Obviously the HEV suit isn't just a hazard suit. It's got advanced armor that protects against military grade weaponry and an very indepth weapon selection and monitoring system, including alternate ammunition such as SMG grenades, and yet has virtually no tools that would be useful in a lab except a flashlight. Clearly this is designed for heavy combat.

The prevailing theory, atleast that I've seen, is that the HEV suit was designed for exploring Xen. I believe that this is partially true. However, the issue is simple. Black Mesa, even being such an advanced research facility, didn't have time to develop a full suit of power armor between when they first discovered Xen and the resonance cascade. Questionable Ethics proves that they where researching Xen for a whole before the resonance cascade, however a suit as advanced as the HEV suit would take years to develop.

So, I purpose an alternative theory: the HEV suit was originally combat armor being developed at Black Mesa for the military. When they suddenly needed suits to protect the explorers they where going to send to Xen, they just took the armor, gave it a new name, and painted it orange. This explains why the suit is so effective at combat but lacks even the most basic hazard protection (I mean come on it doesn't even fully protect you from normal fire).

I had a theory that the Gman could in some way be related to the borealis, wether that be the Gman being created as a side effect from the borealis teleporting, or that the Gman IS the borealis personified, dont know what The employers would be though.

It never struck me until just now how significant this piece of dialogue was. It is delivered by Alyx at the very beginning of Episode 1.

Alyx delivers this line after locating Gordon in a pile of rubble. Eli is the one who was so sure she would not find Gordon. ELI WAS SO SURE THAT ALYX WOULD NOT FIND GORDON THERE. Why was he so sure about that?

In Episode 1, that line seems so insignificant. Something to be ignored and moved past. But in episode 2 we learn of Eli's strong connection to the G-man. He knows G-man. He knows about who/what Gordon is. He knows G-man is Gordon's keeper.

What does this tell us in retrospect? He was fully aware that the G-man reclaimed Gordon and that Gordon would be nowhere to be found.

Soon after, when Alyx tells Eli that she's found Gordon he seems shocked by the news.. "You found Gordon?" "I don't believe it!" If you think about it, it shouldn't be that surprising. He's Gordon Freeman after all. Surviving is pretty much his thing. But Eli is clearly shocked.

He was "so sure" she would not find him and shocked that she did find him because he is completely aware of the fact that G-man would have/did reclaim Gordon.

Why he is unaware of the involvement of the Vortigaunts, and what that involvement is even about, is another mystery.

A while ago I had just finished playing the campaign for Half-Life:Decay. What I learned is that story in the game taught me a lot about how about the facility Black Mesa was running. That information answered a lot of questions I think the community had buzzing around and a few I just had myself.

Why Dr. Cross, Green, Rosenberg, and Dr. Keller is not in that old Black Mesa Photo.

Don't know which one I'm talking about? It's the one with Breen's face scratched out. It showed all the scientists that where involved with the project Vance, Kliener, Freeman; but what is this? Where are the other doctors? Where is Dr. Cross, Dr. Green, or the others? The real world answer or the the simple answer would be that these characters does not belong to Valve. And to avoid any legal action they just didn't put them in the picture. The other answer is this. These doctors where not part of the research team. They where most likely part of the support team. What's the difference? The difference is that the research team does all the equations, hypothesis,and conclusion making. If the Nobel Piece Prize was won, these where the guys that will receive it. The support team supplies the equipment and materials needed for the experiments. If any of the experiments does goes wrong, they are the first people to respond to it. Gina Cross provided the HEV suits and training for the suits. Collette Green was in charge of getting the xen crystals to the experiments. Dr. Rosenberg was the man who designed and built the anti-mass spectrometer. Dr. Keller was most likely in charge of the support team. The support team was not in charge the experiments, just in charge in charge of the equipment.

The resonance cascade was not an accident.

