What REALLY Happened on May 16th, 200-? | Black Mesa Incident | FULL Half-Life Lore
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
- The Resonance Cascade was a devastating event that marked the beginning of a brutal future for humanity. At a first glance, this appeared to have been a tragic accident. However, many actions and strings were pulled behind the scenes to make The Black Mesa Incident happen.
Who triggered The Resonance Cascade? Why did they gain and what does this mean for the future of the Half-Life timeline? In this video, I explore the lore and story behind The Black Mesa Incident in Half-Life.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
01:21 Discovery of Xen
06:30 The G-Man & His Employers
08:00 May 200-
13:23 May 16th, 200- (Early Hours)
16:11 Prepare for Unforeseen Consequences
18:17 The Resonance Cascade
25:16 The Final Hours of The Black Mesa Incident
29:36 Aftermath
32:43 Legacy
35:03 Closing Thoughts
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Half-Life & Portal Lore Playlist: • The Borealis | Half-Li...
Standard Sources
Game Manuals
Half-Life Series Playthrough Research
Portal Series Playthrough Research
Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar (Uncorrected Proof)
Half-Life: Alyx Playthrough
Portal/ Half-Life Fandom
Old Valve Forums
Marc Laidlaw's Twitter
Marc Laidlaw Website
Breengrub Twitter
Reddit AMA (w/ HL: Alyx Developers)
Portal 2
Aperture Desk Job
AUDIO USED
Half-life 2 OST: Broken Symmetry
Half-Life 2 OST: Escape Array
Black Mesa OST: Catalyst
Half-Life 2 OST: Lab Practicum
Half-Life: Alyx OST: Severed from the Vortessence
Black Mesa OST: Xen
Half-Life 2 OST: Triage At Dawn
#HalfLife #Lore #ResonanceCascade 
Игры
Which version of Half-Life did you prefer?
The original or Black Mesa.
Both. Both are drastically different from each other and have very little in common.
original Half-Life is what people getting into the series should play, but for people looking to make fan content like art and animations, I would go with Black Mesa.
Original for speed run bhop and black mesa better graphic
lets go bois another skyrionn vid love your content mate keep it up PS I love Half life 1 but black mesa has that amazing feel i love the vanilla BM but BM modded to be more like Half life 1 is amazing, there is so many mods to literally turn it into a remaster and not a remake cheers
Original for music.
Black mesa for graphics, sounds, more areas to explore.
I’m not sure if it was Black Mesa or the Blue Shift mod, but I was exploring those security surveillance areas, was thinking wow, I would love to work here lol
I believe that G-Man had a veeery good reason to rearm the nuke: The lambda reactor and portal system linked to it. Imagine that black mesa was just evacuated/ abandoned leaving that reactor basically intact. 20 years later you have the combine that is completely cut-off, desperately trying to find a way to reconnect and fight the rebels..just to find a portal system basically ready to be repaired and used for their needs...
Wow I never thought of that. I always wondered the true reason Gman set the nuke off. I like this theory.
Duuuuuuuuuuude!!!111!!1!1
You completely changed the way I think about the G-Man and the arming of the bomb!
This makes so much sense, no matter if it’s true or not!
Y'know, have you ever wondered what the remains of Black Mesa looked like after the nuke went off?
@@monsieurcharlatan7772 you have an answer for that?
Gordon was never meant to close the citadel rift. He was meant for some future mission while Combine focuses on reconquering and exterminating earth, vortiguants did not allow that and took him out of the pocket reality. At the end of HL2E2 G-Man sends a message to Eli. But one thing is common between this one and the first one. Eli was always in the way of G-Man plan, Eli and Kleiner never wanted to go through with the test but were forced to. So G-Man punished them. Now that Eli is a problem again G-Man punishes him with abduction of Alyx as death is little to no punishment while shifting his plan.
G-Man is beyond time, laws of physics and creation himself. He is everywhere(if he desires to) and nowhere at the same time.
G-Man has only one goal to eradicate Combine, this or other way. Humanity is just one of his many cards to play.
G-Man is fascinating. The most believable theory is that he is associated with some kind of resistance towards the combine. A representative of some kind of interdimensional shadow group. And that his cadence and laboured speech is due to him not being entirely comfortable taking human form. Its a skinsuit that he has adopted. He can also move in and out of time. So whatever he is. He is powerful. Best case scenario is that his interests coincide with humanity. Even though he doesn't empathize with humanity in particular or anything. Like the elder gods from Lovecrafts mythos his interests doesn't necessarily conflict with humanity's survival and that's about it.
