What's funny to me is that in retrospect when you finally meet him, he's trying to talk the same to Eli before you enter, but he can't quite do it.
It makes me wonder if Dr. Breen had a writer write all his speeches. Which is a little scary. Combine-mandated and enforced writers for propaganda. Like even creativity is being harvested too...
Or maybe I'm reading too far I'm because I'm a writer too. Idk.
Input: "Your entire squad has been killed by an MIT grad. What do you say in this situation? You can use only one word in your response."
Output: "Outbreak outbreak outbreak"
Haha! Hello, fellow writer.
Maybe you are reading too much into it, but then again, Marc Laidlaw is a writer too, & in the Half-Life franchise he world-builds with a very subtle & deft hand, so I wouldn’t put it past him.
Breen, in a vacuum, was always right. Nothing he said was wrong at all.
That's the genius of his evil, though. Using compelling rhetoric to convince people to accept an evil.
*It was all a lie.*
His first speech on the importance of conquering instinct? Totally correct. The falsehood is that the Combine could ever be the ones to do that for us.
I think it is important to note that he would be right if the Combine were benevolent... let me explain.
It's like asking someone to eat a poisonous cookie and saying "Do we not enjoy sugary treats?" yes... we do, but it would be pointless saying "My God he's right! I DO ENJOY SUGARY TREATS!".
It isn't a particularly genius rhetorical device because the actions and the result of the Combine's actions are so hilariously obvious that it just makes him sound like a sniveling, cowardly asshole. If the Combine were more subtle and nefarious maybe.
Worse rhetorical devices have had more profound outcomes. Remember learning about The Big Lie in history class? That was using falsehood to promote evil. Breen is using a truth to promote evil. His argument actually makes sense and if you try to debate his points you won't convince yourself or others, because it's a misdirection to begin with.
It's more palatable and effective than techniques that have *actually worked*, to horrifying effect, in the past.
And in the present. But I digress.
In either case, the Combine being benevolent or not has no bearing on whether Breen is correct or sounds reasonable. You like sugary treats, and whether the treat is poisoned or not has no bearing on that. The metaphor would be a bit more accurate if Breen was leveraging the fact that he's right about a treat being sugary to convince you that the treat is also *not* poisonous. Perhaps that the treat might upset your stomach but will that's normal and the treat has nutritional value that will actually make you stronger.
Like a parent disciplining a child, Breen tries to convince his audience that their suffering serves a greater purpose, and that when they stop naively resisting and see that greater purpose, the suffering will stop.
>In either case, the Combine being benevolent or not has no bearing on whether Breen is correct or sounds reasonable.
Uh... yes it does. It is fundamental to him being right or not. The combine aren't a step towards progress for mankind. All of his rhetoric is nonsense.
You're being purposefully obtuse. Or just not reading what I'm saying.
Breen's speech about humanity overcoming instinct and superstition is *irrelevant* to what the Combine are doing to humanity. It's a *non sequitur*.
For the record, humanity's issues DO spring from tribalism and superstition. We can trace all of our current issues back to these very same things that kept us alive as a species in pre-historic times. Breen advocating for being a "collaborator" is inspiring to OP because it's true if you remove the context of the Combine, which once again is in fact irrelevant. *Of course* the Combine aren't a step forward for mankind. That's obvious. It's a given. Breen's rhetoric is correct but irrelevant.
That's how it's coercive.
My entire point is that Breen is saying agreeable and even truthful things as a method of convincing people to accept evil, because he's creating false equivalences. He's misdirecting the listener away from the actual topic at hand.
...Unless you disagree about the nature of the origin of society's problems, in which case... I dunno, man. Go take a sociology or anthropology class or something. It's pretty clear where things like greed, prejudice and ignorance originate. It's not really a matter of debate.
> Breen's speech about humanity overcoming instinct and superstition is irrelevant to what the Combine are doing to humanity. It's a non sequitur.
It is relevant.
I mean... I don't blame the man armed with a tweed jacket for being afraid of the man wearing advanced armor and wielding like 9 different guns lol. I'd be begging to get sluggified too.
The thing about Breen is that I think he began as a decent person who was trying to do his best in a terrible situation. Surrender was the only real end to the 7 Hour War humanity could achieve. Over the years of being in charge, Breen saw first hand the power and scope of the Combine, and probably lost all hope that they could be defeated, that humanity had already lost chance to choose its own destiny. So, rather than throw away the chance given to them by The Combine, they should preserve as much of humanity as possible. Either all of humanity dies, or most of humanity dies, leaving only the best and the brightest who join The Combine persisting. And so, he allows for the slow genocide of the majority of humanity, because he believes it is the lesser of two evils.
