Before I start, I'd like to note a few things:
1.
I did not create all the lore in the Encyclopedia. The reason it was created was because we had lore all over our forums in different parts. I took the liberties of compiling this lore, and presenting it in one large post so people wouldn't have to jump from thread to thread piecing together our lore. Yes, I did take personal liberties in some parts, but this was for the purpose of filling holes and such that weren't seen until the big picture was forming.
2.
Our lore differentiates from Half Life canon, sometimes for gameplay/roleplay reasons, and sometimes just because we wanted something different.
3. As I've stated many times, the Encyclopedia is exactly what it is called, an encyclopedia. Not all of our lore is important to the player. We know this, and this is why this post was constructed to have a search function. As typical with an encyclopedia
you aren't expected to read all of it, only using it as a reference. It's meant to be the type of post where, if an author needs info on a subject before they write about it, they can go
search that subject before they just start going off.
Anyways, onto the main post.
You've now stated that immediately upon the Resonance Cascade's occurrence, the Combine are aware of Earth's existence and current residence.
Yes, but as others have stated, the Combine are not omnipotent. They are meant to be an overwhelming, absolutely unfathomable force, but this is still dimensional travel we are talking about here. This is a very minor point to be worried about however. I, personally, couldn't care less if they invaded right after knowing or if they invaded way later. What we want though is a span of time after the Resonance Cascade to have taken place before the Combine arrived. Besides, even if the Combine knew of Earth
50 years prior to invading them, how much of wait is that
really? As stated, they are an unfathomable force, and very much a cosmic horror. 6 years, 30 years, 60 years, these are all likely very small frames of time for an Empire that has conquered dimensions.
It's very bold of you to suggest that anyone would even try to unify all of the Earth's nations to fold into one.
We took our own liberties for lore as stated above. Globalism is an ideology that begins to rise in periods of prolonged peace, as well as when humanitarian action and unification is desired. The point is that the Combine have a reason to trust and place power in Breen when they arrive, and not just placing their delegations on what would essentially be a random life form to them.
If you're going to have conscripts that aren't trans-humanized, which is already a controversial take, then it should be open fact. With the amount of active military personnel that serve globally, and through word of mouth, it would not be a secret that these people are dragged off for use by the Combine.
It's why I labelled it as a "yellow" keyed piece of info, and not a red. The existance of Conscripts is not a secret in the slightest, and actively spoken of by the Combine. Military members being conscripted however, is not something the Combine will talk about. Of course, word can travel fast, which is why it is keyed as info that can be found if you simply look around enough, but the Combine also immediately seperated populations into cities, and will not confirm (nor care enough to deny) such accusations.
If you attempt to take children from their parents, globally, on a coordinated scale, there would be global rioting. Everywhere. Without fail. It would be a stronger resistance than the one we see in Half-Life 2. This is a ridiculous lore point, and I'm not sure how it survived anyone's scrutiny.
So what happened to the children in Half Life 2? Yes, we can assume that they "grew up" into their ages, but we are running a server that takes place 4 years before Half Life 2, and the surpression field in our lore was not something that was instantly implemented. We aren't allowing child characters on our server, but I am actually interested as to how you'd go about this, so please recommend your take on it. As for what is there, well the alternatives are far worse if we have to get rid of children. If you just took them and placed them in factories, you'd get riots. If you killed all of them, well that'd be practically the end of the Combine empire on Earth, or at least humanity in its efforts to resist. What we proposed is an option where children go missing. It's not like the Combine just ordered families into centers and proceeded to take all their children at once. It was a slow process, city by city, where children were essentially taken as individuals one by one. Furthermore, citizens are in good (or at least standard) contact with their children, and ECHELON lore dictates that their living conditions are actually much better than a citizen.
This is all ignoring the fact that yes, there were most definitely riots by the dozens. But these are all seperated into cities, and not everyone had children, and even moreso, those children were returning to society once they were of appropriate age. The riots are bloody and brutal, yes, but eventually quelled. Again though,
if you have an alternative that can fit in our lore, I welcome it. I personally would want our minimum age to be lowered to 20, 19, or 18.
Firstly, the Combine don't need some lame-ass bureaucracy of government to affirm their rule. They won a war. They run your life.
All governments need leadership. The Combine on Earth is not the force that initially invaded it. This is silly.
