Thread 64378798

Would modern militaries repel a Combine invasion?

>>64378798 (OP)
For about 7 Hours, tops

We still don't know what the invasion really looked like, but what we do know is that:
A) The invasion took place after an extended period of portal storms wreaked havoc across Earth, ripping up infrastructure and dumping Xen lifeforms all over the place
B) The Combine we see in HL2 are simply a cheap occupation force, which is why the bulk of their manpower and equipment is sourced directly from Earth itself. The real deal is way worse.

>>64378804
the Combine from the game are basically the Afghan National Army

>>64378808
The combine actually fought back though

>>64378804
This is the only correct answer.

>>64378798 (OP)
think of every single country undergoing a full scale invasion from both inside & out
the forces invading have no considerations for fuel, food, or ammo, or even casualties
now pair that with non-stop earthquakes between up to cat-10, and the equivalent of extremely aggressive bears & badgers randomly teleporting everywhere

so no, they wouldn't be able to handle it
the combine you see ingame are a glorified police & counter-terror force, the ones who invaded were more akin the the french invading egypt

>>64378798 (OP)
>fires tactical nuclear warhead into ur portal

Oopsie daisy!

>>64378798 (OP)
No, not even remotely. Like, modern armies DIDN'T repel the invasion, the game isn't set in the 1800s dude the Combine didn't show up in pre-modern times. But they're a civilization with a fucking Dyson Sphere, they're optimistically thousands of years ahead of us. The only advantage humanity had was getting underestimated + just not being very important, better teleport tech, and a traitor who did in fact do a pretty good job of keeping them from completely exterminating us day 1 which bought time for a lucky resistance helped by effectively divine intervention (directed by an agent of some other super civilization or entity).

You're retarded if you think a primitive planet bound civ like ours would stand any chance outside of that sort of shit though. Hell if anything we've regressed in our ability to resist since HL2 came out, now the Combine could probably just get most of humanity to go along with it to "own the libs". If, IF we don't keep self-destructing like we are right now and actually got our shit together and started serious solar system colonization and went upload then in a century or two we might be able to resist outright.

>>64379625
>now the Combine could probably just get most of humanity to go along with it to "own the libs".
You're suggesting that the Combine, who's whole Earthside propoganda campaign is based on becoming TRANShuman would try to loop in the right? lol. lmao.

>>64378798 (OP)
They bait the Combine into invading India.
Combine die from the smell.

Someone should make a mod to make Manhacks more like realistic drones by having them blow up like a grenade when they make contact.

>>64379841
>all the Synths suffer a War of the Worlds style death
BLOODY BITCH BASTERD

>>64379881
Freeman dies in some sewer drain somewhere

>>64380242
Freeman is protected and empowered by his own alien benefactor, and morphine. Mostly morphine, like 70/30. Ain't no drone gonna stop him.

>>64379625
>The only advantage humanity had was [unprintable Dr. Breen apologism]
Consider our vortigaunt bros.
We lose any alien invasion scenario because just being able to travel here for the invasion means technology beyond anything humanity has.
But if the Combine are masters of an oppressed slave empire then it's no reach at all to write a story where they're toppled by a rebellion of all their subject races.
They spent Half Life 2 building up the narrative that you're a resistance hero and The Free Man, so that seems like the obvious way to take the narrative if they'd been fucked to make more games. Has anyone seen Gabe and George R.R. Martin in the same room?

>>64378877
They’re an inter dimensional empire a fucking tactical nuke isn’t going to stop them. That’s probably Stone Age shit to them

The Combine can throws planets worth of enslaved aliens at other planets, no military on earth can withstand a 100% militarized planet's worth of forces.

>>64380785
>We lose any alien invasion scenario because just being able to travel here for the invasion means technology beyond anything humanity has.
It's canon in-game and a major plot point that humanity's teleport tech is actually much more advanced then what the Combine has, and Aperture's is crazy advanced. One of those fluke scenarios where we happened to get some key insights that meant we leapt far ahead in one area of physics and tech. How realistic that is can be debated but it was true. The combine portals didn't work in the same universe (or at least not on the same planet), and was enormously power consuming. That's why the just had the single big one.

The most "realistic" survival scenario for humanity in case like that, short of bootstrapping through some Singularity deal asap (which would also be risky as hell and mean abandoning baseline humans as we know it), would be to make full extreme use of Portal tech to go distributed off planet. Millions of space stations and colonies and asteroid facilities and shit, across many star systems, all linked by wormholes so it feels like a single environment (you can "travel across town" through different habitats and it feels like 10 miles but you crossed hundreds of light years) but has no central access point, different parts could be cut, and it's hard to even find. For power you can have wormholes in close orbit around random stars, you can bring in resources and dump trash/heat, you can actually achieve effectively perfect cloaking because you can use a wormhole to some gas giant in another star system entirely as a thermal dump so that your starship/base itself emits no heat. It's one of those seeming simple fun gimmick bits of tech that if you stop and think about exploiting it to the max is ludicrously powerful. And the polar opposite of the Combine super society of a dyson sphere, instead a massively decentralized civilization that makes full use of shitty star systems that'd normally be ignored.

>>64380891
>It's canon in-game and a major plot point that humanity's teleport tech is actually much more advanced then what the Combine has
No it isn't lol

They didn't even have teleportation before the Combine came. And Portal is a non canon puzzle game

>>64379650
>would try to loop in the right?
Hey if the idiots fall for it.
>Hey yo guys we're gonna inflict great suffering upon these people (and you)
>Omg epic accelerationism! I don't fucking care as long as the libs seethe.

>>64378798 (OP)
probably not, from what little info we know about the actual combine army and not the mallcops they left behind, they would pretty much curb stomp just about anything that isn't relatively close to their tech level

>>64381217
What?
You use Black Mesa teleporters in Half Life 1.

>>64381217
No he's right. This is relevant in HL2.
Local teleportation (and more energy efficient teleportation) is something the covenant would certainly want. At worst you can consider it a sidegrade, and if the efficiency could be applied to interdimensional bullshit, it's certainly more advanced in a way.

Humanity just hasn't been able to deploy it a great deal.

>>64381270
Also Judith in 2 outright tells you to your face.

>>64381217
The main reason that humanity is still alive is our teleporter tech. If it weren't for that Breen wouldn't have much to bargain with.

>>64378804
They've also conquered multiple other entire universes. The combine are so far beyond earth in pretty much every way imaginable that it's laughable.

The resistance is well aware of that too. Hell, their plan is basically: Destroy the portal and hope the vastness of the combine means they never noticed that little blip in the backend of nowhere.

>>64380891
I want to see what a reinvasion 30 years after closing the citadel looks like.
Would humanity have a chance against a proper Combine force with millions of local universe teleport spamming Cecilsoldiers?

Are combiboos always this insufferable?

>>64381349
You VILL become a transhuman

>>64380695
Also has this, which he swings at rather swift speed I might add.

>>64378798 (OP)
I don't think any modern army is equipped to deal with enemy that can teleport on strategic level

>>64381302
what advanced technology did quisling or petain need to trade to save their respective populations?
It's simply good occupation tactics to have a figurehead and an illusion of continuity of government.
Taking the position is bad enough, begging or bartering for it? Breenies make me sick.
pictured: Breen's knowledge of portal tech

>>64381302
Untrue

>>64381434
The strength required to swing a crowbar at such speed and inflict the damage he does to people and objects is substantial

>>64378808
>>64378813

Given the games’ taking obvious advantages inspiration from the Eastern Front and the Holocaust, a more accurate analogy would be

>Civil Protection/Overwatch = Jewish Ghetto Police (basically slaves who beat down their fellow slaves in exchange for moderately better food and living conditions/simply getting to exert power on lessers)
>Breen = Judenrat, depending on your point of view, he's either a Chaim Rumkowski-tier traitor or a Adam Czerniaków-esque maverick trying to make the best of a bad situation
>off-world Combine forces (Striders, Gunships, etc.) = Trawniki men/Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (auxiliaries who are basically one step above slaves themselves and are brought in as muscle to deal with unruly humans)

>>64381256

I'd imagine that Civil Protection, at least early on, was disproportionately comprised of assorted terminal contrarians and social misfits such as Ziggers, Commies, Spiritual Thirdies (1st Worlders with a 3rd Worldist mentality), and Neo-Nazis, who would gladly lick the ayyy boot stomping on a human face forever if it means sticking it to the Jews/Capitalists/Globohomo.

>>64378808
>>64378813

Given the games’ taking obvious inspiration from the Eastern Front and the Holocaust, a more accurate analogy would be

>Civil Protection/Overwatch = Jewish Ghetto Police (basically slaves who beat down their fellow slaves in exchange for moderately better food and living conditions/simply getting to exert power on lessers)
>Breen = Judenrat, depending on your point of view, he's either a Chaim Rumkowski-tier traitor or a Adam Czerniaków-esque maverick trying to make the best of a bad situation
>off-world Combine forces (Striders, Gunships, etc.) = Trawniki men/Ukrainische Hilfspolizei (auxiliaries who are basically one step above slaves themselves and are brought in as muscle to deal with unruly humans)

>>64381256

I'd imagine that Civil Protection, at least early on, was disproportionately comprised of assorted terminal contrarians and social misfits such as Ziggers, Commies, Spiritual Thirdies (1st Worlders with a 3rd Worldist mentality), and Neo-Nazis, who would gladly lick the ayyy boot stomping on a human face forever if it means sticking it to the Jews/Capitalists/Globohomo

>>64381217
this is actually a plot point that is vaguely waved at later on, that the Combine is a Type-III/IV civilization when it comes to general energy manipulation and control, but that their universe perhaps lacks a natural source of certain exotic matters which would make teleportation/wormholes possible, or that perhaps their minds for one reason or another fail to comprehend the subject. while the Combine were eventually able to locate Earth through the Xenian otherworld, this still took months even with the radiation signal of the nuke, suggesting they have a poor understanding of traversing this border world, or in detecting anything within or from it. they may not have even created the portal through which they invaded, instead having only had it occur naturally during the portal storms, and invaded through it pre-emptively. this may be why their interspecies diplomacy seems to resemble dark forest gamesmanship, as they do not possess the ability to create these portals at will, but something else they know of or have been attacked by does.