Early on in the Decay campaign or any of the Half-Life campaigns other than Opposing Force. You learn a lot of stuff at Black Mesa was not going right that morning. Computers where malfunctioning, constant black outs, things that would make the administrator call off the experiment right? Wrong! In fact not only does he still green light the project he also recommends to run the anti-mass spectrometer beyond the safety measures. To add insult to injury they're also running the tests with a very unstable sample. The administrator would have had to been the greatest moron in the world for to carry on with that many factors. Unless he knew this was going to happen. But, who is this mysterious administrator? Well, no other than Dr. Wallace Breen himself, the antagonist in Half-Life 2. By the way. How did Dr. Breen get to be Earth's Administrator? You'd think during the 7 hour war the UN would be brainstorming some sort of Earth representative to maybe diplomatically talk to the other side. Out of all the prime ministers, presidents, and other miscellanies politicians, not one was better qualified to represent the human race other than Dr. Breen? It seems to me someone already struck a deal with the combine. Look, from the events in Half-Life we already knew that Black Mesa was studying the xen wild life before the cascade. So its not that far fetched that Dr. Breen could have already been talking to the Combine and planning a attack from the get go. The Combine gets access to Earth with the resonance cascade and complete enslavement of the human race. In return Breen gets to be supreme ruler of Earth. But wait, wasn't G-Man the one who gave the "sample" to black mesa to test. Where is he in this whole fiasco? I'm about to get to that right now.

The true nature of the "G-Man".

I've heard a lot of theories on who G-Man is. Some say he works for the vortigaunts, others say he's a double agent working for the Combine. Hell I heard from someone that he is God! Whoever he works for or who or what he is. His actions does say what his alignment is. He crippled the human race by giving the sample to Dr. Breen. He crippled the Combine on Earth by putting Gordon on that train. With that said, he is most likely chaotic neutral. He doesn't care what side he plays for as long as everyone loses.

How Dr. Kliener got that HEV suit.

There is a few events that we know happened between Half-Life 1 and 2. Gordon Freeman is put into stasis. Somewhere the along the way he get his suit taken and replaced with "civies". While at the same time Dr. Kliener got a HEV suit and made modifications to it. Now there some theories out there about how this happened. The first theory people seem to like a lot is that G-Man gave Gordon's suit to Kliener or place the suit somewhere where he will find it. I really don't like this theory only because there is not a hint of evidence that supports this. As you may recall, G-Man is not at good terms with the resistance. The Voritigaunts had to steal you away from him. When Eli talked about how G-Man saved Alyx's life. You could have sworn that he just signed a deal with the devil. I would think Kliener wouldn't even talk let alone accept a gift from G-Man. Would you accept something from someone that dresses in a clean three piece suit when everyone else is wearing rags? And the suit you're wearing now isn't even your old suit. Yea Kliener called it your old suit, but it sound like he was joking around when he said that though. If it was his old suit why does Kliener call it the Mark V and not the Mark IV. And why does he have documentation that clearly says Mark V on it? He does say he made upgrades, but he's most likely referring to the upgrades so you can use the Combine power stations. But where did he get the suit from then? Theory two is Kliener got the suit while escaping Black Mesa. This theory actually has some evidence, because in the play station 2 manual of Half-Life show the hazard course schedule. The schedule shows that Gina Cross was going to test out the Mark V prototype. This can also explain how Kliener could have escaped Black Mesa even though he was clearly injured. This also gives the reason why nobody else has an HEV suit. I'm pretty sure some resistance members would love to have one of these babies. This suit was most likely his personal suit until Gordon Freeman showed up. And Dr. Kliener just gave it to him as maybe a gift or Gordon would do better things with it.

This is a combination of many fan theories, and all in all, this is what I like to think the story is being driven towards in actuality. I'm sure most of these have been covered so this theory might not seem fresh, but nonetheless I'll include a tldr so you can skim through.

