Let me read a letter I recently received. 'Dear Dr. Breen. Why has the... Combine seen fit to suppress our reproductive cycle? Sincerely, A Concerned Citizen.' Thank you for writing, Concerned. Of course your question touches on one of the basic biological impulses, with all its associated hopes and fears for the future of the species. I also detect some unspoken questions. Do our benefactors really know what's best for us? What gives them the right to make this kind of decision for mankind? Will they ever deactivate the suppression field and let us breed again? Allow me to address the anxieties underlying your concerns, rather than try to answer every possible question you might have left unvoiced.First, let us consider the fact that for the first time, ever, as a species, immortality is in our reach. This simple fact has far-reaching implications. It requires radical rethinking and revision of our genetic imperatives. It also requires planning and forethought that run in direct opposition to our neural pre-sets.I find it helpful at times like these to remind myself that our true enemy is instinct. Instinct was our mother when we were an infant species. Instinct coddled us and kept us safe in those hardscrabble years when we hardened our sticks and cooked first meals and started at the shadows that leapt upon the cavern's walls.Instinct would inflict a fatal injury on our species. Instinct creates its own oppressors, and bids us rise up against them. Instinct tells us that the unknown is a threat, rather than an opportunity. Instinct slyly and covertly compels us away from change and progress. Instinct, therefore, must be expunged. It must be fought tooth and nail, beginning with the basest of human urges: the urge to reproduce.Let me assure you that the suppressing field will be shut off on the day that we have mastered ourselves. The day we can prove that we no longer need it. And that day of transformation, I have it on good authority, is close at hand.
>>736642179that really was a well written speech. I wish you had more time with Dr Breen, as he is more than just a mustache twirling villain. He's really not even a villain, more of a tool of circumstance. most humans could not pull off a fraction of what Gordon Freeman did. not even against their own, much less an alien invasion of a much more advanced collective. look at the recent events, so long as there's food on the table nobody is really going to rock the boat. too much to lose. anyway, it was a good speech and it is eloquent and I assume Breen Is amicable and didn't secretly have who sent the letter taken out for asking a question at all.
>>736642179Shut up nerd
>>736642412>and didn't secretly have who sent the letter taken out for asking a question at allNobody sent 'the letter'. Every 'letter' he receives is from "A Concerned Citizen". He's using it as a rhetorical device to frame his speeches a certain way, same as Antiquity philosophers and rhetoricians did in their epistles.
>>736642179>>736642412Breen was a fucking asshole with numerous personal failingsBut humanity lost and was utterly at the Covenant's mercy, before the G-Man came back there's no other option
Breen did literally nothing wrong besides act petty a few times. Humanity stood no chance before G-Man returned Gordon, and even, better to have Breen around as a last resort if Gordon screws up.
>>736642412Yeah except like all holier-than-thou types it all stems from the fact that Judy rejected him
>>736642698>and even,*and even then
>>736642698Breen was a cuck faggot who probably got mind gaped by ayy lmaos
>>736642685>CovenantCombine fuckThis isn't the first time I've made that typo
>>736642685thats the point, it was either total subjugation or total anihilation, and the first option wasnt even on the table until breen managed to get into contact with the combine, they probably would have been satisfied with just killing everyone and then harvesting the planet's resources
>>736642926Id rather die than be anal probed by interdimensional aliens into eternal slavery thoughbeit
>>736642983As anyone would
>>736642179>thank you for writing, Concerned.Is that structurally right? Isnt that like saying 'hello hungry im dad'?
>>736642179>>736642685>>736642926How come the Combine won against the entire Earth's military in just 7 hours? How come Gordon with a Rocket Launcher is able to take down their assault vehicles and creatures with relative ease?
>>736643120The force that invaded earth left shortly after, Gordon is only fighting the small garrison left behindLike how America won Afghanistan when we sent in 250,000 men and half a dozen aircraft carriers and a thousand tanks and then lost 20 years later when we had removed everything except 500 guys at an airbaseAlso a major plot point in the game is sabotaging the Citadel to prevent the Combine from sending reinforcements
>>736643120The ones on earth right now are a garrison of transhuman forces and a few mechs (striders, gunships). They originally came through after Black Mesa with their extra-dimensional armies, something they were trying to do again in HL2 Ep1, but Gordon and friends stopped them from opening the super portal and cut them off from their homeworld.
>>736642983just like in real life, you dont get to choose
>>736643101Let the man have his fun.
>>736642179Sometimes I dream about cheese.
>>736643229>>736643247Ah yeah, that makes sense... Still, I always thought 7 hours was way too short of a time, but I guess that's the point, to show how powerful they are.