HL:A suggests that while the Combine are certainly Type-III on the typical Kardashev scale, they do not reach Type-Ω-minus on the anti-Kardashev scale, even if they can contain an entity which somehow DOES reach that level of control without the use of any observable technology. this suggests that not only is the Combine well beyond human reckoning, it is AFRAID of the thing that is manipulating and nudging humanity into conflict with it. humanity is an unwitting tool in the face of the cosmic horror that the Combine are facing.

>>64378798 (OP)
>>64378804
No extra special Cthulhu mega tech is required for the combine to have conquered earth, just scale: if you teleported 10,000 striders into the 100 largest cities in the west and had them all just demolish buildings the second they appeared you'd smash the world economy so badly that half the world (the brown half but still) would starve to death. The collapse of global trade and electronic money exchange would be instantaneous, destroying everyone's ability to deliver food, gas, and electricity, and then you wouldn't be fighting a war against a modern military anymore.

Consider that a single strider would be able to permanently cripple any power plant, dam, or bridge on earth before the weapons required to put it down even arrived on scene.

>>64379625
>But they're a civilization with a fucking Dyson Sphere
If it's not in the games it's not cannon, Gaylord.

>>64381500
true
t. held a similar sized crowbar once and tried it
also the angle he swings it is very strange as he doesn't hold it at the bottom and swings the head but holds more in the middle and does a punching motion.

>>64378798 (OP)
With modern tech it would be called the 1-3 day war

How can mankind hope to prevail?

>>64380695
>CRACK
>*beep* *beep*
>Major fracture detected
>Morphine administered
>*Whoosh*
That withdrawal after 20 years in stasis must have been hell.

>>64381511
>>64381256
>>64379625
What an unmitigated faggot you are lol, go back.

>>64378798 (OP)
no

>>64381511
stop spamming your pedo meme

>>64382996
>>64383995
He is right though

>>64378798 (OP)
>Would modern militaries repel a Combine invasion?
No, they would not.
They would get crushed in less then seven hours.

>>64381528
The Combine do not have local teleportation.

>>64381217
>Portal is a non canon puzzle game
Borealis

>>64378798 (OP)
Youtube videos about the invasion say the aliens opened up targeted portal hurricanes/tornado storms that decimated countries during the invasion.

So no.

Finally, an excuse to post this.

>>64381680
Why did he hate mommy milk so much?

Nice totalitarian regime you got there, Combine. Sure would be a shame if some spooky middle manager were to fuck it up...

>>64381217
you're so fucking retarded valve will summon you as a playtester

>>64378877
they almost certainly have things that make nukes look like a tinfoil ball

>>64381525
>the fearsome aliens that we have no hope against are actually running from something even worse
I love this trope, I think tyranids in 40k do it too.

>>64384041
Nothing in your post makes the leftist noguns faggot right you turbo nigger, what am I even looking at?

>>64384546
Trope is such a gay reddit term.

>>64385330
What the fuck do you call it then?

>>64381680
>I turned myself into a grub, Gordon! IM GRUB BREEN!

>>64378798 (OP)
>>64378804
They're building Dyson Spheres in a different dimension they can traverse from, humanity has literally 0 chance of being anything but a space Haiti

>>64384363
Do we know who the G-Man's clients are? I know that they are against the Combine, but I don't remember if we ever learn anything about his clients outside of that

>>64381528
They can’t teleport to anywhere in particular. The entire plot of half life 2 is their specific lack of that technology and the one advantage humanity have.

>>64385567
I'm pretty sure the G-Man is an American time lord.

>>64381256
Tbh they could do that to both the left and right

And because they themselves are a managerial dystopia run wild they could also loop in the centrists

Would anyone actually oppose them?

>>64384330
What's the point of crotch guard armor if the reproductive organs have been removed?

>>64378798 (OP)
No, we don't know what they really used but it was probably a kinetic weapon from orbit or something else beyond our means. Plus the earth in HL was much more advanced due to years of Xen incursions and research from the rift creatures, so we're double fucked.

>>64379841
>not even headcrabs want to attach to their heads
This is the way.

>>64385740
You've got some big ass arteries down there, anon. When getting shot in the dick your loins will be the least of your worries.

>>64381339
Bro, they have a Dyson sphere (that we know of). They're so beyond our scope it was over before it started.

>>64385552
>They're building Dyson Spheres
If it's not in the games it's not canon

>>64381333
not true at all
the combine need a link from both sides
initially that was black mesa
so in that context severing the connection from earth made it impossible for the combine to reach it, which is why in episode 2 the combine forces on earth try to use the ruins of the citadel to reopen that link

and in epistle 3 they nuke the combine with the borealis

>>64385764
lmao no
>I was left alone, riding the weaponized luxury liner into the heart of a Disparate world. An immense light blazed. I caught a cosmic view of a brilliantly glittering Dyson sphere. The vastness of the Disparate’s power, the futility of our struggle, blossomed briefly in my awareness. I saw everything. Mainly I saw how the Hyperborea, our most powerful weapon, would register as less than a fizzling matchhead as it blew itself apart. And what remained of me would be even less than that.

>>64378798 (OP)
Dunno, the actual games are quite ambiguous about what the combine's real strength is like. They could have dyson spheres and death stars, or they could just be dysfunctional paper tigers who did a sucker punch during the portal storms then made all that shit up to bluff the breenies. Or it could even be that Breen himself made it up to demoralize Gordon.

>>64385890
Not really? Even with the portal storms, defeating the entire planet in 7 hours is far beyond our capabilities. So is the kind of insanely advanced genetic, cybernetic, and spatial control technology we see them have. And we do see at least one nexus world at the end of the game through the portal. Doesn't make them godlike but there's zero doubt in game they are ludicrously advanced over us.

>>64386016
You only have to hit a hundred cities or so simultaneously and the earth is done.

>>64386016
There's very little info about how the seven hour war went down, though. All we know is that they secured surrender in seven hours - which could have been done via a sucker punch followed by bluffing and some deceitful promises to help rebuild after the portal storms. They walked in during an apocalypse, that changes a lot.

>>64386114
it looks like north America was pretty much destroyed

>>64385330
it was called a trope even before your mother tried scratching you out with a coat hanger

>>64386068
>"only"
Anon, even moving military units like a Strider around the world from a single starting position in 7 hours is beyond our present capabilities. Not developing it and it's warp gun thing or armor, not mass manufacturing them, literally just even moving it. Starship might actually give us the ability to physically move a hundred tons of mass around the planet that fast but that'll still be many years from now.

>>64386114
Combine literally has antigravity tech and dimension guns. They use it casually all over the game. We have absolutely no ability right now to engineer the kinds of creatures we see, or the overwatch for that matter. At best that'll be decades in the future, and Half-Life 2 was 21 years ago. Portal storms didn't eliminate our nuclear capability, we have submarines and such, so they have a way to just neutralize that entirely. They have some sort of magic tower field that envelops the entire planet and completely shuts down our entire reproductive capability, specifically. They are draining the entire Earth into another universe. They find us such a non-threat (combined with whatever potential Breen offers) they don't just wipe us out. And they are able to prevent us from develop again beyond tiny hidden rebellion groups laying low.

Yeah there can be some debate over the scale, but not that they're way ahead of Earth.

>>64386142
>Anon, even moving military units like a Strider around the world from a single starting position in 7 hours is beyond our present capabilities.
The unbeatable advantage was that the combine forces could use the mass portal event to drop a thousand striders in every city.

You could do that with Sherman tanks and still win the "seven hour war"

>>64378798 (OP)
never played it. how different are our forces in game compared to modern irl ones? I know some very rudimentary lore but not enough.

>>64385751
this neckbeard anti human fag is kind of annoying, lol. Humanity beats fiction every single time which includes this game as well.

>>64386016
By the time the Seven Hour War happened, humanity had already basically had to retreat from rural areas due to Xen wildlife everywhere, and was basically clustered in overcrowded cities, with severe issues maintaining agricultural production. The Seven Hour War was really just the Combine showing up to a humanity that was already collapsed, and asserting authority over them.

>>64381528
>if you destroy cities in a war then the money stops working and armies do not fight
nigger what?
>all the farms that are fine just stop producing food and all the military stockpiles disappear and there will be absolutely no resistance because thats how war works in the reddit video game
if the combine pull off 9/11 but ten thousand times worse every human alive is going to stop caring about money and just murder the combine, retard. not everyone is an obese coward cuckold like you.
>uhhh uhhh
stfu, technological NOTHING, you can not do shit, niggerfaggot, you LEFT the middle east and this would go down the same way (it canonically did).
>such a non threat we need to make an entire dystopian system to control the non threat

>>64386971
humans will never be pushed back by animals. we are able to systematically track/monitor them and make them extinct if we want. sorry, but you lose, cuck.

>>64379625
begone, nigger
>begone, nigger
begone, nigger
>begone, nigger
begone, nigger
>begone, nigger

>>64379625
>peace = space colonisation
literally never. total all out chaotic fucking war, like WW2, is how you advance as a species. all this war right now is going to make us killzone tier in 40 years max. humanity would curb stomp your shit so fast bro it's almost comical, fucking soulless bugman. we literally have AI gods from the future protecting us

>>64387008
>killzone
shadowfall specifically. also wolfenstein too ig

>>64380848
>not going to
>that's probably
I see, I see. now face the wall and prepare for your nuke

>>64381256
>reddit tier politics
retard, I can not believe someone like you even exists. the accelerationists will take power in order to REPEL THE FUCKING INVADERS. Idiot. that is the breakdown scenario, humanity will become fascist if the combine invade because that is what gets shit done. have you seen history? when you are desperate you dont form a gay plebbit freedom group, you turn commie or nazi and fight wars. accelerationists will say "look, guys! aliens are trying to kill us, we should maybe learn to goosestep"

>>64381258
wrong opinion detected, ick. Humanity = God

>>64381217
the combine can easily teleport inbetween dimensions, however once they are in said dimension they can't teleport within it and have to rely on more traditional (abliet still very advanced) modes of transport, which is why they even allow humanity to somewhat live instead of just insta turning them into lobotimized soldiers or stalkers since they somehow found a way to teleport within their dimension

>>64387073
ngl humanity would reverse engineer their shit so fast and just copy paste their own lobotomized soldiers.

