tbf the force Gordon destroyed was barely a squad to the combine in their actual military scale, plus a squad filled with recruits with any worthwhile weapons and equipment
Fun fact: the Combine forces who conquered Earth was just an indipendent "scout" group. In episode 2 when the portal opened above the citadel it was becoming a super portal and it would have brought the combine armanda "It will be the 7 hours war all over again, but this time we wont even last 7 minutes!."
I always thought that referenced the fact that earth is way less defended now than when the first Combine army attacked. Less people, no organized militaries and so on.
That would explain all the ressources the Combines consume, it's not just to feed the their soldiers , they would be force to conquer worlds to feed the IA boss in energy .
Coming from combine nature prob would be more like a fusion of ai tech with like an ultimate synth brain with some lovecraftian metaphysical capabilities to be able to command the whole universal union organization and extension
@@box9706 If that's the case, they would have little use for Earth. The most productive thing they could do in our solar system would be to construct a dyson sphere around our sun.
The Combine Advisors aren't the highest ranking species in the Combine hierarchy, they are more like middle managements, military generals and just simple high-ranking officials to the Combine. Because: 1. They are squishy and not durable, this is shown when the barn advisor got injured by an explosion and a piece of rebar in it's life support system before it fly away. 2. They are host bodies in HL2 where Breen is going to the Combine Overworld, but he will die because humans can't breathe in the Overworld, so he requested an advisor to which to told him that he will be transferred into a new host body, it makes sense that the Advisors are the host bodies, that's likely their role and purpose in the Combine hierarchy, to probe minds for knowledge and interrogate minds. 3. In HL:A it is hinted that there is a boss or a master race superior to the Advisors which is implied to be the ultimate ruling force behind Combine.
Thanks for the comment! While you are totally right about the advisor not being the highest ranking overall what I failed to mention was "on earth" which they unquestionably are, despite being as you mentioned quite fragile. As to your third point, the video sort of implies the same thing, at least I thought it did. All in all you are right and the video could have been better and I will try to improve future ones.
The rulers of the combine are most likely like the reapers of mass effect. No beginning, no end. They saw, they came, the conquered. Most likely planet sized behemoths that are few and far between with their true numbers being unknown
Who would win? A incomprehensibly large empire that has conquered countless universes and barely recognize humanity and nothing more then a blip in their plans let alone registering them as a threat. Or A highly trained professional.
The Earth forces was just a scouting party when they took over, whats left is mostly just humans used as dirt cheap conscripted forces with bio robots as support
@@smokeghte14 Gordon was just bored, he wanted to let the dog play. This man is such a great asset, he is believed to be the strongest creature in the entire HL univerce They say, there's an extremely rare HL1 disk where Gordon just says "nah" and pulls the cart from the anti mass spectrometer, preventing resonance cascade
Tiny thing to point out! The Combine didn't technically save humanity, they showed up after all xen portals were purged, and the nihilanth, was killed, meaning earth had actually been saved! Until the Combine had arrived!
Its scary that the only reason freeman defeated the combine was because the personel we fought in earth are nothing more then a low budget security force.....if the combine succeeded in the skirmish of the white forest then humanity would not even last 7 minutes, such is the power of a universe conquering empire.
basically it's just humans working for the combines and Freeman had help from g-man and others and those aliens that I don't know the name of (they deserve credit too, not just Freeman) literally without them Freeman doesn't have the best chance against the combines
I think this is precisely why valve stopped developing the story. Realistically, how would humanity possibly defeat the combine? OP dude in orange suit wouldn't be enough. If they give fans the happy ending everyone expects, it would be a disservice to the deep lore they've created from the start. Sad ending and the masses with cry about it. Easiest thing to do is quit while you're on top
It strongly depends towards their interest in humanity. Since they are a multiverse empire they must have multiversal enemies, they visited Earth in order to acquire the inter dimensional teleportation technology (Aperture Science’s and Black Mesa’s devices). That hints me towards the thought that their civilisation does not posses FTL technology and requires a sufficient and safe from the possible skirmishes of the enemy forces logistics, meaning that they might be either fighting for as much fronts as they have universes and would be too busy fighting in them or they are a mild threat on a universal scale and could be easily defeated with the forces of a Kardashev scale Type3 civilisation. Both options kinda imply that they might not be capable or interested in a full scale offence to seize back Earth (unless the writers of Valve would want so)
I feel it's a bit odd how nobody has suggested yet that the combine might be competing with other factions as equal if not stronger than them, but maybe I haven't paid attention
Probably the Shu’ulathoi (if that’s how it’s spelled). Except they’re fighting the combine in a more clandestine way because they know they can’t beat the combine one on one or because they indeed tried before and failed.
Theory: G man is a member of an empire that is at war with the combine. He’s currently just trying to destabilize its rule so that his empire can rule the universe. Even if earth beats off the combine they’ll have another threat to fight
@@pancakes8670i don’t recall gman saying that. In HL,Alyx he can’t even wipe the mere Overwatch from Earth despite being a time traveling extra-dimensional alien.. I always saw his employers strategy against the Combine similar to the US vs the Soviets during the Cold War. Chipping away at Combine influence through indirect sabotage and proxies but magnified through time and reality warping so they must’ve done a lot to curb Combine expansion to a considerable degree
its weird how one man would show how the combine is not unstoppable as they think, if other planets and universes heard of the combine lost control of earth they will take the chance to rebel and end the empire
That's because the combine we faced in HL2 are a garrison force and it's only like a fraction of them and not their true force also Freeman was assisted by his allies (Alyx Vance, Dr. Kleiner, Eli Vance, Barney Calhoun, DOG, etc) and G-man with his employers this is why Freeman can beat the Combine in HL2 and it's episodes.
