Anticlimax

[GustavGlaven]

If you decline gmans offer for employment, how can hl2 exist?

[Peter Brev]

Here is the explanation:

[GustavGlaven]

Originally posted by Peter Brev:

Here is the explanation:

Yes, well, I have never really considered this possibility.

[gru]

It's one of those things where you can argue HL1 is not canon to the series when you can also kill Eli in Half-Life 1 and you can still progress without failing. The actual answer in my opinion is that neither games are canon to each other, thus allowing it to exist.

[Sovereign]

The decline ending isn't canon obviously.

[Hugo]

I'd say that throughout HL1, only the "right" choices are part of the canon (such as not killing eli, accepting the gman's offer, etc) and any choices that would break the canon are simply gameplay elements, but not part of the canon story.

[odds]

There is no such thing as canon in Half-Life. Although the ending where Gordon accepts G-man's offer is quite important for Half-Life 2 :)

[Aperama Entertainment]

"Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice..." - G-Man, so perhaps he hires you either way.

[Dr_Coomer]

Multiverse is the answer.

[borkus dorkus]

At the end of Half-Life 2, GMan says "Rather than offer you the illusion of free choice, I will take the liberty of choosing for you...", so I'd assume that it's retconned, and either way you end up hired.

[(N☆G) Jackal ★JJ★]

Originally posted by Grumpy:

It's one of those things where you can argue HL1 is not canon to the series when you can also kill Eli in Half-Life 1 and you can still progress without failing. The actual answer in my opinion is that neither games are canon to each other, thus allowing it to exist.

This... seems a bit silly to me?

I mean the canon is HL1 happens.... Gordon didn't randomly snap and kill Eli because no reasonable person would do that, I mean your first run did you grab the crowbar and go back to kill him? Of course not, I highly doubt more than 0.5% of all players who touched HL did that on their very first playthrough... and he didn't go all the way to finish line to just... choose death... that doesn't make sense. So you have the REAL story already told and you the player can experience things other than the real story.

You would still need HL1 to be canon for HL2 to even make sense.... the events that followed explain everything. The vortigaunts, the headcrabs, the whole reason Combine even came to Earth...

Maybe, I'm not understanding what you are saying....

[gru]

Originally posted by (N☆G) Jackal ★JJ★:

Originally posted by Grumpy:

It's one of those things where you can argue HL1 is not canon to the series when you can also kill Eli in Half-Life 1 and you can still progress without failing. The actual answer in my opinion is that neither games are canon to each other, thus allowing it to exist.

This... seems a bit silly to me?

I mean the canon is HL1 happens.... Gordon didn't randomly snap and kill Eli because no reasonable person would do that, I mean your first run did you grab the crowbar and go back to kill him? Of course not, I highly doubt more than 0.5% of all players who touched HL did that on their very first playthrough... and he didn't go all the way to finish line to just... choose death... that doesn't make sense. So you have the REAL story already told and you the player can experience things other than the real story.

You would still need HL1 to be canon for HL2 to even make sense.... the events that followed explain everything. The vortigaunts, the headcrabs, the whole reason Combine even came to Earth...

Maybe, I'm not understanding what you are saying....

Marc Laidlaw (the writer for Half-Life series) himself said there is no official Half-Life canon. Sure, any normal player would not actually kill Eli there, but the fact that you can kill him and still progress without failing implies that he isn't really needed for Half-Life's story to continue, hence why those two games doesn't have to be 'canon' to each other.

This also means you can consider whatever you want in a Half-Life universe canon. Personally, I find Black Mesa to be 'canon' even though it isn't the actual canon. I hope that makes more sense.

[Ω Yukich]

After the initial release of Black Mesa when it was free I started to pretend that Black Mesa is the canon now
Whilst HL1 is just a very vast memory of Gordon's tired mind
So there's that

Now let me dig out a huge brain theory about Multiverse
You see in the end of HalfLife:Alyx G-Man said that his previous "worker" couldn't do or refused to do his mission
So it means that Episode 3 already happened and Gordon either died there or ditched out or Alyx kicked him out or etc, etc, etc
Anyways, fact - Gordon Failed Already and thats Why GMan hired Alyx Now to rewrite history - there's the explanation of Multiverse

So basically - any story in Half-Life 1 or Black Mesa - IS CANON because its just how GMan wants it to be
The plot was already set since he gave up the Power Stone to Eli
The only way do make it non-canon - destroy that Power Stone to prevent Resonance Cascade

[gru]

Deleted your post because it has HLA spoilers. Please keep it spoiler free.

[Ω Yukich]

Jeez, the game is already half a year old and its still a spoiler?
Look at Bolloxed in Youtube - thousands of views
Look at all the Gman Memes - EVERYONE SAW THIS ENDING
Hello, do you know Han Solo actually was murdered BY HIS SON?
How dense a moderator can be nowadays?
___________________________________________

Anyways, because GMan Is An Entity That Exists Beyond Time And Space - It Means Because Of That He Hired Gordon Freeman At Least Once And That Means Its Already Canon So The Only Way To Rewrite This - Is To Prevent Gman From Obtaining The Power Stone

[Terepin]

It is the same thing as in Metro: two possible endings, but only one is canon. Simple as that.