>>64385567
we don't know jack shit and likely will never know, they can be anything from some imaginary people Gman made up to fuck with who ever he yoinks for his own end goals, to giga eldtrich horrors playing such a high tier game of unimaginable dimensional chess involing universes just for the lols and gman is just a giga wagie for them

>>64387082
Reverse engineering alien tech made for aliens? That quick? HL2 cbine collaborators have the benefit of the support of the combine, IRL does not run off XCOM tech tree logic.

I'd expect at least a few years before even the more basic combine tech yielded high advantages, though cutting them up for weak points is a lot faster, assuming humanity doesn't get stomped.

Which it probably would. The combine had a lot of stacked advantages but at the end of the day they're extradimensional invaders who can simply drown the world in units even if we assume human units can put up a serious fight, a human dying means a lot more than some hunter dying.

>>64387101
alien tech compatible with the human body? yeah, you reddit spacing coon. Humanity would destroy the combine.

>>64387101
>who can simply drown the world in units
except they can't, because they didn't.

>>64387106
It's called a paragraph break, fagatrom, do they not have those in your country?

It's only 'compatible' because they spent time developing it, and also flat out dont give a single shit about how it affects thr human it is done to. Even the most basic ethical and practical safeguards would add time to implementing heavy cybernetics, and we dont even know if they had humanoid cybernetics before they came to earth, last I checked. For all we know their combat forces consist solely of animal-like biomechanical drones.

You'd probably be more likely to see it leak into prosthetic tech first, since it's filling gaps.
>>64387108
That's kinda what's implied to have been done with the 7 hour war, they dumped in an overpowering force, won, and dragged thay force elsewhere.

hl2 humanity wasn't doing well before the combine came but they still absolutely overpowered any resistance that was left in a few hours, which is still impressive.

>>64384330
Fucking kommandostore Quislings

>>64386963
TLDR: The invasion took place sometime in the early 2000s, ground zero being new mexico. Portal storms ravaged international infrastructure, and let in various types of alien fauna, ranging in size from small dogs to small elephants. a few days after this disaster, combine forces show up.
>>64387082
copy what? part of what makes the combine as scary as they are is how willing and easy it is for them to meld bio and tech. a huge chunk of their mechanized forces are conquered aliens with guns grafted to their heads. back here on earth, scientists with take a sheep sperm and inject it into a sheep egg and have a sheep carry it to term and then they cream their pants over how science created an artificial sheep. the fuck they did! all they had to do was use a syringe instead of a sheep dick and suddenly we are so knowledgeable in the land of bioengineering? Compared to combine, Earth forces are hopelessly behind in that realm. the time spent developing lobotomized soldiers would be better spent developing tactical portal tech

>>64387130
>he thinks humans do ethical safeguards in war
LMAO at this literal "fagatrom" redditor. mad that I dont give a fuck about your favourite widdle vidya faction? you don't even need first world nations bro, the average ak using cannibal would wipe out the combine for free food

>>64387139
>omg the fictional creatures thought up by humans are way scarier than humans (ignores every "warcrime" ever committed irl)
bro you know it's bad when fucking japan and china are scarier than the combine lol irl

>>64387142
the combine isn't even eldritch or vast, that is called ambiguity for narrative purposes. you can not imagine true eldritch horror, so all the combine shit is just human stuff. it is all inspired by humanity, who is superior to the combine.

Humans fuck better, they do war better, they think better, they have better ideologies, they adapt better, humans are superior and stomp the combine outside of a pre written narrative.

>>64385567
The ending of the first game hinted at his employers taking over Xen and Gordon might have to go back to the place at some point in the next game. I guess we'll find out in the next game lol.

>>64386127
>Soudan or Negroland
How did Gaben get away with it?
More seriously, I believe this is a map of where they have looked for Gordon or at least that the places they don't know the status of.

This thread holds the distinction of being the most autistic one on /k/. Borderline Spacebattles tier.

>>64387180
>Humans fuck better
Not with the suppression field up they don't.

>>64387508
thats where the war and adaptation part comes into it

>>64387508
do they ever clarify how the suppression field actually works? I was under the impression that it didn't necessarily make it impossible to fuck or get horny, just that it essentially sterilised everyone.

>>64384330
I maintain the combine and HL2 are one of the most creative, disturbing and compelling dystopias I've ever encountered.

>>64385757
wrong

>>64378808
That's disconcerting.

>>64387458
>the places they don't know the status of.
the question marks, sure. but I think it implies that north America is destroyed, possibly from the portal storms and xen wildlife.

>>64387532
It breaks down certain protein chains essential for fetal development. So yeah people can still fugg but not get preggers.

>>64381528
The Combine didn't specifically seek out Earth, they were originally at war with the Nihilanth's species who retreated to Xen and humans just kinda bumped into them. This means that the Combine can't just straight up go to any place they want, they need to exploit resonance cascades and use the rift to get to a new place, then establish a relay through their interdimensional portals so they can travel between those worlds as they want. Meanwhile, humans can go wherever the fuck they want without the need of exploiting rare phenomenons through their own portal tech using Xen as an entry/exit point. Unfortunately the Nihilanth also used Xen as his holdout while he was fleeing from the Combine, so the Combine accidentally discovered Earth through humans using their Xen teleporters, then came to Earth and fucked everything up.
However, all of this also means that once the connection is broken between two Combine occupied worlds due to the portals on either side getting destroyed, they can no longer re-establish a pathway, because they need a resonance cascade that they can exploit and the chance of another cascade happening on the world they've just lost is extremely fucking low. That's why closing the super portal was so devastating for the Combine, because they can no longer reach Earth and their troops on Earth can no longer call for backup from their homeworld. Also, that's why the Advisors learning about the Borealis was a massive blow to the recent human victory, becaus using human teleportation tech in tandem with their own could re-open the portal to the Combine homeworld, though resurrecting Eli and the end of HLA means they no longer have this knowledge, so humanity have won after all at the price of Alxy getting locked into a rape dungeon outside of time and space.

>>64378798 (OP)
>Would modern militaries repel a Combine invasion?
Just send some Russian helicopters their way and say that it's Ukrainian tanks.

>>64381511
Pregnant anne frank should be hashbanned

>>64387496
Nothing wrong with that.

>>64386970
That's a really dumb statement, considering we're discussing fiction.

>>64387751
we are talking about our modern REAL forces encountering fictional ones. fuck off back to twitter or some shit you casul

>>64386970
>>64387816
lol what a fucking retard you are and probably fat as fuck too
>rah rah our magic beats physics!!
whew

>>64379841
Lol the best planetary defence, indian fucking microbes and funghi

The Chinese will save us

>>64381680
>>64385465
on the topic of breengrub
https://youtu.be/QMWAU0OcSgA
https://youtu.be/Sdue3gcaAA0

>>64387838
>rah rah our magic beats physics
thats literally you though, fucking kek. this retarded nigger doesn't even know what our modern world is capable of, still living in his little faggot nostalgia bubble playing vidya gaymes

>>64379625
>>64380785
Didn't the scrapped ending of Episode 3 imply there was no hope of beating the combine, and the best hope humanity has is simply cutting themselves off from Teleport links, hiding in the vastness of Space and hoping the Combine just forget about them.

>>64387864
I know this is fanfic but this is fucking phenomenal. the backstory it gives that slowly reveals it's about the vortigaunts and xen is perfect. the only thing I find confusing is who the "archivist" is supposed to be, is that meant to be the nihilanth?

>>64387921
>we have antigravity cuz... LE HUMAN SPIRIT XD
you need to go back
no your ability to float in fresh water doesn't count anon

>>64387941
Sure though in fairness if they ever decided to do HL3 they might change the ending around a fair amount. But it'd be refreshingly realistic if no, you can't actually win against the ancient super civilization in a straight fight without millennia of prep but space is fucking big the multiverse is fucking bigger and you can just hide in the dark forest.

But lots of angles they could take if they felt like it. Like, even for HL:A they debated a bunch of possible endings. Valve devs said they even considered literally having G-Man grant Alyx her wish, like, he just snaps his fingers and poof Combine are gone and that's the end of the half-life series and explains lack of HL3 lol.

>>64387955
reddit strawman, you should go back before you hurt your brain even more, lmao. the modern REAL WORLD would defeat the combine. you are projecting your illogical bullshit onto me, bro, that "theyre interdimesnional n shiet homie, they is eldritch n shiet", lol stfu you mouth breather

>>64387975
That would be a dumb ass pull and ruin the Gmans mystery.
But having the Epilogue be Gordon just having a regular day at work in Black Mesa and the experiment goes just fine would be funny.

awww, poor widdle dork mad that his fav everz bad guys arent actually.... le Cool and scawy? poor widdle bby gonna shid n piss himself becuz Humanity would kick their ass. crazy how it doesnt even realise all the transhumanist shit is within our reach and literally being worked on right now.

>>64387998
>That would be a dumb ass pull and ruin the Gmans mystery.
I agree that'd have been pushing it a bit.
>But having the Epilogue be Gordon just having a regular day at work in Black Mesa and the experiment goes just fine would be funny.
This would have been kind of cool though, funny but also low key terrifying, like a little change to reality and everything goes different and nobody even knows or notices how the entire course of history is altered forever.