• Portal timeline -

Cave Johnson founded Aperture Science making shower curtains or what have you, eventually he built up his company with Caroline and had then come to acquire the Aperture you know today. Just before Cave Johnson's space cancer death, he said he wanted to "flash copy" his brain to AI or something along those lines. He later said "if I die before this happens, I want Caroline to be turned into an AI before her passing and let her run the place" (paraphrased). What I believe happened is just before Caroline's passing, they flashed her brain into an AI and effectively created what was known as GLaDOS. Presumably sometime before Cave and Caroline's passing, they either adopted or created a child that would later be Chell. This means Chell would be the daughter of both Cave and Caroline. Which in turn, would mean that GLaDOS is practically Chell's mother in a way, but the cores attached to GLaDOS's main stem thing kept her from accessing that knowledge. It seemed to be her main stem that was causing the corrupt problems that turned her evil. Notice how both occurrences of AI, GLaDOS and Wheatly, we're both peaceful and perceived as a protagonist until being put in that body. It was only until she was a potato that she learned that there was Caroline in her AI and this is well explained in great detail in Portal 2. When GLaDOS is reattached to the system after taking down Wheatly, she deletes Caroline and sends Chell away. Why? GLaDOS knows she is the mother of Chell at this point but knows that if Chell were to find would GLaDOS (or Caroline) were the mother, that Chell would attempt to claw back into Aperture any chance she could get. Opposed to that kind of threat, GLaDOS sends her away as quick as possible with little to no information possible so that Chell will not find her way back. GLaDOS knows Aperture is unsafe, and her one and only shred of mother instinct and emotion will keep Chell from reentering the unsafe environment of Aperture.

• Borealis -

Of course, since Half Life is confirmed connected to the Portal timeline, well around the same coinciding events too, we've still got a few mysteries to get to. It's possible that the people working on the Borealis before it's disappearance had been developing giant portals, capable of making more than just a human sized hole, and rather something at least big enough to bring the entire ship. Of course something may have gone wrong, that or Aperture wanted to hide the Borealis by putting it in the Arctic, either way, what's on that ship is Aperture related and Aperture's only real innovations are portals, gels, and shower curtains, so you tell me.

• G-Man -

G-Man is a time traveler with abilities that are well advanced ahead of anything seen in this timeline, since he is able to do things completely different than this time. Even in the way he acts and speaks, he doesn't seem from around this time era. Here's what I think: G-Man and his employers are a company that fund themselves on being paid to change the works of time in someone's favor. You bargain with them, they see all possible outcomes of ANY butterfly effects, and when the perfect route is laid out and all can fall into place perfectly, which is what they're experts at, then you fulfill your end of the bargain in whatever was in the deal with them in the first place. I believe the Combine bargained with the GMan and or his employers, but didn't meet their end of the bargain. GMan, essentially controlling fate, seeks revenge in the simplest, unbloodiest, cleanest way: Staying back, letting Gordon do the work, and playing him like a puppet. He uses Gordon to do specific things. If things are not going the way GMan had seen them perfectly laid out, he intervenes and stops them. This is why he sees Gordon in HL1, saves Gordon and Alyx in HL2, saves Alyx again in ep2, etc. I also think this is why Shepherd got the nuke re-activated against his will. GMan wanted his perfect time plan to domino into the perfect outcome. He reset all odds, kept everything in order on the line that was ever so precisely laid out to officially bring an end to the combine. After all the GMan has done in all of the Half-Life series, what has happened? The combine have been taken down slowly and surely.

It is possible, though not confirmed, that GMan uses portal technology. Maybe Aperture made a time portal too? Who knows, and thats the mystery. Whatever is on that borealis, GMan wants, and he's controlling Gordon and everyone else to get it.

TL;DR GLaDOS is an AI of Caroline. Caroline and Cave birthed Chell. Rattman is behind the Borealis's disappearance. The Borealis contains an advanced portal, possibly either a bigger portal or a time controlling portal device. GMan is a time traveler and time controller to spite groups of people (such as combine) who fail deals with them in bargain for something. GMan is essentially controlling everything, he's the mastermind behind all of the destinies and fates of both Portal and HL.

The questions pretty self explanatory but I'll provide some context for the question.

So in the timeline, Black Mesa came second to Aperature Science and according to A.S. ripped off most of their technology and rebranded it. With this in mind, why would Gman go to Black Mesa? Especially when there's more potential in Aperature.

