The Combine's Secret Prison | The Vault | Full Half-Life Lore 

Have to say: G-Man definitely LET himself get captured.

12:42 The Alyx Devs confirmed in commentary mode that the waves of energy is the G-man actively trying to escape

I thought the vortigaunt energy is what kept him in place, cause they were able to do the same in HL2 Episode 1

"Gordon... Freeman?" "Oh, Miss Vance. You wouldn't need all of that to imprison Gordon Freeman" Chills. I hope we're getting more Half-Life soon.

According to the information deciphered by Eli, the Vault was constructed around the building GMan was found in and, if not stated specifically, implied that it wasn't moved from that spot. If that's true, the Combine didn't choose the location for the Vault. It just worked out that it was in the QZ.

The narrator: "The combine assigned their strongest and most capable transformed humans to guard..." The scene: *front combine stands up and combine behind him immediately starts shooting right through their head, then stops as the front combine squats again*

Before HL:A fans commented on Combine being incompetent and here they are, captured the man who can retcon the game.

Breen: "I must mirror the sentiment of our benefactors and so I let the question fall to you: How have you failed? The man you have failed to capture let alone kill is by all means just that! An ordinary man..." Combine soldier: "Okay, asshole, maybe WE need to remind YOU that this 'Ordinary Man' you have us after single-handedly put an end to the Resonance Cascade."

I’m not really sure that he’d be able to escape whenever he wants. In developer commentary they confirmed that the waves of energy was the Gman trying to escape, and we know that while Gman is powerful, so are the vortigaunts, since they were able to hold back the Gman in episode 1. Why would they be able to hold back the Gman in episode 1 and suddenly not be able to in alyx? Just some thoughts.

11:35 ''Combine has assigned their strongest and most capable transformed humans'' Combine proceeds to teamkill his mate from behind

There’s a popular theory that he let himself be captured to recruit past alyx due to Gordon being protected by the vorts

I love how the more we learn about the combines abilities, the more monolithic they seem. They are a perfect example of cosmic horror, something so alien, we don't even have the language necessary to explain how unfathomable they are.

The G man's employers being Valve, makes him the greatest 4th wall breaking character of all time. He is a God . So the combine captured God.

In this day and age, it's dang near impossible to create images and moments in games that actually stick with you. They did it with Half Life... Half Life 2... Episode 2... and now they did it again years later w/ Alyx. Incredible.

Liked how they made his brief case a part of his act. Also love him as a more involved character and agent as the series progresses. Enjoyed this

I really want to know why the cell is in the shape of a bacteriophage. This is obviously an intentional design on the part of valve

damn the Gman is capable of time travel and splitting images and clones of himself now and visiting different timelines and universes

I didn't even know how to approach putting this in a presentative form for this mystery in my mind. Dr. Breen knew about the Gman but I wonder if that was entirely private from his combine masters. Fascinating that they formulated something to even capture the gman or predicted where he would be. I assume the prison hovered over where the gman was at one point and used the tractor beam to trap him in a building.

The G-Man is the only life-threatening opponent that the combine face. Freeman was merely his weapon. And now Freeman is truly free. Alyx has taken his place within the employ of the G-Man.

Imagine how much of a badass plot twist it would've been if Shephard was in the Vault.

if you ever listened to dr Issac Kleiner's speech he says "we have made, in secret, several technological advances which we will do our best to deploy in advance of the Combine's return." i tried googling and searching some hits on what he might be talking about but i never found anything.

The most underrated Chanel I’ve ever seen, you deserve more

I just want the very last Half Life game to end with The Gman saying, "You've won" (Whatever that may be) and The Gman explains he needed you to get things done and never revealing if he is a good guy or a bad guy and ends off with, "Now you can go home" And the next scene is you waking up in the tram to Black Mesa where it says, "Good morning and welcome to Black Mesa, the time is 8 47 AM"

Also vortesence is in lore the connection of all vortiguants to eachother. That allows their power and conscencness to connect beyond space and time. This collected consence is as powerful as the gman. The stronger the connection to the vortesence the more powerful. That is why only a few vortiguants could use the antloin larvae to gain this desired connection. They use the energy the other vortiguants where trying to use to keep gman secured to heal Alex freeing gman and that is why he chose that time to talk to gordon freeman

I believe that if the Vault had been still getting power from the vort-fueled substations, messing up the docking controls would most likely not have caused the Vault to fall. It was only because the backup forcefield holding up the vault was being generated from the same location and a critical systems failure killed that forcefield.

