A portal opens up in your setting and the Combine//universal union invades

Just another war in the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium. Nevertheless, humanity shall triumph!

youtube.com/watch?v=JopFcOUbgtg

>fallen london
Oh please, by the seventh city itl all become fucked, nobody will survive it.

A reckoning shal not be postponed forever. All shal be well and all matters of things shall be well.

>Functionally infinite
Yet the Combine have displayed absolutely no space travel in game. The Episode 3 script does imply they have some space travel capability because they've got a Dyson Sphere, but it's entirely possible that's only in their home dimension and they have no way of getting anything other than planetary forces through a portal.

Most of the world is fucked and would probably just get strip mined. One organization's head would be absolutely twitching with excitement and easily fill Breen's administrative role if given the chance.

One or two Archmages return in time and close portal before it open.

We'd get two sessions in and then never play again.

Given that they have at least one Dyson Sphere, 100 quintillion "people" in their homeworld alone.

Combine would rape them.

And you base that on... ?

>thinking that the Combine are in any way impressive
>thinking that valve fleshed out the combine in any way other than "hurr the took over Earth's
>sends hundreds of their best against one angry scientist with a crowbar, all dies
>any lore on their capabilities is a non-canonical post by the lead writer

I'm not sure the combine can beat out the Core from Total Annihilation. It takes a Kbot lab 7 seconds to build a Peewee kbot which is 15m tall and armed with rapid fire 200mm plasma cannons.
The peewee is possibly the weakest combat unit in the game.

>>thinking that the Combine are in any way impressive
They tunnel their way through from another universe and have conquered a multitude of universes according to the writers.

This is impressive.

If we're talking just the Combine garrison forces on Earth, which is just mostly humans either non or partially modified, I agree with you. But the Combine main forces, the ones that conquered all those other universes and took earth in a matter of hours, the ones that can emit fields capable of making massive changes to a lifeforms instantaneously... well I'd give it to them.

>hundreds of their best
the Overwatch on Earth was literally still in a probationary phase to prove their worthiness to the Combine

Why don't they just open a portal and concentrate the light of their star in a coherent beam that burn the planet's crust?

>emit fields capable of making massive changes to a lifeforms
>lifeforms
Core units contain no organic components. Get in the patterning machine, you will be patterned as a public health measure.

DO SO NOW.

Who says they can't?

For the purposes of Earth, they had a mild enough interest in it not to just kill it off immediately.

>life
>can only be organic
Nah dawg. The Combine are masters of biotics and machines.

>Core were beaten by humans
>humans are literally just the bottom of the barrel weakest unit used by the Combine

the combine would analhilate the core

>Core were beaten by humans

The Combine are also losing basically every single battle they have with a single human.

How about teleporting a car-sized bit of the core of a star into the planet's surface? Given the density of the thing, it would make a pretty good explosion worth it of an extinction event.

Yeah, the protagonist of a game fighting Overwatch units that mostly, as it's observed here are literally still in a proving phase. Wow.
My point stands.

I can only think of one thing I've made up that would even remotely be a challenge for the Combine, at their peak they could "grow" soldiers in tanks, in huge facilities approximately 10miles/100miles/100miles in size. I estimated their annual output at producing about 1 billion soldiers, not to mention cruisers, aircraft, tanks, formidable nukes. Certainly the earth occupation forces would be overwhelmed. I guess it would just be the difference in a 10 million mile diameter planet versus a 500 million mile diameter dyson sphere with 100 times the energy to work with. Of course they are kinda inspired by the Combine in looks so there's a chance they might confuse each other in battle and the whole thing would turn into an orgy of friendly fire.

>My point stands.

Seriously, where do people get this 'The combine are some unstoppable force' thing? You take on a LOT of the Synths in the game and while they are tough, they are not exactly going to be breaking other sci-fi series too fast.

>Seriously, where do people get this 'The combine are some unstoppable force' thing?

multi-dimensional empire that tunneled their way in from another universe, conquered the earth in hours, set up a field preventing reproduction, began draining the earth of all resources to the point where oceans are almost empty and filled with alien lifeforms, and have taken the remaining human population for slaves or to be modified into transhuman cannon fodder?

Maybe that's why people think they're a big deal, I dunno. It's so confusing, isn't it?

That also have their big powerful combat synths blown away by rocket launcher or cut in half by firing a buzzsaw blade at it. That's even outside the overwatch mooks, that's the actual combine synths.

Combat really doesn't seem to be an area they match up to logistics in (And honestly, even logistics seems weak for a group that can travel dimentionally. There is WAY easier ways to get resources than draining an inhabited planet's oceans)

They also are losing to a single guy in power armour and rebels armed with stolen gear. Say what you will about the Core, took more than that.

They have a handful of synth types seen on Earth supporting the Overwatch. Given the majority of the garrison there's no reason to assume those synths are anything more than the bottom of the barrel.

And even if the player can kill them with some dedication, they still use dark energy weapons that when unleashed allow them to tear City 17 and the rebels apart in a matter of hours.

My point stands.

>lose to game protagonist
stop the presses

Most scifi settings, even galactic-sprawling ones, would be obliterated by a single Dyson Sphere. We are talking about energies, industrial capacity, and populations that makes the typical scifi setting nothing but a joke. Our galaxy is an enormous place with billions of stars and doubtlessly billions of potentially habitable worlds. Yet a single Dyson Sphere contains more living space than ALL those planets combined. This without taking into account that they are a multi-dimensional empire on top of that.

>Say what you will about the Core, took more than that.
They literally lost to their game's protagonist too.

yeah but a guy with a crowbar killed some of their foot soldiers.