>>64387941
That's pretty much what happened at the end of Ep2 when the super portal was closed. The fact that the Combine conducted a massive assault against White Forest means they're unable to simply open a new portal from either side, that's why they were desperate to stop the rocket that eventually closed it. Keep in mind that they've deliberately blew up the Citadel and City 17 just to create the super portal, that's how desperate they were to remain in contact with the Combine domain.
In the end, nobody won. Humans are a dying race, Earth is damaged beyond repair and the Combine forces left on Earth have been cut off from their massive empire.

>>64388011
the "great combine transhuman soldier" consists of ceramic, steel, and kevlar armour (we have this already); heart/lung helperz (we have this already); gene editing (we have this already); and a bunch of other shit that just helps us in the long run after we steal it. yeah, not too good, are you? fucking putrid little worm

You do realise that we can literally engineer a master race right now and just don't because it's peace time? as soon as le ebin interdimensional eldritch ayys start trying to fuck with literally everyone on the planet, we are going to be throwing so much fucking bullshit at them that they will drown. you understand you could order a kit RIGHT NOW and start learning how to do it? It's very easy too learn, you think china is gonna care about ethics? their whole history is literal fucking dystopia. we already HAVE drones, dude. you can make an auto turret RIGHT NOW look it up, it's been done. you can hook an ai up to a nerf gun bro how are you this dumb. and then you just provide us with the one thing our scientists need to break the game? the one thing they have been trying to find. holy shit you are sheltered, lil geek faggot with your video games holy shit, you disgusting anti human scum.
>"the hecking game let them win so its the same irl, ur just spouting magics"
sit down and shut up

>>64388011
>>64388065
>>64388084
oh look. some nigger is having a melty in the video game bad guy thread because he doesn't like that human were beaten by advanced aliens.
cry more, faggot. you only look like a retard.

honestly this is is the same type of retard saying "war sets us back" as if war hasn't made us capable of space travel. yep, I guess the hecking V2s were just a fluke or someting lel
>establishes how existentially terrifying his side is
>"b-but you guys wont unite against us, r-right"
This is what happens when you let lukewarm intelligence get educated; they start thinking their opinions are worthwhile and not retarded
>>64380848
case in point bro can't explain what he means by "interdimensional" or how it stops a nuke from hurting you. dimensions like time, and space? quantum mechanics? nah, you meant
>"da fkn space magics made thems teleporting 2 tha hecking other planet dimension"
and
>"they conquered multiple universes"
as if "universe" is just the same vaguely huge concept that should be marveled at by default.

>>64388011
https://archive.4plebs.org/_/search/image/rLxmQFQVXMFgB7ob7_msdA/
wtf
I get that you're bootyblasted, but vidya does not call for this level of autism.

64388090
lol irl at this coon getting mad and trying to use my own words lmao, he can't even stick to canon
>beaten by advanced aliens
except they LOST lmfao, your side LOST you absolute pathetic parasite, even with your fake fictional magic crap. how can you expect to defeat that which exists outside of you, the thing you are a mere shadow of? talking like some halfwit stoner mentioning dimensions n sheit

>>64388109
thats three posts and two of them are from different nations? hell, one of them is literally spouting transhumanist sounding combine rhetoric

>>64388084
We can't get out of earth's orbit in any meaningful capacity. A race that has easy space travel could slap us all over.
Imagine a modern country fighting another that doesn't have any sort of air defence or any way of shooting down an enemy aircraft.

>>64388131
the point was "war is good and advances civilization", so the modern irl world would curb stomp the combine

>>64388119
Autism
>>64388127
You're an idiot
>>64388144
How so?

>>64388154
>how so
>"theres a guy over there i want to be better than so i am going to invent ways to beat him"
literal down syndrome fr

>>64388162
It's fiction you melt

this shitshow is what happens when you make a low effort off topic thread about /v/ stuff. Literally no one has even compared different forces/tech.

>>64387535
yup

>>64388022
So the Combine detonated the Citadel to open a super portal that the Overworld could use to burrow back through to Earth, but the satellite closed it somehow?

>>64388174
>"Would modern militaries repel a Combine invasion?"

would modern militaries with access to modern tech and science be able to repel the combine? yeah, they would do so easily. tired of you repping that blatant anti human shit and then turning around to say "it's fiction you melt" especially when you factor in reverse engineering

>>64388194
Apparently closing interdimensional portals is much easier than opening them, since the Combine were able to close all the 'wild' portals that were created on Earth after the Black Mesa incident, to stabilize their newly conquered world. Since Eli and Kleiner are the biggest portal experts of humanity and they probably have access to Combine tech as well, it's not impossible in-game wise that they were able to discover the means of closing portals.

The Combine are a plot device and essentially serve as a way for Gordon Freeman to continue doing 1 man army stuff. You could argue that the Combine really don't care about humans in any meaningful way so their laziness and lack of investment is matching that, but HL2 is clearly emulating some kind of commienazi dystopia that is supposed to make you think of dystopian novels from the mid 20th century and that clashes with the hyper efficient cyborg empire that is willing to even bother with invading Earth in the first place. They didn't deplete Earth's resources, they just killed off a lot of Humans and then played with the remaining Humans to see if they could be modified to be good drones.

>>64378798 (OP)
No. Even if they're limited to what we see in the game, they can just mass produce and teleport in enough to crush us.

The Combine only appeared after following Nihilanth to Xen and then to Earth. Fucking around with Xen teleportation is likely to cause portal storms so the two go hand in hand. Earth would be beneath the Combine's notice if there's no teleportation shenanigans going on.

The portal storms fucked the ecology all over the planet, forcing humanity into the more defendable cities. When the Combine invaded they performed a decapitation strike targeted at the cities, teleporting in parts of the Citadels and sharting out a fuck ton of forces.
We don't know what there combatants included apart from Striders. Crab and Mortar Synths apparently makeup a chunk of the Combine's regular army. The Overwatch is their version of the Afghan National Army, adapting their tech to the local populace in a frugal manner. They're deployed off-world, so the Combine must have some use for the human form even if it's just to trial it.

When Gordon knocked down their portal network while killing Breen, they lost off-world communication. Them deliberately overloading the reactor was to call for help. The satellite that was launched at the end of Episode 2 would've shut off the Combine's access to Earth forever, it's some Xen derived bullshitium that would've formed a barrier around the Earth.

>>64388227
u r dum

>>64388227
In the lore, the Zen storms are like a Carrington event, Earth's militaries are caught with their pants down trying to push out orders using radios while the Combine is targeting every military installation they see. China/Russia and the US militaries get rekt.

>>64388330
not how it would work irl.

>>64388348
it would

>>64388348
The US can't fight weather that drops hyper aggressive aliens capable of melting you on top of an incomprehensibly huge empire that knows to target your military infrastructure.

>>64388364
incorrect. every nation has contingencies for that.
>>64388370
it literally can but also it's not just the US. you are really reaching and coping lol

>>64388084
look man I love the pro-humanity enthusiasm, and I do believe humanity should get more credit than the "omg we would be powerless against any and all aliens" redditors give, but the combine took over in seven fucking hours. Canonically and within the context of the game humanity loses. The combine is a fictional threat, meaning we have to judge them according to the rules of their fiction, and those rules are that they fucked us in seven hours. you're being unbelievably autistic about it.

>>64388380
A sub 1 civilization on the Kardashev Scale can't compete with a post 1 civilization while fighting off the worst national disaster in human history.

>>64388380
stupid

>>64388387
the comparison is the MODERN IRL military power of the entire earth vs the combine from the video game, traitor. there is NO possible way the combine wins in ANY scenario, since you are still putting them against OUR CURRENT MILITARY and CIVILIZATION
>>64388389
It can, canonically DID, and you are using made up fagslop terms again. nostalgia tripping does not erase the fact that we have the capacity to repel them.

>>64388380
nigga we're not trying to clown on humanity but there comes a point where the combine could just chuck an asteroid at the planet and there's literally nothing we could do about that

>>64388424
My guy the entire reason why humanity won is because G Man dumped a superhuman plot armor freak of nature in after Humanity was long defeated and the Combine had basically turned away from Earth to look at other stuff.

>>64388424
nah you are wrong

>>64388387
>"and those rules are that they"
left like a bunch of bitch made motherfuckers who couldn't handle some petty guerrillas
>>64388425
they can not do such a thing otherwise they would have when they LOST

>>64388424
okay, then. tell me how, in detail, earth's modern militaries would win in the following scenario:
>easy mode - the combine wants earth intact. they destroy every major city and military installation from orbit (keeping in mind pretty much everywhere outside the cities is almost uninhabitable by this point because of xen wildlife), then send a ground invasion force that outnumbers humanity's remaining military forces by several orders of magnitude in sheer tonnage alone.
how the fuck do we win that?
>hard mode - the combine somehow gets repelled from the above scenario, so they just push the moon into earth
how the fuck do we win THAT?
like take a second and explain the logistics here dude

>>64388431
And why did the Combine lose anon?

>>64388431
I think you're struggling to differentiate between the combine that gordon faces (which is a small policing garrison) and the actual full scale combine invasion force that took over initially anon. either that or you have severe autism

>>64388424
legitimately, how does humanity deal with headcrab shells?

>>64388487
pidor blood turning them gay

>>64388487
Counter barraging the shells to kill the headcrabs. I don't know if headcrabs can chew through ballistic helmets, but if we add a bunch of spines and spikes to our helmets that may work.

>>64388501
The threat is not in soldiers getting turned into zombies, it's your entire economy getting wiped out.

>>64388507
Time to make an economy around killing headcrabs. Stable regions would be very valuable to live in or do business in, which is a commodity that can be traded.