Don't forget that Breen is probably bearing some responsibility for the Black Mesa incident, as he should have been aware and involved in the experience that lead to the disaster, and probably had contact with the G Man to get the sample.
How much was it aware of the (unforseen) consequences before hand? We don't know, but I guess he would have had some clue that something bad was about to happen.
The speech about instinct is kinda foreshadowing, and ironic regarding the Combine, as they have become a pure, mechanical instinct, blindly assimilating every world, every specie they feel worth it.
if he were talking about human collaboration or unity rather than collaboration with alien imperialists he'd quite easily come off as some kind of revolutionary hero
Hell, even if he were talking about collaboration with more peaceful aliens that weren't trying to destroy our planet and enslave us, he'd have a point. Personally I've always thought that Breen genuinely thinks he's doing the right thing and that submitting is the only way humanity can survive. He gives his speeches to convince himself at least as much as he does to convince other people.
For now yes, but the epistle 3 breen reveals that is just another slave.
May be he just try to believe the lie so he can confront the reality and also enjoy his tiny power as a CMB member
Considering who wrote that AND Breen grub, I consider it 100% cannon - when the writer themselves give the details about character motivation, it's usually the one that they were written with in the first place.
>Personally I've always thought that Breen genuinely thinks he's doing the right thing and that submitting is the only way humanity can survive
Is he wrong? The Combine was able to take over earth in a matter of seven hours, humanity is trivial to them.
Everything in this speech is true. That's basically the trick. Collaboration IS good!
Except the relationship with the Combine is slavery and not collaboration. But that's very intelligently not something touched by Breen in his speech :)
I actually memorized and read out this speech for my high school drama class a couple years ago. I hated drama but I thought it would be cool to just do this speech. My teacher was impressed because he thought I made it up, like nah I got it from a video game lol.
undoubtedly eloquent, but it only inspires dread for me, you can't say to me "yes, i am a collaborator" without making me cringe inside, given the historical weight of that term
Just like real dictators, he uses true statements to make the false statements more believable. Here we have a great quote, designed to make you more willing to agree with his other not so great quotes
This is why i love entropy zero 2 so much. The idea of collaborating with the combine, is just so cool. I feel this sense of... patriotism(?) when i hear Combine Harvester, or listen to Breen's speeches.
Far as I can tell, Combine are just dumb. Being all brutal and mean? Didn't anyone ever tell them you win more flies with honey than vinegar? Seriously, they should have won us over with ridiculously awesome hedonistic pursuits, quietly thinned the population while at the height of its euphoria, and subtly subjugated us with more and more fantastically pleasurable augmentations and virtual simulations so we wouldn't feel compelled to rebel while they accomplished their more sinister ulterior motives.
For whatever it's worth, they had no reason to change their strategy. Their pure might was enough to subjugate countless alien races without much trouble through sheer overwhelming force.
Up until the arrival of Gordon, Earth hadn't been any different. One of many cogs in an ever expanding machine. Earth surrendered in a matter of hours, the overwhelming majority of people had given up hope and just wanted to try to make the best of their horrifying situation, and the world was slowly becoming more and more unsalvageable the more and more the Combine drained it of its resources.
They didn't need to win us over because their raw power had been enough to break any resistance they'd ever faced before with relative ease. Which is what makes Gordon such an anomaly.
> Didn't anyone ever tell them you win more flies with honey than vinegar?
This does not apply when you have overwhelming military superiority. They have no need to play nice. They're taking everything they can from humanity and do not require their cooperation.
They let humanity live in order to get the local teleportation tech, if humans didnt develop that they would kill us is less than a day, take resources and leave, they dont need to do nothing of what you said.
And they had the tech as we see in nova prospekt, so humanity was a few years to be erased.
They only lose because gman place gordon in the right moment, the same gordon that Was about to Die in xen.
And the only thing that humanity did to try to fix things were Judith going slow with the research but that only bougth some years for humanity
So basically our opposable thumbs and prefrontal cortices were the only things they needed from us.
And here I thought they liked us for who we were :'(
They wouldn't know humans were developing that tech at first. They let humanity live because their strategy with all species is to figure out what value they have for incorporation into the Combine. The teleportation tech is certainly extremely valuable and the Combine would undertake significant risks and costs to get it, but even without that, they wouldn't kill humanity in "less than a day", they need some time to figure out what they can use.