Technically, the forces you fight in Half Life 2 are mainly synthetic copies of the species they copied, and augmented human soldiers. They're simply killing each other off as they continue to fight overwatch.
the combine we fight in HL2 aren't the actual combine invasion force, barely even a police force compared to an actual guarding force in the scale of the combine's military, plus they were equipped with awful armour and weapons when compared to other theoretical combine equipment
Considering that the force we find on Earth at the events of HL2 are more like guards of a penal colony, I think true destruction of the Combine is impossible. Their reach is unknown and from the small snippets we get, their size may be unfathomable. The only way you have a chance at making free from their clutches is to cut off their access to Earth. I'd say humanity's predicament is beyond lucky, not only did we get spared, but our scientists have a significant understanding of the portal technology and the rebels maintained infrastructure suitable to launch a rocket that disables super portals. The really scary thing about the Combine is that even when they have been cut off from the Earth, their presence will be felt by the survivors for decades, maybe even centuries to come every time they look into the night sky with anxious feeling of this force finding a way of returning without a warning.
Everyone here in this comment section is saying "Guys THATS NOT THE REAL COMBINE ITS JUST METROCOPS" which is true but he was talking about other planets rebelling inspired by earth.
By the end of this series, two of the most terrifying forces in the entirety of fiction will be understood in all their raw terror: The Combine, and G-Man’s Employers.
@@Fanatykus it's not like the Combine would leave an enclave of humans as a biodiversity conservation measure. The genome would be processed into the whole Combine operation, some specimens used as agents (with no meaningful reproduction)
@@Fanatykus the combine Just keep the humans alive because we was trying to make portals and when the humans finnaly be able to made portals they will like kill everyone and keep with the portal technology
@@Sickler98 The combine probably planned to let all humans age to death with the exception of a few fine specimens which they could augment and clone to add to their always growing roster of militarized synths who only serve purely utilitarian purposes within the greater empire.
It is crazy how powerful the Combine are. While not canon anymore, unless stated otherwise, old posts by former devs does hint at the Combines terror. Namely BreenGrub and Epistle Three, both by Marc Laidlaw a former writer at Valve. We learn for example that the Advisors are just another species the Combine conquered and enslaved. We even learn that the Combine have conquered the entirety of their universe, as all Gorden can see at one point is that space in their universe has no stars. And not in the case that they all died out, but in the sense that the Combine covered them all in Dyson Spheres, aka a giant circular solar panel that encased an entire star. And in doing so it blots it out. Yet we never learn who or what started the Combine. Which is honestly pretty terrifying. Like we don't know why the Combine is doing what they do. Maybe simple greed? A desire for absolute control? Resource shortage? Or maybe they are even fighting something so terrifying they need to conqueror other universes to supply themselves with materials and soldiers. But again Breen Grub and Epistle Three are not canon as far as anyone knows, just posts by a former dev on what his writing had in mind.
Laidlaw has even expressed regret for posting epistle 3, as he said it's more the deranged writings of a madman than the actual story they would end up with. That being said, there is enough actual lore out there that paints the combine as beyond understanding. Their leaders have the ability to rewrite reality itself, because they conquered a civilization with that ability, then transferred their minds into the bodies of that species to gain that power.
Their motives might be defensive in nature. They could have figured if they don't do it someone else will. So they would never find themselves in the position humanity did.
What many people don't know is that the reason the combine won. Was because they invaded earth, while humanity had its hands full dealing with all the alien wildlife appearing everywhere from portals.
Whats crazy is Advisers probably arent even near the top of the totem pole. If anything, they might just be the highest of the lowest rank. Whatever is leading the combine at the top is effectively incomprehensible.
All i can imagine is the high budget combine invading earth then the “painkiller” theme song starts playing, cause it’s literally that fitting for both events to occur
the Combine are so massive the only reason why they didn't finish off humanity even though humans are lesser than ants compare to them for one reason which is the human ingenuity to solve problems for example the combine could teleport entire galactic armies from one world to another but when they reach that world they have to rely on transports like trains and vehicles you know who figured out local teleportation? it wasn't the mega intergalactic empire with all of it's power and resources and greatest minds of the universe it was the human ingenuity that is able to solve those kind of problems that those superior combine overlords think it's beneath them to solve
There is no real “combine”. An interdimensional empire so vast is comprised of many different sects and forces. The force that took earth was the strongest, but by now it’s moved on to other battles. After killing the majority of earths population, this force put in place a small holding force to oversee the slow, relatively uncontested extinction of humanity. This force was made as large as the combine thought it needed to be, which, as we see in half life 2, is pretty weak, as they no longer considered humanity a threat
With the meteorological and sentient intelligences brought to mind, one might wonder, if the combine "themselves", have perhaps, merged their species so much with others, to the point of being, well, becoming what I think best describes what they are now; a multi-special, augmented group of separate structurally-intelligent beings, with all but the one at the top(whom, itself, might not even be sentient, nor even exist in a physical form that is separate from the combine-machine itself), & those who need it/are not augmented enough, devoid of sentience by its new meaning... Or perhaps, the way the combine advisors see it, too much sentience, is a curse? Yes maybe. And by the sounds of it, the combine may have saved records of the species they encountered... And, I speculate, that maybe they saved genetic records too. - that last bit, assumes that they see any value in doing so... which would probably contradict the idea that all they do is combine...but we do know for a fact that they have a written and isolated language, so it remains to be seen if the combine, is really the name of a species that once was and exists to combine itself and everything else in a manner deemed similar to what a black hole does, OR if they really are just, a multi-special group, converging into a singular species, each with seperate physical make-up, in the "ideal"/everadjusting, ever combined/adjusted-upon form, of an advisor, with a possible rebel group of advisors-sorry, Shu'latoi, out there, financing a higher-tier combine advisor, with actual stakes in the combine "empire", or a tier above that massive hierarchy, hinted at by the existence of the "Advisors", who, whislt combined, are not as brutally combined as those below... with those above, perhaps being the homogenous, with the likes of a few high-class "citizens" like the Gman, who may be the ones who play in gods sandbox, the starry heavens above, using talons to shape clay like one villain Shodan did in system shock, only difference being, that there's not just one Shodan... But there certainly is a singular, or multiple beings in charge, who want to keep destroying the planets they inhabit, with a rebel group & one or a few more 'citizens' of the hierarchy of the "empire" or just, above the combine cast... who are deemed, Gman's employers... But hey, that's again, a bunch of theories being made all at once! And the combine simply being the bottom of a pyramid-scheme, which in of itself, is a literal hierarchy, perhaps of a monarchy, with Breen himself, lording over the city17 branch of the combine-rung, and there above that, a rung perhaps not even being called combine... yeah... Its a pretty unstructured theory that I've already been working to rap up which I said I did and didn't and just added more to it... ---- Lol semi-unrelated theory; could just be competing empires & one of those empires, making a compromise with the Gman, a possible escapee Shu'latoi formerly of the combine influence, now a business operative of what was a space-branch of the U.S. government/aliens of the variety whose interests would come into conflict if humans ever became a space-faring race/found out about them, and then another alien race/humans contracting him to get rid of the combine situation... with someone else, contracting him simultaneously for a fighter, which, Gman, compromised with both of his employers in the end...
