On a piece of newspaper somewhere in City 17 we see that the 'Portal Storm continues'. This is what the invasion has been dubbed. Random teleportation events all over Earth send Xen aliens into the masses and cause chaos and destruction (as the examples in the transcription show). Hard-to-control areas such as the countryside and the suburbs are abandoned and the humans seek refuge in the cities. Thus we find out that it wasn't the Combine who concentrated the humans into cities, they chose to do so themselves to escape the Xen aliens. But where do the Combine come in?

Apparently, they literally spring up overnight. In the blink of an eye, the center of every major city collapses in on itself, revealing a huge abyss, from which the Citadels will appear. In a split second, the Combine Forces would pour from these Citadels and swarm into the cities. Earth's forces were immediately obliterated in what would later be known as the 'Seven-Hour-War'. Their defences crippled, mankind had nothing against this new power.

On that note, it's worth a mention that the leaders of Earth would most likely have accessed their nuclear arsenals against this sudden new threat. Seeing how the Combine had gained control in all of seven hours, it's probable that the Citadels can withstand a nuclear blast, or the Combine knew exactly where to hit in order to disable the nuclear potential. Regardless, any and every effort waged by man to stop this rampaging force failed.

And then one man would seize power. In the confusion this man (known as 'the Consul') convinced the humans to surrender to the Combine Overlord. With no other option, mankind became enslaved by the Combine. This Consul (who is, in fact, Dr. Breen) speaks for the Combine and shares in their power. With mankind subdued, the Combine turned to Earth itself. Various Air Exchange units replace the atmosphere with something barely breathable. With oceans drained, human life becomes less and less a possibility. It is in this world of anarchy and despair that Freeman is thrown in. All hope rests on him now to rid the Earth of the Combine...

The Revolution
This still leaves us guessing as to the origin of the Combine. We still don't know where they came from. Appearing in a split second, they took the Earth by surprise and conquered it in a mere seven hours. But several survivors from the Black Mesa incident will prove to be a nuisance for this campaign. An underground resistance will slowly form in the wake of the Overlord. The key figure in this resistance is Dr. Eli Vance, about whom we now have more details. He runs the resistance along with other members of the science team and offers technology and weapons to all those who support his cause. We also know that a Bullsquid took his leg during the Black Mesa incident.

The resistance will eventually turn into a revolution, with members appearing in the open to publicly defy the Combine regime. For every action there's a reaction, and a Combine reaction is quite a thing. Immediately their forces are deployed and Striders roam the city, taking out any- and everything that stands in their way. The resistance members can rely on the technology supplied by Eli's lab to take down the enemy. That, and they have Freeman in their middle. He has been branded with a Savior-status, as if he's destined to free Earth from the Combine. All in all, they're probably right.

Xen Aliens

Now we know that Xen aliens were the cause of much of the chaos that allowed the Combine to take over control with such ease. However, it is only the Xen 'wildlife' that has invaded Earth after the resonance cascade. There's no mention of sentient beings such as the Vortigaunt. There's no doubt they have played quite a role in the invasion aswell, but why would they join the humans when the Combine attack? It's my guess that they didn't choose to do so. It was Eli and his science team who have devised a method of controlling the Vortigaunt through their collars (as Nihilanth controlled them during the incident).

Bits and Pieces
Here are a few random bits of info:

*Regrettably, no new information has been released regarding the G-Man, so the role he plays in the story is still a vague one.

*A screen capture from the Train Station bink gives us a closer look at the timetable. There, we can see that along with City 17, there are many other cities where the Combine run their oppressive regime. Whether Freeman will visit any of these cities is unlikely. In various interviews, Valve has stated that the locations will be mostly City 17, Ravenholm, a dried-up ocean (now we know how that happened) and an icebreaker ship.

City 17 is obviously Eastern-European in look and feel, and the general consensus is that it's a city located somewhere on the shores of the Caspian Sea (this is the sea visible in the Coastline video). If the other cities designated by numbers on the board are all reachable by train, then they are all located in Eastern-Europe. We can assume that the whole of the planet is under a similar system of control.

* There has been much discussion over the Combine uniform that Barney wears, aswell as the insignia on the strap on his right arm. Barney is still Freeman's ally, so it's likely that he has infiltrated the Combine ranks. It's been rumoured that Barney was the one who got Freeman flagged at the train station so he could be taken separately (into the interrogation chamber).
As for the logo on his arm, it reads C17:14. It's not likely that 17 and 14 stand for both City 17 and City 14, it would make little sense to deploy a single Metrocop in two cities. It's probable that it's Section 14 of City 17. So we can assume you'll meet Barney in Section 14 of the city (wherever that is).

* A German review of HL2 had a screenshot of a wall on which several pieces of newspaper were pinned. Some headlines read: 'Portal Storm Continues', '7 Hour War Ends In Combine Victory', 'Earth Surrenders' and 'Wallace Breen Declares Himself Administrator'. These all support the outline on page 1.
Also, the papers on the wall were mostly English (The Times, for instance), so that tells us that the entire Earth was/is under siege, and not just Europe or one city.

* Dr. Breen, as it turns out, is a human of flesh and blood. Exactly how he seized power after the Seven-Hour-War is unclear, but now he speaks for the Combine and can control their assets (to a certain extent). Either he's the leader of the global oppression, or he has to answer to someone (or something). There are people who consider him a hero. He convinced humanity to surrender to the Combine, thereby avoiding total annihilation. But if you see what he does afterwards (act as spokesman for the Combine oppression), it becomes apparent that he's in it for his own gain.

That's about it (my thesaurus has run out of synonyms for 'likely'). If you disagree on fact A or if you think I missed note B, please do not e-mail me. Instead, tell me so on the forums (http://www.hlfallout.net/forums/index.php). Following my first article, my inbox was flooded with e-mails. Thank you.

related links