Well the same day that they came they went to black mesa and aperture so they figured that quickly, at least that is supposed to have happened.
The first thing they do is track the most important labs so there they get the most valuable things and as we Know they destroy the goverment quickly too as the newspaper told us.
And the teleport tech is why they are here in the first place, is the minimun thing that need to do a species to get their attention, a dev said that when a species develop that kind of tech it appears as a signal on a radar so they know we are there.
So we Don't exactly know how the CMB planned to act with humanity before Breen speaks with them, we are really inferior and nothing of value.
May be they kill us all in a day or less, or a week for the reason that You said but in our case we Don't even are value for an army since they already have humanoid trops
For now we only guess.
> Well the same day that they came they went to black mesa and aperture so they figured that quickly, at least that is supposed to have happened.
black mesa was nuked, and aperture science seems to be free from combine
I know, the thing is that they located them.
as I said the CMB know that we have that tech already because thats the reason of them coming here
And even after bm is nuked they still have the tech for bm scientists so they have all under control even considering that
As there is no info about of all this we can only speculate.
I am only that few info that some devs give to us +10 years ago to figure out some things
May be they extract information of bm researchs using satellites or at government facilities, I hope some day all of this get an explanation
I mean they do kind of have a hedonistic offer- the simulated non mechanical reproduction for the people who join civil protection. They beat everyone down so hard that it would be a really enticing reason to join their cause.
You're describing our own greedy capitalist drama queen society designed to make money which the Combine wouldn't give two shits about. The Combine is looking for raw materials and new super soldiers in it's ranks not a bunch of masturbating, high off their minds good-for-nothing hobos.
Seems like they already have that, with their soldier synths. Can't fathom why they're bothering to keep the rest of the people around, unless it's just easier to let the current generation disappear through sterile attrition a la Children of Men.
"capitalist drama queen society" well said.
Wish we could be a Sociocapital High-Volume (# of people, not sound levels) Representative Democracy in which the elected officials all make the exact same income equal to the median constituent income and have the exact same social benefits as everyone else and lobbyists had to go through local constituents to have their interests heard. Damn combine holding us back.
I think its the more the merrier for the combine, whatever additional assets they can extract from humanity the better for them, that's why. They're actually trying to weed out and destroy those who are weak and would prefer hedonism and pleasures over those who are willing to sacrifice unconditionally for the empire. It's actually like this with every government that seeks to expand and create order and unity, but today's society is much more passive and complacent, that's why we see trouble rise up at different parts of the world, the villains that are now preparing to attack the world have had plenty of time and leisure to plan and accumulate power in the shadows.
What's funny is that anyone under 40 has an incomplete education. Half the citizens have no fucking clue what breen is talking about. His vocabulary is too complicated.
Bruh this speech is the equivalent of saying
"Meeting our genocidal fascist dictators in the middle is acceptable and it should be something we are all willing to do."
Breen might think he's a hero, but he's a complacent coward.
Normalize fascism and keep the populace stupid, that's the tactic. Obviously in Half Life it was the only reason humanity was able to survive, but in the real world? It'll burn if we are willing to compromise with pure evil.
TLDR Rough speech to be inspired by is all I'm saying, it's a very cool piece of world building though!
Imo Breen is in the right. Humanity would have died if Breen didn't call the surrender. I guarantee he is rooting for the resistance secretly, he is just trying his best to buy time for the resistance to win.
If you bind some things you can guess (for noe just as a theory) that he did some kind of deal with gman in order to rule the earth by giving it to the CMB, been that the reason of gman doing the resonance cascade
Somw might argue that considering what he said about contract being open to the highest bidder, he was the one that contracted G-man to have him deposit Gordon on earth. He 100% knows about G-man and Gordon situation, he basically spells it outright in the Nova Prospekt boradcast to the soldiers. Although, G-man might have deposited the "Right man in the wrong place" to change the outcome from what Breen wanted.
At first I thought he's a mofo and should die.
But as I grew up, I realized this bastard saved Earth. Where would Freeman go if there was simply no Earth?
The problem is Combine. And we have no idea what's going to happen.
he'd be making a great point if he wasn't talking about collaboration with aliens trying to kill off humanity and drain earth of every single resource it has
It is a rationally good speech, but it is also dehumanising and cynical. Collaboration will bring progress, but not a natural evolution of the species (what he is referring to in the speech) in the true sense, in this context, rather a modification of the species until little recognizable is left.