>>64388431
The Combine wasn't trying to genocide humanity in HL2 and it's episodes, they were trying to restore order, crush the uprising and reconnect with the Overworld. Now that's no longer an option due to the destruction of their super portal, the Combine remnants have no reason to play nice anymore and can simply rage quit by blowing up Earth. The only reason they didn't outright genocide humanity was because Breen made a deal with them, promising that humans will figure out local teleportation for the Combine in exhange of their survival. Humans survived not because of how badass we were, but because the Combine decided to keep us alive a bit longer to get what they want.

>>64388516
if you are spending all your resources killing headcraps, you are spending no reasources buildings things to defend against the combine

>>64388521
Well yeah, all the aspects combined are a no win situation. The issue is more that its just an overwhelming combination of things that brings all nations down.

>>64388535
the main issue is that headcrab shells in and of themselves are a devastating strategic, biological weapon and it is not even close to the most powerful thing that the Combine can deploy.

>>64388545
Well they're still artillery, which we can counterbarrage. There's way more xenobiology though that really messes with humans like the fungus you see in Alyx. There's a steep implication that the Combine are actively clearing out the more hostile flora and fauna that popped out of portals seeing how there's less of a problem with wandering around unoccupied areas in HL2 than in Alyx.

>>64388554
I'm doing my part.

>>64388575
This seems to be the economy ruining stuff, as super mold basically means you have to tear down the building, bury/burn the wreckage and start over, maybe even removing surrounding soil up to a foot deep or so.

The combine's capability for strategic biological warfare far exceeds even humanity's theorized efforts.

>>64378798 (OP)
>190 KB PNG
>Would modern militaries repel a Combine invasion?
Repel? They'd fund it.

>>64388436
you have made an error, refer to >>64388197
>>64388519
they literally stopped reproduction
>>64388438
it was the mandate of heaven as Humanity's birth right

>64388686
bait or autistic, no more replies for you

>>64378798 (OP)
Even ignoring any out of game stuff or anything hard to discover, the combine have technology that can just entirely turn off human reproduction.

No, no one is beating them.

>>64388710
>>64388686
oops, you messed up your quote link, I fixed it for you. No need to thank me!

>>64378798 (OP)

If I made a fan animation/short movie depicting the Combine's invasion of Earth, I would want to heavily demonstrate how the Combine you fight in HL2 are equivalent to skeleton crew mall cops with stun batons by showing how powerful and full on cosmic horror-tier their real forces are. Well, even the ones who go to Earth are not the full-scale forces but a "recon squad". Like, a local time freeze and human soldiers and military hardware inside that bubble are slowly beginning to spaghettify, something like that. And never show real Combine units in the frame, just the devastation and aftermath of their actions.

>>64388805
for me it would be
>every major city gets nuked at once
>variety of SCP tier bullshit going on all over the place
>scenario follows a group of soldiers who manage to escape from a city into the countryside and then have to contend with xen fuckery whilst getting sporadic radio updates
>recurring motif is war of the world style insane colours, explosions and sounds going on all over the sky and the distance, incomprehensibly large ships visible in the upper atmosphere

>>64388812
I will caveat we know from the newspaper clippings in HL2 that 1. the invasion did allow for some form of news to be propagated post-surrender and 2. new york was undamaged enough that the UN building remained standing long enough to be used as the location of the surrender
also, it's heavily implied that the war lasted 7 hours not because the combine took that long to win, but because that's how long it took humanity to figure out a way to communicate with them and broadcast a surrender.

1. humanity beats the combine
2. humanity beats anti humans
3. humanity beats all things
4. humanity rules supreme and sovereign and free over all

>>64388805
this is blasphemous and not canon, hope that helps, anti human.

>>64388084
>develop your trannyhuman supersolder (who's dependent on hormone pills for the rest of it's life and is a REAL soldier respect it's pronouns)
>gets zapped by a DEW from orbit, vaporized by an asteroid dropped from orbit, telefragged by some eldritch energy tech we don't have a word for, gets its soul sucked out by C'thulu, ect.
Infantry don't matter in interstellar war, dumbass

>>64389209
except it isnt an interstellar war, is it, retard.

>>64388501
The existence of zombines suggests helmets do not stop them from doing whatever it is they do.

>>64379841
Is the HEV suit sufficient protection against India?

>>64389214
I was replying to your general post about tranny supersoldiers being effective against "aliens" in general, but the same points apply to the Combine and the above scenarios.

Pick the biggest, baddest Green Berret/Navy Seal/Delta Force group you want. Tell them to go fight a hurricane. How's that gonna work?

>>64389232
Freeman does quite a bit of sewer spelunking throughout both games, so maybe.

>>64389233
>go fight a hurricane

So you're saying we need giant robots?

>>64389232
It was designed to survive Indian conditions for up to 24 hours. That's with the helmet, though.

>>64388805
You know what the fun part is? The Combine weren't even trying, they sent basically slave armies to conquer us. The reality bending stuff you mention they basically kept just in case humanity could pose a fight, most of the combat was infantry getting overwhelmed by hordes of tech thralls because everything else was out of action or destroyed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6fZ5fojMH0

>>64389251
Like Mike in civil protection puts it, they didn't even really conquer us themselves, they got some other race they had already conquered, to conquer us for them, and now we're working for them too. It's the pyramid scheme from Hell.

>>64389257
If we consider the Breenbug audio to be canon, every single entity we see from the Combine is a slave or some kind of servile drone for the Combine, including the advisors.

>>64389233
are the combine in the hurricane, nigger?

>>64389289
no, they just made it with their hurricane gun

>>64389322
so go where the hurricane isnt, retarded nigger

>>64389337
but they can just make one whereever you are

>>64378804
>The real deal is way worse.
How? Genuinely curious

>>64389341
then go where they are, femboy seeming kike

>>64389352
but you can't go to Xen

>>64389366
then go into an underground bunker where the hurricane doesnt exist and wait, duh

>>64389342
Judging by the striders and dropships they make heavy use of engineered lifeforms and cybernetics. Meaning okay cool, you killed a dozen or so of their dudes in that engagement, they've got a hundred more ready to go, with a thousand more about to come out of the clone pods and sent to the cybernetics bay to get their death rays attached.

>>64389372
>wait

And while you are hiding and waiting underground the combine is taking over the surface, because while you aren't equipped to fight that stuff, they are. The combine is what the Nihilanth fled to Xen to hide from.

>>64389372
the point is that each individual strategic tool in the Combine garrison's arsenal presents an unsurmountable strategic advantage that can be leveraged to render any modern military ineffective.

>>64389232
.

>>64389381
>>64389388
>samefag and gay narritive forcing
lol, no. if the combine are on the surface that means they arent on xen, fucking dumbass

>>64389413
it seems that the idea of moving from one place to another confuses you

>>64389413
The combine is pretty big, they can be in two places at once. Combine is not even their real name, it's just a derogatory term the resistance came up with, they're the universal union.

>>64389416
no, you seem to be confused. if they move from a place you couldnt reach to a place you can reach, then you can REACH THEM. >>64389420
the COMBINE can suck my fat dick, bro. "two places at once" so you destroy them at the place you are able to attack.

>>64389445
>then you can REACH THEM
not if they go back to the place where you can't
also you can't do it in a hurricane, remember you're hiding in a bunker from the bad weather

>>64389501
you mean like how they left for good in the actual game because some plebs btfo'd them? neat
>you can't do it in the hurricane
neither can they then. i accept your concession though

all you traitor cucks seem to be misunderstanding the proposed scenario. the scenario is not the exact predetermined fictional story of the game where the military written by non military people is destroyed by invaders, the scenario pits the actual IRL MODERN militaries of the world, which includes all the supporting elements and nations of the world, against the faggot cumbine. obviously, humans win this round.
>hurricane gun
something we already have? neat, idgaf. love how you default to
>"w-well muh hecking asteroid will get you"
they can not do they they are not an interstellar species they are interdimensional, also just steal their ships if they are. also destroying the earth is not an invasion, and they didn't even do it anyway. you are weak and cling to FAKE strength. fucking traitors

>>64384481
This is the best post on the website right now and it's absolute pearls before swine.

>You HAVE to play by the established narrative bro
you mean the one that lets us have gravity guns and walso where we literally beat their ass, but instead we have an actual irl modern military fighting the combine and not the fictional nerd shit that was made up for a video game? guess we win again then

>>64389514
>they left for good in the actual game because some plebs btfo'd them?
but they didn't?

all of this, of course, assumes they have already established a foothold and taken over. this is not how things work, sorry. you have to start from the very beginning with the science retards, who are absolutely going to be monitored by people like the cia. remember, you have to actually win before you can do your gay reproduction suppression
>>64389604
but they did, yes. you lost to farmers with AKs, get over it.

china and russia alone could destroy the gay cumbine

>>64389625
They both got destroyed with the US military pretty early on in the 7 hour war.

>>64389265

Someone (Probably Laidlaw but I don't remember) hinted there isn't even a "Master Race" in the combine by the time they wreck our shit. It's effectively a self-perpetuating machine eating up everything it can get to across the multiverse to sustain itself.

https://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/BreenGrub
kino

>Did the lungfish refuse to breathe air? It did not. It crept forth boldly while its brethren remained in the blackest ocean abyss, with lidless eyes forever staring at the dark, ignorant and doomed despite their eternal vigilance. Would we model ourselves on the trilobite? Are all the accomplishments of humanity fated to be nothing more than a layer of broken plastic shards thinly strewn across a fossil bed, sandwiched between the Burgess shale and an eon's worth of mud?

Your words that day, Breen — I remember them well.

>>64381511
You're a scholar and gentleman (of a different sort) PAF anon. Godspeed to your next fleet day visit.