The Great Filter Theory

This chilling theory states that there may be some unknown force of our universe or perhaps beyond that is meant to fully test the strength and resilience of a civilization once it objects the natural limits that were placed on it since its first days.

In Half-Life, humanity hit a major milestone as first contact with inter-dimensional alien life was established. With this, mankind proved its intelligence to the universe, but not its potential strength. Once this event drew the attention of The Combine (The Great Filter), they attacked in full force, defeating all of Earth's armed forces in a matter of hours and establishing their dominance over the Human Race over the next 20 years until Freeman would come back to ignite a revolution. The Combine eventually started assimilating altered human beings into their armies, as they have with several other alien species that also were not prepared for the onslaught of The Great Filter.

One more addition to this theory is that the G-Man, who's identity and intentions have always remained a complete mystery, represents the benevolent side of The Great Filter unlike his malevolent counterparts in The Combine. G-Man sees Freeman's differences from the rest of his kind and his potential for saving what's left of his species and decides to keep him in stasis for the time between Half-Life and Half-Life 2 to place him in a time period when it would actually be possible to defect against The G-man's employers and win.

Look, if it looks like a portal, acts like a portal, and quacks like a portal -- it's a portal.

Before Vortigaunt intervention: suitcase, going through doors as portal. After Vortigaunt intervention: no suitcase, and teleportation seems like it requires much more effort for the GMan. The suitcase form factor gives it the same level of portability as a portal gun, so perhaps they're related.

It would be interesting that if this were true, how Aperture was researching Vortessence, as it would seem like Vortigaunt energy can interfere (create noise within?) the same portals being made by that gun.

HL2 Spoilers

Okay, here's the deal:

Both are dystopias featuring a superficially charismatic, but ultimately vile humanoid dictator (Koopa/Breen).

Said dictator has a bitchy, but hot redhead assistant (Mossman/Lena).

Both dictators also live in massive, labyrinthine towers that let them observe everything

Anyone who steps out of line in the society is punished by being converted into a lesser life form (Goombas/Stalkers)

The protagonist uses the tools of the working class. Both Mario and Gordon use crowbars, and both characters solve puzzles involving pipes and valves. They also run through sewers multiple times.

The protagonist has a cute sidekick that acts like a dog (Yoshi/D0G)

Said doglike sidekick gets along great with the idealistic female lead, who has closer ties to the world of the adventure than the protagonist does (Daisy/Alyx)

Civil Protection are totally [Snifits] (http://www.smbmovie.com/SMBArchive/production/costumes/private/snifit003.jpg)

Both stories are started by interdimensional travel caused by a special rock.

When I first played Portal, I seemed to have a very different take on the game than others and have yet to see my thoughts on it reflected anywhere.

It seems that the general consensus is that the facility in Portal was made to test the Portal Gun using human subjects. This is not how I perceived things at all. They were developing a weapon all right, but it wasn't a Portal Gun. That device was just a tool for the facilities true purpose, testing the abilities of humans.

One of the first thoughts I had while playing Portal was that this must be how Gordon Freeman was discovered/created (I say created because I think some subtle hints throughout the game suggest genetic selection ie organ donors, take your daughter to work day, and a few things GLaDOS says here and there).

What Chell represents is a complete success. A finished product. A human weapon capable of surviving the harshest conditions and outwitting the most cunning of foes. GLaDOS was in fact quite thrilled to be defeated. That was her purpose. To me this seemed like a subtle but obvious nod to Gordon Freeman and what he was able to accomplish. Gordon is a finished product. A weapon that the G-man and his employers wielded to defeat the Nihilanth.

I will list below any pieces of evidence I can think of to further support this theory.

• The Portal Gun. Aperture Science is losing its competition with Black Mesa. They are shown to be an inferior organization. Yet they develop the Portal Gun. A masterpiece of technology that far exceeds anything seen at Black Mesa. Not only is Black Mesa larger and better funded, but they receive direct "help" from the G-man and his employers. Aperture Science didn't develop the Portal Gun. No way, Jose. It was given to them by the same "Employers" that are running the whole show behind the scenes. Why? To assist them in their genetic tampering projects to create things like Gordon.