This is the price of leaving the darkest ocean abyss, this is what awaits for us "among the stars": stop being humans. Basically repurposing our species, changing everything we know, adaptating. This is normal, Breen isn't wrong, but we shouldn't choose to do it consciously, because it is scary and, partly, against our own nature.
Yet, this an emotional response to a rational speech. By refusing all of this we choose to model ourselves on the trilobite. We will remain ignorant, we will remain abandoned, we will be forgotten.
But we will also remain free. Free to be humans. Free men.
I admit, I was having a random moment - was watching Lord of the Rings and Saruman mentioned Sauron's lidless eye - and in my mind immediately this speech popped up - with lidless eye forever staring at the dark...
I love Breen as a villain because, as far as I'm concerned, he was right. In the aftermath of the Cascade, submission to the Combine was humanity's only hope for survival. He was in a position to make that deal, to sell out humanity for its own good, and he didn't hesitate. All his speeches were spot on too. Not just this one, but also his speech about instinct in the opening level, and his speech against idolatry and magical thinking in Water Hazard. They all perfectly outline the radical changes in philosophy needed for humanity to grow beyond what nature has given us.
I find it sinister, the same way tech bro dipshits like Bezos and Musk talk about colonising the Lagrange Points and filling the solar system with O Neill cylinders to distract from the very real earth bound problems that they are causing right now
The only reason an "indomitable" human "spirit" exists is because your ancestors required a measure of ingrained aggression to kill and eat everything to survive longer.
Death, Evolution, Natural Selection. The endgoal of all these things is ultimately immortality, and after that, Superintelligence.
Humanity needs to let go of it's constant self serving attitude to understand what fields must be progressed in to achieve this.
The resistance are just afraid of the obvious, and in doing so, blow their chances to surpass one of the last barriers needed to eventually control the universe.
Pretty much yeah.
I mean, you get functional immortality and no longer need to eat to survive, join a multi-dimensional empire that has figured out psychophysical laws.
It just seems like the obvious answer.
Or alternatively, you can stay here, grow old, and die like the vast majority of people, on any planet, ever.
Think I'll choose the cyborgs.
It’s a big reason he’s so compelling, he uses truths to point towards the unsustainable goal of allowing the combine to subsume humanity and erase its collective identity into itself.
Ironically humanity’s successes are via collaboration with themselves and with the vortigaunts.
It subtly hints at resistance to the Combine Union which was Breens original long-game with Eli to convince him to give the portal tech to the Combine, however it backfired with the GMans interference (releasing Gordon).
I think the GMan was responsible for pulling Breen, much like Alyx from the resonance cascade also, and probably tried to play him as a pawn and I think breen turned him over to the combine.
One of the most effortlessly eloquent villains in any game I've ever played.
What's funny to me is that in retrospect when you finally meet him, he's trying to talk the same to Eli before you enter, but he can't quite do it. It makes me wonder if Dr. Breen had a writer write all his speeches. Which is a little scary. Combine-mandated and enforced writers for propaganda. Like even creativity is being harvested too... Or maybe I'm reading too far I'm because I'm a writer too. Idk.
He must have used CombineGPT to write his speeches.
OverwatchGPT
Input: "Your entire squad has been killed by an MIT grad. What do you say in this situation? You can use only one word in your response." Output: "Outbreak outbreak outbreak"
Combine GPT, who write orwellian speech, read with a cold clinical voice.
You can say the writers were in... the stenographer's chasm...
The combine version of the infinite monkey theorem... I can dig it.
Haha! Hello, fellow writer. Maybe you are reading too much into it, but then again, Marc Laidlaw is a writer too, & in the Half-Life franchise he world-builds with a very subtle & deft hand, so I wouldn’t put it past him.
Mark Laidlaw is a genius.
Breen, in a vacuum, was always right. Nothing he said was wrong at all. That's the genius of his evil, though. Using compelling rhetoric to convince people to accept an evil. *It was all a lie.* His first speech on the importance of conquering instinct? Totally correct. The falsehood is that the Combine could ever be the ones to do that for us.
