The Cradle's Quietus

[dee pixel]

"When the sounds of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in."
​

There is perhaps no greater loss than that of a dead child.

Shortly after the Combine arrived on Earth and established a new social order, humanity was met with a devastating realization: Children were no longer being born. One day, it seemed, all people became infertile, and the gift of reproduction was snatched away by an unseen hand. The realization took time; many held onto nebulous hopes that it was a statistical fluke, a byproduct of the culling. But the long days turned into even longer months, and the cry of a newborn became all but a distant memory. Many took their own lives as the grim future of humanity became clear.

Officials within the Combine's Earth government were quick to blame the sudden onset of infertility on alien elements; latent radiation from Portal Storms, energy released by Vortigaunts, pollutants introduced to the atmosphere by invasive Xen species. For a time, the deflection of blame was believed, and the burning hate for all things alien that had already gripped humanity burned ever brighter. Vortigaunts, already widely disdained, became targets for violence and lynching and were subjected to even crueler treatment in captivity. In some communities, particularly those found outside of European cities, the consumption of Xenian creatures became a taboo.

A number of years after humans became infertile, certain elements within the Combine's ranks leaked evidence that infertility was in fact deliberate and nefarious. According to this information, humanity's sterilization was achieved via a global energy field sustained by a network of Citadel reactors. This field, colloquially known as the suppression field, targeted mammalian protein chains that were essential to the process of embryonic development and selectively deactivated them, rendering reproduction impossible. The leaks were suppressed violently in cities; many urban citizens were either unaware or ill-informed of the leaks. Settlers in the Outlands on the other hand were quick to hear of the suppression field.

The knowledge of the suppression field gave hope to those who learned of it. Many who had once given up found new resolve; the cause of infertility was something tangible and something that could be fought. It sowed the fiery seeds of resistance in those who had the spirit to fight. Many hoped that, one day, the playgrounds would again be alive with the laughter of children and that the cry of an infant would soon break the painful silence. Notwithstanding, the knowledge of the suppression field did not reach the majority of Earth's populace and was dismissed sooner or later as an insurgent rumor.

 

[TheDeNuke]

The prime lingering question that I have regarding this is when did the suppression of this knowledge finally break down and Breen was forced to start doing speeches such as the infamous "instinct" in which he summarizes that the reason why the suppression field exists is because humanity cannot be trusted to breed (a load of shit of course).

Was it when all the children finally disappeared once and for all?

Was it when there was no shadow of a doubt that everyone had been lied to up to that point?

Or was it as a result of resistance action that the combine had little or no control over?

It is very curious in how it went from being a secret fact of the combine regime, to outright common public knowledge by the time Freeman walked out of that train station a decade or so later. If this suggestion is accepted, will we ever see how the information was finally disseminated to a point where Breen himself was forced to do a speech over it (on the server that is)?