One of the artists explained that, in the case of Striders, the original creature is scanned from their homeworld, and rebuilt synthetically.
So contrary to popular belief, they are not directly modified from a biological creature. Rather they are an artificial replication that is turned into a war machine.
Yes but the combine need the humans to make soldiers as oposed to striders who by the comment above are sugested to be made from scratch from a scan of the original
She seems to not have leaked enough info. You can see what resistance teleporters are much more energy efficient and depending if the "slow" effect the one from Nova Prospect has is how both isntances worked or not, it is also "slow" ans not reliable. The whole point of teleportation is to be instant, not take 1 week.
I heard somewhere the real reason they haven’t extinguished humanity is because they need humans with free will to be able to create teleport tech, which is why it’s so important that you blow up nova prospekt and recapture Eli and mossman, besides them being very important to the resistance’ other plans
Probably not, striders have been working for the combine long before they attacked the vortigaunts. The combine have only had a hold on humans for about 20 years
I’ve been having a mental debate on whether or not organic, non-organic, synth, or cyborg (or a combination of those) would make the most sense, then I found [biorobots](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorobotics)
Edit: I saw biorobots referenced under Wikipedia’s [cyborg article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg)
Now that just makes HL3 write itself. They find the Borealis and teleport to the combine homeworld to destroy them once and for all, encountering all these animals in their natural states.
It would make for a interesting concept. The striders and gunship animals are actually gentle giants, but you don't know which is which until they either attack you or glide peacefully by.
Hmm, that doesn’t jibe with my head canon. I always thought those creatures were clearly biological, they bleed and howl and behave like predators. I’d assumed that they were genetically modified shock troops from other conquered worlds. Recombinant troops, collectively called the “combine”. But the artist says they’re robots?
They're artificially printed organic lifeforms with cybernetics enhancements. At one point they were probably like human combine soldiers, augmented as opposed to grown.
So now we have a word that could mean "mix things together" a piece of farm equipment and lets see... oh yeah it could also mean the most advanced form of life in the known universe.
They're not called the universal union. The only time that line is ever said is when Breen says "We've joined in a universal union" or something to that effect. It's very clearly not meant to be their name
That's only been confirmed for the striders, we don't know if the other synths are at that stage yet, or if it's even possible to do with some of their other lifeforms.
Yeah. There's some sort of living creature there. Same with hunters and dropships.
The extent to which the animal or creature has been modified is unknowable though. Makes it kinda spooky.
I'm sure in a few generations the transhuman arm of the Overwatch would be similarly augmented.
That’s the part of Half Life that makes it so spooky and dystopian. You’re facing high technology creatures, that seems very organic, but are acting and moving like robots. It leaves you with a strange feeling of disgust and keeps haunting even more when you killed it
Yeah, I fucking love how alien all the aliens in Half-Life look.
Much more creative than the usual designs sci-fi gravitates towards (although I know most of those are done due to the budgets of TV shows, it's still a bit disappointing lol)
It's implied that they were actually sapient species at one point that were enslaved and modified, gradually having more and more of who and what they were replaced with technology until they became mindless war machines. The Combine soldiers seem to be an early stage of this for humanity. Over time, humans that joined the Combine would probably end up becoming less and less recognizable too.
Combine could also be a reference for their tendency to enslave races and bring them into one large multiversal empire through a combination of force, indoctrination, and selective incentives.
Sort of, they’re basically creatures from other universes that the Combine have scanned and then subjected to a form of genetic modification and forced evolution, thus creating a war machine that is somewhere between grown and constructed, a synthetic organism that blurs the line between machinery and biology.
No, they're called that because they harvest all useful resources from the worlds they find and leave them empty and barren. Like a combine harvester. Their name is not derived from the verb "to combine", which is pronounced differently.
Yes, not from earth though. The Strider was probably the first one implemented into the Universal Union’s military by being scanned and upgraded to the Combine’s needs, and then used said copies to take out the original species, and did the same thing the next few times and then just attacked the rest of these life forms in different universes and implemented them into their army or just eliminated them entirely.
So, the combine went around to other planets in search of resources and shit then they found alien life and decided to take them to earth and genetically modify them to work for them against the animals will
One of the artists explained that, in the case of Striders, the original creature is scanned from their homeworld, and rebuilt synthetically. So contrary to popular belief, they are not directly modified from a biological creature. Rather they are an artificial replication that is turned into a war machine.
So that could mean that humans could be replicated and earth of no use to the combine I kinda like that scenario
That's what the soldiers are more or less.