His words about calling the "dark twin" of instinct is superstition is completely spot on, it's a fantastic speech
I think it is important to note that he would be right if the Combine were benevolent... let me explain. It's like asking someone to eat a poisonous cookie and saying "Do we not enjoy sugary treats?" yes... we do, but it would be pointless saying "My God he's right! I DO ENJOY SUGARY TREATS!". It isn't a particularly genius rhetorical device because the actions and the result of the Combine's actions are so hilariously obvious that it just makes him sound like a sniveling, cowardly asshole. If the Combine were more subtle and nefarious maybe.
Worse rhetorical devices have had more profound outcomes. Remember learning about The Big Lie in history class? That was using falsehood to promote evil. Breen is using a truth to promote evil. His argument actually makes sense and if you try to debate his points you won't convince yourself or others, because it's a misdirection to begin with. It's more palatable and effective than techniques that have *actually worked*, to horrifying effect, in the past. And in the present. But I digress. In either case, the Combine being benevolent or not has no bearing on whether Breen is correct or sounds reasonable. You like sugary treats, and whether the treat is poisoned or not has no bearing on that. The metaphor would be a bit more accurate if Breen was leveraging the fact that he's right about a treat being sugary to convince you that the treat is also *not* poisonous. Perhaps that the treat might upset your stomach but will that's normal and the treat has nutritional value that will actually make you stronger. Like a parent disciplining a child, Breen tries to convince his audience that their suffering serves a greater purpose, and that when they stop naively resisting and see that greater purpose, the suffering will stop.
>In either case, the Combine being benevolent or not has no bearing on whether Breen is correct or sounds reasonable. Uh... yes it does. It is fundamental to him being right or not. The combine aren't a step towards progress for mankind. All of his rhetoric is nonsense.
You're being purposefully obtuse. Or just not reading what I'm saying. Breen's speech about humanity overcoming instinct and superstition is *irrelevant* to what the Combine are doing to humanity. It's a *non sequitur*. For the record, humanity's issues DO spring from tribalism and superstition. We can trace all of our current issues back to these very same things that kept us alive as a species in pre-historic times. Breen advocating for being a "collaborator" is inspiring to OP because it's true if you remove the context of the Combine, which once again is in fact irrelevant. *Of course* the Combine aren't a step forward for mankind. That's obvious. It's a given. Breen's rhetoric is correct but irrelevant. That's how it's coercive. My entire point is that Breen is saying agreeable and even truthful things as a method of convincing people to accept evil, because he's creating false equivalences. He's misdirecting the listener away from the actual topic at hand. ...Unless you disagree about the nature of the origin of society's problems, in which case... I dunno, man. Go take a sociology or anthropology class or something. It's pretty clear where things like greed, prejudice and ignorance originate. It's not really a matter of debate.
> Breen's speech about humanity overcoming instinct and superstition is irrelevant to what the Combine are doing to humanity. It's a non sequitur. It is relevant.
[удалено]
I'm not. It's relevant. Just because you and the guy I was replying to don't agree doesn't then mean I'm trolling ffs.
Well, Breen *is* a sniveling, cowardly asshole based on his scenes in the Citadel
I mean... I don't blame the man armed with a tweed jacket for being afraid of the man wearing advanced armor and wielding like 9 different guns lol. I'd be begging to get sluggified too.
That and he is much less eloquent to Eli and Gordon. It makes me think he has a writer that makes his speeches.
The thing about Breen is that I think he began as a decent person who was trying to do his best in a terrible situation. Surrender was the only real end to the 7 Hour War humanity could achieve. Over the years of being in charge, Breen saw first hand the power and scope of the Combine, and probably lost all hope that they could be defeated, that humanity had already lost chance to choose its own destiny. So, rather than throw away the chance given to them by The Combine, they should preserve as much of humanity as possible. Either all of humanity dies, or most of humanity dies, leaving only the best and the brightest who join The Combine persisting. And so, he allows for the slow genocide of the majority of humanity, because he believes it is the lesser of two evils.
Don't forget that Breen is probably bearing some responsibility for the Black Mesa incident, as he should have been aware and involved in the experience that lead to the disaster, and probably had contact with the G Man to get the sample. How much was it aware of the (unforseen) consequences before hand? We don't know, but I guess he would have had some clue that something bad was about to happen.
The speech about instinct is kinda foreshadowing, and ironic regarding the Combine, as they have become a pure, mechanical instinct, blindly assimilating every world, every specie they feel worth it.
if he were talking about human collaboration or unity rather than collaboration with alien imperialists he'd quite easily come off as some kind of revolutionary hero
Hell, even if he were talking about collaboration with more peaceful aliens that weren't trying to destroy our planet and enslave us, he'd have a point. Personally I've always thought that Breen genuinely thinks he's doing the right thing and that submitting is the only way humanity can survive. He gives his speeches to convince himself at least as much as he does to convince other people.
