How did the Combine takeover

[ProfileName]

So at Black Mesa the Combine get in from the portal created, and then what? How did the Combine show themselves to the people of Earth at first? Since they didnt have any allies or Overwatch or CP. And did they begin combat immediately or try a peaceful option at first?

[ProfileName]

I just dont see why they dont just make everyone a Overwatch soldier. To me it would be more logical that way, make everyone loyal and then have little resistence, by little I mean the Combine could just send hundreds of soldiers to a small location to decimate them. Also why is the suppression field in the one Citadel?

[ProfileName]

Another question is how many people are left? Normal people/resistence not Combine Overwatch or CP.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Swagdaddy69:

I just dont see why they dont just make everyone a Overwatch soldier. To me it would be more logical that way, make everyone loyal and then have little resistence, by little I mean the Combine could just send hundreds of soldiers to a small location to decimate them. Also why is the suppression field in the one Citadel?

That is the eventual long term plan, but these things take time, lots of humans to assimilate. That was the main function of facilities like Nova Prospekt, notice at the start of HL2 people (including Gordon) were randomly chosen to go to NP, that's why. The Cities are in reality just giant prisons/holding pens for humanity until they could be assimilated.

The RSF is projected and powered by the citadel network, destroying the C17 Citadel knocked out the field.

Originally posted by Swagdaddy69:

Another question is how many people are left? Normal people/resistence not Combine Overwatch or CP.

Unkown, could be hundreds of millions, could be a billion, could be 2 billion. If I were to make an educated guess I'd say at max a billion.

[ProfileName]

Why do people call them Combine? I know thats not the actual name but is what everyone on Earth calls them.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Swagdaddy69:

Why do people call them Combine? I know thats not the actual name but is what everyone on Earth calls them.

I believe it's a reference to the Ken Kesey novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In the novel the main character Chief (a mental patient) beliefs the entire world is being controlled by an immense, inhumane mechnical entity that oppresses and prossesses people, he names this entity "the Combine".

[ProfileName]

interesting

[Sovereign]

The novel's main antagonist Nurse Ratched is considered by Chief to be the human public face of the Combine, sort of like Breen.

Of course in the novel the Combine doesn't literally "exist" and is simply an allegory for the uncaring nature of human society.

In HL the name "Combine" could also have other connections, for example:

The Combine as a whole is basically a vast machine, cold and emotionless, that harvests and consumes everything in it's path. So you could draw connections between it and real life combine harvesters. The name of the Combine's official theme in the HL2 soundtrack is literally called "Combine Harvester".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItCSCrOC-Ec

The Combine also create more of themselves by forcibly "combining" organics with their technology, so that's another possible connection.

[ProfileName]

How did they get so much tech? They have lving walls like at Nova Prospekt, that weird haze like substance on barricades, a suppression field, etc.

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Swagdaddy69:

How did they get so much tech? They have lving walls like at Nova Prospekt, that weird haze like substance on barricades, a suppression field, etc.

The Combine have existed for billions of years, consumed at least dozens of universes, assimilated countless species and have also adapted those species' technology with their own.
In RTB Ted Backman (one of the main HL artists who designed most of the Combine's look) actually describes them as having literally "inifinite technology".

[ProfileName]

How do they make Citadels? They are really big and my friend said it was built on Earth (C17 Citadel) could they make something like that on Earth, or off world? Surley building one would take a lot of time and a bunch of there "Infinite technology"

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Swagdaddy69:

How do they make Citadels? They are really big and my friend said it was built on Earth (C17 Citadel) could they make something like that on Earth, or off world? Surley building one would take a lot of time and a bunch of there "Infinite technology"

I'm afraid your friend is wrong, RTB specifically states they were teleported. A big chunk of the centre of each city suddenly vanished, creating a chasm that sliced through pipe's, tunnels and buildings, with people and cars falling in and seconds later there was a flash of light and the citadels were in their place. We can clearly see this at the beginning of the chapters Our Benefactors and Undue Alarm. Notice how that apart from the catwalks, cables and bridges coming off the Citadel it's not actually connected to the city, simply sitting in it's big pit, it's completely modular. They weren't build on the cities, they were "dropped". In his arrival speech Breen also says that the Citedal was "provided by our benefactors", "provided" not "built". The Citadels are not just bases but also invasion craft.

As for where they come from. They are presumably manufactured on other Combine worlds, probably in some kind of superfactories.

Here's some fanart of what that might look like:

https://t6.rbxcdn.com/a5ddc95b50a1c6f39bb80f931eac7515

[ProfileName]

Wonder how big that thing must be to build Citadels.

[ProfileName]

speaking of size how big are the citadels?

[Sovereign]

Originally posted by Swagdaddy69:

Wonder how big that thing must be to build Citadels.

Size is relative. Citadels are large to us, a young, primitive race stuck on a single small, backwater world, but not to an eons-old, superintelligent machine-collective that's so large it's literally beyond human comprehension.

Originally posted by Swagdaddy69:

speaking of size how big are the citadels?

Around 3.5 kilometers from street level, they also extend some ways underground.

[ProfileName]

Why do they go underground? Was that from the fall? Or do they dig down?