If you want to break fourth wall Gman has always been kinda a shoe in for the developers and a lot of the comments he makes/alludes to can be interpreted as kinda meta, or not depending on how u want to interpret them
Back in the day, we all thought he was just a video game rip-off of the Cigarette Smoking Man from the X-Files
@yvesheinrich5013 No he's an employee at Valve
@@rvkice23 Valve used the cigarette man as basic inspiration to create the G-man.
It was revealed in the Half Life documentary they just released on their RUclips channel a few days ago
A G-man is a colloquialism for a government agent, or "government man." Perhaps G-Man and his 'employers' are from a trans-dimensional galactic federation of sorts that is trying to either destroy or contain the Combine, a rogue slaver empire. Or, as suggested by the popular fan theory, he is a metamorphosed Shu'ulathoi that's pissed off at the Combine for enslaving his brethren and is working with an unknown group to topple the Combine, for revenge. Either way he sees the indomitable human spirit as a tool. A weapon, to point straight at the Combine.
Very well put together. In the big picture, the Black Mesa fight was a turf battle between different factions that were manipulated into it and in the end, none of them really won anything. Just the GMan and ultimately the Combine who came and seized everything from everyone.
cringe pfp
@@josephleebob3828 What's wrong with my Maelstrom Bearmon? :0
@@samuelantoniocastillomeza5034 furry
@@josephleebob3828 cringe comment.
@@dudududu1926 no
I could never get tired of Valve lore! The OG writers were a different breed.
I’m so glad you make these videos. You’re perfect at it. These are extraordinarily well done. Can’t wait to see what other topics you will cover.
Thank you. I appreciate that. There's so much more come cover too!
My god i can't believe how *DEEP* this stuff is. 25 years later im still learning more about Half-Life. Games just dont do this anymore LOL
They pretty much took the idea from Phil Snyder, and his story about Dulce check him out and you’ll see the similarities
24:20 I could've sworn I heard somewhere that the osprey Adrian was going to board actually got shot down shortly after takeoff, implying the G-Man knew it would happen and wanted to save Adrian's skin.
It's what happens if you go out of bounds and view the Osprey take off, which isn't fully visible normally
@@knee-deepin-doot8742 whew... glad to know gman was at least looking out for *someone* going to board that osprey, lol :p
It really makes you wonder what Gman's conversations with the other scientists was about. I also wonder what he sounds like, his cadence, tone, and if he was cryptic with the people who aren't as important in setting the events in motion. Imagine having a normal conversation about lunch with gman haha.
What he sounds like?
Play the games, allf of them for like 3bucks
@@TheKabanosPL hah ive played them all. I meant what he sounds like when he's having conversations like the one we see him having in that room in Half-life with that scientist.
@@tricursor2481He probably role played a bit more and talked like an actual top clearance government official. Serious and to the point. Lots of _“That’s classified.”_
@@Gunnar001 Or he didn't talk to them at all, like the Smoking Man from X-Files. Just sat there, staring at them with his freaky eyes while Breen did all the talking.
I wonder what he talked to eli about before the experiment
i think my favorite part about the half life 1 is the build up to it. we see the facility being brought to its absolute limit, scientists questioning the safety of the experiment, and generally a uneasy idea of what could happen.
I've always felt Half-Life was like playing a big game of Stellaris but from a first person perspective. The G-man just represents some unknown alien civ, using the Earth to gain control of Xen. They're clearly rivals to the Combine, as shown in the sequel. But Earth and humanity is just a pawn in both of their wars, like we're nothing but a pre-warp civ they've both stumbled across and are fighting over.
The G-Man is from the future. His strange speech and mannerisms indicate that he is from a different society. He was sent back in time to make sure that events follow the proper order. If you look at his actions you will see that he is monitoring the situation and adjusting the events in order to maintain the timeline he is interested in preserving. When Gordon confronts the G-Man at the end of Half-Life, he puts Gordon into time suspension. It is implied that no time has passed for Gordon in Half-Life 2. It is also significant that the G-Man talks about time: the wrong man at the right time. In other words, Gordon was a man in the wrong time but brought back at the proper moment in the timeline in order to preserve the timeline that the G-Man is trying to preserve.
That begs the question though, what caused the timeline to fall out of wack in the first place?
The right man in the wrong place, you mean?
I love HalF Life's universe!
Same!