For now yes, but the epistle 3 breen reveals that is just another slave. May be he just try to believe the lie so he can confront the reality and also enjoy his tiny power as a CMB member
>For now yes, but the epistle 3 breen reveals that is just another slave. Epistle 3 ain’t canon though.
I know but is the only information that we have for now
Alyx stopped Epistle 3 in its tracks.
Considering who wrote that AND Breen grub, I consider it 100% cannon - when the writer themselves give the details about character motivation, it's usually the one that they were written with in the first place.
>Personally I've always thought that Breen genuinely thinks he's doing the right thing and that submitting is the only way humanity can survive Is he wrong? The Combine was able to take over earth in a matter of seven hours, humanity is trivial to them.
And freeman will be the villain
If I ever became some sort of communist rebel leader I’d totally plagiarize his speech
Out of context and without the "I am a collaborator" part, it's a damn good speech
Everything in this speech is true. That's basically the trick. Collaboration IS good! Except the relationship with the Combine is slavery and not collaboration. But that's very intelligently not something touched by Breen in his speech :)
I actually memorized and read out this speech for my high school drama class a couple years ago. I hated drama but I thought it would be cool to just do this speech. My teacher was impressed because he thought I made it up, like nah I got it from a video game lol.
Lowkey you’re inspiring me to use Breencasts for auditions
undoubtedly eloquent, but it only inspires dread for me, you can't say to me "yes, i am a collaborator" without making me cringe inside, given the historical weight of that term
Makes sense, too. There’s a reason Breen says that he’d been called a collaborator as an insult.
Can you explain the historical weight for me, please?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_Nazi_Germany_and_Fascist_Italy
A good speech for a bad cause.
Just like real dictators, he uses true statements to make the false statements more believable. Here we have a great quote, designed to make you more willing to agree with his other not so great quotes
This is why i love entropy zero 2 so much. The idea of collaborating with the combine, is just so cool. I feel this sense of... patriotism(?) when i hear Combine Harvester, or listen to Breen's speeches.
I GOT A BRAND NEW COMBINE HARVESTER AN I'LL GIVE YOU THE KEY
ez2 allowed me to unapologetically be the bad guy and I enjoyed it so much
Far as I can tell, Combine are just dumb. Being all brutal and mean? Didn't anyone ever tell them you win more flies with honey than vinegar? Seriously, they should have won us over with ridiculously awesome hedonistic pursuits, quietly thinned the population while at the height of its euphoria, and subtly subjugated us with more and more fantastically pleasurable augmentations and virtual simulations so we wouldn't feel compelled to rebel while they accomplished their more sinister ulterior motives.
For whatever it's worth, they had no reason to change their strategy. Their pure might was enough to subjugate countless alien races without much trouble through sheer overwhelming force. Up until the arrival of Gordon, Earth hadn't been any different. One of many cogs in an ever expanding machine. Earth surrendered in a matter of hours, the overwhelming majority of people had given up hope and just wanted to try to make the best of their horrifying situation, and the world was slowly becoming more and more unsalvageable the more and more the Combine drained it of its resources. They didn't need to win us over because their raw power had been enough to break any resistance they'd ever faced before with relative ease. Which is what makes Gordon such an anomaly.
Gordon: the ultimate anomalous material.
> Didn't anyone ever tell them you win more flies with honey than vinegar? This does not apply when you have overwhelming military superiority. They have no need to play nice. They're taking everything they can from humanity and do not require their cooperation.
They let humanity live in order to get the local teleportation tech, if humans didnt develop that they would kill us is less than a day, take resources and leave, they dont need to do nothing of what you said. And they had the tech as we see in nova prospekt, so humanity was a few years to be erased. They only lose because gman place gordon in the right moment, the same gordon that Was about to Die in xen. And the only thing that humanity did to try to fix things were Judith going slow with the research but that only bougth some years for humanity
So basically our opposable thumbs and prefrontal cortices were the only things they needed from us. And here I thought they liked us for who we were :'(
I am sorry to tell you this but its the truth, its always hard to face a situation like this :(
Damn combine. I feel so used. I'ma break up with them now...with a crowbar.
Thats your decision, for me, Yes, I am a colaborator.
