On another site I heard someone knocking Half-Life's storyline because they don't understand it and think it is simplistic and crappy(bad expirement, aliens attack, have to escape from lab and aliens) and for a long time I didn't understand the story. There is also a massive amount of speculation and theories on it, and many discussions, so I figured I'd make a thread to completely explain the storyline of the original Half-Life(including information from Half-Life:Blue Shift, Opposing Force, and Half-Life 2) and for debate on certain details. From my understanding and interpretation(please note, I have only played Half-Life 2 a little bit and have not played Half-Life:BLue Shift), here's how it went down:an unknown amount of time earlier, scientists in the Black Mesa Research facility, a former missile silo now dedicated to secret government projects involving scientific research and technological development(including the development of some weapons for the U.S. Military), had constructed a portal to a world called Xen and had discovered it, or perhaps in reverse of that order. The planet was inhabited by aliens called Xenians, one of which, called Nihilanth, had psychic powers that he could use to control the minds of the other aliens. An alien empire called the Combine had conquered the Xenians using their superior military might and had captured and enslaved Nihilanth. Some how(perhaps by using a device that can control his body directly or with a threat of death to him and his people if he did not cooperate) they forced Nihilanth to use his psychic powers to bend the will of his own species to obey the Combine. They also attached special bracelets with transmitters on them to Nihilanth and his people, the Vortigaunts, small, one eyed, aliens with a relatively human like reptillian form that allowed Nihilanth to transmit his telekenetic powers over larger distances and at faster speeds so he could control the vortiguants for him anywhere within many light years of his location.(or perhaps even anywhere in the galaxy or universe or mutiverse, who knows how far its reach is.) Or perhaps those bracelets keep the Vortiguants obedient to the Combine while Nihilanth simply passes their orders to them with his psychic abilities. Nihilanth also has a vast amount of power provided by crystals and is able to teleport cratures and objetcs throughout space and send out alien guards to attack enemies. One day the scientists, bring back a sample of something(again, I haven't played Blue Shift yet) from Xen for anylisis in the test chamber.(they also brought back substances earlier, such as one of Nihilanth's crystals) In order to get the most accurate, reliable, and detailed analysis of that sample possible, they ran their equipment at higher levels then usual, around 120%. Gordon Freeman, a research assistant with a PHD in theoretical physics from MIT, was involved in the expirement and basically just pressed a button to get started and put the sample in(you need a PHD for that? Guess that's what the scientist in HL2 was talking about. Maybe it was so he could write up a report on it or for when he got promoted). Anyway, the system is over loaded and has reached a point where it can't be shut down(much like a nuclear reactor once it gets close enough to meltdown as a chain reaction has already set it off, or possibly due to faulty equipment and poor maintenence, as suggested by some scientists statements). The result is a catastrophic release of energy, which destroys the facility's research equipment and computer systems, as well as many other systems, by overloading them with electricity and other forms of energy, thus obliterating them. The surge of electricity and other energy spreads throughout the building in less than a second, and overloads the teleporter and its control system, thus causing its controls to send signals out to the equipment to create more portals(or possibly destroying the control equipment and causing it to create portals at random in order to let off energy and complete its circuit or whatever) and it creates many portals erraticly, causing a huge number of Vortiguants and other aliens from Xen to be transported to Earth. Gordon Freeman begins trying to make it out for survival. Meanwhile the G-man, an unknown government agent who has been monitoring the situation and was earlier discussing it with adminastrator Dr. Breen, has called in the U.S. Marine Corps. to cover-up the appearance of the aliens and the projects went on there(which desperate scientists may reveal to their families, freinds, or the media after escaping from the facility and not thinking rationally about doing so) by killing all the scientists and aliens present. A huge clash between the USMC and the aliens ensues, with massive aliens that shoot hornets out(some who may have been captured and brought to the facility before the incident), massive tremor creating aliens that are like the vortiguants only much larger and more deformed looking(think some of the rock Pokemon), vortiguants, and head crabs that can take over host's brains and turn them into zombies along with other aliens duking it out with marines armed with MP-5's and grenades and backed by Apache helicopters and M2A2 Bradley APC's, as well as V-22 Opsrey transport helicopters that bring reinforcements in. After seeing a marine killing a fellow scientist(or attempting to, if you kill him first)Gordon realizes what the military is up to and fights back, defeating them and the aliens. Gordon cuts off some of the alien's reinforcements by using missile(with the help of some in the Lambda complex) to destroy a sattelite that supports the teleports by beaming the subjects to Xen and back with a course that avoids obstables that would normally block dinsintegrated light transport or whatever the form your in when your being teleported is from being blocked by obstacles like the moon, the earth itself, stars etc. Or perhaps the power source for the facility or the artifical worm hole's support system was located there and the ground apparatus merely controlled the one out in space and made it make portals appear and the released energy was transmitted somehow to the sattelite and fried its electronics. Its a complicated story, and, according to Nihilanth, we will "never know the truth." Oh well. Anyway, while Gordon is doing all this, a unit of the Marine Special Forces from the Santego Military Base, the hazardous environment combat unit, arrives. Their helicopter went down and only Corporal Adrian Shephard survived. The marines didn't get their orders until they reached the LZ, the landing zone(that is, those that made it) and those like Shephard who didn't make it there, never recieved their orders so if they were alive, they were good old fashioned heroic marines. Shephard and other survivors fought the way through the facility and eventually Shephard made it to a giant monster that he had to fight. Gordon and Shephard both went to Xen, where Nihilanth was using his psychic powers to continue teleportation to Earth. Shephard returned to Earth and fought a giant, multi-headed snake like monster going through a open portal to earth and beat it with laser guns after returning to Earth. Gordon defeated Nihilanth. Both were teleported to the G-man's facility and put in a black void. Shephard went unconcious and woke up in a Marine helicopter, where the G-man explained things to him before putting him in the black void, which he allowed him to live in because he was a survivor. Gordon was allowed to live because he was useful and a survivor and held for future employment in one ending(the one HL2 follows) or killed if he chose to die instead. Both were apparently parylized from physical and mental shock(or maybe they were tied up or something) and had their weapons confiscated. The G-man had been responsible for Shephard getting left behind because he didn't know Shephard's helicopter had crashed and thought he was too soft(as he wouldn't kill scientists) and problably thought the bleeding heart would report the incident to the media so those who were responsible would be brought to justice, if there was any scientists alive they would be rescued rather than killed, the stuff would be revealed, and future government cover-ups would be prevented as they would be more afraid to do so and watched with more scrutiny, and as a result the G-man locked the door and left Shephard in the building during the evacuation, which had caused him to meet the creature. Black ops(unacknowledged special forces) had been sent in from the CIA's assasin units and U.S. Army Delta Force to cover-up the incident by killing the remaining soldiers, as they figured that Delta Force would be more hard lined and cold and less likely to tell about the incident, and since less Delta Force members were sent in than the number of Marines that were left behind but still a large enough number that their superior skill and physical prowess would make them able to kill the other soldiers, and as many from both sides would die in the conflict(and less black ops would be left after the fight than the number of marines still alive in the facility) less people would know. Or perhaps they figured that they could cover-up the incident without revealing the existence of the black ops(remember, their unacknowledge special forces) with less casulties by evacuating all marines that could make it out in time for the evacuation(which was shortly before the black ops arrival to prevent them from seeing 'em on the way out), and killing any others that were still there so the remaining marines couldn't tell anyone about the black ops and the black ops could still accomplish their mission by blowing up the facility with an atomic bomb. Now, why not just let the aliens kill them? That would take too long, and if they made it to the black ops and the black ops didn't kill them, either they'd survive because they'd stick with the professional alien killers or those black ops would die fighting aliens. It would also be quite obvious if they didn't shoot at the aliens and ordered the marines to attack them that they were trying to kill them off and if that marine somehow survived it wouldn't go well. Or perhaps they feared the surviving marines would try to stop them from setting off the A-bomb to save their comrades who were still in the facility. Or perhaps they were trying to imitate the old Soviet cover-up of those people shot by Soviet troops as first the soviets had the troops shoot them and then had the troops shot(possibly by more hard-line and less western sympathetic[because they didn't serve with the allies in WW2] troops) and they thought that since the Soviets were good with cover-ups, it would be best to imitate them. Now that I've got that bit on the Black Ops down, G-man again was keeping Gordon ready for future use and problably worked for the US or foreign government, maybe even for aliens opposed to the combine. Or perhaps he was sort of a mercenary contractor, linking those with money with those with combat skills and firepower. Hope that wasn't too hard to swallow, or didn't jump around or focus on the black ops too much, or show my lack of knowledge of the series or certain games in it.

