-Man to eliminate this potential source of trouble. As he tells Shephard at the end of "Opposing Force", it is important that "every loose end" be "tied up". It is less clear what Shephard's role in the Black Mesa Incident is, although his accelerated training proves that the G-Man wanted him there for some purpose. The fact that Shephard reaches the Lambda Complex portal just as Freeman teleports to Xen suggests that he may have been there as a back-up, who could be sent to Xen if Freeman didn't make it that far. It is also possible that he was another candidate for the job the G-Man offers to Freeman, and that the two of them were unknowingly racing each other to the portal to test who had the superior abilities. A third possibility is that he carries out his mission by destroying the Gene Worm in the final level of "Opposing Force". The portal through which it is attempting to enter the facility does not resemble those seen elsewhere in the Half-Life games, suggesting it might be from somewhere other than Xen or the Combine's universe. The presence of fixed gun positions around it suggests that this portal has been open for some time. The guns could not have been placed there by the Black Ops troops as they would have killed the security guard in the area, and beam weapons containing Xen crystals must be Black Mesa technology. Therefore the most plausible explanation is that this portal is the result of an earlier teleport accident, perhaps even a failed attempt to bring about the "resonance cascade", which unintentionally allowed the Gene Worm and Race X aliens to reach Earth. The scientist who briefs Gordon about Xen in HL1 suggests that "an immense portal" is being created by "the intense concentration of a single powerful being", later revealed to be the Nihilanth. If the Gene Worm were doing the same from its dimension the G-Man would need it destroyed to prevent a third invasion of Earth. It would be another "loose end".
When Gordon and Alyx reach the portal in Nova Prospekt, Alyx comments that "it looks like it's waiting for us". It is suspiciously convenient, but it cannot be a Combine trap because they are already holding Eli Vance prisoner so they gain nothing from sending him to the Citadel. Mossman could not have organised it herself because she would have no way of knowing if and when they would arrive. But the G-Man could predict it, and tell Mossman when to be at the portal to ensure that all the characters ended up where he wanted them. This also explains why she tells Alyx that "it's the only way" as she teleports Eli to the Citadel. Her words could be taken to mean that the only way to save their lives was to make a deal with the Combine. But it is hard to see why she would believe that when they could all have teleported to safety, and there is no evidence that she shares Breen's delusions. What she says makes much more sense if she is referring to the only way to defeat Breen. When Mossman finally turns on Breen she says that "we're doing what I could never do alone: we're stopping you", which implies that she has opposed him for a long time. She also turns away in shock when Breen refers to Freeman's contract being open to "the highest bidder". It is odd that she would react so strongly to this particular comment, unless she knows something about the G-Man and his connection to Freeman. It appears that in HL2 she is a triple agent, pretending to be part of the resistance whilst spying for Breen and really working for - or being used by - the G-Man. It is likely that she is working solely for the resistance from Episode One onwards, her allegiance cemented by the feelings she shows for Eli Vance at the end of HL2. This helps explain several other mysteries in HL2. In "Point Insertion" Barney and Kleiner are surprised by the circumstances of Freeman's arrival but not by the fact that he is alive at all. Kleiner says "I expected more warning", to which Barney replies "yeah, you and me both". This is very strange considering that the last anyone from Black Mesa saw of Gordon Freeman was when he teleported into Xen with no means of return. It is possible that the Vortigaunts told them about Freeman's destruction of the Nihilanth and subsequent disappearance, and people desperate for any sign of hope could shape that into the myth of a returning hero. But Breen says that Freeman has acquired "an almost messianic reputation", and it is this that allows him to inspire and lead the uprising. Since Freeman's reputation is important to the G-Man's plan it follows that his agent Judith Mossman would have been tasked with promoting it. It is therefore likely that she was responsible for convincing the Black Mesa survivors that Gordon would return, and shaping their ideas of how this would occur. This in turn explains why Kleiner is unable to teleport Gordon to Black Mesa East. To prove that the great hero has finally returned, Freeman must make his presence felt in the city. It is also necessary for Breen to know that Freeman has returned because the Citadel going on "full alert" proves to the citizens that the Combine fear him. Therefore the G-Man needs Freeman to reach Black Mesa East the hard way, and Mossman is in a position to ensure that the teleporter fails. She claims that "something is drawing him away" to direct attention away from the possibility of sabotage. Finally, it explains just how the scientists at Black Mesa East can be "closing in on a reliable local transport technology" that "the Combine still hasn't mastered". Vance may be a genius but it is hardly plausible that he could outstrip the Combine in little more than two decades, working in hiding with scavenged equipment. It becomes a lot more plausible if the G-Man has an agent in Black Mesa East who could be used to guide Vance in the right direction.