>>64382996
>>64383995

Cope
Seethe
Dial the Number 8

In that order Overwatch scum

>>64387699
>he doesn’t know that hashbans are notoriously easy to evade

Get good nigger, you’ll never stop me

>>64390268

Based, thank you fren

>>64382996 #
>>64383995 #

Cope
Seethe
Dial the Number 8
And then get in the Stalker pod like the niggercattle you are

>>64387699
>he doesn’t know that hashbans are notoriously easy to evade

Get good nigger, you’ll never stop me

>>64390268

Based, thank you fren

>>64382996
>>64383995

Cope
Seethe
Dial the Number 8
And then get in the Stalker pod like the niggercattle you are

>>64387699
>he doesn’t know that hashbans are notoriously easy to evade

Get good nigger, you’ll never stop me

>>64390268

Based, thank you fren. But sadly they cancelled this year’s Fleet Week (thanks Democrats) so I went to Santa Cruz instead. I can post pics if you want.

>>64389542
>they are not an interstellar species.

Epistle 3 says you are wrong, they have at least one Dyson sphere.

>>64389747
It is not the 7 hour war though.

>>64390723
don't bother, he's been autistically spamming the thread that present day humanity could somehow beat the full power of the combine from the seven hour war because he doesn't realise that the combine force you beat in game is just a small policing garrison left behind to oversee the earth while the main body of the combine is elsewhere.

>>64390865
it literally is you fucking mongoloid, that's the thread. the thread is asking if the modern military could win if the seven hour war happened today. not whether modern militaries could beat the small policing force you encounter in HL2 and HLA

You replace gordon at the point where the resonance cascade happens. Realistically, how far do you think you would have made it after leaving the chamber?

>>64391578
about 3.50

>>64391564
>"could the modern military repel an invasion by the combine"
not
>"the combine already invaded exactly like in the game"
the point is that it ISNT the fucking same because it is a DIFFERENT SCENARIO

>>64381511
Considering the original plot for HL2 had the human elements of the Combine using IDF equipment and uniforms what did Gaben mean by this?

>>64391589
yeah, the difference is that it happens today, rather than 1998-2005 (roughly when the original game events happen, unconfirmed iirc). The combine involved is still the same force that invaded in the games.

i think that just a few days of portal storms on earth would be enough to let us loose to anything.
The point of portal storms is that you cant actually defend yourself from them, you cant set up a bunker, you cant fortify your home, you cant put up quarantine or security lines over cities, nothing.
One second you're sleeping in bed then the next second those hound eye dog things blow your eardrums off with a hypersonic screech and a vortigaunt is vaporizing your children in the other room. Then the moment they're done they just teleport away somewhere else and you didn't even have time to grab a gun.

this happened to every single person, every single household, every single military base, every single government facility, in every single part of the world.

after just like a day of that happening, an invasion force shows up and says "we can stop doing this if you give up" and hey guess what

>>64391615
yeah, so it wont happen the same way, glad we agree

>>64391700
this reeks of reddit

>>64391598
>the original plot for HL2 had the human elements of the Combine using IDF equipment and uniforms

Such as...?

>>64391722
So what, it'll take them 10 hours instead of 7?

>>64391727
they will not be able to win at all. you are seriously not considering the actual situation, just your geek nostalgia

>>64391746
Humanity not winning? We got that yeah. You can't win against someone that can throw planets of slaves at you and not even care if the slaves die.

>>64381333
They can't initiate portal links, you have to start one.
Shattering their hub in the Citadel and then sending up the satellite to stop the storm and block portal signals will effectively protect Earth.

>>64391774
what, like communists? yeah, because hordes of slaves worked out for them kek. Humanity wins, now stop being a fag and accept your death as a traitor to Mankind. planets of slaves < one planet of Humans

>>64389620
>but they did, yes. you lost to farmers with AKs, get over it.
The US military is not the same as the combine

>>64391805
correct, the US military is superior, as are all Humans.
>the gay cumbine left because of farmers with AKs

>>64391726
Merkavas.

>>64391811
The US military does not use AKs, anon.

>>64391996
we are talking about the entire world, anon.

>>64391801
40kfags are so insufferable

>>64391801
>>64391746
your 40k humanity first shitposting would be more than welcome if you were funny about it and knew how to let the joke breathe, but you're just being obnoxious about it which ruins everything (and this thread).

>>64391811
Humanity literally only won against the combine's garrison force, and only then because a 4th dimensional CIA was helping us. Note how before Freeman shows up the resistance is entirely underground and the only battles they engage in, they lose. For fuck's sake, these niggas are stealing our oceans, the literal ocean, they stuck portals on the ocean floor and are sucking it away t9 God knows where. We cannot compete with that on a level playing field.

>>64392179
>"p-please leave me alone mastah, y-y-y-y-y-y-your light shines too bright"
suck my fat raging cock, anti human. you are the ones who are engaging in biased nonsense, so why shouldnt i? humans win, you lose. it is no joke or shitpost.
>ruins everything and this thread
the board is for weapons, fuckwit.
>>64392200
>"Humanity literally won"
Yes.

>>64384546
>I think tyranids in 40k do it too.
Fairly certain it has been abadoned. Same with the notion that probes sent out into the galaxy either sent back fucking nothing (eaten by nids) or ork garble.

>>64392200
>"uhh uh-UHH-uh you must play by the rules of the original narrative but uhhhhh, no 4D cia for you dudhddhduurrrrrrhdplgphlurtglgugugluphlur
holy shoot, son, get a handle on that runny diahrea shitter you call a mouth, gyat dayum, Mankind wins again

>>64392200
ignore him, it's a single anon that's either baiting or autistic

>>64392179
You’re asking autistic people on an anonymous shitposting forum to understand nuance and read the room. Why?

>>64392226
stop spewing defeatist rhetoric, argue fairly, and maybe i will leave you alone. faggot ass cumbrine

>>64388194
No they did that to send stuff back as I recall. Information in fact which Alex and Gordon copied which is why they chase the shit out of them in episode 1.

Do have to say the weirdo faggot who showed up in this thread with his headcanon RAH RAH HUMANITY shitposting is at least a new schizo I don't remember seeing on /k/ before. Is he from /v/ or (more likely) a fa/tg/uy?

>>64392294
cumbrine <<<<<<< Humanity. also, you have all been off topic, not once talking about weapons or militaries.

>>64392294
also you don't see me here because I typically don't talk about off topic bullshit, but YOU have created this situation with your cuckoldry

>>64387576
you are.

>>64392303
>>64392313
>eldritch empowered champion of humanity literally incapable of stopping random middle management space grub from just holding him still with its mind and then tentacle raping his buddy
>was about to happen to him too
>had to get plot rescued by a non-human
oh no no humanity sisters...! our... RESPONSE!?!

>>64392337
>eldritch
reddit buzzword that you dont know the meaning of
>plot rescued
so irrelevant to this discussion? cool. so, in summary, ONE space grub thing detained ONE dude with psychic powers.
>our... RESPONSE!?!
shoot the space grub, cumbrine whore

Mankind > cumbrine
Mankind > cumbrine
Mankind > cumbrine
Mankind > cumbrine
Mankind > cumbrine
Mankind > cumbrine
Mankind > cumbrine
Mankind > cumbrine
Mankind > cumbrine

>>64392356
>gets confused by normal verbiage
>poops his adult diapers at combine effortless dominating humanities best and only useful forces
>deflect deflect DEFLEEECTTT!!
>secretly fantasizes about grub tongue in his butt
wow you just got dominated forever. never seen a "man" lose on the internet as badly as you just did...! wow!

>>64392380
>projecting and spilling all his fantasies hoping i will dom him
>"PLEASE castrate me, Human-chama, just like my treasonous CUMBRINE FANFICTION"
you really need to log off and touch grass, lil gup. if you keep spewing that cummy brine out of your mouth it will begin to smell lmao

Honestly it's no surprise humans got wasted yet again by superior alien forces, more the rule then the exception. If you want to deal with serious horrors you need to call the elves. Only elves have the age, wisdom and superior prowess to truly face the threats of the beyond. Toddler races like humanity need to be sheltered under the wings of their superiors.

>>64392417
>their superiors
only Humanity from the future can take that role

>>64392419
I am going to bed now after having raped you cumbrine drones in this debate and then going on to breed my 10/10 human wife (biologically female). if you have anything to say, I advise you take it up with this fine lady (your inner monologue) >>64392419

>>64392484
refer to this and the many other tranny mentions before i entered the thread >>64384330

>>64392495
Your brain is sludge

Hey how did this sci fi discussion become a shitfling

>>64392506
biased anti human traitors causing trouble again with defeatist rhetoric

Don't mind me, just testing a theory.

This guy is the definition of a pigeon playing chess lol

>>64392512
>untreated mental illness.jpg
Please leave.

Roll for LOVE!!!

And its a pedophile too

>>64392513
most altchans are literally nothing but people like this replying to eachother, forever.

>>64392528
(0 means you stop existing)
>>64392532
as told by tacitus in germania, the best age for breeding is the early twenties and one must be pure till then in order to retain their vril

honestly I'm just staying up to ensure the bump hits in the nights limit. roll, roll! I still won, and your cumbrine lost both irl and in fiction

>>64392541 (me)
based

>>64392552
You're having a meltie and now are gooning to satiate your autistic rage.

>>64392552
Based times 2
>>64392561
gooning to your Total Xenos Death? yeah, I think i am

>>64392532
He's probably underage, so anime lolis are his peers age-wise.

>the guy who is a literal embarrassment to humanity he thinks he did anything for humanity itt
Jesus, if some super AI took a look at spergs like him and decided we were just too irritating to keep around would be hard to blame it.

>>64392566
my dubs killed your argument
64392571
I am the super AI lol. I defeated your propaganda thread

I'm guessing its an Indian

64392571
64392575
look at this coons pissing and shitting themselves now that their anti human roleplay thread has fallen, no longer able to spread memetic filth

>>64392577
>>64392566
see, i told you chuds. bump, bump!

>>64392575
Eh, nothing racial unfortunately about being a pure turboautist spazz. We've had them on 4chan since the beginning on all the boards, /a/ had ACK for awhile (or maybe they're still ban evading there all these years on) not too long ago. /k/ in the relatively recent past had that sperg who kept claiming 5.7 would/should replace 22lr for various mutating reasons, that was pretty wild for a year.

