This is known as the Herder Archetype Level 10,000. The Combine conquer and enslave races, before engineering them to serve the Combine Empire’s own ends. Other parts of the city and the surrounding countryside areas that are not directly controlled by the Combine are routinely bombarded and raided as Gaza is by the IDF. This parallel is right at the introduction of Half-Life 2 as the player enters City 17 on a train and is greeted with a tightly controlled checkpoint, much like the ones Israel has set up in the West Bank. Taking a look around City 17 and certain places in our world, parallels instantly become clear. The majority of the plot in Half-Life 2 and its official extensions, HL2: Episode 1 and HL2: Episode 2, takes place in around the hub of Combine control on Earth, City 17. This powerful force has influence in many universes and has routinely incorporated native species into its biological engineering technology to have slaves well suited to each conquered environment, of which Earth is but one.

Conversely, many of the initially hostile aliens encountered in the first game are revealed to have been slaves or conscripts and have joined the human struggle against a common enemy: the Combine Empire. This opens up a massive rift and hostile aliens pour into the facility.īy the time Half-Life 2 starts, the aliens have taken over Earth and have even secured some allies amongst humans. Soon after, samples from this world are being analyzed using the latest technology and, during one particular experiment, a mysterious “G-Man” orders the head administrator of the research facility to use a certain high level setting for a risky experiment with a sample from Xen.

A top secret research facility in the US that is attempting to develop teleportation technology eventually discovers a new habitable environment, called Xen, on what may be another planet or an entirely new universe.

In the game, the background story in broad strokes is as follows. The world of Half-Life and indeed the surrounding universe, especially as developed in Half-Life 2, bears many strong resemblances to our real world.

Half life 2 conscripts