@@Skyrionn for me gman is the most mysterious charector and the most intresting
I love men
@@Dni80 that's alright 👍
@@knightlord368 just like the hat man in rdr
For me what made me love Half Life to begin with was in its most basic form, it's a science fiction game about humanity where we actually lose for once. Really really badly (realistically at that)
Yep, although in my fiction there would be a good reason humans could win, and that is the universal doctrine, in which the 2nd rule is (if waring with a lesser species become close to their equal, failure to comply will result in species termination) also literal gods placed by bigger gods make sure these rules are followed. (Humanity broke every rule and got annihilated but our DNA was stored and released onto another planet) what ya think?
Let us have a moment of Silence for what I'm sure was meant to be the original release date of May 16th.
Many many maaaany years later, and this is still one of the best games ever made.
Probably the most instantly exciting video of yours yet. Can't resist but watch straight away
Oh yay! This one has performed so much better than the last few. I have to ask, what made this one more exciting? Just so I can work with it :)
@@Skyrionn I just think it's because the subject matter is enticing. Seeing "What really happened" in the title makes me think you are going to explore some lore that no one else has. Plus there's so many questions and mystery behind the black mesa incident that people are really hungry to find out more.
@@Skyrionn Also, and I could be wrong but I don't think you prompt people to turn on notifications in videos. I feel a lot of people who watch your videos would turn it on if asked because you make really engaging and insightful lore videos.
@@Skyrionn I just found your channel like a week ago, so maybe the algorithm has been blessing your channel ?
@@Skyrionnyes i think this subject matter was really interesting i suggest you cover what happend leading to the 7 hour war and the war itself (event between hl1 and 2) and i belive this video format would really work on other games like halo so good job
good video, very nostalgic and makes nice use of the new mod assets for the background shots. i played all 3 of the expansion packs for hl. remember when they had expansion packs that were like new standalone games? those were the days. i never delved deep into the lore, but this video makes sense of all the events very nicely
This video was very well done! I understand a hell of a lot more about the whole incident than i did before watching!
Also you don’t feel bad about telling Gordon’s or any other protagonists stories, they are the most important human figures in the story after all!
Thank you for watching! I really appreciate it! It was a tough one to write properly but I am glad it came across in the way I wanted it to!
Videos like this is why I come here. Wonderful video, extremely well thought out and put together. Thank you for your great high quality longform deep dives.
The G-man is definitely an inter dimensional being that is without question, but he is also mortal in that less then a dozen Vortigaunts can stop him for a good period of time and that he can be imprisoned by the combine, that or he simply lets it happen to his benefit, he has the ability to put people in a metaphysical stasis with him giving people the allusion of choice
Impressive level of effort and great narration, as always. Great work big guy, loved it
Half Life can't be any earlier than 2007, as that's when the V-22 officially entered service. Granted it was in development since 1989 but it had a lot of hurdles to overcome to be ready for deployment.
yeah that's what I was saying aswell
But considering the CRT monitors everywhere, I wouldn't say it was further beyond 2007 either. Tho I know in real life some government offices are still using windows XP, I would be surprised a state of the art facility such as Black Mesa would have kept CRT monitors for long.
Such great work on the graphics - must have taken ages! Well done - so professional!
Need to play Black Mesa again. Love these long videos with deep dives. Great job!
these videos are so cool i never dont find myself insanely interested in this type of videos. keep up the good work!!
i always like the way you structure and narrate your videos and even though ive played these games multiple time i always enjoy hearing about these event.
would love to hear u breakdown Mark Laidlaw's "Nihilanth" and other writings. ❤
Your lore videos on half life made me fall in love with it
I'm happy to hear that. We need more in the Half-Life community!
Me too and I've never even played the game
The older ones r cheap to get
Alyx is a little hard coz you need vr and that
Great video again. You have a gift with words and stories. Good luck with new projects.
5 things the G-Man doesn’t want you to know!
5 G-Man in your location
Awesome video! I learned so much! I just finished Half-life and was left so confused, this has cleared up many things!
Bro, i love your lore videos about halflife but i have watched every single one and now its just painful waiting for new one every time... i want to thank you for new videos and keep your great work going.
Thanks for the support and I appreciate you watching the videos every week! I'll continue to post as often as I can!
@@Skyrionn respect, keep it up
Whilst kill counts are just fun entertainment, the story of how each protagonist got to survive is just outstanding… video such as this are a superb addition to what I love about Half Life. Looking forward to more content, and more games for me to kill count!!!
Realky cool and intricate video, Skyrionn! It gives some new helpful lore to Half Life. Now, if possible, we need to discuss the events of the 7 Hour War and the Combine subjugation of Earth.
Oh that's one I'm excited to cover!
this video feels like watching a documentary, great work!!