“It’s not like they showed up here themselves to take over, no, they sent another species they had already conquered to conquer us for them” -Mike, Civil Protection
Ah yes, The Universal Union. They think all sentient life are equal. And deemed and declared all sentient life a chance to join their Union. Sentient life just had to reach their level of Equality.
Hey man, um uh- Look man, I respect your quest to kill all of the NTR, but I'm pretty sure space marines, let alone Imperium stand no chance against the Universal Union
@@amirgh7772 "and then reverse their tech" yes but to a limited extent while the Combine will be assimilating all the tech and troops from the imperium themselves.
It's actually a bit sad that in these 5 perspectives, there are no moment where all 5 of them are conscious at the same time Most of the time it's Gordon, and Gina&Collette who are active. When Opposing Force started, 4 of them are active except Barney And when Barney finally regained his consciousness, it's Adrian who's unconscious And when Adrian finally regained his consciousness, both Blue Shift and Decay is already over with Barney survived but Gina is not, leaving only Gordon and Adrian to survive on their own
Possibly, The Combine would be a government so expandable, that there are some of them in other universes, that is, they are practically unbeatable, unless the emperor or these "gaps" in universes were annihilated. Possibly, the one behind all this is Gman.
My theory is that the original Combine race was actually humans from another universe. They grew to be so advanced that they began combining other alien species into their empire in order to dominate the galaxy. Could be a reason why humanity was spared.
humanity was "spared", the resistance allowed to grow, all to let them develop local telleportation technology, which the Combine could then take for themselves and use. that's it. were it not for Gordon Freeman, Judith Mossman would have delivered the Resistance's secrets to the Combine and humanity's usefullness as a sentient species would have run out.
humanity was spared cuz of the first commenters reason and because breen negotiated that maybe humans werent totally useless, which is why earth wasnt instantly harvested of its nature and resources
*Theorize:* Form a theory or set of theories about something. *Confirm:* Establish the truth or correctness of (something previously believed, suspected, or feared to be the case). We, the Half-Life 2 fanbase as a whole, have been *Theorizing* for 2 decades, but because it’s Valve, it is, at present, and likely for the foreseeable future, impossible to *Confirm* anything. It’s an admittedly rather easy mistake to make, but your professor(s) will still dock quite a few points for it.
Realistically, they could keep humans around albeit on a tight leash like they do with the Vortagaunts. Humans are the best at being soldiers, unlike things like striders and gunships which require people controlling them, human combine soldiers don’t need someone controlling them 24/7
"which require people controlling them" they had brains to think for themselves and have shown to be slightly intelligent, they aren't mechs piloted by someone they're cybernetically augmented synthetic creatures.
striders and gunships are mechanically modified creatures that had their homeplanet conquered by the combine, they have a mind of their own and aren't controlled by a soldier, in other words, every single conquered species is taken, modified and indoctrinated to do anything the master kind (the original who started the union) wants
Yup, almost everything in Combine is "half bio, half machine" in a rather horrible way. There's videos that listen closely to the Overwatch drone voice and it paints an absolutely horryfing picture of Combine. Remember the Stalkers, these shambling human corpses? This is pretty much what every other specie we see is. Reduced to being a single-purpose organism, like ants.
Synthetically grown copies of extinct species modified and evolving biologically and mechanically for whatever purpose is necessary to forcefully expand and assimilate the reach of the Combine cosmic tentacle
i’m new to half life ( i know i’m late ) so the soldier that fire at us from the begining are they still human? if so,are they working under the combine to hunt the resistence and gordon?
Imo whatever species the Combine sprouted from is irrelevant, because it was destroyed just like everything else the Combine touch. No culture or free will left to speak for. The Combine is perfect order, perfect organization, perfect efficiency, and perfect decimation. They could just have well came from humans as they could have sentient spiders, I would say perhaps an artificial intelligence is at the core of the combine, but it's more accurate of me to say the true ruler behind it all is just one unfathomably large and unthinking mathematical equation, in my belief.
