How sciencist teleported to xen before resonance cascade?

[Dawido]

Since RC opened portal between earth and xen, how HEV sciencist get into xen before resonance cascade?
If they would opened a portal to get into xen , then xen would invade earth.
So, how Black mesa finded a way to get into xen? In xen level there are stuff who shows that sciencists used to life here, but got zombifed by headcrabs. It's impossible that already after RC they would go into xen and make they bases , safe areas etc.

[xerxesVII]

I'm playing through BM for the first time and just got my jump pack. When I was listening to one of the scientists talk about things on the other side, he mentioned that they had established an exploration camp and were poking around until things started coming back through. I doubt that all of this stuff was just built in the last day or two, so perhaps this has been going on for a bit and then the resonance cascade ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up.

Or maybe it just works because of hand waving technology. Either way, I've really been enjoying this. I haven't played the original in a long, long time and Black Mesa has blown me away by taking that experience and bringing it forward in a way that respects the original while updating things that wouldn't have stood the test of time.

[Dawido]

Originally posted by xerxesVII:

I'm playing through BM for the first time and just got my jump pack. When I was listening to one of the scientists talk about things on the other side, he mentioned that they had established an exploration camp and were poking around until things started coming back through. I doubt that all of this stuff was just built in the last day or two, so perhaps this has been going on for a bit and then the resonance cascade ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up.

Or maybe it just works because of hand waving technology. Either way, I've really been enjoying this. I haven't played the original in a long, long time and Black Mesa has blown me away by taking that experience and bringing it forward in a way that respects the original while updating things that wouldn't have stood the test of time.

Thanks mate.
I think that Black mesa is really great remake, but weapons combat is kinda frustrating sometimes.

[Shiro]

Resonance cascade is an escalating cascade of uncontrolled and massive teleports between two dimensions. Lambda teleport is a more controlled one - it could function before cascade too.

Basically, what I assume originally was is that Black Mesa used their teleport to randomly sent scouting robots until they were able to find a good location for a base and they were sending everything there afterwards. Which is why they teleported Gordon there too (and not say to Nihilanth's lair directly, they only managed to teleport supplies there thanks to signature of Gordon's HEV suit). Outside of fixed locations or beacon spots, they can only send entirely randomly.

Since they were competing with Aperture Science, I assume they initially were working on a Earth-to-Earth teleportation. But their version happened to send stuff to unknown place instead. When they found out its another dimension, they focused all efforts on studying Xen: robotics (robots as autonomous scouts, as unlike Aperture they were unwilling to hire hobos for 60$ to do that), bioliogics and "antimass spectrometer"- like stuff (study what's in Xen), HEV and weaponry (combat presence on Xen, as natives were not friendly)...

then resonance cascade happened, most of unprepared personel were headcrabbed or eaten, goverment decided it's big enough to cover it up but small enough to be able to do that just by sending some marines and having them kill everyone... then Nihilanth took the opportunity to send his troops to maybe get a safer hiding spot from Combine... then he died and Combine noticed all of that...

[Dawido]

Originally posted by Shiro:

Resonance cascade is an escalating cascade of uncontrolled and massive teleports between two dimensions. Lambda teleport is a more controlled one - it could function before cascade too.

Basically, what I assume originally was is that Black Mesa used their teleport to randomly sent scouting robots until they were able to find a good location for a base and they were sending everything there afterwards. Which is why they teleported Gordon there too (and not say to Nihilanth's lair directly, they only managed to teleport supplies there thanks to signature of Gordon's HEV suit). Outside of fixed locations or beacon spots, they can only send entirely randomly.