Fantastic work as usual, your passion shows, I cant wait for your videos.
Great video. Definitely adds to the overall mystery around it all.
Wonderful. Love half life lore videos, this is one of the best ive seen!
Thank you!
Another entertaining lore vid. Thanks Skyrionn!
i love your videos! i am extremely fond of the half life and portal universe. i always put your videos on when im drawing :)
💯💯💯 Another perfect video. You explained everything in detail clearly. I wish my college professors were as good as you in terms of explaining things!
Man your so good at these lore stuff keep it up
These videos are absolutely brilliant! Very well written, talented narration, and superb editing skills. I can’t overstate how good these are, and the cherry on top is learning details of this Half Life universe I never knew. Outstanding! 🖖😀
Man your editing of the video is great.
Incredible video Sky! Love these long form vids
Thank you! This was a tough one to put together but it seems to have worked out well!
Enjoyed this greatly. Thanks for the hard work.
Love the video, thanks for making it.
I just vinge watched all your half life videos. Subbed keep it up mate
skyronn don't change the style of making your videos because they are too good, another great video. for me the best youtuber dealing with half life and portal or various games🙏👍
Thank you!
I just can't get bored of your Valve content videos.
Great video as usual my friend. ❤❤❤❤ Thank you so much
Thanks bud!
Thank you for yet another awesome half life video❤ the amount of detail you are able to present in these videos are on a completely different level, amazing job as always! ps. any plans on doing a g-man lore in the future? would love to see how much onfo you can dig up on one of the most secretive chatacters in all of gaming :D
Thanks for the kind comment! I appreciate it! I do have a plan for G-Man but it won't be until the end of the year. It'll be a great one to research!
@Skyrionn sounds great! I'm looking forward to it :D
Noticed this a few time but I’ve been subscribing over and over. Not sure if it’s a problem on my end but my subscription to you keep getting undone. Love the content hate missing it.
That's odd! I appreciate you coming back and searching manually for the channel!
Impressive work Mr Skyrionn. i will see you up ahead.
thanks for the video, super sick!!!
Awesome production!
Insanely good work
Your video is amazing! Thank you
i love this sort of video please never stop making this good videos :)
I can attest - a fair few aliens died at the hands of Calhoun, Shepherd and Freeman across the games alone!
Fantastic video!!!
Really enjoy your videos dude. Half life was my first favourite game as a kid and what had me hooked as a gamer ever since. But I could never truly grasp or piece together the entire story beyond a surface level if you get me. These lore videos are really really good!
I personally accept all the recognised spin off games and laidlaws writings are canon since as a fan I want a fuller more completely story to be presented. Otherwise you’re just intentionally keeping the game franchises story vague.
you are one of my favourite lore youtubers
You're too kind :)
I subbed about two weeks ago, since then I have watched every Half Life video (and some other ones also).
Woah, that's dedication! I appreciate you!
@@Skyrionn No problem! Your channel is amazing!
Thanks 4 all the hard work.
I appreciate the kind words :)
Gerat video. Very interessting. New look on the resonace cascade
Thank you!
G-Man's briefcase contains Half Life 3
Dont take it the wrong way but I listen this before sleep. It fires up the imagination really good, and yet the voice is so relaxing. Keep doing that!!!! You helped me a lot!
Great video! On my way looking for HL2 lore on your channel:)
Great video man. Half Lifes universes, love it.
Thank you sir, for another amazing video
Thank you for watching it :D
I want and need HL2, the combine empire written and done by you just like this video. Well done!
My headcanon is that the black Mesa incident and it’s repercussions was a long con planned by gman and his employers to destroy the combine
Love your content!
This gave me a different view on the resonance cascade
Great video
Happy to help! Thanks for watching!
I always feel like the Gman and the powers that “be” didn’t expect someone like Freeman. All their planning and forethought and they could not expect someone like Freeman to be such a unstoppable force. I always felt they were like who the fuck is this guy 😂.
Great video! I like how the origins, identity and motivations of the Gman and his employers is left open ended for fan theories and speculation.
Great video!
Thank you
@skyrionn I just wanted to say I love your videos and I just watched this cause I’m behind and I really loved it like I’m learning about things that I never even knew before and I love the game series so I just wanna say keep it up and love your videos dude
anyone else thinks that Gman speaks like a Nihilanth who just "is better in the language" then the "Endboss" on Xen ?
I think even parts of the speech that Nihilanth gives out would be logical to this theory.