They wouldn't know humans were developing that tech at first. They let humanity live because their strategy with all species is to figure out what value they have for incorporation into the Combine. The teleportation tech is certainly extremely valuable and the Combine would undertake significant risks and costs to get it, but even without that, they wouldn't kill humanity in "less than a day", they need some time to figure out what they can use.
Well the same day that they came they went to black mesa and aperture so they figured that quickly, at least that is supposed to have happened. The first thing they do is track the most important labs so there they get the most valuable things and as we Know they destroy the goverment quickly too as the newspaper told us. And the teleport tech is why they are here in the first place, is the minimun thing that need to do a species to get their attention, a dev said that when a species develop that kind of tech it appears as a signal on a radar so they know we are there. So we Don't exactly know how the CMB planned to act with humanity before Breen speaks with them, we are really inferior and nothing of value. May be they kill us all in a day or less, or a week for the reason that You said but in our case we Don't even are value for an army since they already have humanoid trops For now we only guess.
> Well the same day that they came they went to black mesa and aperture so they figured that quickly, at least that is supposed to have happened. black mesa was nuked, and aperture science seems to be free from combine
I know, the thing is that they located them. as I said the CMB know that we have that tech already because thats the reason of them coming here And even after bm is nuked they still have the tech for bm scientists so they have all under control even considering that As there is no info about of all this we can only speculate. I am only that few info that some devs give to us +10 years ago to figure out some things May be they extract information of bm researchs using satellites or at government facilities, I hope some day all of this get an explanation
Oh, you mean like mimic the real world now.
Probably. I've only ever played like 5 games in my whole life, so my knowledge of the greater gamescape is laughably nascent.
They're alien and intergalactic empire, Human are just another day at the office. Well, Until Freeman show up.
If it's another day at the office, does that mean [Gman's Day in Work](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MWyoaPURNM) is canon?
I mean they do kind of have a hedonistic offer- the simulated non mechanical reproduction for the people who join civil protection. They beat everyone down so hard that it would be a really enticing reason to join their cause.
Thats only another mechanim in order to auto manage the world with less CMB resources
kinda sounds like the plot of We Happy Few but better executed
You're describing our own greedy capitalist drama queen society designed to make money which the Combine wouldn't give two shits about. The Combine is looking for raw materials and new super soldiers in it's ranks not a bunch of masturbating, high off their minds good-for-nothing hobos.
Seems like they already have that, with their soldier synths. Can't fathom why they're bothering to keep the rest of the people around, unless it's just easier to let the current generation disappear through sterile attrition a la Children of Men. "capitalist drama queen society" well said. Wish we could be a Sociocapital High-Volume (# of people, not sound levels) Representative Democracy in which the elected officials all make the exact same income equal to the median constituent income and have the exact same social benefits as everyone else and lobbyists had to go through local constituents to have their interests heard. Damn combine holding us back.
I think its the more the merrier for the combine, whatever additional assets they can extract from humanity the better for them, that's why. They're actually trying to weed out and destroy those who are weak and would prefer hedonism and pleasures over those who are willing to sacrifice unconditionally for the empire. It's actually like this with every government that seeks to expand and create order and unity, but today's society is much more passive and complacent, that's why we see trouble rise up at different parts of the world, the villains that are now preparing to attack the world have had plenty of time and leisure to plan and accumulate power in the shadows.
What's funny is that anyone under 40 has an incomplete education. Half the citizens have no fucking clue what breen is talking about. His vocabulary is too complicated.
Bruh this speech is the equivalent of saying "Meeting our genocidal fascist dictators in the middle is acceptable and it should be something we are all willing to do." Breen might think he's a hero, but he's a complacent coward. Normalize fascism and keep the populace stupid, that's the tactic. Obviously in Half Life it was the only reason humanity was able to survive, but in the real world? It'll burn if we are willing to compromise with pure evil. TLDR Rough speech to be inspired by is all I'm saying, it's a very cool piece of world building though!
bluds falling the propaganda
Stop simpin on breen bro
We don't usually use both the honorific "doctor" and "PhD." Pick one. God even when he sounds right Breen is such a bastard man.
You're a traitor. lol
You are not immune to propaganda
Imo Breen is in the right. Humanity would have died if Breen didn't call the surrender. I guarantee he is rooting for the resistance secretly, he is just trying his best to buy time for the resistance to win.