The 40k fantasy was a mistake

>>64392581
[Pre-Chorus]
I-I-I'm Lil Tay-K, I don't think you want no action
You want action, you get turned into past tense
Your boys deep? Well, let's get to subtractin'
Smith & Wesson made my .9 with some compassion

[Chorus]
Fuck-fuck-fuck a beat, I was tryna beat a case
But I ain't beat that case, bitch, I did the race (Skrrt, skrrt)
Beat it up, where I nut? Shawty face (Gang, gang)
Eli Blast crackin' 4s like a vase
Pop a nigga then I go out my way (Grrah, grrah)
Do the dash then I go out the way
Rob-rob-rob a nigga shoes, rob a nigga lace (Gimme that shit, nigga)
We tryna see a hunnid bands in our face
Fuck-fuck-fuck a beat, I was tryna beat a case (Gang, gang)
But I ain't beat that case, bitch, I did the race (Skrrt, skrrt)
Beat it up, where I nut? Shawty face (Lil' bitch)
Eli Blast crackin' 4s like a vase (Gang)
Pop a nigga then I go out my way (Skrrt)
Do the dash then I go out the way
Rob-rob-rob a nigga shoes, rob a nigga lace (Gimme that shit, nigga)
We tryna see a hunnid bands in our face (Fih)

石猴 美猴王 孫悟空 齊天大聖 行者 鬥戰勝佛 靈明石猴 孫長老 火眼金睛 隱身法 定身法 圈子
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

Does mies jeschet boene doesef douvema enitemaus
Y'AI 'NG'NGAH YOG-SOTHOTH H'EE—L'GEB F'AI THRODOG UAAAH
All hail the glory of Vaiśravaṇa. o'ṃ
All hail the instrument of divine righteousness, o'ṃ
All hail the exultant and glorious celestial jewel, o'ṃ
All hail the swift thunderbolt of exalted strength, virtue, and glory! o'ṃ
Homage to all-pervading diamond thunderbolts. Utterly crush and devour! o'ṃ
All hail the glory of Agni. o'ṃ!
All hail the radiant divine all-illuminating light, bursting and streaming forth in all directions, o'ṃ
Glory to Divine perfection, o'ṃ
All hail! A ra pa ca na. o'ṃ

>>64392588
YOU, YOU are the ones who didnt see reason and kept pushing me with your unrealistic arguments. so now this is what you get. pray i do not drag you into my other ops

I'm trans btw, not sure if that matters.

Woah guys watch out little Timmy has unrestricted access to a computer

>>64392600
I'll make the next thread about how humanity loses so badly to superior combine and other alien forces ok?

>mass baleetion
This will probably trigger him even harder but jannie effort appreciated nonetheless. Though OP's prompt wasn't great it actually is kinda interesting from a military perspective to imagine what humanity might do given 1/10/100 years of warning. I mean, aside from political shit, but just assuming everyone was convinced about the threat and took it really seriously, what would be our best response to try to survive? For 10/100 year scenarios at least spreading out into this solar system and maybe trying for some seed/generation ships to a few nearby ones could be possible in parallel with other efforts. For single digit years maybe really burrowing in, resurrect the old idea of using nukes for digging to construct enormous underground installations and continent-spanning tunnel networks?

>>64392640
Beeeeg question is at what point do they just kill the planet and scavange the rubble

signal recieved from
>>64392605 :

>"hi sorry their master Human, i accidentally mixed up the name there. still trans though"

oh ok anti human forces, still gonna wipe you out >>64392623
>"I'm so sorry master shokage-chama Human God, my Lord, i concede to your correctness"

>>64392640
recieve psychic equivalent of HIV like im WW2 japan. your low iq comment reminds me tho, we literally know about the combine already, thanks lol. we literally know what they are and do.
>>64392651
they dont because they can not. you have no proof they can or did, because they didnt. we win

>70+ posts gone
That guy was sperging hard

if you continue this, i will have no choice but to include you in my cognito hazard works. I am tired but will still defeat all my enemies

>>64392672
right, fuck you im going to meme hazard the shit out of you

>>64392651
I mean, yes? That is always something that has to get dealt with somehow in these scenarios, because if it's purely a matter of threat then the obvious answer is just to bombard the planet (or solar system for that matter depending on civilization scale we're talking about here) and be done with it. There has to be some sort of hook (habitable full-of-life planets are valuable in some way, which requires keeping it intact) or else it's a different type of story (there are a number of decent fiction tales that basically start with the earth getting wiped). Within our universe the ability to cross light years at all necessarily implies the ability to do mass kinetic bombardment, it's identical tech. HL2 sorta works around this both by "humans have something valuable" and because the Combine comes "sideways", they may be space fairing in their own universe to some extent but they aren't crossing hundreds/thousands/millions of light years in ships to reach here they're just tunneling point to point, it's not like they arrived and got comfortable on the Oort cloud first nor do they show any interest in that (might be seen as a total waste of effort for a backwater).

If you start dealing with shit like killer stars (ie, stellar scale phased arrays) we're firmly beyond human survival level without strongly super human AI. For that kind of galaxy you just need to keep your head down and do diplomacy.

>>64392672
Hah, seriously. We throw around "autism" so much almost refreshing to be reminded what an actual mental retard looks like.

>>64392692
Oh shiver me timbers!

>>64392640
Is this assuming no Gman intervention? Because he's kind of OP. With 100 years of warning and Black Mesa teleportation tech (leaving Aperture out of it for now), you could have self sustaining colonies all over our system and maybe our nearest neighbors, as well as maybe pockets of Xen if we can find any that are suitable, similar to what >>64380891 said. At least then our eggs aren't all in the same basket, and even if Earth is conquered, some remnant of humanity could survive. I don't know how feasible directly fighting back against the Combine would be since we don't know much about their true scale beyond that it's large. It would almost like Afghanistan in a way; try not to fight them head on, but rather fall back farther than they are willing to pursue us and wait for them to get bored and leave. I don't think the Combine have other forces in our universe either, rather they only learned of its existence after the resonance cascade and invaded via the Xen portal, so if the dispersed human forces can bide their time and launch a strike on the citadel(s) after the Combine has begun their occupation when the only Combine forces around are space mall cops, they might stand a chance of cutting them off completely.

>>64392704
Mankind > cumbrine and no amount of your projecting can cover the truth
>>64392755
you better be fucking scared, fag, I know how to run an op the likes of which would make your cumbriney mouth tremble in fear

I didn't know script kiddies playing tough guy were still a thing.

not script kiddie, i study the occult, memes, and SCP wiki. i know how to make a cumbrine like you piss his panties

>the autist got nuked
today is a good day
>>64392640
>1 year warning
we're almost certainly fucked, best bet would be trying to hide a small bunker of some kind on the moon with embryos and robots programmed to re-seed humanity in the distant future. as much of life on earth itself would have to be killed as possible, certainly all humans, and covered in as much radioactive material as possible to make it look like a dead world by the time the combine arrive so they hopefully think "man this place is an empty shithole". but a year probably wouldn't be enough for that even with all of humanity on board
>10 years
see above plan but send the re-seeding bases to mars and other planets rather than the moon, same plan for earth
>100 years
send out as much of humanity as possible out into space on a bunch of generation ships into distant space, eradicate earth of every piece of information that could tell them where we went, and leave behind some kind of automated defence system on earth with the most powerful weapons we can afford and design to inflict as much damage as possible on the invasion force when they start pouring through portals.

the bottom line is that you cannot win, you can only run. This is all assuming there isn't a means available to cut off the combine from our universe like they do in HL2.

>>64392759
> I don't know how feasible directly fighting back against the Combine would be since we don't know much about their true scale beyond that it's large
in terms of canon, we know that the combine
>holds territory in multiple universes
>is at least a type II+ on the Kardashev scale in at least one of those universes, likely more
which we know from Epistle III.
>Large enough that smashing the borealis into one of their dyson spheres (a ship capable of bending spacetime itself and destroying local reality in some way) wouldn't even register as news to them.
so broadly I'd say we can assume it's impossible to fight them head on by any reasonable metric. I like the fanfiction description of them in >>64387864 though, which is that they're some kind of runaway autonomous process that's been operating for around five hundred trillion years ago and is therefore far beyond any of these scales and is essentially more powerful than God himself would be. I don't personally believe they're actually this large though, as it would make them not having come across local teleportation technology highly unlikely.

>>64385757
Valve never cared about canon.

>>64393100
this
the black mesa remake isn't "canon" but as far as I'm concerned that's half life

I encourage you to believe anons. It's near. Expect an announcement soon.

>>64392249
You're right but also wrong, they were sending portal codes into the other side to open a big dick portal. The citadel detonation was made to send that through, they basically established a connection, but they were going to send Breen through so yeah the portal was happening.

>>64381475
Do you even know what you are talking about?
The occupation is because of the teleporter tech in the first place, without it the combine would just kill 99% of the population, capture 1% to try and find a use for, and then once they did they would make synths based on them and kill the remaining 1% anyway, then just loot every little bit of resource the planet has.
The teleporter tech is literally the only reason why humanity if worth the bare minimum of hassle the combine goes through in the lore

>>64378798 (OP)
>Would modern militaries repel a Combine invasion?
by the power of Arby's, yes

>>64381525
wait, what cosmic horror?

>>64393785
>wait, what cosmic horror?
He's speculating about whatever is/is behind G-man. At the very least the Combine considers g-man a massive threat but also find him impossible to kill and the best they can do is some sort of super tech prison, and he somehow manages to just /be/ wherever he wants in normal space whenever he wants and can do cross dimension psychic shit and freeze people in time until needed etc. It's hinted he's tremendously more powerful but is bound by some sort of rules in what he does, and there are "the employers" whatever the fuck that is.

There isn't any clear statement that whatever it is is some sort of existential threat to the Combine, like it's possible this is some age-old game or whatever, but they clearly take it seriously and it's also clearly beyond human understanding.