Since they were competing with Aperture Science, I assume they initially were working on a Earth-to-Earth teleportation. But their version happened to send stuff to unknown place instead. When they found out its another dimension, they focused all efforts on studying Xen: robotics (robots as autonomous scouts, as unlike Aperture they were unwilling to hire hobos for 60$ to do that), bioliogics and "antimass spectrometer"- like stuff (study what's in Xen), HEV and weaponry (combat presence on Xen, as natives were not friendly)...

then resonance cascade happened, most of unprepared personel were headcrabbed or eaten, goverment decided it's big enough to cover it up but small enough to be able to do that just by sending some marines and having them kill everyone... then Nihilanth took the opportunity to send his troops to maybe get a safer hiding spot from Combine... then he died and Combine noticed all of that...

Man , i wanna talk more about HL lore.
So, Ninhilant was basically a demi-god, but he also was a combine slave?

[Glam Stachee☆]

Originally posted by Dewidox01:

Originally posted by Shiro:

Resonance cascade is an escalating cascade of uncontrolled and massive teleports between two dimensions. Lambda teleport is a more controlled one - it could function before cascade too.

Basically, what I assume originally was is that Black Mesa used their teleport to randomly sent scouting robots until they were able to find a good location for a base and they were sending everything there afterwards. Which is why they teleported Gordon there too (and not say to Nihilanth's lair directly, they only managed to teleport supplies there thanks to signature of Gordon's HEV suit). Outside of fixed locations or beacon spots, they can only send entirely randomly.

Since they were competing with Aperture Science, I assume they initially were working on a Earth-to-Earth teleportation. But their version happened to send stuff to unknown place instead. When they found out its another dimension, they focused all efforts on studying Xen: robotics (robots as autonomous scouts, as unlike Aperture they were unwilling to hire hobos for 60$ to do that), bioliogics and "antimass spectrometer"- like stuff (study what's in Xen), HEV and weaponry (combat presence on Xen, as natives were not friendly)...

then resonance cascade happened, most of unprepared personel were headcrabbed or eaten, goverment decided it's big enough to cover it up but small enough to be able to do that just by sending some marines and having them kill everyone... then Nihilanth took the opportunity to send his troops to maybe get a safer hiding spot from Combine... then he died and Combine noticed all of that...

Man , i wanna talk more about HL lore.
So, Ninhilant was basically a demi-god, but he also was a combine slave?

Not exactly. He is apparently the last of his species, a very powerful species, but alas not as powerful as the combine. By all accounts they killed all of them but the Nihilanth, and he fled to Xen, where he enslaved the Vortigaunts and made the alien grunts we see now. He invaded earth as he was either stuck in Xen and wanted out, or the Combine were getting close to him and he saw a chance to hide somewhere else.

[Dawido]

Originally posted by Glam Stachee☆:

Originally posted by Dewidox01:

Man , i wanna talk more about HL lore.
So, Ninhilant was basically a demi-god, but he also was a combine slave?

Not exactly. He is apparently the last of his species, a very powerful species, but alas not as powerful as the combine. By all accounts they killed all of them but the Nihilanth, and he fled to Xen, where he enslaved the Vortigaunts and made the alien grunts we see now. He invaded earth as he was either stuck in Xen and wanted out, or the Combine were getting close to him and he saw a chance to hide somewhere else.

Combine is basically space third reich on extra steps.
I would want that in HL3 we would go to combine world in one of chapters. I would want to see how it looks , and what happening in there.
Also , i think that Combine world should have most of combine enemies from hl2 beta ( Like assasins , big robot boys , and these enemies that we see in citadel ).
Maybe not actually enemies like cremators , because he was supposted to be just street cleaner , not a soldier , but most of other enemies , maybe even female combine ASSasin

[Cat]

In Half-Life Decay, Dr Keller was aware of an alien quarantine lab that was set up before the incident and he also mentions that the dimensional rift being opened is what causing the aliens to teleport to Earth. So, the science team was collecting alien species without opening some kind of rift that the Nihilanth was aware of or at least use it to transport its own alien troops to Earth.

