What if the Seven Hour War never happened?

[Monks]

This is purely a hypothetical question, what would a Half-Life universe, look like without the Combine.

My take is as follows...

So, if the Combine did not invade, however, the Resonance Cascade still did occur. I believe there would be an increase in"Global Unity" now I don't mean every nation would work together to get rid of the Xenian Menace but instead a process would start; a series of wars would occur in order to gain control of resources for countries to combat their own Xenian Infestations and to contribute to the upkeep of each country's population as with the infestation resources would most-likely be drained, this would only escalate the crisis creating more pain and suffering throughout the whole world, this would eventually lead to military alliances, economic unions, etcetera to turn into super-national unions to combat each other and the Xenians. Long-story short, a 1984-esk scenario would form but the countries wouldn't just use each other as tools for propaganda but the Xenians as well. Again, this my take and I admit it sounds pretty unlikely, and overall kinda stupid but I'm just saying stuff off the top of my head, but I'd like to hear what other people's idea are on the scenario or if something like this is even possible within the context of Half-Life.

(Note; if this is in the wrong area of the forums please move it).

 

[TheDeNuke]

Xenian Malignancy completely destroys Humanity and the Vortigaunts take over.

The End.

Blame @Equinox

 

[Imperator RAD-X]

I believe the situation regarding the Xen threat would be a far more severe situation than what would have happened if the Combine did not ascertain the achievement of brushing aside human kind in its darkest moments, give or take that I am not the goosestepping Civil Protection unit saying it because he's supposed to. So I'll give a brief summary in the eyes of what my visual representation would be:

• Despotism is going to be the new norm for any surviving national entities worldwide. Time and time again have nations metamorphed into a force that is to be reckoned with and ruling with a steel hammer rather than an iron fist.
  • Military control will be most likely to come out on top, with an incredibly high amount of institutionalised pharmaceutic corporations and government entities being placed nearly at the top of the food chain in order to fabricate biological weaponry against the swathe of creatures non-native to Earth. Or, they'll just make bigger guns /somehow/.
  • Various warlords will appear throughout the globe trying to form their own little "factions" or "countries" or whatever ontop of what's left. People want power, some are going to grab hold of it in a world devastated by the Xenpocalypse.
    • Oh for god sake, there's still nuclear warheads still left sitting around the globe just for people to capture.
  • People will form religions about Xenian lifeforms. Literally. Expect a lot of cults because of fanatically religious nut jobs that lived the apocalypse.
  • No suppression field. Lucky them that people can still breed.

• Vortigaunts will be used as slaves just as much as they were in the base game, just there's a lot more of them free with many other tribes forming around the planet in harmony. Humankind will be easier to correlate with, but a common ground to reach is rather questionable. Think of the movie "District Nine."
  • Given time and with no suppression field, they'll be top dog on the planet within a given time frame. Humankind will take many generations to recover from the effects of the Resonance Cascade - the Vortigaunt species will prevail... finally free from their pursuers for a time, that is.
  • Many integrations may happen with Vortigaunts within human conclaves and alliances will form. Others will try to hunt them down as a scourge, others for seeing using them as "soldiers" in our little wars... there'd be a huge list but I could go on.
  • Vortigaunts have a way of domesticating Xenian lifeforms over a period of time, that part we do know. Their 'animal husbandry' will go a long way to helping humankind manifest itself in their darkest hour version 2.0.

• Assuming the Combine have just upped and forgot how portal technology works and that they're just going to sit idly by and not bother chasing their most prised objective that is local teleportation technology in the only known universe to have ever existed in, we'll assume they're still "preparing an invasion."
  • Breen is being Breen as per his usual set-stone of actions he'd take that we'd always be able to understand:
    • He has formed his own little state like in our community lore and has grown to be a very powerful figurehead. He will be in direct confrontation to the United Nations and still an antagonist.
    • He will have the advantage in nearly every stepping zone, due to the fact that the lore proves he has gained some very powerful allies and is practically the only individual seen capable of handling this world crisis.
      • His "friends" go all the way up to the top brass of the military as per what newspapers detailed. Speaks volumes to be honest.
  • The world's population will be frantically reducing for years to come thanks to the course of global famines, mass-extinctions of creatures, the oceans being infested by leeches, entire cities destroyed and abandoned... bla bla bla. RIP millions to perhaps billions of people.
  • If the Combine won't get to Earth first and there's no Seven Hour War, then who will? It just became the entire staging ground as the universe's plaything.

• The G-Man is still out there and would in no way, shape and form let things sit idle. If he can't provoke the Combine, then he'll have to up the scales a bit. And by upping the scales, I mean cataclysmic type "large nudges" as he would like to call it.
  • Humankind might die, but oh well.
  • Many Vortigaunts will be upset. Again.

• Xenian malignance will skyrocket. No contest. This is a race against time for everything left on Earth. It's either humankind finds a way to stop it, or the biomass will just engulf Earth and nom nom nom everything in its wake.
  • Since the Combine in Half Life: Alyx were still mounting their planet-wide clean up operation, the difficulty curve just went up by probably 10 times since we don't have super-advanced-alien-technology to help us.
    • Headcrabs will be the happiest creature on Earth.

I could go on but these are the summarised main points. I'm sure everyone has their own thought process but these in my mind are the key points to factor into.