If you bind some things you can guess (for noe just as a theory) that he did some kind of deal with gman in order to rule the earth by giving it to the CMB, been that the reason of gman doing the resonance cascade
Somw might argue that considering what he said about contract being open to the highest bidder, he was the one that contracted G-man to have him deposit Gordon on earth. He 100% knows about G-man and Gordon situation, he basically spells it outright in the Nova Prospekt boradcast to the soldiers. Although, G-man might have deposited the "Right man in the wrong place" to change the outcome from what Breen wanted.
That another possibility, I hope that some day we have More answers. For now Nihilanth is Right, we Are never going to know the truth...
At first I thought he's a mofo and should die. But as I grew up, I realized this bastard saved Earth. Where would Freeman go if there was simply no Earth? The problem is Combine. And we have no idea what's going to happen.
he'd be making a great point if he wasn't talking about collaboration with aliens trying to kill off humanity and drain earth of every single resource it has
He actually said this at the world economic forum
It is a rationally good speech, but it is also dehumanising and cynical. Collaboration will bring progress, but not a natural evolution of the species (what he is referring to in the speech) in the true sense, in this context, rather a modification of the species until little recognizable is left. This is the price of leaving the darkest ocean abyss, this is what awaits for us "among the stars": stop being humans. Basically repurposing our species, changing everything we know, adaptating. This is normal, Breen isn't wrong, but we shouldn't choose to do it consciously, because it is scary and, partly, against our own nature. Yet, this an emotional response to a rational speech. By refusing all of this we choose to model ourselves on the trilobite. We will remain ignorant, we will remain abandoned, we will be forgotten. But we will also remain free. Free to be humans. Free men.
I admit, I was having a random moment - was watching Lord of the Rings and Saruman mentioned Sauron's lidless eye - and in my mind immediately this speech popped up - with lidless eye forever staring at the dark...
I love Breen as a villain because, as far as I'm concerned, he was right. In the aftermath of the Cascade, submission to the Combine was humanity's only hope for survival. He was in a position to make that deal, to sell out humanity for its own good, and he didn't hesitate. All his speeches were spot on too. Not just this one, but also his speech about instinct in the opening level, and his speech against idolatry and magical thinking in Water Hazard. They all perfectly outline the radical changes in philosophy needed for humanity to grow beyond what nature has given us.
I find it sinister, the same way tech bro dipshits like Bezos and Musk talk about colonising the Lagrange Points and filling the solar system with O Neill cylinders to distract from the very real earth bound problems that they are causing right now
It's because Breen is actually completely right and the Combine are the logical end of all species. Unironically they are right.
Anti-Humanists like you make me sick. The indomitable human spirit the resistance represents trumps any pathetic alien “empire”.
The only reason an "indomitable" human "spirit" exists is because your ancestors required a measure of ingrained aggression to kill and eat everything to survive longer. Death, Evolution, Natural Selection. The endgoal of all these things is ultimately immortality, and after that, Superintelligence. Humanity needs to let go of it's constant self serving attitude to understand what fields must be progressed in to achieve this. The resistance are just afraid of the obvious, and in doing so, blow their chances to surpass one of the last barriers needed to eventually control the universe.
Combine propaganda is working
Yes. Because he has a point.
So assimilating into the combine and becoming another slave-race will help them control the universe?
Pretty much yeah. I mean, you get functional immortality and no longer need to eat to survive, join a multi-dimensional empire that has figured out psychophysical laws. It just seems like the obvious answer. Or alternatively, you can stay here, grow old, and die like the vast majority of people, on any planet, ever. Think I'll choose the cyborgs.
lmao who is this picture of?
Roger Guay, the reference model for Dr. Breen.
Ahh okay, explains why he looks like him but not quite.
Wonder what his family thinks
I think this is some of if not the best of Laidlaw’s dialogue for the games.
Mate, the combine forbids people to fuck
It’s a big reason he’s so compelling, he uses truths to point towards the unsustainable goal of allowing the combine to subsume humanity and erase its collective identity into itself. Ironically humanity’s successes are via collaboration with themselves and with the vortigaunts.
the idealogy of breen was like communism. they looked good on paper
This only makes sense if you ignore all human morals
im not immune to propaganda mfs when they witness doctor breen
It subtly hints at resistance to the Combine Union which was Breens original long-game with Eli to convince him to give the portal tech to the Combine, however it backfired with the GMans interference (releasing Gordon). I think the GMan was responsible for pulling Breen, much like Alyx from the resonance cascade also, and probably tried to play him as a pawn and I think breen turned him over to the combine.