>>736642926I wonder how Breen managed to convince them. Considering they are so advanced and set on galactic domination, it's a pretty big deal to be considered significant enough to even listen to by such a force. Imagine you're about to mow down an African country as the British and one of the village elders manages to convince you to let the village live as long as they are completely obedient and help transfer resources, instead of just mowing them down and taking what you want, which might be easier immediately but a slight bump in the road later.
>>736643362Don't drink the water... they put stuff in it, to make you forget... I don't even remember how I got here!
>>736643101Strictly it's not correct, but it became widely in-style within the last couple centuries when affecting private correspondence in open publication (newspaper columns, primarily)
>>736643120what's left om earth is a skeleton crew made out of local forces(transhumans) and some synths, the bare minimum to keep things operational and it was working pretty well up until gordon and the gman showed up. you could say that they got overconfident but is impossible to expect a one man army and his magical employer to suddenly show up one day and start messing with everything
>>736642412I really hope HLX or HL3 or whatever it is won't try to reframe Breen as a character. His motive being ambiguous in HL2 is enough.
>>736643443Maybe they like to experiment and learn from the dominated races when they can, and, since the humans were a species not only able to create advanced portals, but also kill one of their strong enslaved creatures (the Nihilanth), maybe they thought there was some potential in letting them live for a while longer, while they experiment on them.
>>736643443The Combine desires controlled teleportation. They can only cross the cosmos in wild, erratic fashion, almost at random. Breen convinces them that the Black Mesa experiment and the Xen teleporter could be perfected, to offer them something they truly didn't have.
>>736643615imagine half-life 3 is just All Tomorrows but sped up and Gordon helps the advanced species overthrow the now lethargic from Victory Combine.
>>736643672wow thanks for that clarification, that actually makes perfect sense. I'm surprised they didn't just take the research and run, but I guess that wouldn't make the game possible.
>>736643443i think the fact that breen managed to get into contact with them was an accomplishment on its own and the combine probably just decided to listen to him on a whim or out of curiosity, after all they already won so there is no harm, then breen just started listing scientific human accomplishments until something catched their attention, basically throwing shit at the wall until something sticks
>>736643725>I'm surprised they didn't just take the research and runI'm sure that was Breen's argument, that some unique human thought process or imagining had allowed them to build the teleporter, and if spared we'd complete it for them. That if they instagibbed the planet they'd never be able to complete the project themselves because they don't have our fucked up brains.
>>736643725Been a while, but I thought the point of the name was that they were incapable of innovation? That they only assimilated things from other species, and were incapable of developing things themselves.
>>736643819>>736643725I think they are some sort of hive mind, so they probably aren't as imaginative and resourceful as humans.
>>736643725The Combine are described by Valve as being completely creatively bankrupt. The Greater Combine has no original ideas of their own, they just absorb and internalize and expand; absorb, internalize, expand. Like a megacorporation too big to fail, it doesn't need to be competitive, it just needs to eat any smaller enterprise that shows value, as they did with Xen so too they did with Earth.
>>736642179Thank you Dr. Breen for single handedly saving the human race
>>736643120Lazy writing honestly, the combine are literally a universe spanning empire. They should be annihilating the human rebels with zero difficulty even if its a small garrison left behind
>>736642179breddy good at first until the instinct stuff+1 for villains that have a good argument and aren't le evil
>>736642678You're dumb as fuck
>>736644391NTA, he's likely right which makes you the dumb fuck.
>>736644024I still don’t understand how valve ever planned to actually introduce the real combine, not the subjugated races they sent to earth that are experiments or slaves made up of other races as weapons, but the actual empire itself. From what we’ve seen there doesn’t seem to be any way for Gordon to overcome an enemy that huge.
Why didn't they just give the combine a comically large check and tell them to go away?
>>736644453Well in Marc Laidlaw's episode 3 fanfiction I guess we can have a vague idea of what it might have been. But I think it's better if these things are never fully revealed or explained, the mystery and unanswered questions are part of what makes the world of Half Life so fascinating and enduring.
>>736642179
Humanity was on the path of extinction BEFORE they arrived due to the xen flora and fauna which the combine contained.
>>736644130They span the universe, you said it yourself. Think about how much gets wasted in the mire of bureaucracy in your own country. How much falls through the cracks of a continent. How much gets lost in the ocean. On a scale that massive, City 17's troubles are so minute that it's like asking me why I'm not intervening in germs eating each other. >>736644453Gordon succeeds precisely because his enemy is so huge. The Combine can't comprehend the value of an individual, but we know the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. Gordon could have swung a crowbar right under the seat of ultimate Combine authority and he would still be invisible until he telefrags the entire Dyson sphere.
>>736643101Zoomer are too young to have ever seen a dear abby columnLmao.
>>736644579He plugged a big plug to a circuit
>>736644453Just have him teleport to the Combine overworld, witnessing their true power and then fucking off. My wish is that it would be a mirror to HL1's bad ending where G-Man sent Gordon to die in a "battle you have no chance of winning," but this time Gordon managed to fight it out and escape.