In mythology, crows are often associated with death. In Greek mythology, the dead were taken across the river Acheron into the underworld by the boatman Charon, who was traditionally represented in art as a gaunt old man. Dante's "Divine Comedy" uses the same image in a Christian context, with Charon transporting the souls of the damned into hell. So we seem to have been given an image of the G-Man as Charon. He certainly does have the role of transporting Freeman and Shephard between worlds, with the tram in HL1 and the aircraft in "Opposing Force" substituting for the traditional boat. In fact the games all begin with a descent into the underworld. HL1 and "Blue Shift" begin with the player character taking a tram into the depths of Black Mesa, while Shephard descends rather more rapidly after his plane is shot down. HL2 begins with Freeman entering a hell on Earth, and he is soon following the "underground railroad" and often literally going underground. In Episode One, Dog throws Gordon and Alyx back into the Citadel and they crash down into its lower levels, coming to rest in a hellish place of fire and darkness. All the humans left in the Citadel are brainwashed slaves who are doomed to die when it explodes, so it certainly qualifies as an abode of the damned. But in dramatic terms Dog is a Deux Ex Machina, which roughly translates as "God out of a machine". The term comes from ancient Greek drama and originally referred to a miraculous intervention by a god, but it is now used more broadly to refer to any plot device in which the solution to an apparently insurmountable difficulty suddenly appears out of nowhere. Dog plays this role by popping up whenever it is necessary to get Gordon and Alyx past an otherwise impassable barrier. So having them cast down into the inferno by Dog is a clever visual pun if it's intentional, and a serendipitous one if it's not. The G-Man's resemblance to Charon may not just be in the fact that he transports people between worlds. When Freeman is teleported to various places during the "resonance cascade" in HL1 he is first hit by a green flash of light, followed by a few seconds of darkness. When Freeman returns from the test chamber one of the scientists says "Gordon, you're alive! Thank God for that hazard suit!", clearly astonished that Freeman has survived without a scratch despite being so close to the cascade. So maybe he didn't survive. Maybe we are being given a clue that the darkness represented Gordon Freeman's death, after which he was resurrected by the G-Man to serve his interests. Breen's conversation with the Combine Advisor in the "Dark Energy" chapter of HL2 reveals that a person's consciousness can be transferred into another body, in that instance a "host body" to allow Breen to survive in a hostile alien environment, so Freeman might have been completely vaporised by the explosion. It would explain why Freeman doesn't age between HL1 and HL2, and what Breen means in the "Nova Prospekt" chapter when he says that Freeman has been "in a state that precluded further development". It also explains the Vortigaunt line from HL2 that "we never dreamed to meet you in corporeal form", which raises the question of why they would expect to meet Gordon in any other form. The Vortigaunts that he briefly encounters during the cascade would presumably have met an incorporeal Freeman. There is the same moment of blackness after the crash in the opening sequence of "Opposing Force", so if Freeman was killed then Shephard was too. It would then seem likely that both characters were physically destroyed for a second time at the end of their games, Freeman by the disintegration of the Nihilanth and Shephard by the glowing ball of energy that engulfed the room as the Gene Worm died. A Vortigaunt line from HL2 that appears to be stating their attitude to death describes it as "the interval of darkness" and as "an oscillation", implying that it is a temporary state. These events also suggest that the G-Man can only seize people at the moment of their death. If he could take people at will he could have snatched Freeman back from Earth in Episode One. That in turn means that Freeman must have died yet again at the end of HL2. Although the G-Man intervenes before Freeman is hit by the blast from the exploding portal he could already have been killed by heat or radiation. The true meaning of the name "Half-Life" may be that the central character is in some halfway state between life and death.