Soldiers are transhuman. Take a guy, Make him better. Synths are Synthetic. Take a thing, Print it in a lab.
I like to imagine this is the *first step* towards making synths. Maybe there was a trans-strider on their homeworld at some point.
The Half-Life 2 strider is trans
And we love him🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️🏳️⚧️
Ofc its a freedomer
What no bloodsuckers does to a mf
I was hoping someone with a TF2 engineer PFP would reply "how"
I've done nothing but love the strider for 3 days.
Yes but the combine need the humans to make soldiers as oposed to striders who by the comment above are sugested to be made from scratch from a scan of the original
The transhuman army was a failure.
Only because gordon freeman is too epic
Earth is still of use, like the oceans full of water they've been pumping out enough to cause a mass extinction
Good thing we're melting all our glaciers so there's plenty of sea water!
And the fact that humans were able to develop reliable local teleportation.
Isn't the fact that Mossman already leaked those blueprints to the Combine one of the main reasons for desperately closing the overworld portal?
She seems to not have leaked enough info. You can see what resistance teleporters are much more energy efficient and depending if the "slow" effect the one from Nova Prospect has is how both isntances worked or not, it is also "slow" ans not reliable. The whole point of teleportation is to be instant, not take 1 week.
I heard somewhere the real reason they haven’t extinguished humanity is because they need humans with free will to be able to create teleport tech, which is why it’s so important that you blow up nova prospekt and recapture Eli and mossman, besides them being very important to the resistance’ other plans
Probably not, striders have been working for the combine long before they attacked the vortigaunts. The combine have only had a hold on humans for about 20 years
That's why I don't like that answer, it means the combine keeping humanity alive for another 20 years just doesn't make sense.
But Dog pulled out a pretty organic looking brain from a strider
Yeah. Artificially like grown in a lab, not robotic.
So technically they ARE organic in some way or another
just wait until HL3 where they get out the people printer and print infinite gordons
Prepare for unforeseen consequences…
No that was my line! (Consequences of being late)
That was unforseen. Did you prepare for that?
No 😞
>print infinite gordons I like where this is going
I’ve been having a mental debate on whether or not organic, non-organic, synth, or cyborg (or a combination of those) would make the most sense, then I found [biorobots](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorobotics) Edit: I saw biorobots referenced under Wikipedia’s [cyborg article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg)
Most likely. We know organic technology is mixed in with non-organic quite frequently because of Half Life: Alyx
You definitely need to watch Blade Runner.
Now that just makes HL3 write itself. They find the Borealis and teleport to the combine homeworld to destroy them once and for all, encountering all these animals in their natural states.
I would actually love to see that
It would make for a interesting concept. The striders and gunship animals are actually gentle giants, but you don't know which is which until they either attack you or glide peacefully by.
Any unaltered Striders, Hunters, Choppers etc, would look totally different. You could easily tell them apart.
Man, seeing that in Source 2 would be amazing as fuck.
Bio engineering at its best
I honestly prefer the popular belief.
Hmm, that doesn’t jibe with my head canon. I always thought those creatures were clearly biological, they bleed and howl and behave like predators. I’d assumed that they were genetically modified shock troops from other conquered worlds. Recombinant troops, collectively called the “combine”. But the artist says they’re robots?
The biological creature is grown in a lab or something from the scans and then outfitted with the weaponry and tech
They're artificially printed organic lifeforms with cybernetics enhancements. At one point they were probably like human combine soldiers, augmented as opposed to grown.
I guess that is more efficient than heavily modifying some complex-ass creature, isn't it?
so the combine killed all the biological striders?
Possibly. Maybe they were around for so long, that the original creatures went extinct.
Yes. Snyths. That's why the combine are called...the combine
Snyths
Snyth’s fyds and syds Formerly Chuck‘s
Oh shit, I thought it was because they are like space farmers or something.
They kinda are but they use the animals to conquer and not to eat
They farm the inhabitants of the planets so technically yes
So now we have a word that could mean "mix things together" a piece of farm equipment and lets see... oh yeah it could also mean the most advanced form of life in the known universe.
They are named after the farm equipment Because they basically raze the universe like a combine harvester harvests wheat or something
You're telling me John Deere didn't have a hand in this??
genuis!
*is called. It acts as a collective unit, hence why it makes the synths. It can't act as one entity with free will.
Is that really their name, or is that how human call them?
They’re called the Universal Union, Combine is just what they get called
They're not called the universal union. The only time that line is ever said is when Breen says "We've joined in a universal union" or something to that effect. It's very clearly not meant to be their name
This. Uu is a descriptor, not their name.