This was a great video. There's a lot of valid points here. I agree on the G-Man interview part that you mentioned. I theorize that G-Man could have escaped at ANY time. He simply wanted to test Alex. We all know Adrian Shepard, Gordon Freeman, And Alex are just pawns that stuck out to G-Man. He obviously didn't take interest in in Barney, despite spotting him once(maybe just a cameo). On other note Alex and the aforementioned two, probably stuck out to him. They were definitely seemed hyper intelligent. They were excelled in killing powerful alien entities and their minions they could fight other humans as well, and use alien weaponry and regular weaponry. Probably from the G-Man's view. They were unusual pawns in what ever he was doing and his "Employers". For me it's kind of hard to tell who's side the G-Man is on, or his intentions. We just know he's at odds with the combine.

I believe gman was fully capable of leaving the the vault. Perhaps it might be difficult given the raw power driven into it, but even then we've seen first hand his power. I believe he wanted to see who was capable of breaking their way in, after all he states that his employers are searching for a suitable replacement for Gordon

Also its worth a note that the Vortessence gives Vortigaunts the ability to dive into their hive mind that experiences past, present and future at the same time.

The GMan most likely doesn’t see time in such a linear way as we do, so let himself get captured to create a “trial” for Alyx. Gordon was useful up to a point, but the Vortigaunts, who have the same nonlinear consciousness, interfered. The Combine don’t have any sort of precognition, but can harness energies in various ways, hence why they could construct the Vault, but not do anything further to the GMan beyond hastily capturing him.

With how vortigaunts were able to stop GMan from doing anything during the events of Episode 1, it's not that hard to imagine that the Combine could capture him.

I like to imagine the Combine hasn't bothered putting their absolute best in to any punch towards humanity cause they simply don't see it a big enough threat to do so (and even then they've probably harvested most of the resources from earth) I figure creatures far beyond the bizarreness of hunters and advisors operate within deeper combine territory

I have developed a theory that I have imagined after spotting a comparison image on Reddit of a user of which I can't remember the name, unfortunately. It was a comparison between the virus-shaped prison and the Nihilanth which gave me some ideas on how the G-man entity could be imprisoned. The shape of the Nihilanth may differ from the icosahedron but somehow it's similar even in how it could work. I'm gonna list some similarities that could be forced but I find them good enough as evidence: - The vault it's a floating ship and so was the last island in HL. - The energy crystal spikes in the Nihilant's liar can be represented by the captured Vortigaunts that fill the vault with energy to keep the Vault working and once destroyed they will leave the place weak. - The time and dimensional shifts in the vault can be somehow compared to the ability of Nihilanth to create teleports to other places. - Inside Nihilanth's head there's not really a brain but a cristal shaped object which is led me to believe that it could be something else. So my theory is that the Nihilanth's races were the only beings capable of holding the G-man entity inside their own head and when we met the G-man in Half-life we were actually led to free him from Nihilanth like Alyx did in the last game. Of course, we need to explain why and how G-man would appear multiple times around the game, and that is simply answered by the fact that he can time travel. The reason why the Combine built a vault is that the Nihilanth race is extinct so the alternative was to build an artificial one somehow. Everything ends of course with a person being hired for the "job". I hope I was clear enough and maybe right in what I just described. If there are any mistakes lore-wise i'll take any insult gladly :D

My current idea is that as we all know G-man is omnipotent. He can see the past present and future of multiple if not all dimensions, times, and realities. He, and whomever his “employers” are seem to have some sort of grand plan for the plot of reality or at least the one of Half Life, and make great strides to keep the story on that track. However, their plans are potentially ruinable by certain happenings. My theory is that Eli Vance being killed by the Advisor in HLE2 for some reason wasn’t supposed to happen in G-man’s plan, and as a result he jumped to another timeline, and let himself be captured in the vault all in the effort to eventually save Eli, and employ Alyx as a little bonus. Idk it’s weird but I’m sure we’ll eventually find out the true answer

What will really bust your brain is that Alyx disappeared from the original timeline once the alternative timeline Alyx rescued Eli from the Advisor. Yet, everything up until then was still the same and clearly Eli and probably Gordon are still aware she was just there. So what happened the the original timeline Alyx? Is the person that helped Gordon rescue Eli from Nova Prospekt and take down the Citadel no longer exist? Here's my take. I think when Gordon joined with the vorts to heal Alyx from the hunter attack, he was connected to her in such a way that, with the help of the vorts again, he can bring back her original timeline memories again once she's been freed of the GMan's grasp.

Regarding if it was teleported to City 17 or built there, I'm convinced they captured the GMan first and then constructed the vault around his prison, as you can see all the appartments inside and even people trapped in there frozen in time

There’s a thought I had when looking at these half life videos. What if the “aliens” in half life are just alternate versions of humans that evolved differently. Like look at that one advisor model made by that one ex valve employee, it looks too human to me for me to think it’s an alien… Like what if the prime world of the combine was an earth where Black Mesa was successful in their Xen experiments in a certain way that they wouldn’t have been able to develop local teleportation.