The most radical thing that Valve could do would be to kill off Gordon Freeman, but since he has been the player's point of identification since the start of HL1 it would almost certainly be too much of a risk to even consider. Several recent Episode Two previews have confirmed that Alyx plays a major role in the game, despite some of the trailers suggesting that she might be killed as a result of the train crash that ends Episode One. This is not surprising as Valve have made a significant investment in developing the character of Alyx, and she provides a showcase for their AI and facial animation technology. Her relationship with Gordon has also been used to develop the "NPC co-op" style of game play seen in Episode One, in which the player works alongside an NPC for much of the game. So it was never likely that Valve would discard such a useful and popular character so quickly. It is much more likely that the scenes of Alyx apparently about to fall to her death were deliberate misdirection. Whether she will still be alive at the end of Episode Two is another matter entirely. One scene in the trailers shows her dead or unconscious body being carried by a Vortigaunt, while a Vortigaunt voice says "this is more than anyone can bear...but we will persevere". Another scene shows Alyx in the G-Man's dark dimension, with the G-Man leaning over her. He looks out at the viewer and says "You're not supposed to be here...forget about all this". The latter scene is unlikely to appear in the finished game, at least in that form. The G-Man's words are an edited version of an unused audio clip from HL2, and he would not be looking directly at the player unless he was looking at Gordon Freeman, in which case the line would not make sense because as far as he's concerned that is exactly where Freeman is supposed to be. However, while misdirection is fair game it is extremely unlikely that Valve would risk harming their relationship with the gaming community by putting outright falsehoods in their trailers. Therefore it is probable that this scene represents real plot developments, but is not composed of actual game footage because the relevant sequences did not exist in a finished form at the time the trailer was made. The G-Man's glance out at the viewer is best explained as an instance of breaking the fourth wall. If the G-Man has taken her, Alyx must have died. Since she plays a major role in Episode Two that means she gets killed at or near the end of the game, with the revelation that she is in the G-Man's realm most probably appearing as part of an end of episode cliff-hanger. It may even be an early glimpse of content from Episode Three. But for the reasons given above, it is unlikely that she is being permanently killed off. The G-Man wants to regain control of Gordon Freeman so he might keep her as a hostage to ensure his good behaviour, in which case one of the objectives for Episode Three would be to find a way to rescue Alyx. Alternatively, he might offer her a job. Alyx would be too strong-willed to submit to his demands even if the alternative was death, but there would be ways of persuading her to co-operate. The G-Man might offer his help against the Combine, or threaten to arrange the death of her father. The employment scenario is more likely than the hostage one as it would allow Alyx to be used throughout Episode Three rather than just being a peripheral figure. In that case Episode Three would see a reversal of roles, with Alyx now working for the G-Man and Freeman representing the human resistance. But if the G-Man needs Freeman to die before he can take control of him again, he might even send Alyx to kill him. This would be a return to the theme of survival, and just what different characters will do for its sake. Alyx might just be willing to kill Gordon if she thought it was the only way to save Earth, or if the threat against the other people she cared about was sufficiently grave. More speculatively, this would also be an opportunity to re-introduce the character of Adrian Shephard if Valve wished to do so. The G-Man could have Freeman tag-teamed by Alyx and Shephard, with the gameplay involving a game of cat and mouse with two almost unstoppable enemies, one of whom you don't actually want to kill. As for the other characters, Episode One shows Judith Mossman being pursued by the Combine in what the commentary track refers to as an "arctic base". But while she is in obvious danger, it is questionable whether she is a sufficiently "primary" character for her death to have the kind of impact on the player that Newell refers to. It will be argued below that an "arctic base" will play a significant role in Episode Three, even if it's not the exact location seen in Episode One, in which case Mossman must survive at least long enough to inform the resistance of what she's found. Barney has a limited role in the game so he could be killed off without creating any difficulties to the plot, but as with Mossman it is questionable whether his death would have sufficient impact to be worth staging. The impact would also be diminished by the fact that his character originated in the expendable security guards of HL1, which were nicknamed "Barneys" because of their alleged resemblance to the television character Barney Fife. It would be hard to kill him off without it looking as if he was being