...even GLaDOS is a Genetic Lifeform.....

..and Disk Operating System

LambdaConspiracies has lain mostly dormant for some time. My theories have been somewhat popular in the past. I also have a new one about Doctor Breen that I will write up soon. Before that, someone has recently written a post about how it is no longer possible to comment on old posts. I think this is a shame as I quite like discussing my theories and receiving feedback.

So, I was thinking of reposting my few old theories again as new to allow people to comment again and possibly reopen some discussions. I just figured I'd put this out there first in case it was a breach of the rules or generally looked down upon. Any comments or feedback on this would be appreciated.

This some doesn't get a whole lot of traffic, unfortunately. But when people do come, they usually discover that they can't reply to most threads because by the time they arrive, they have been archived. This, I feel, is slowly killing the sub. Does reddit allow subreddit owners to disable archiving, or atleast increase the amount of time before a post is archived?

I was thinking about Portal the other day and I realized something. At the end of Portal, Chell is launched up through the ground by Glados's detonation into the Aperture Science car park, which is by no means possible for any normal person. Unless the following is true.

Chell died at the close of Portal. Her rising up to the surface was symbolism for her finally dying, being free at last. That's why I believe she was cloned.

I doubt he's actually carrying around razors. Why would he be? He was never in the situation to stack up on them. And still he never even had the time to shave. But his goatee is kept perfect with no growing stubble.

I'm sure that has to do with him being away from other planet, maybe Xen since at the end of Half Life 1 he didn't have any problem breathing. Imo this fuels the theory of him being a Xen trying to save its race from the Combine, sending it to earth (the crystal), waiting them to take over earth, and then starting a war against them using the humans (those brave humans that never give up)

What's your opinion about G-Man's forced breathing when he stops time on top of the Citadel?

Any takers?

Something about headcrabs and the resulting zombies has always bothered me (other than their horrifying nature that is). The ability of these horrible creatures to control and utilize human beings has always seemed a little too convenient. The following theory may seem obvious to some or most.., but I have never seen it discussed.

The theory is that headcrabs and gonarchs could only be the result of genetic engineering specifically developed as a weapon to be used against humans. The Nihilanth and/or the Combine must have engineered these creatures in anticipation of the Xen invasion. Through an outside agent, like the Gman, or through samples collected from the first scientist to visit Xen, a specific biological weapon of terror was created.

My evidence is as follows-

• Foremost is the incredible unlikeliness that a lifeform without similar genetic ancestry could possibly interact with another in such a manner with such a degree of success.

• Their mouths are the exact shape of a human head

• At no point in any of the games do we ever see any non-human zombies. No Vortiguants. No Xen creatures. No Earth animals.

• Expanding on the Earth animals point.. Even if they were engineered to human genetics, you'd think there'd be zombie chimps and zombie apes, maybe even zombie dogs. The absence of these could suggest a very skillful and exact genetic predisposition for human beings.

Theory PART TWO..

As I was writing this it occurred to me that if true, this has some very heavy implications regarding Gman. It stinks of Gmans modus operandi. Not only was Xen prepared for the invasion, they had the headcrabs fully prepared as well. Who is the man who continuously places key items and information as a means of pushing his "employers" agenda?

It has been suggested by others that Xen was indeed prepared for the resonance cascade. This already implicates Gman as one who is playing both sides against each other to whatever end he has in mind. I believe the very existence of headcrabs themselves further implicates Gman.

Lamarr, Kliener's pet headcrab, is trapped on the satellite launched to counteract the Combine's reinforcement portal. What role will she play? Why would valve take this route? It seems heartless to just kill off the only "good" headcrab. Thoughts?