I really can't be bothered to read all that. Can you go over it slowly by post please? I did notice some valid points as I was skimming over the first few lines, though.

Sorry, I have a tendency to be long winded like that. Just what I think the game's complete story is, a combination of what I've seen in the game and my own theories and speculation. Anyway, here's some of the more speculative points:

*Combine took over Xen before the Black Mesa Incident

*Earth scientists explored Xen and took samples while the Combine just considered it small, meaningless incursion and had Xenians attack them

*When the scientists were scanning a sample from Xen, they ran their equipment too high, sending an electrical surge throughout the system. When it hit the teleporter, it opened portals with Xen, sending aliens to Earth that reported its existence to the Combine

*The Combine discovered Earth and forced Nihilanth to used his psychic powers to send his race as pawns against the human military as part of a plan to weaken and invade Earth

*When some Marines didn't make it for the evac before the Black Ops came in, Government had Black Ops just kill marines that got in their way, ignore the rest, and set off the nuclear bomb that would kill them all because they wanted to maintain secrecy and it would result in less casulties just to kill the Marines than to have other Marines rescue them. It would also mean they would have to delay less in sending in the Black Ops becuase they wouldn't have to wait for the Marines to get out.

Jeebus! ever hear of paragraphs, its late and i can only skim that without my eyes bleeding, i'd just like to point out that theres no such thing as planet Xen, Xen is an alternate dimension not a planet.
Anyway, what i'd like to see is a true Unified Theory which takes into account most of the SP mods aswell as the official stuff.
Now that i would read.

I finally finished reading that! Man that was confusing. Could've used paragraphs at least. Blink and you will loose track of where you are.

And yeah... i didnt understand some parts but ill leave it at that.

Heres a couple of other half-life theories,

http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/

http://www.randomnotes.co.uk/Opinions/HL.htm

geez i had to reread some lines to keep where i was but yeh some of that i heard and some i hav'nt ??