treated as one of those generic characters, which would undermine the credibility of the characterisation in HL2 and its sequels generally. One of the Episode Two trailers shows Dog confronting a strider, but this is likely to be more misdirection. Killing the heroine's cute pet could have a considerable shock value, but not if the player is expecting it. If Valve intended that Dog would be killed in that encounter they would not have shown it in the trailer. There is also the fact that a broken robot can be rebuilt, and it's not clear whether Dog can be considered to have ever been alive in the first place. Eli Vance and Dr Kleiner are much more at risk, because they share the good scientist duties of inventing things and delivering exposition. Having two characters with the same dramatic functions just means that one or both of them is left with too little to do. However, in HL2 a Vortigaunt states that "the Eli Vance is indispensable to the liberation" and Breen underscores Vance's importance by stating that with Freeman and Vance in his power he can "dictate the terms of any bargain" with the Combine. Vance is probably too important to the plot to be killed off, at least in Episode Two. There are also unanswered questions about his past. If Breen was colluding with the G-Man at Black Mesa while Vance was leading the development of teleport technology it is certainly possible that Vance knew about him as well. In HL2 Breen describes Vance as his "oldest friend", making it plausible that Breen could have taken Vance at least partially into his confidence. Vance describes what Breen has been doing to Earth as "genocide" and "indescribable evil", so he could not have known Breen's true intentions. But he might have been tempted into some Faustian bargain for hidden knowledge, and perhaps even have been willing to sacrifice Gordon Freeman. The G-Man works by manipulation, and the obvious way to manipulate a man like Vance would be to exploit his scientific curiosity. It is certainly interesting that in Episode One Vance responds to the news that Gordon has been found alive with "you found Gordon...I don't believe it", with the final words delivered sotto voce as if he does not want anyone else to hear. Alyx also tells Gordon that "he was so sure I wouldn't find you here". It is hard to see why Vance would find it any more incredible that Gordon had survived than that Alyx had, unless he knew that Freeman was supposed to be in another dimension entirely. But any major revelations about what was really going on at Black Mesa are likely to be reserved for Episode Three, so Vance is likely to be in it too. It is therefore most likely to be Kleiner who dies in Episode Two. The exposition and invention roles can be taken over by any combination of Vance, Mossman and Magnusson, a new character who will be introduced in Episode Two. The fact that Kleiner was a likeable comic character ensures that his death will have a sufficient impact on the player, and his prominent role in Episode One qualifies him as a "primary" character. It is also possible that a character we think is dead already will turn out not to be. The fact that Dr Breen appears twice in Episode One, in the opening sequence and the recording of his conversation with the Combine Advisor, suggests that he still has a role to play in the story. It's true that Alyx recalls seeing "Breen falling" as the Combine portal disintegrated, but if the Combine intended to transplant him into a "host body" it's possible that they only ever intended to send his consciousness through the portal rather than his physical form. It would then make sense for them to send him back as soon as they were able, because of his knowledge of Earth and the rebel leadership. The reason that the Combine representatives on Earth sacrificed the Citadel to ensure that their message got through could then be that they had no way of knowing if Breen had survived, or perhaps the "relay" that Breen went to set was useless without the portal. The main reason why Valve might want to bring Breen back is that without him there is no one on the Combine side who can deliver exposition. It is extremely useful to have someone whose lines can explain what the bad guys are doing and why. The Combine Advisors can't do this as they don't seem to speak at all. It also heightens the sense of danger if the rebels must face an evil genius who knows how they think rather than just a faceless alien horde, and a distinctive character like Breen adds interest to the game. This in turn raises the question of whether the Combine Advisors are a natural species. Their bodies might actually be artificial constructs that allow the Combine's most loyal servants to survive in all the different atmospheric conditions that exist within its dominions. The minds within them could actually be from individuals of many different alien races. If so, it would be a metaphor for how the servants of totalitarian regimes give up their humanity for the sake of power, becoming utterly alien to the people they rule. So, in the manner of the great Criswell I confidently predict that Dr Kleiner will die in Episode Two, Alyx will appear to die at or near the end only to return in Episode Three, and Dr Breen will return at some point in the body of a Combine Advisor. Oh, and there will be flying cars and colonies on Mars by 1993.