Especially the weird pauses, word lengthening and general speech pattern - thats a thing what ALWAYS BOTHERED me.
Btw - just found you, thanks for your very interresting and well researched Videos! Instasub!
37:26 This is the first time I've seen someone say "dislike it" lol. Take my subscription! 🙂
Great video, I love half life content :)
The zoom in of the g. Man looked ahhh gofy
Subbed and liked❤❤❤
The impression I got from HL1 was that the G man and his employers intended to hijack the resonance cascade. But after seeing g man arm the nuke, I'm having doubts and think he is pulling the strings
Thanks very much for your HL-verse contents❤
I wonder why didnt you just use Black Mesa Blue Shift mod materials for the video.
I would love to see your cover and diving in Legacy of Kain franchise.😁
great vid
another great video :)
Thanks Crysis :D
Good video! Btw Is there a video on Entropy Zeros lore in planning?
Love the half life videos!
My headcanon has always been that G-Man's employers wanted to use humanity (due to our ingeneuity and tenacity) as a distraction to occupy the combine, to destabilize them so that they (the employers) could defeat them.
I don’t know what draws me to this type of stuff but there’s something here that just makes me feel like me
Interesting how the Gman was at Black Mesa and the military base at the same time.
Time isn’t much of any issue for G Man
He has... abilities.
Very cool video. Wouldn't now finally be the time for a film or better a Netflix series with at least 10 seasons? :)
I like it , you made it fun and make sense.
Thanks!
My headcanon is that Barney and Sheperd were used as a sort of way to navigate / resolve / calculate a butterfly effect system - they as a person don't REALLY have any big part in the grand scheme of things but they acted as the most replaceable pawns in key moments, causing some very inconsequential things to happen that end up being absolutely consequential. Like, if Barney wasn't shouting about how he's going to pull Gordon out of the malfuctioning teleporter, Kleiner may have had a moment to think and shut down the system before Breen could that see it is, in fact, Gordon Freeman - which impacts Breen's (and the combine's) response in some way that ends up working in the favor of Resistance/Gordon/Gman/Employers. Or having Adrian get promoted up and deployed replaces the one soldier that actually would have caught up to Gordon and killed him as he teleported to Xen.
This game still amuses me to this day
It came out exactly a month after i was born and it's the first game I remembered playing (i was 3 yo and was thinking i opened a portal to real life so i unplugged the pc that's my only memory lol)
I'm 25 now i lost count how many times I've beaten the whole series and still every time i discover more lore about it
Great video, covers a lot, but I wish you had talked about the satellite launch in HL1, in attempts to close the portals.
I did touch on it, but I didn't want to linger on the smaller details really.
fascinating video from the Great music in this to the beautiful Shots of the wonderfull games seriously Amazing video
I still think that it's possible that Gman and his employers knew that humanity was the only one to possibly topple the combine empire. If so, then it's probably another kind of empire that can't go toe to toe with the combine, at least in a standing war.
I think GMan's faction has power beyond the Combine's. So much so that GMan is simply helping them play dice with entire civilizations. I mean, the combines can't teleport, yet GMan can do that + time travel & change timeline events. That's a whole different level.
@@pedrofernandes4148 I think alyx made gman too powerful. As if he can do all of that, how was he blocked by a few vortigaunts? Are they that strong? Then how were they enslaved twice? Too many plotholes
@@umadbroimatroll7918 The Vortessence is powerful, but it's not meant to be used for war and it wont help you much against a universal sized empire with highly advanced tech and weapons in a direct fight if all you can do with it is just shoot a beam of energy. The Nihilanth's mind is much more powerful than that of the Vortigaunt's and could easily overpower them (It was able to keep a whole rift in reality open just by thought alone, even after an attempt to close it from the earth side).
That last song hit and i thought i was watching a scary interesting video for a sec
This is very interesting video and well done. However, I would like to know more about event itself and it's consequences, not just retelling of games, we already know.
@Skyrionn your very inspiring and i would love if u would make something more about half life and you should make a book about half life cuz your story telling is once in a lifetime man
As a chemist, the idea that a sample that is both larger and more pure than any inherent needing MORE power for good resolution is hilarious. If something is pure, it'll give you data way easier
amen! still though a such great game and lore
As a theoretical physicist youre just straight up in the wrong here bloke. Xenian crystal samples, being from a different dimension, have unique physical and chemical properties which diverge heavily from any known material from our universe. Bit of a diddly move mate next time keep your yap shut and perhaps you wont embarrass yourself!
To be fair, the crystals were some kind of exotic matter and didn't follow normal baryonic rules.