Damn, my bad, I haven’t played the game in a while and could have sworn that’s revealed as their proper name at some point
Yes. It's the whole gist of the Combine. They conquer species into their empire and slowly incorporate them, changing their minds and bodies.
It’s like slavery with extra steps.
Slavery 2
Electric Boogaloo
Slavery 2 Episode 2
They don't incorporate. They steal. They design a good blueprint and then make androids (synths) out of it, letting the original species go extinct
That's only been confirmed for the striders, we don't know if the other synths are at that stage yet, or if it's even possible to do with some of their other lifeforms.
Made of the same material so it's safe to say yes. Would make the most logical sense anyways since the combine don't breed
I choose to ignore that idea
Yeah. There's some sort of living creature there. Same with hunters and dropships. The extent to which the animal or creature has been modified is unknowable though. Makes it kinda spooky. I'm sure in a few generations the transhuman arm of the Overwatch would be similarly augmented.
If you study the models you can see the machinery grafted onto flesh and chitin. Looks rather painful
The spider with the hangin’ penis
Agreed imagine seeing that thing lower down and watch you outside the window.
And wanking his dick with one of his legs
"I'm over here stroking my pulse cannon, I got Xen healing pool juice on my pulse cannon RN..."
BRUH NAH
r/okbuddyhalflife is leaking
Here we go again 😂
*Whenever life gets you down, keeps you wearing a frown, and the gravy train has left you behiiiiind...*
Do they actually have dick guns lmfao?
U ever played half life 2 son?
lol I have (only once a few months ago when I got it though). I guess I just didn't notice.
Yes, but they are animals from different universes tho
Oh really? I thought the Strider was based off the Great Tasmanian Long Walker? Hence the name, “Strider.”
That’s the part of Half Life that makes it so spooky and dystopian. You’re facing high technology creatures, that seems very organic, but are acting and moving like robots. It leaves you with a strange feeling of disgust and keeps haunting even more when you killed it
Yeah, I fucking love how alien all the aliens in Half-Life look. Much more creative than the usual designs sci-fi gravitates towards (although I know most of those are done due to the budgets of TV shows, it's still a bit disappointing lol)
Completely true 👌
nah they're born with a massive gun dick
Sort of... final hours confirms they are 3d printed modified clones of different species
Maybe, but it's more *dark and griddy* to think that it's a poor suffering animal. To me, that's more sci-fi horror
Yes. They're victims of the Combine's brutality too.
Yes, hopefully animals... Most likely, unlucky civilizations...
It's implied that they were actually sapient species at one point that were enslaved and modified, gradually having more and more of who and what they were replaced with technology until they became mindless war machines. The Combine soldiers seem to be an early stage of this for humanity. Over time, humans that joined the Combine would probably end up becoming less and less recognizable too.
strider penis canon therefore, yes
The gun ship used to be a bunny
fr?
Combine could also be a reference for their tendency to enslave races and bring them into one large multiversal empire through a combination of force, indoctrination, and selective incentives.
They're androids modeled from an extinct species, colloquially called synths
Yes
Mhm. Synths.
Sort of, they’re basically creatures from other universes that the Combine have scanned and then subjected to a form of genetic modification and forced evolution, thus creating a war machine that is somewhere between grown and constructed, a synthetic organism that blurs the line between machinery and biology.
They’re not called combine because they harvest wheat
No, they're called that because they harvest all useful resources from the worlds they find and leave them empty and barren. Like a combine harvester. Their name is not derived from the verb "to combine", which is pronounced differently.
Idc they're hot either way
Yes, not from earth though. The Strider was probably the first one implemented into the Universal Union’s military by being scanned and upgraded to the Combine’s needs, and then used said copies to take out the original species, and did the same thing the next few times and then just attacked the rest of these life forms in different universes and implemented them into their army or just eliminated them entirely.
Seems like a Buged tech
Yep! Same thing they do to humans.
The second one might be a manatee and the 3rd one is probably a manta ray
They're animals from other universes. The combine enslaved them like they did the humans.
Fart
No they're just like that
No.
No.
Y E S
Isn't there a line like, "I hear they put babies in those striders" and later when Dog destroys one there appears to be a human brain inside?
So, the combine went around to other planets in search of resources and shit then they found alien life and decided to take them to earth and genetically modify them to work for them against the animals will
Yes
It's just a crab with a crab mounted gun
Yes and no. Synths can either be actual animals mutilated into war machines, or bio-mechanical reproductions of said war machines.
yeeessss and enslaved
Yuh
yes