Not having breen at all in Alyx and cutting the scene of his speech after humans surrendered was a huge mistake.They clearly have no problem casting new actors going by Eli and the new actors doesnt sound like him anyway so fuck it. Oh right and they recast alyx's actor for no reason when the old one is alive just cause shes older so nice ageism guys.
>>736644813Yeah thats definitely the best possible explanation, but I think it would have worked better if earth is completely insignificant in every way to the combine. But humans supposedly have more advanced local teleportation technology than the combine which is pretty significant, so I feel like they should be investing more resources to earth than they are in the game.
>>736644882>>736644813It's funny that the G-Man is a cartoonishly evil motherfucker himself, but the fact that he hates the Combine seems like a virtue; the fact that he can hate at all, feel greed and smugness and anger puts him above them.I know the worst case scenario is he's sacrificed the whole earth to put a thorn in the Covenant's paw and prick a single drop of blood from it, and he thought that well worth it
>>736644130>They should be annihilating the human rebels with zero difficulty even if its a small garrison left behindThey were. Refraining from complete genocide meant that a few bumfuck rebel cells stuck around, but they had 99.9999999999999% of the population 100% controlled and accounted for. The only reason they lost control was G-Man dropping a Gordon ex machina on them.
>>736642179Man I miss Valve writing for singleplayer games. There's always a tendency to really amp up Breen type villains until they become little more than a walking Big Brother caricature, but Breen was really understated. These speeches are great but I also love how he gets increasingly desperate until he just ends up addressing Freeman directly. Deadlock has some cool character stuff in the writing but it's just not the same as an actual narrative.>>736643443I imagine it was a combination of the Combine's arrogance and their desire to perfect the technology at Black Mesa. Local, controlled teleportation and zero point energy are things they apparently haven't mastered, hence why they haven't just glassed the surface. Also, on a cosmic scale it probably doesn't matter to the Combine if they can suck Earth dry and kill every person in a month or 100 years. They had plenty of time until Gordon Freeman showed up.
>We now have direct confirmation of a picky eater in our midst, one who has acquired an almost anorexic reputation in the minds of certain citizens.>His figure is slimming with the most moderate urges of indulgence, appetite, and fine dining. Some of the juiciest excesses of the Black Mess Hall have been discarded directly off his plate.>And yet unsavoury minds continue to embellish him with romaine and protein, giving him such indelectable poetic labels as the 'One Fit Man', the 'Opener of the Waistband'.>Let me remind all diners of the dangers of moderate eating.>We have scarcely begun to feast from the delicious piles of our scrumptious buffets. Let us not slim back into oblivion, just as we have finally begun to taste the dessert.>If you see this so-called "fit" man, eat him.>Civic deeds do not go unrewarded. And contrariwise, complicity with his diet will go unfamished. Be wise. Be sated. Bring tupperware...
>>736642179>"It is well that I have heard you," said Oyarsa. "For though your mind is feebler, your will is less bent than I thought. It is not for yourself that you would do all this.">"No," said Weston proudly in Malacandrian. "Me die. Man live.">"Yet you know that these creatures would have to be made quite unlike you before they lived on other worlds.">"Yes, yes. All new. No one know yet. Strange! Big!">"Then it is not the shape of body that you love?">"No. Me no care how they shaped.">"One would think, then, that it is for the mind you care. But that cannot be, or you would love hnau, wherever you met it.">"No care for hnau. Care for man.">"But if it is neither man's mind, which is as the mind of all other hnau - is not Maleldil maker of them all? - nor is body, which will change - if you care for neither of these, what do you mean by man?">This had to be translated to Weston. When he understood, he replied:>"Me care for man - care for our race - what man begets -" he had to ask Ransom the words for race and beget.>"Strange!" said Oyarsa. "You do not love any one of your race - you would have let me kill Ransom. You do not love the mind of your race, nor the body. Any kind of creature will please you if only it is begotten by your kind as they now are. It seems to me, Thick One, that what you really love is no completed creature but the very seed itself: for that is all that is left."
>>736644936Robert Culp is too irreplaceable.
>>736645965Good answer; CS Lewis's Out of the Silent Gmod Server. Never did read the follow ups, unfort.
>>736645828>the 'Opener of the Whey'.ftfy
>>736642926I never understood why the Combine would be interested in subjugating humanity. If you just exterminate them when you have the chance then you can have synths or robots that are entirely subservient to you running the place and you don't have to deal with the constant headache of putting down the inevitable resistance movements that are bound to happen with how terribly the Combine treat their citizens.
>>736643698Speaking of All Tomorrows, it'll be cool if the next game we get to see how the Combine mangled the form of humanity as part of their augmentations in the off-world. Like how they turned whatever aliens they got into gunships or dropships.