We would need not just Half Life 3 but Half Life 4 as well to reach the conclusion with the Combine, shame that Valve didn't think of a reboot like how id software did with Doom and absolutely killed it.
every citizen follows the rules so even though their interdimensional they still get absolutely crushed by freeman their like still just the same as a human
That's the combine force on earth which is nothing compared to the scout force sent to invade earth which is nothing compared to the full army of the combine. In other words, Freeman wouldn't stand a chance against the actual main fleet.
they're a multiversal, multidimensional empire. if we take the portal 2 explanation of the multiverse as canon, there's infinite universes, so they can't possibly run out of territory to conquer
What if half life 3 will take place few decades after earth's liberation and became united and by reverse engineering combine technology a few years after becoming united began to expand into the stars and after a few decades later (atleast 2103) encounters the borders of the combine and maintains distance at first but in a bad scenario the combine begins to seek vengeance against humanity's new union between humans and many other species of thr cosmos the player gets to take part in this war as an adventurer or a soldier or a spy And in that war it eventually leads to the capital world of the combine introducing the dominant race of the combine and the war ending with the capitals capture after several years
I wonder, how scientifically advanced *is* the Combine? Concepts depict their home universe having massive Dyson spheres or something. Is humanity so insignificant to the Universal Union that they don’t even use their advanced tech against them? Because let’s be honest, hunters and striders in large numbers CANNOT be their strongest fighting force. What about basic fodder troops and such? All we see are the striders, hunters, gunships, and rollermines. We can also see crab synths and mortar synths, but other than that we don’t see a lot of the Combine’s true military… other than our own kind being used against us.
why tf did youtube delete my comment for no reason? I was saying I'm confused as hell about these creatures I've never heard of in half life, I only know how there's a dude with a crowbar and gravity gun or whatever
RUclips ey buddy could yu make a crowbar emoji for us please ? And pls hire some highly trained profesionals for that oke we want our crowbar to look nice so dont mess it up
all this just to get destroyed by some maniac with a crowbar
"highly trained professional"
The One Freeman! The Opener of the way!
tbf the force Gordon destroyed was barely a squad to the combine in their actual military scale, plus a squad filled with recruits with any worthwhile weapons and equipment
The combine didn’t care about earth.
@videoplayback_ cuh what is you talking about. 🙏
Fun fact: the Combine forces who conquered Earth was just an indipendent "scout" group.
In episode 2 when the portal opened above the citadel it was becoming a super portal and it would have brought the combine armanda
"It will be the 7 hours war all over again, but this time we wont even last 7 minutes!."
Funny Eli Vance reference
I always thought that referenced the fact that earth is way less defended now than when the first Combine army attacked. Less people, no organized militaries and so on.
@@felixandersen3815 that too but considering is a whole ass fleet, probably 1% of the entire Combine army, the 7 minutes thing is accurate
So all of this is just the 0.1% of the combine army
@@DmitriMatveyevMC not 0.1%
Poissible a number so little we can't even put it on the scale
Gordon doesn’t need to hear all this, he’s a highly trained professional.
Clich'e
My theory is that the origin species has long died and it's just run by an A.I algorithm who's objective is to just endlessly conquer and destroy
wouldnt that just be Reapers from Mass Effect?
i have no mouth and i must scream
type shi
That would explain all the ressources the Combines consume, it's not just to feed the their soldiers , they would be force to conquer worlds to feed the IA boss in energy .
Coming from combine nature prob would be more like a fusion of ai tech with like an ultimate synth brain with some lovecraftian metaphysical capabilities to be able to command the whole universal union organization and extension
@@box9706 If that's the case, they would have little use for Earth. The most productive thing they could do in our solar system would be to construct a dyson sphere around our sun.
The Combine Advisors aren't the highest ranking species in the Combine hierarchy, they are more like middle managements, military generals and just simple high-ranking officials to the Combine. Because:
1. They are squishy and not durable, this is shown when the barn advisor got injured by an explosion and a piece of rebar in it's life support system before it fly away.
2. They are host bodies in HL2 where Breen is going to the Combine Overworld, but he will die because humans can't breathe in the Overworld, so he requested an advisor to which to told him that he will be transferred into a new host body, it makes sense that the Advisors are the host bodies, that's likely their role and purpose in the Combine hierarchy, to probe minds for knowledge and interrogate minds.
3. In HL:A it is hinted that there is a boss or a master race superior to the Advisors which is implied to be the ultimate ruling force behind Combine.
Thanks for the comment!
While you are totally right about the advisor not being the highest ranking overall what I failed to mention was "on earth" which they unquestionably are, despite being as you mentioned quite fragile.
As to your third point, the video sort of implies the same thing, at least I thought it did.
All in all you are right and the video could have been better and I will try to improve future ones.
3. Are you talking about the woman talking to the Advisor in Half-Life Alyx?
@@ChefPrownlos I highly doubt that the scientist is hinted to be the boss/master race herself.
But didn't some overwatch units go through the portal to the overworld and isn't the portal leading to xen which has ixygen
The rulers of the combine are most likely like the reapers of mass effect. No beginning, no end. They saw, they came, the conquered. Most likely planet sized behemoths that are few and far between with their true numbers being unknown
I live in the hood and I have my window open... I just heard a gunshot that sounded almost exactly like the combine sniper rifle from HL2
Did you hear the dark energy pulse rifle loading sound too?
@@lavakater9851 If I heard that, it would've been way scarier
Just wait until some random old man with briefcase will put you into stasis
I used to live in the hood, five, six years ago.
See, back then, the place was lousy with AR3s.
Bro lives in Ravenholm (baltimore)
Who would win?
A incomprehensibly large empire that has conquered countless universes and barely recognize humanity and nothing more then a blip in their plans let alone registering them as a threat.
Or
A highly trained professional.
The Earth forces was just a scouting party when they took over, whats left is mostly just humans used as dirt cheap conscripted forces with bio robots as support
Combine Advisor could easily win. In Half Life Episode 2 you seen Gordon cant do anything. But dog helped.
@@smokeghte14 Gordon was just bored, he wanted to let the dog play.
This man is such a great asset, he is believed to be the strongest creature in the entire HL univerce
They say, there's an extremely rare HL1 disk where Gordon just says "nah" and pulls the cart from the anti mass spectrometer, preventing resonance cascade
A nerd in a orange telly tubby suit
This is so "hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby" ass comparison, like... we all know that highly trained professional would win.