One of the Episode Two trailers shows Dr Kleiner working on a rocket in what appears to be an underground silo. It is hardly likely that the resistance could have constructed such a facility without the Combine noticing, so this must be an old ICBM complex that survived the Combine invasion and was subsequently found by the resistance. In HL1 Gordon had to launch a rocket for the "satellite portal array" that the scientists in the Lambda Complex needed in order to have any chance of halting the invasion. They had no time to finish their work, because the Lambda Complex was invaded by Xen creatures and then destroyed by a nuclear blast. Since Earth is facing another portal storm, the resistance scientists are presumably attempting to shut it down in a similar manner. The trailers show the inside of an Antlion nest, and a scene involving combat with Antlions in a man-made tunnel with railway tracks. The obvious interpretation is that once Gordon and Alyx reach the base they find that the entrance has been blocked, either by the Combine or to keep the Combine out, and that this is the only other way in. It wouldn't be the normal entrance because it would be too dangerous. The trailers show Freeman accompanied by a Vortigaunt rather than Alyx, and this is probably just because the nest is too toxic an environment for a human to enter without a hazard suit. It is also clear that the resistance efforts will fail. In any trilogy, it is necessary for the bad guys to get some points on the board in the middle third in order to remain a credible threat. If the heroes win everything there is no dramatic tension. It is also necessary to save the decisive battle for the climax of the story in Episode Three. If the resistance were able to cut the Combine off from Earth once and for all in Episode Two they would basically have won at that point. All that would be left for the final Episode would be a grim war of attrition against the remaining Combine troops on Earth, which would not be satisfactory from a gameplay or dramatic point of view. It would be equally unsatisfactory to attempt to start and resolve a completely new storyline in one Episode. So the attempt to shut down the Combine portals will ultimately fail, leaving the resistance in an apparently hopeless situation. The most likely mechanism for this is that the ICBM complex will be invaded by the Combine and/or the Antlions before the rocket can be launched. The deaths of "primary characters" would occur at this point, with Kleiner probably getting a heroic death as he struggles valiantly to fire the rocket. If Valve really wanted to shake-up their audience they could stage a complete massacre, with Freeman the only member of the resistance to get out alive. However it is unlikely that they will kill-off more than one or two characters, as the more new characters they have to create for Episode Three the more difficult it will be to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Valve would also have to be cautious about how many new elements they introduce in the final Episode in order to leave enough time to resolve all the existing story arcs. But if the ending leaves the player feeling that all his or her efforts have been in vain, playing it will have been a negative experience. The player will be less likely to play it again, or to buy the next instalment. Therefore it has to end with Freeman achieving some kind of victory. A desperate escape is not enough, so Freeman would have to save something from the wreckage that offers one last hope for humanity. A clue to what that might be is given in an Episode Two preview at Eurogamer which stated that "Alyx and Gordon possess the means to access the Combine overworld". It is likely that the "transmission packet" to open portals from the Combine's universe will also show the resistance scientists how to create their own portal to it. What Freeman would save would be the means to stop the Combine invasion at its source. Then he would just have to find a new teleporter to use...