With concern to logistics, if you're going to have Dispatch be a prevalent factor in the server, which the rest of the lore seems to indicate, then it should be in charge of these things. The Combine don't make use of cubicles and office spaces to coordinate train times. They use an artificial intelligence that does it for them. They're an inter-dimensional, space-faring empire. Not 1997-era USA.
This is implying that Dispatch already doesn't have a heavy hand in the logistics of Earth. As stated before however, there's a lot of shit that an AI, especially Dispatch which isn't a smart AI (that already has a shit ton on its plate), cannot account for. Certain areas need manpower, and local leadership. As stated earlier in the thread though, and that which is present in our lore, humans are not the common throughout the ULC, but still present.
I find it hard to believe that there's a secret 'Combine Black Mesa' pumping out research for the innovation of Combine tech when, again, they're an inter-dimensional space faring empire.
They are not omniscient. They do not "know all". They are not gods, and the force/resources on Earth is comparable to a backwards middle of nowhere military outpost to the Combine. The Combine have to
learn about Earth, and with the resources they are provided. Even inter-dimensional doesn't mean they can just learn at the speed of sound. Not only are they dealing with Earth's dimension (completely new rules for EVERYTHING) but they are also dealing with Xen's (a borderworld dimension full of all sorts of crazy mind bending shit) encroachment on Earth.
Lol
Why wouldn't the Combine just...let them die? If they can't work, they probably can't feed themselves. Why put in the effort to kill them?
This actually interested me, and I'd be down for changing this to allow 10-103M/10-103P characters existing. What would be silly though is allowing these characters to continue living off the Combine's resources. If the Combine believe someone can't work, they are useless. They would be cut off from rations.
In the end though,
killing people really isn't resource intensive.
The Union doesn't prescribe itself as 'nationalist', or what-have-you. They're a space-faring inter-dimensional empire. Their whole shtick is that you are supposed to ascend above to the stars, to some sort of ethereal high-plane. The hidden aspect is that entails becoming a cog in the Union's machine, be it a trans-humanized soldier, or a stalker, or whatever-the-fuck. This is positively retarded.
For the record, I am firmly of belief that they are totalitarian, at least from a subject perspective.
"Nationalist Republic" was used as a "closest term". There is no government that is structured like the Combine. It's a title I used for others to relate too.
If you have a better term for it, then go right ahead and suggest it. It's not like they literally call themselves a National Republic either way.
They describe themselves as a Universal Union. It's not a government you participate in. It is a ruling authority that runs your life.
Yes, you are correct. They describe themselves as the Universal Union, and it's not an optional government. The "structures themselves as a National Republic" line is not meant to be taken literally, but more as a point of subjectiveness. If a Citizen were to look at the structure of the Combine
on Earth, and go off of strictly how they run their government on a political level, it would be Nationalist Republic, but as I stated you can present a better term for it.
If they're enforcing this belief in Half-Life 2, they're doing a pretty shit job,
We do not follow canon 100%. We have taken liberties.
given that everyone's just depressed and surviving day-to-day. It's more than likely just reserved for something that loyalists exert all of their energy on. Additionally, referring to them as "Our Benefactors" is more than likely just a rhetorical flourish, not a dogmatic title for them.
That is exactly what it is. It's the governments method of propping up something to believe in. In short, it's propaganda. This is what the human administration on Earth is presenting under Combine rule. It's not like the actual Combine on high give a shit what ideologies they follow. In fact, so long as an average citizen isn't actively speaking out against the Combine, the Civil Protection don't give a shit either.
I think you'll find, as we did at TERRANOVA, that having the Civil Protection be under a Ministry provides for much more interesting interactions between the branches of 'civilized' Combine society, as opposed to having a military arm crush down on it all.
They still interact with other branches of Combine society, just as any real world military still interacts with other branches of their government. At this point, we'd simply be creating useless diversions,
especially since Dispatch is in direct control of the Civil Protection, as it is with all of Overwatch.
The double-think is in the name. I don't think it needs any more layers.
Fair.
I feel a lot of these points are either subjective, or simple misunderstandings of what is written. Granted there may be bits that aren't explained that well perhaps, but that doesn't mean their intended point isn't there.
What is preferred however, is that changes are presented. While I do not mind criticism and complaints, and even welcome it, I'd prefer if those complaints came with a replacement or alternative.