Tiny thing to point out! The Combine didn't technically save humanity, they showed up after all xen portals were purged, and the nihilanth, was killed, meaning earth had actually been saved! Until the Combine had arrived!
Its scary that the only reason freeman defeated the combine was because the personel we fought in earth are nothing more then a low budget security force.....if the combine succeeded in the skirmish of the white forest then humanity would not even last 7 minutes, such is the power of a universe conquering empire.
basically it's just humans working for the combines and Freeman had help from g-man and others and those aliens that I don't know the name of (they deserve credit too, not just Freeman) literally without them Freeman doesn't have the best chance against the combines
He didnt defeat it yet
I think this is precisely why valve stopped developing the story. Realistically, how would humanity possibly defeat the combine? OP dude in orange suit wouldn't be enough. If they give fans the happy ending everyone expects, it would be a disservice to the deep lore they've created from the start. Sad ending and the masses with cry about it. Easiest thing to do is quit while you're on top
@@releknatroj5174OP dude with military experience
It strongly depends towards their interest in humanity. Since they are a multiverse empire they must have multiversal enemies, they visited Earth in order to acquire the inter dimensional teleportation technology (Aperture Science’s and Black Mesa’s devices). That hints me towards the thought that their civilisation does not posses FTL technology and requires a sufficient and safe from the possible skirmishes of the enemy forces logistics, meaning that they might be either fighting for as much fronts as they have universes and would be too busy fighting in them or they are a mild threat on a universal scale and could be easily defeated with the forces of a Kardashev scale Type3 civilisation. Both options kinda imply that they might not be capable or interested in a full scale offence to seize back Earth (unless the writers of Valve would want so)
I feel it's a bit odd how nobody has suggested yet that the combine might be competing with other factions as equal if not stronger than them, but maybe I haven't paid attention
Probably the Shu’ulathoi (if that’s how it’s spelled). Except they’re fighting the combine in a more clandestine way because they know they can’t beat the combine one on one or because they indeed tried before and failed.
The nihilant the main and final boss of first Half life game tried to escape from combine’s clutches. That’s why he invaded the earth
Theory: G man is a member of an empire that is at war with the combine. He’s currently just trying to destabilize its rule so that his empire can rule the universe. Even if earth beats off the combine they’ll have another threat to fight
GMan and his employers are one of those forces. He straight up says that the Combine are getting in the way of his "employers"plans.
@@pancakes8670i don’t recall gman saying that. In HL,Alyx he can’t even wipe the mere Overwatch from Earth despite being a time traveling extra-dimensional alien.. I always saw his employers strategy against the Combine similar to the US vs the Soviets during the Cold War. Chipping away at Combine influence through indirect sabotage and proxies but magnified through time and reality warping so they must’ve done a lot to curb Combine expansion to a considerable degree
I kind of like the idea of their being no true one “master race” behind the combine, it is a system that is a slave even to itself
basically, a self-licking ice-cream cone?
The combine you're fighting is just an occupational force
Not even that, they are like a very small peace keeping force, it's like the US using a couple of cops lmao
I like to imagine that the original species doesnt even exist anymore the union just continued existing without them.
its weird how one man would show how the combine is not unstoppable as they think, if other planets and universes heard of the combine lost control of earth they will take the chance to rebel and end the empire
That's because the combine we faced in HL2 are a garrison force and it's only like a fraction of them and not their true force also Freeman was assisted by his allies (Alyx Vance, Dr. Kleiner, Eli Vance, Barney Calhoun, DOG, etc) and G-man with his employers this is why Freeman can beat the Combine in HL2 and it's episodes.
Technically, the forces you fight in Half Life 2 are mainly synthetic copies of the species they copied, and augmented human soldiers. They're simply killing each other off as they continue to fight overwatch.
the combine we fight in HL2 aren't the actual combine invasion force, barely even a police force compared to an actual guarding force in the scale of the combine's military, plus they were equipped with awful armour and weapons when compared to other theoretical combine equipment
Considering that the force we find on Earth at the events of HL2 are more like guards of a penal colony, I think true destruction of the Combine is impossible. Their reach is unknown and from the small snippets we get, their size may be unfathomable. The only way you have a chance at making free from their clutches is to cut off their access to Earth. I'd say humanity's predicament is beyond lucky, not only did we get spared, but our scientists have a significant understanding of the portal technology and the rebels maintained infrastructure suitable to launch a rocket that disables super portals.
The really scary thing about the Combine is that even when they have been cut off from the Earth, their presence will be felt by the survivors for decades, maybe even centuries to come every time they look into the night sky with anxious feeling of this force finding a way of returning without a warning.
Everyone here in this comment section is saying "Guys THATS NOT THE REAL COMBINE ITS JUST METROCOPS" which is true but he was talking about other planets rebelling inspired by earth.
I've seen someone say that you're playing an FPS while the combine are playing stellaris
and all of this was anhiliated by some angry guy with a crowbar
to be fair the Combine that invaded Earth is about 0.1% of the entirety of the Combine Empire
@@anactualsoupcan and that 0.1% went to a lower number after most of the SCOUT force was recalled.
Gordon isn't even angry
When inserted tactically by the G-man.. who has "employers" with ulterior motives.
@@anactualsoupcan how do we know that? Source?
The Imperium is able to erase entire planets, draining their oceans with mere minutes.
By the end of this series, two of the most terrifying forces in the entirety of fiction will be understood in all their raw terror: The Combine, and G-Man’s Employers.
Remember that it's Breen convinced Combine to not exterminate humans.
No he didn't. Have you forgotten about the "no bitches" field? Or total water extraction? They were not going to do an exterminatus anyway.