[Joli Coeur]

If I recall correctly both in Half life and Black mesa a scientist while talking to you suggests they already travelled to Xen before saying something like ''I'm afraid we are deviating a bit from the standard procedure'' in addition in Aprehension mission the scientist where the itchyosaur appears states it was captured a week ago or something which is way before the resonance cascade started. That's why you can see human outposts established in Xen.

Antoher user already stated that while competing with aperture science they managed to teleport to Xen which despite of not being proved it's a solid reason.

My take is Nihilanth isn't in fact trying to invade Earth to settle up in here since alien grunts which can be considered their military force didn't showed up until a long time has passed since the cascade started, but he was trying to recover the crystal stolen. Since that crystal which was recovered by gman it is said it was one of the purest if not the most from all the samples Black Mesa worked with my take is that crystal belonged to Nihilanth's chamber and might have some special properties like the others we see when fighting him.

[Firestorm🗿]

SPOILERS FOR BLUE SHIFT AND OPPOSING FORCE BELOW!

As somewhat already stated in this thread, it has been heavily implied and in some cases outright told through exposition throughout the Half Life series that Black Mesa had been poking around in Xen for quite a while before the Resonance Cascade happened. I played through Opposing Force and Blue Shift last week since I got them on the current Lunar Sale and just like in Half Life/Black Mesa, there are plenty of dead people in HEV suits, likley casualties from previous expositions who had to be left behind as their bodies would have been dead weight. On top of this, weapons, supplies and equipment of Human origin can be found scattered across Xen. and In Blue Shift there is a level where you travel to the site of a doomed research base whose personnel had been completely massacred by the aliens. It is entirely possible that the US government was fully aware of what Black Mesa was doing, since how else would black operatives have been deployed so quickly with a several hundred kiloton nuke in tow to vaporise the whole facility which we see in Opposing Force... It's as if the whole military response was a carefully planned contingency. Yet it was not enough to prevent the Combine discovering Earth.

TL:DR; Black Mesa were sticking their noses in things they should not have for a long time. They paid the price.

[Firestorm🗿]

Originally posted by Magistrado:

If I recall correctly both in Half life and Black mesa a scientist while talking to you suggests they already travelled to Xen before saying something like ''I'm afraid we are deviating a bit from the standard procedure'' in addition in Aprehension mission the scientist where the itchyosaur appears states it was captured a week ago or something which is way before the resonance cascade started. That's why you can see human outposts established in Xen.

Antoher user already stated that while competing with aperture science they managed to teleport to Xen which despite of not being proved it's a solid reason.

My take is Nihilanth isn't in fact trying to invade Earth to settle up in here since alien grunts which can be considered their military force didn't showed up until a long time has passed since the cascade started, but he was trying to recover the crystal stolen. Since that crystal which was recovered by gman it is said it was one of the purest if not the most from all the samples Black Mesa worked with my take is that crystal belonged to Nihilanth's chamber and might have some special properties like the others we see when fighting him.

Gman you son of a B1tch.

[Nuclear Kangaroo]

both HL1 and BM establish Black Mesa had been performing incursions into Xen, collecting materials and specimens, they dont need the resonance cascade for that and in fact, in HL2, Eli and Kleiner tell us they use Xen to allow for local teleportation, like a shortcut

think about xen and earth as two different rooms and teleportation in like a door between both

the resonance cascade is the equivalent of blowing a hole between both rooms, so all the xen lifeforms could easily enter

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by Nuclear Kangaroo:

both HL1 and BM establish Black Mesa had been performing incursions into Xen, collecting materials and specimens, they dont need the resonance cascade for that and in fact, in HL2, Eli and Kleiner tell us they use Xen to allow for local teleportation, like a shortcut

More like a slingshot as said by Mossman herself not Eli or Kleiner "We've figured out how to use Xeno as an unexpressed axis, effectively a dimensional slingshot so we can swing around the border world and come back to local space without having to pass through" that's likely hinting that Xen after the end of HL1 got even more dangerous for incursions to the point that going there was probably a death sentence.