>They also are losing to a single guy
Gordon Freeman had the help of shadowy extra-dimensional forces that "hired" him and had done who knows what to him while he was help captive for two decades. Remember the G-Man? Gordon was hardly a single guy.

>Given the majority of the garrison there's no reason to assume those synths are anything more than the bottom of the barrel.

So basically 'No, the combine are super powerful because they have just been using their shittest things'?

Alternatively: The writers are really, really not having said dyson sphere be as big a deal as you think it is. I mean, Star Trek has a Dyson Sphere and it's little more than a background detail. Sci-fi writers do that.

Underrated post.

No, not that basically. Other things have been pointed out you never refuted. But you're a disingenuous ass so really who cares what you think?

>But you're a disingenuous ass so really who cares what you think?

No, I'm going off what the games show. We've no real evidence of how many planets they actually control. They are very scary compared to most modern-near future groups (I mean, look what they are doing in half-life) but I'm seriously doubting they are massively overwhelming to other high science-fiction groups like Supreme Commander stuff like is being claimed.

Don't argue with retards.

If he was an Iraqi with some National Guard unit stationed nearby as a garrison he'd probably assume all the US military was nasty guard and forget that the US rolled over his country in a matter of days. You can't reason with the stupid, deliberate or otherwise.

Where in the game is the dyson sphere mentioned? I don't recall that (Though I barely recall episode 2)

Overwatch transhumans are pretty cool. Any other settings have non-battlesuit infantry as cool as them?

I know, it just gets old point shit out and then getting it ignored. It feels like being on /v/ instead of Veeky Forums.

It was meant as the ending for the never released Episode 3. Freeman would have gone to the Combine homeworld with a superweapon with the intention of crippling or destroying the Combine capital only to find out that this wouldn't even feel like a mosquito bite to the combine.The writer published the intended script with the names changes a while ago.

Not canon.

Right, so it's semi-canon? What do you call 'Never done but was planned' (As planned scripts very rarely make it through to the end of development). I'd lean 'non-canon as it hasn't turned up in anything' but Half Life 2's unfinished nature is annoying on that front.

It might be a situation where either we debate based on what the writer says was intended, or acknowledge we don't actually know enough about the Combine based on what's solely in the game to debate it at all. Know what I mean?

Which I think is the core of the argument here. Half the people are arguing 'What is seen in the games' (Which isn't really that impressive even on the snyths) vs 'Theoretical Script' which ratchets up the power level through the roof.

marclaidlaw.com/epistle-3/

Epistle = Episode

Playa = Player

Gertrude Fremont = Gordon Freeman

Elly Vaunt = Eli Vance

Alex Vaunt = Alyx Vance

Research and Rebellion = Resistance

Jerry Maas = Judith Mossman

Hyperborea = Borealis

Wanda Bree = Wallace Breen

Disparate = Combine

Nine Hour Armageddon = Seven Hour War

Mrs. X = G-Man

Tocsin Island = Aperture Science

Ghastlyhaunts = Vortigaunts

Probably because if the full power of the Combine was seen in game you'd be dead in five minutes. The characters in the game do observe in Episode 2 that if the Combine is able to get back through they'll wipe everything on Earth out. That's hardly a full measure of their capabilities but it is pretty clear that the Earth is just a backwater to them anyway and what they have there is like a police force.

And we don't know what 'Full power' means. They took out a modern earth setting in 7 hours at full power but modern earth is not exactly high on the sci-fi chart.

Right, I'm saying we can't really debate their possible full strengths outside of the (semi-canonical?) writings of the main writer. The game doesn't present us with a lot to go by except rumor and whether their Overwatch garrison on Earth (I can't remember if Overwatch is even the Combine's general military or police name, or just that of their transhuman forces) could beat some other setting's bad guys or whatever.

If that makes sense.

I still like the transhuman forces. They're neat.

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dont they get beaten by a man with a crowbar?

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I've always thought the Replica Forces from F.E.A.R. were a really cool idea.

They were pretty cool. I haven't played that game in forever. Doesn't it end with a nuke going off?

I liked the grittier depiction of transhumanism. Far more tasteful than wish-fulfillment utopian nanowank.

>Playing Nobilis
Things are about to get fun.

Yeah, in an attempt to try and contain the ghost of Alma, the abused psychic girl, the Point Man causes the Vault's nuclear generator to go into meltdown. It explodes at the end of the game.
It turns out in the expansions and the next two games that the explosion wasn't just nuclear, it was psychic: psychic apparitions begin appearing all over the city, while many of the city's populace are driven insane.

zucktron? vr?

is this some /pol/ thing?

Why is Spurdo so great

No. The ultimate point of episode 3 was that the combine are so immensely powerful that thier outpost on earth was an afterthought of an afterthought, and all the "combine" soldiers who got crowbared were just Breen's goons armed/enhanced with a tiny touch of combine technology.

Earth's bravest defenders.

>ZOG DA SPINDLY GITZ
>proceeds to slaughter the entire Columbine and invades their universe

>Columbine
the combine would turn orks until self-replicating synths and conquer the Wh40k universe with them

Not if the Orks summon Gork and Mork on the Combine first with the insane amount of violence

>turns out Gork and Mork run the Combine
>synthing Orks was part of their plan
Now to crash the universe...

with no survivors!

You're really over simplifying the entire concept of a dyson sphere m80.

A dyson sphere just has to encompass a star. It doesn't have to be a big star. It doesn't have to be a big radius from the star (though obviously there is a minimal efficient distance.

You're also really underestimating the amout of habitable space in a galaxy for a society capable of constructing dyson spheres. Think about it: you just assumed that a society would be able to harness the total energy of a star before it would be able to terraform mars.

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