@@Bokto1 not everyone. Breen said there are some usefull humans. So most would Die but not entire race
@@Fanatykus it's not like the Combine would leave an enclave of humans as a biodiversity conservation measure. The genome would be processed into the whole Combine operation, some specimens used as agents (with no meaningful reproduction)
@@Fanatykus the combine Just keep the humans alive because we was trying to make portals and when the humans finnaly be able to made portals they will like kill everyone and keep with the portal technology
@@Sickler98 The combine probably planned to let all humans age to death with the exception of a few fine specimens which they could augment and clone to add to their always growing roster of militarized synths who only serve purely utilitarian purposes within the greater empire.
It is crazy how powerful the Combine are. While not canon anymore, unless stated otherwise, old posts by former devs does hint at the Combines terror.
Namely BreenGrub and Epistle Three, both by Marc Laidlaw a former writer at Valve.
We learn for example that the Advisors are just another species the Combine conquered and enslaved. We even learn that the Combine have conquered the entirety of their universe, as all Gorden can see at one point is that space in their universe has no stars. And not in the case that they all died out, but in the sense that the Combine covered them all in Dyson Spheres, aka a giant circular solar panel that encased an entire star. And in doing so it blots it out. Yet we never learn who or what started the Combine. Which is honestly pretty terrifying.
Like we don't know why the Combine is doing what they do. Maybe simple greed? A desire for absolute control? Resource shortage? Or maybe they are even fighting something so terrifying they need to conqueror other universes to supply themselves with materials and soldiers.
But again Breen Grub and Epistle Three are not canon as far as anyone knows, just posts by a former dev on what his writing had in mind.
Laidlaw has even expressed regret for posting epistle 3, as he said it's more the deranged writings of a madman than the actual story they would end up with.
That being said, there is enough actual lore out there that paints the combine as beyond understanding. Their leaders have the ability to rewrite reality itself, because they conquered a civilization with that ability, then transferred their minds into the bodies of that species to gain that power.
I disagree with the greed part, it makes the Combine kinda generic.
Not being able to see ANY stars because theyve all been conquered is fucking terrifying
Their motives might be defensive in nature. They could have figured if they don't do it someone else will. So they would never find themselves in the position humanity did.
What many people don't know is that the reason the combine won. Was because they invaded earth, while humanity had its hands full dealing with all the alien wildlife appearing everywhere from portals.
Only Valve Software can tell us to story. because they created game and stories.
Aftet 25 years and we still dont know 😢
Basically
Combine is like Borg, but more biomechanical
Whats crazy is Advisers probably arent even near the top of the totem pole. If anything, they might just be the highest of the lowest rank. Whatever is leading the combine at the top is effectively incomprehensible.
damn half life 2 soundtrack_triage at dawn is fire
I think that’s the point, they are the Combine, they are the “Combine”, a super conglomeration of countless species and organisms
All i can imagine is the high budget combine invading earth then the “painkiller” theme song starts playing, cause it’s literally that fitting for both events to occur
Beyond human comprehension.
I'm guessing the original species was the British.
WEF
WEF: "You will will own nothing and be happy."
Combine: "No belongings allowed!"
😮
The brits could have conquered the world,solar system galaxies, and proceeded to conquror universe after universe.
the Combine are so massive the only reason why they didn't finish off humanity even though humans are lesser than ants compare to them for one reason which is the human ingenuity to solve problems for example the combine could teleport entire galactic armies from one world to another but when they reach that world they have to rely on transports like trains and vehicles you know who figured out local teleportation? it wasn't the mega intergalactic empire with all of it's power and resources and greatest minds of the universe it was the human ingenuity that is able to solve those kind of problems that those superior combine overlords think it's beneath them to solve
Earth Garrison is made up of literal penal units with synth support
Sentient fungi? Must be the orks
When Dr. Breen was mentioning sentient fungi he was likely referring to xen
Meteorological intelligence, so the sentient clouds from that alternate universe Aperture are real lmao
Maybe bc the combine already conquered most of the multiverse
I don't understand how these malevolent aliens ever survive long enough to become a interstellar species.
There is no real “combine”. An interdimensional empire so vast is comprised of many different sects and forces. The force that took earth was the strongest, but by now it’s moved on to other battles. After killing the majority of earths population, this force put in place a small holding force to oversee the slow, relatively uncontested extinction of humanity. This force was made as large as the combine thought it needed to be, which, as we see in half life 2, is pretty weak, as they no longer considered humanity a threat
Because they’re interdimensional
@@wmannix1105and they still need teleport travel inside of universes, they kept us alive mostly for our scientific minds
@@GojoGunning they aren’t keeping us alive they’re slowly killing us
The suppression field is never going away
Is it just me or does anyone else really want a metro cop outfit
They look so sick. Valve truly cooked when they were designing their suit.
@@yourlocalslugcat FR!
@SS-rf1ri real
I do want one too
I am making a head crab so maybe I can get some where close but I don't know how to get the half life drip.
And the scariest thing is we do not know what the combines look like. The ones on earth are just scouts and mostly human.
Imagine being a highly qualified professional and you get conquered by a bunch of mushrooms
The combine soldiers are just robotcop but without the accident and have a human body mostly
With the meteorological and sentient intelligences brought to mind, one might wonder, if the combine "themselves", have perhaps, merged their species so much with others, to the point of being, well, becoming what I think best describes what they are now; a multi-special, augmented group of separate structurally-intelligent beings, with all but the one at the top(whom, itself, might not even be sentient, nor even exist in a physical form that is separate from the combine-machine itself), & those who need it/are not augmented enough, devoid of sentience by its new meaning... Or perhaps, the way the combine advisors see it, too much sentience, is a curse? Yes maybe. And by the sounds of it, the combine may have saved records of the species they encountered... And, I speculate, that maybe they saved genetic records too.