In Episode One, Judith Mossman is concerned about whether there is "anything remaining that could compromise our work if it were discovered by the Combine". This tells us that the facility she is searching for was not built by the Combine. Nor could it have been built by the resistance, because if it had been she would know where it was and what it contained. It must be something that was built before the Combine invasion, and it could only "compromise" the work done by Mossman, Vance and Kleiner if it was involved in teleportation research. The only institution we know of in the Half-Life universe that might fit that description is the Aperture Science Enrichment Center from the game Portal, which will be released with Episode Two. It's true that a Portal preview in Shacknews suggested that it takes place in a "Combine portal user training facility", but this is unlikely to be correct. Firstly, screenshots of the player character show a perfectly normal-looking woman, but if the Combine had such a facility the only people from Earth who would be allowed near it would be the heavily modified Transhuman Overwatch. Secondly, in an interview with IGN Portal developer Kim Swift stated that the player character in Portal is "a test subject for the Aperture Science Corporation", which clearly sounds like a human organisation. Everything that we have seen of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, with its danger warning signs and insincerely friendly computer guide, appears human rather than Combine in origin. Thirdly, the fact that the Combine don't have "reliable local transport technology" is an important plot point in HL2, which is not consistent with them having the kind of technology seen at the Aperture Science lab. It is most likely that it just looked like a Combine facility in early versions of the game because some objects and textures from earlier games were used as placeholders until the real designs were complete. Therefore it is probable that Mossman is searching for what remains of the Aperture Science Enrichment Center. It is not impossible that there could be yet another teleportation laboratory that has yet to be introduced, but it is unlikely. It would be clumsy story telling to introduce a new location unnecessarily, and doing so would prevent Valve from re-using the assets developed for Portal in Episode Three. Given the development time for the first two episodes and the effort needed to make Episode Three a truly spectacular finale, this is not an insignificant consideration. The Center cannot be fully staffed at the time of Episode Two, as that would mean introducing a whole new set of characters with even better technology than the City 17 resistance movement. It would mean covering a lot of backstory, explaining how they'd survived and why they hadn't been involved in the fight against the Combine before. Given all the other story arcs that Episodes Two and Three have to resolve this would be far too much ground to cover. So the Aperture Science facility has to be abandoned. Yet, a number of hints have been dropped that the events of Portal take place in the same time frame as Episode Two. For example, Kim Swift stated in an interview with Eurogamer that "there's also some cross-reference to it in Episode Two" and in an interview with Game Informer in August 2006 Doug Lombardi stated that the character from Portal "will have a role in Half-Life games in the future". The answer probably lies in the remark made by Lombardi to Eurogamer that in Portal you won't "see anyone other than yourself for 90 per cent of the game". This suggests an automated facility, in which the computers could have continued with their assigned tasks long after their human masters had left. It is possible that the Center was always completely automated due to the hazardous nature of its research. Alternatively, the scientists that once ran it may have fled or been killed during the "7 hour war". Portal previews have indicated that the player character wakes up in the lab without any idea of how she got there. Combined with the description of her as a "subject", it is clear that she is not an employee or willing volunteer. So the most likely explanation is that the Aperture Science Enrichment Center dates from before the Combine invasion, and survived because of its remote location. The computers running the facility continued with the research programme they were designed to carry out, using the teleport technology at their disposal to scoop up "subjects" whenever they were needed. The "subject" in Portal will only differ from previous victims in the fact that she survives. Her involvement in "Half-Life games in the future" will presumably involve introducing Freeman to the lab and its capabilities, and she might spend some time as Gordon's sidekick in "NPC co-op" mode. As for the Aperture Science Enrichment Center's original purpose, the portal gun looks like a more sophisticated version of the teleport gun seen in "Opposing Force". If it was in fact run by a "Corporation", the most likely explanation is that the lab was developing practical spin-offs of Black Mesa technology. Given the top-secret nature of Black Mesa's work this would have to be a government contract, and the most likely customer would be the military. The lethality of the tests might therefore be explained as simulations of combat situations, although it is also possible that they only became so dangerous once the computers running the facility decided to abandon any ethical restraints formerly imposed by their human creators. It is not likely that something as advanced as the portal gun existed at the time of HL1. Rather, it is probably the end result of the research carried out since then. Mossman stated that Black Mesa East was "closing in on a reliable local transport technology", and it looks as if the computers of the Aperture Science facility were working along the same lines. If Freeman does end up at the Enrichment Center he will probably have to fight both the Combine and its own automated defences for control of it. The most likely ending for Episode Three, as far as it is possible to guess at this stage, is that he will succeed in travelling into the "Combine overworld" to disable their portals to Earth. This would end the threat to Earth, at least for the moment, and provide a starting point for a new set of adventures in a completely different setting. The Combine universe would have to be bizarre and spectacular to live up to Breen's awe-struck description of "worlds stretched thin across the membranes where the dimensions intersect...impossible to describe with our limited vocabulary", but it's where Freeman has to go if they are ever to be finally defeated. |
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