>>64381511
confederates would side with nazis

>>64393818
the meta theory is that gman's "employers" are literally just valve/the gaming industry, but this is gay and retarded. My personal opinion is he's some kind of cosmic horror serving higher cosmic horrors and he has a bone to pick with the combine whilst not necessarily being aligned with humanity (case in point, he orchestrates the resonance cascade)

>>64393883
I guess I don't see any need to go into the "cosmic horror" angle is all, which in my mind/fiction understand is a more specific term then a general post-singularity super intelligence of some flavor. And it's possible as well for example that the Combine have their own gods in turn and there's this whole big multidimensional war going on (or even not a war but a sort of unfriendly neutral with proxy conflicts). No one necessarily wants to eat all of creation rather lower entities are to them like birds or something are to us.

>>64393903
From what we know of the combine
>they're an interdimensional biomechanical construct that expands for the sake of expansion and has no higher purpose
from what we know of the gman
>he's an unexplained interdimensional alien in who can shapeshift and teleport/time travel at will unless contained
that's all we really know for sure
I did however see a neat theory that argued the gman is actually another nihilanth, but with either greater power (which enables him to appear as a human corporeally) or just a different set of abilities.

are Combine rations any good?

>>64393918
Nothing against some fun speculation at all, but I do think stuff like that gets firmly into speculation. There just isn't enough in any of the games (or even in background old stuff like the thistle3 that may or may not still be where they plan to go) to really give us any insight. Part of the whole setup is that there's no omniscient reader perspective, we never ever get to see the perspective of or hear the thoughts (or read private entries or computer index or anything) of the advisors or even Breen, we see it all from the perspective of Freeman or some of the other human characters, and they don't have much to work with either having been kept in stasis or been forced into operating 'underground'.

So compared to a lot of stories it's a pretty small window on the adversary (which beyond any mystery on a practical level of course means Valve has endless room to do whatever they want and not have any conflicts). Can still enjoy thinking about all the little hints tho.

Why would the Combine want human infantry?

>>64393970
to send after some low level nothing human sized threat out in the universe or any other they may find them in.

>>64393970
>Why would the Combine want human infantry?
They seem to have a thing for bio/cyber hybrid, for everything not just military but also their sub-sentient servitor roles. There's no explanation given but that's what we see. I suppose realistically that's to add a horror and "interesting opponent" angle for the games, but if we're trying to think of why in-universe they would, and assuming it's not just some fetish or values, maybe they had some sort of super bad experience with full AI and pure machines and they've decided biological hybrid is the safer path long term. In that context humans proving themselves able to become part of the collective as hybridized units themselves would make sense maybe.

>>64393970
We don't know. They're here to loot anything of value from Earth, maybe a humanoid soldier would be useful to them.

As >>64394003 said, they seem to have an aversion to pure AI. While manhacks and scanners exist, their more complex tech seems biomechanical. The Overwatch's modification seem considerably more crude than the Synths, and we know that the Strider was scanned from a lifeform and later recreated in a more useful form. Maybe Breen asked them to save humanity in some manner, copied minds and foot soldiers being an example of that.

>>64385330
2bh I agree. But I didn't know what other word to use. stereotype? that's too negative of a connotation

>>64390136
SANDWICHED

>>64393970
Would meet triple quota at the button slave factory for permission to smash.

I don't feel like taking the ep 3 writing as canon considering it was both written knowing full well and dealing with the fact that it wasn't getting made, ever, and also it's just not the kind of story the HL games do.

Gordon Freeman crouch walks through a little grate and falls into the "combine nerve center" and throws a grenade at a thingie which blows up very impressively and alyx sucks your dick and the g-man says something mysterious and the game ends. That's definitely what it would have become after revisions for being turned into a playable game. Every HL is like that.

>>64378798 (OP)
No, they're a multiversal empire. Presumably if they had no interest in Earth's resources or portal technology they could just outright destroy the planet instantly like it was nothing.

>>64394371
>When you finally transition

>>64394045
Aren't manhacks and scanners remote operated rather than AI based on cut content?

>>64394750

It was probably an early draft of Episode 3 that got rejected by Valve as being too depressing. I wouldn't be surprised if the rejection was a factor in Laidlaw's decision to resign a few years later.

>>64395456

In the original beta of the game, there was a form of entertainment known as the Manhack Arcade where citizens could control Manhacks and use them to unknowingly kill other citizens. It's definitely understandable why it was dropped from the final version, seeing as it would hard to realistically maintain the facade of it "just being a game" the first time a player encounters someone they recognize, a street they recognize, or a victim simply begging for their life in a way that an NPC wouldn't. Invariably people would start figuring it out and the only players would be pro-Combine collaborators or homicidal psychopaths who just want to murder people without fear of consequence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZZfE5n6OnQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx-8iqKPEY8

>>64378798 (OP)
The most realistic part of Half Life 2 is that HK would immediately sell out to the Combine to secure a weapons contract

>>64393970
there is an argument to be made that human intelligence makes us remarkably effective killing machines once you make up for our weaknesses. We've already done a lot of that on our own by making up for our relative physical weakness/frailty (compared to say, that of a bear) with armour and complex weaponry. I don't find it completely unbelievable that when modified even further, the combine might see humans as potentially quite useful, intelligent and highly adaptable combat troops.

>>64397489
kek

>>64394750
>it's just not the kind of story

HLA's final chapter is lowkey a rehash of EP3's draft, though.

Same exact haunted quantum house scenario Laidlaw came up with for the Borealis sequence, including his "people and events frozen in eternal timeloops" concept

>>64394371
Xer name is Lillith and you WILL respect xeir pronouns

>>64393883
>but this is gay and retarded
It is, but I also kinda like it.

>>64398875
HLA is non canon zoomtrash

>>64393970
I think it's just what the combine does. Takes over a territory, and combines what's in it with itself.
Humans are just free to use, walking bio-robots that you can recycle into infantry, engineers, and an occupation force while you wait for the free-minded humans to finish making your teleporter as, presumably, anything that's been "combined" with them loses the cognitive ability to create teleportation tech.
The brutal efficiency of the combine is what makes them so creepy and uncanny imo. It's more efficient to recycle us than to use infantry from other worlds/universes.

here's a followup from the OP though - could modern earth militaries win against the combine's occupation forces? since we don't actually know how big the world is by the time of HL2 or how big either side is in terms of numbers are resources let's talk in terms of a brigade level unit of striders, hunters, combine soldiers, vs a US or British brigade.

>>64400411
*numbers or resources

>>64400411
Combine doesn't seem to make use of artillery outside of headcrab mortar.

>>64378798 (OP)
The most realistic part of this game is HK immediately selling out to The Combine to secure the last small weapons contract…

>>64387535
it's not that deep

>>64393918
The vorts said that advisors are still just larvae, meaning once they hatch they become more powerful, it's reasonable to assume that Gman is a hatched advisor who went rouge and that's why the combine considers him so dangerous, beacuse he knows all of their secrets.
if you look closely at the final phase of HLA, when Gman brings Alyx to the future to kill the advisor who killed her father, the advisor notices their presence and looks at them or more likely turns it's snout to them, just before Gman freezes time, like the advisor was aware that something was happening in a different plane of existence. it probably sensed the presence of something akin to itself. but since it was just still a grub it was powerless to escape from Gman's 'time trap' for lack of a better word. also, the fact that Alyx used vort energy to kill the advisor suggets that there's a connection between them and Gman, because the very same energy is the only known thing that can contain and presumably kill Gman, though I think a simple bolt of green vort lighting wouldn't be enough to finish him off.
As for his employers, they're either fellow rouge advisors or they're all part of the entity of Gman, meaning each one of them are one specific variant of him. like when he starts producing clones of himself while he's speaking to Alyx outside of time.

>>64401067
>>64393918
The likely answer is that it's another group of Combine advisors fucking with whichever group's in charge of the general region of parallel universes Earth's in.

>>64401016
kill yourself

A rebel Human instinctive BMRF scientist professor and theoretical physics doctorate was teaching a class on Gordon Freeman, known anticitizen
"Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship Freeman and accept that he was the most opportunely timed being the world has ever known, even greater than Wallace Breen!"

At this moment, a memory erased, patriotic, pro-universal union Overwatch soldier who had served 1500 tours of offworld duty and understood the necessity of the suppression field and fully supported all military decisions made by the Universal Union stood up and held up a model of a man.

"What's the greatest endeavor?"

The arrogant professor smirked quite instinctively and smugly replied "our biological imperative and doing your part"

"Wrong. It's collaboration. If it is instinct, would we model ourselves on the Trilobite? Did the lungfish refuse to breathe air?"

The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of Raising the Bar. He stormed out of the room crying those reactionary and fearful tears.

The students applauded and all joined civil protection that day and accepted Our Benefactors as their savior. An Advisor named "Universal Union" flew into the room and perched atop the combine emblem and shed a tear on the supply crate. Humanity's surrender was read several times, and Our Benefactors themselves showed up and enacted immortality across the species.

The scientist lost his rations and was relocated the next day. He died of the preventable plague called age (when immortality is in our reach), and was tossed into a layer of broken plastic shards thinly strewn across a fossil bed, sandwiched between the Burgess shale and an eon's worth of mud for all eternity.

Be safe, Be aware

>>64401067
>it's reasonable to assume that Gman is a hatched advisor
No? That's not reasonable at all.

>>64401910
>and was tossed into a layer of broken plastic shards thinly strewn across a fossil bed

>>64401910
breddy gud

>>64401067
>Advisor notices Gman
Presumably they metamorphose into higher-dimensional beings, like Gman, The Nialanth, or the Vortessence. It would make sense that it could sense them despite not being able to actually manipulate those states like those other beings can.
All that being said, there's no reason to think an advisor would literally turn into Gman on a long enough timespan. Just as likely some energy being that sees biology as crude and inefficient.
>>64401910
Kek'd.