- that last bit, assumes that they see any value in doing so... which would probably contradict the idea that all they do is combine...but we do know for a fact that they have a written and isolated language, so it remains to be seen if the combine, is really the name of a species that once was and exists to combine itself and everything else in a manner deemed similar to what a black hole does, OR if they really are just, a multi-special group, converging into a singular species, each with seperate physical make-up, in the "ideal"/everadjusting, ever combined/adjusted-upon form, of an advisor, with a possible rebel group of advisors-sorry, Shu'latoi, out there, financing a higher-tier combine advisor, with actual stakes in the combine "empire", or a tier above that massive hierarchy, hinted at by the existence of the "Advisors", who, whislt combined, are not as brutally combined as those below... with those above, perhaps being the homogenous, with the likes of a few high-class "citizens" like the Gman, who may be the ones who play in gods sandbox, the starry heavens above, using talons to shape clay like one villain Shodan did in system shock, only difference being, that there's not just one Shodan... But there certainly is a singular, or multiple beings in charge, who want to keep destroying the planets they inhabit, with a rebel group & one or a few more 'citizens' of the hierarchy of the "empire" or just, above the combine cast... who are deemed, Gman's employers... But hey, that's again, a bunch of theories being made all at once! And the combine simply being the bottom of a pyramid-scheme, which in of itself, is a literal hierarchy, perhaps of a monarchy, with Breen himself, lording over the city17 branch of the combine-rung, and there above that, a rung perhaps not even being called combine... yeah... Its a pretty unstructured theory that I've already been working to rap up which I said I did and didn't and just added more to it...
----
Lol semi-unrelated theory; could just be competing empires & one of those empires, making a compromise with the Gman, a possible escapee Shu'latoi formerly of the combine influence, now a business operative of what was a space-branch of the U.S. government/aliens of the variety whose interests would come into conflict if humans ever became a space-faring race/found out about them, and then another alien race/humans contracting him to get rid of the combine situation... with someone else, contracting him simultaneously for a fighter, which, Gman, compromised with both of his employers in the end...
“It’s not like they showed up here themselves to take over, no, they sent another species they had already conquered to conquer us for them”
-Mike, Civil Protection
Pick up the can lil bro 💀
imagine the combine are just humans who reached enlightenment
Racist humans
@@Curs___d27💀
Yeah that's what he said, reached enlightenment
Human racism against another race
Enlightenment? In what sense? What's enlightened about a psychopathic, genocidal, enslaving, totalitarian dictatorship?
Ah yes, The Universal Union. They think all sentient life are equal. And deemed and declared all sentient life a chance to join their Union. Sentient life just had to reach their level of Equality.
Sounds like The WEF
Communism with extra steps (is not a good ending)
@@reiniermoreno1653it's really more like fascism
@@Mauricio0973 basically war communism
The Combine at its core functions like a virus if it grew through assimilation and conquest of countless string of worlds and space
I’d like to see Omni-man from invincible, maybe even paired up with invincible himself, take on the combine for control over earth.
I’ve always wondered what the combine really looked like
Triage at dawn is such an insane piece
Just like the whole soundtrack
No matter how strong they're im still sure that they can't beat the Emperor's Angels the SPACEMARINES!
Hey man, um uh- Look man, I respect your quest to kill all of the NTR, but I'm pretty sure space marines, let alone Imperium stand no chance against the Universal Union
@@blackmesaenjoyer then send him.
*Goku*
@@AlextheNTRslayer bro is currently talking nonsense oh and since Goku is an alien, the imperium will even try to kill him.
@@blackmesaenjoyer The imperium would be able to hold them off for a few centuries and then reverse their tech and then do a counter-offensive
@@amirgh7772 "and then reverse their tech" yes but to a limited extent while the Combine will be assimilating all the tech and troops from the imperium themselves.
Combine was the best thing ever happened to this junkyard.
You sound like you're about to say number fifteen
I don't know what this means but it's funny
burguer king foot lettuce reference
Thank you for covering this topic and having this discussion ❤️
It's actually a bit sad that in these 5 perspectives, there are no moment where all 5 of them are conscious at the same time
Most of the time it's Gordon, and Gina&Collette who are active.
When Opposing Force started, 4 of them are active except Barney
And when Barney finally regained his consciousness, it's Adrian who's unconscious
And when Adrian finally regained his consciousness, both Blue Shift and Decay is already over with Barney survived but Gina is not, leaving only Gordon and Adrian to survive on their own
Sentient.... Fungi? Do they happen to be green and obsessed with war?
Possibly, The Combine would be a government so expandable, that there are some of them in other universes, that is, they are practically unbeatable, unless the emperor or these "gaps" in universes were annihilated. Possibly, the one behind all this is Gman.
Gman is a bigger badder alien than combine
I thought the combine origin species were the advisors.
Damnit, I used this track as my alarm and now everytime I hear it it fills me with dread. Your sexy voice isn't helping either, sir
I played half life time to time.I believe this is the most likely real world alien war if we have one
the irony of using ai imagery while talking about how fucked up the combine is not lost on me
I really wish that mode operation lambda wasn't canceled, it would've been a really cool take on the combine
My theory is that the original Combine race was actually humans from another universe. They grew to be so advanced that they began combining other alien species into their empire in order to dominate the galaxy. Could be a reason why humanity was spared.
humanity was "spared", the resistance allowed to grow, all to let them develop local telleportation technology, which the Combine could then take for themselves and use. that's it.
were it not for Gordon Freeman, Judith Mossman would have delivered the Resistance's secrets to the Combine and humanity's usefullness as a sentient species would have run out.
humanity was spared cuz of the first commenters reason and because breen negotiated that maybe humans werent totally useless, which is why earth wasnt instantly harvested of its nature and resources
They won’t conquer my no man’s sky system!
Sorry Bud, but you're not that guy. XD
@@fivestarguy100aww man… guess I have to move
It's the Star Wars Empire but their troops are actually competent. Also mean we didn't get to see their "Death Star" level superweapon.