Why did Gman want Gordon to destroy the Citadel in the first place? Lets look at the repercussions of the destruction. After destroying the Citadel the Combine sent a huge chunk of their forces through the super portal it created. Or rather they tried to, until Gordon and co. shut the super portal with the rocket in Ep2. If Gordon hadnt been freed by the Vorts, the portal wouldnt have been shut and the massive Combine army would have poured through the portal to retake earth. This would leave the Combine Overworld almost defenseless. At this point Gman would send Gordon into the Overworld to take it down by whatever means he had planned out. So this would have been Gmans HL3. Why would Gman do this though? This is where my personal Gman theory comes into play

I believe Gman is the true enemy. He is some other dimensional creature with the power of manipulation and influence. He also has the power to suspend a number of people in stasis. In this way he uses other people to act out his strategy of dominion. He is a puppet master of destruction. His goal is to take over everything, including the Combine. The Benefactors to which he mentions are G-man way of collecting more inter-galactic assets. When G-man doesnt have a direct field strategy in play, he rents out his soldiers for valuable information, technology, or other war related objects

This is more of a counter theory than a theory itself. There are so many that seem to have convinced themselves that there is more to the companion cube than meets the eye. A popular theory seeming to be that there are people inside of them. Regardless of where they may take the series from here, I'd like to set the record strait on Portal 1.

The Companion Cube is a testing cube with hearts painted on it and nothing more. It's purpose was to test Chell and the other subjects on a psychological level. It's no more complicated than that.

Chell, like Gordon, is being developed as a weapon. If she is unable to make sacrifices without the guilt destroying her, than she is a failure as a test subject.

Everything GLaDOS says is with the knowledge that a test subject doesn't trust her at this point. She is leading the test subject on and using reverse psychology to convince the subject that the Companion Cube is alive and is their ally. She is actually telling mostly truths and relying on the fact that she won't be trusted. A useful test subject either sees through her mind games or is simply so ruthless it doesn't matter.

I think a lot of people see GLaDOS as some juvenile, insane AI with no real goals in mind. When she is actually a brilliant administrator who's every word is a calculated move in an attempt to weed out any weakness in a subject.

This theory was posted by an anonymous user, and though i dont personally believe that HL2-Ep2 was the last half life, some of his theories are cool http://i.imgur.com/qX7PNMx.png

We will discover the Borealis and the secret it holds. That is is an inter-dimensional shipping container for the super soldiers Aperature has manufactured in their testing labs. This references a theory about the test labs actually being built to create/train super-soldiers and using the portal device merely as a tool to do so. But where were they being shipped to? perhaps G-man or the combine were buying super soldiers in bulk and shipping them around the universe via Borealis to help take over worlds. Maybe one of those purchased supersoldiers was Gordon, and his job was to set up a chain reaction of events that led to portal storms allowing the combine to siege earth. Which suggests the leaders of the Combine are the mysterious "benefactors". Somehow the Borealis will be booted online, perhaps by G-man, perhaps by Gordon on accident, who knows. The Borealis will go to where it was orginally intended in its shipment, the combine overworld. It had been stopped mid travel by the Resonance cascade 20+ years ago, and is now buried in ice. Once at the Overworld, you will fight through hordes, sneak through platoons, and make way to find the advisors and kill them. Once the advisors are dead, all the Combine soldiers will be freed. They will follow the Freeman on the Borealis to G-mans dimension. G-man has been merely projecting himself to earth, he is not omnicient, or all powerful, he is an extradimensional creature of great power. He can bend time, but only in other dimensions. In his own dimension he is not God. You will then fight and kill the G-man in his true despicable form, with the aid of the free Combine. G-man has been the true evil all along, with his power of influence, and power in other dimensions, he has been trying to take over the entire universe

[HL2:Ep2 Spoilers]

This one's pretty simple really, but I don't have that much info to back up with. So we all know that Eli had been contacted by GMan. What if that was so because GMan had initially planned out for Eli to pull everything off before noticing Gordon's skill of taking on the most difficult enemies. He starts by seeing you go through the first hoard of headcrabs and vortigaunts before deciding to go follow you around.

Eli also knew that the crystal was delivered by the GMan, even though Eli didn't have much to do with that part of the project. I'm not sure exactly what he did at Black Mesa, but it seems he was just at some secondary control room, or whatever that room in Black Mesa was when you first say Eli in Half-Life.

What are your thoughts?