Technically the stormtroopers were competent, they were special forces im pretty sure
I have zero idea about anything in half life 2 lore, I'm so confused about all of these creatures and shit
What is there to be confused about? The entire nutshell of half life 2 is that humanity has some sort of skill issue
True lovecraftian horror, our imagination cannot even comprehend what and how the combine function and look like truly.
*Theorize:* Form a theory or set of theories about something.
*Confirm:* Establish the truth or correctness of (something previously believed, suspected, or feared to be the case).
We, the Half-Life 2 fanbase as a whole, have been *Theorizing* for 2 decades, but because it’s Valve, it is, at present, and likely for the foreseeable future, impossible to *Confirm* anything.
It’s an admittedly rather easy mistake to make, but your professor(s) will still dock quite a few points for it.
Realistically, they could keep humans around albeit on a tight leash like they do with the Vortagaunts. Humans are the best at being soldiers, unlike things like striders and gunships which require people controlling them, human combine soldiers don’t need someone controlling them 24/7
"which require people controlling them" they had brains to think for themselves and have shown to be slightly intelligent, they aren't mechs piloted by someone they're cybernetically augmented synthetic creatures.
striders and gunships are mechanically modified creatures that had their homeplanet conquered by the combine, they have a mind of their own and aren't controlled by a soldier, in other words, every single conquered species is taken, modified and indoctrinated to do anything the master kind (the original who started the union) wants
I would like to know why the last 8 seconds of the short is the part where the title is actually discussed.
They are Strong and all but they still get destroyed by a mf with a whole ass Crowbar
It'd be mad if the origin of the combine was a mushroom
Wait its me civil protection
You're Civil protection, eh? Well, let me introduce you to a crowbar. :)
@@Perceval777 CROWBAR VERY STRONG NO
Wait, the gunships and dropships are biological?
Yup, almost everything in Combine is "half bio, half machine" in a rather horrible way. There's videos that listen closely to the Overwatch drone voice and it paints an absolutely horryfing picture of Combine. Remember the Stalkers, these shambling human corpses? This is pretty much what every other specie we see is. Reduced to being a single-purpose organism, like ants.
Synthetically grown copies of extinct species modified and evolving biologically and mechanically for whatever purpose is necessary to forcefully expand and assimilate the reach of the Combine cosmic tentacle
Why you kinda sound like chills
i’m new to half life ( i know i’m late ) so the soldier that fire at us from the begining are they still human? if so,are they working under the combine to hunt the resistence and gordon?
yes, they are human, some are volunteers and some are brainwashed
Imo whatever species the Combine sprouted from is irrelevant, because it was destroyed just like everything else the Combine touch. No culture or free will left to speak for.
The Combine is perfect order, perfect organization, perfect efficiency, and perfect decimation.
They could just have well came from humans as they could have sentient spiders, I would say perhaps an artificial intelligence is at the core of the combine, but it's more accurate of me to say the true ruler behind it all is just one unfathomably large and unthinking mathematical equation, in my belief.
Wallace Breen is the most important hero of this story
Pick up that can
A certain Battletech faction is jealous of the speed of attack.
Germany:*gets flashbacks*
We would need not just Half Life 3 but Half Life 4 as well to reach the conclusion with the Combine, shame that Valve didn't think of a reboot like how id software did with Doom and absolutely killed it.
every citizen follows the rules so even though their interdimensional they still get absolutely crushed by freeman their like still just the same as a human
That's the combine force on earth which is nothing compared to the scout force sent to invade earth which is nothing compared to the full army of the combine. In other words, Freeman wouldn't stand a chance against the actual main fleet.
@@Welcometoyourlocalchannel ok
@@LuzxrdoMC most of the combine on earth are just humans (some are modified)
What is the music called?
Triage at dawn
Thanks
Irrelevant but what's worse, the flood or the headcrabs
At least in this world, you don't have to worry about money anymore. :D
They didn’t pickup that can
The unbalanced match ranking is supposed to be patch now by gordon freeman.
average stellaris empire
Love this Showed my friends
Most of the Combine forces you fight in HL2 are still humans though, right?
Expect soldiers
Well the combine soldiers are like just robots i guess
question. what does the Combine do when they've overthrown the entire universe? what is their purpose?
they're a multiversal, multidimensional empire. if we take the portal 2 explanation of the multiverse as canon, there's infinite universes, so they can't possibly run out of territory to conquer
There are probably other empires they rival with that are equally powerfull
What if half life 3 will take place few decades after earth's liberation and became united and by reverse engineering combine technology a few years after becoming united began to expand into the stars and after a few decades later (atleast 2103) encounters the borders of the combine and maintains distance at first but in a bad scenario the combine begins to seek vengeance against humanity's new union between humans and many other species of thr cosmos the player gets to take part in this war as an adventurer or a soldier or a spy
And in that war it eventually leads to the capital world of the combine introducing the dominant race of the combine and the war ending with the capitals capture after several years
The Combine story is unfinished.
That what hl3 look like
I wonder, how scientifically advanced *is* the Combine? Concepts depict their home universe having massive Dyson spheres or something. Is humanity so insignificant to the Universal Union that they don’t even use their advanced tech against them? Because let’s be honest, hunters and striders in large numbers CANNOT be their strongest fighting force. What about basic fodder troops and such? All we see are the striders, hunters, gunships, and rollermines. We can also see crab synths and mortar synths, but other than that we don’t see a lot of the Combine’s true military… other than our own kind being used against us.
Why no halflife 3 Gabe! why! 😭
why tf did youtube delete my comment for no reason? I was saying I'm confused as hell about these creatures I've never heard of in half life, I only know how there's a dude with a crowbar and gravity gun or whatever
RUclips ey buddy could yu make a crowbar emoji for us please ? And pls hire some highly trained profesionals for that oke we want our crowbar to look nice so dont mess it up
What is the background music
WHAT IS THIS SONG PLEASEEE
Triage at Dawn