I belive the vault exists in the timeline where Gorden Freeman "Chose a battle he cannot win" at the end of half life 1, the gman looks for a new employee and is somehow captured by the combine.

Love the comprehensive work you put into these mini lore documentaries. Surprisingly informative.

I love that I know it's possible to recreate those crazy visuals in the vault using vanilla tools in GMod 😁

This is super interesting. I've never heard of it before. I like your way of talking about this stuff, so I subbed and gave you a like. I hope you keep up this good content.

I believe the Vortigaunt energy was his main goal. Even if he got captured, he has Alyx which had the Russels charged in the vortigaunt energy. So now, he can’t be delayed by them again.

Such an informative and well put together video, just subbed for more in the future.

I think that gman got annoyed with Gordon in episode 1 as the vorts helped him escape, so he went back in time and let himself get captured to see who would rescue him. either that or he knew alyx would be able to

The funny thing is that we don't even know for sure if G-man was truly contained. It's obvious that he allowed himself to be captured to test Alyx so it's entirely possible that he could have escaped from the vault any time he wanted. After all it would be very risky to allow the Combine to capture him if he wasn't confident he could escape on his own, because if Alyx hadn't succeeded, what would he do then? It's funny to think that the Combine may have worked so hard to build the vault, using the most advanced reality bending technology available to them thinking it successfully contained G-man when in reality he could easily just walk out of there and he only stuck around because it served his own agenda.

I've been using your long form videos to trick my mind into enjoying exercise. Keep it up

I have to say, I think it's HIGHLY likely the events of Alyx DID happen along with episodes 1 and 2 in the same timeline. The pistol Alyx uses in Half Life Alyx, when fully upgraded resembles the same pistol she uses in the Episodes. Her Hacking device also looks almost identical to "The Alyx" or the Multi-Tool.

Please keep making such amazing videos we love em

Maybe G-Man hired the version of Alyx from the end of Episode 2, not the one from the end of the HL:A. This would explain why in the after-credits scene Eli says to Gordon "she's gone". All of HL2 and chapters 1 and 2 would still be canon up until the last scene, where instead of the combine advisor killing Eli, Alyx kills it and then disappears, leaving Eli and Gordon to go try to find her.

This part blew my fucking mind. I felt a mental "pop" when I experienced the inside of the Vault.

If HL3 ever comes out and you get the choice to play as Gordon or Alyx *EVERYONE* and I mean *EVERYONE* is choosing Gordon, it's unquestionable.

You might've accidentally called The Exterior chapter as The Interior in timestamps

Skyrionn is the only YT channel that i watch about half life lores.

I thought that the vortessence energy was being used only to hold in the gman, as we see that they have that capability in episode 1.

Listening to Half-life lore has always been fascinating. :) Every detail of this HL universe has a deep, immersive tale.

I think the next game will be Half-Portal; a combined game that encompasses both Half-Life and Portal into one compound story where you must work in a team of three consisting of Alyx, Gordon, and Chell. The Combine find Aperture and begin to bastardize portal technology by combining it with their own transdimensional portals. GLaDOS, in a fit of rage, tasks the three with retrieving the portal core before the Combine can activate it. If they activate the portal, they can transport troops anywhere in the world.

can just imagine the Combine and Breen cooking up a devilish, dastardly scheme to trick the G-Man, knock him out and trap him in the vault, lol

The vault always reminded me of the odd giant spheres in Portal 2. In chapter 6: The Fall. In the old aperture science area. There are these massive structures that look like vaults sorta. Be kinda wild if they were connected in some sorta way.

"Sounds like an extremely impossible task to aqquire an entire building" well once you saw the Stargate SG-1 guys find the craziest bomb ever... "The bomb isn't in the building... It is the building." then the Combine running off with it to capture G-Man is entirely plausible.

Things like the apartment block lost in the Vault are the reasons why I love half life lore and things that build upon its dark story and world building

You're actually completely wrong about why they imprisoned Gman. He was imprisoned for running around the city and screaming at combine troops while holding a can of >B.

Liking the sections throughout the video

now that eli is alive he will start experimenting on vortigaunt energy and discover that it can be used trap the g-man, im pretty sure that he will be building something to trap him again to save alyx in the next hl game

freeing g man was the best move just on the grounds that the combine see him as an enemy and went to way more effort to catch him than any resistance member including gordon

The most curious thing is that alyx asked the Gman if he can put the combine out of earth, he did't say is impossible but just that drive too much far from the interest of his employers. So how the combine manage to capture such a powerful being?

11:34 “the combine assigned their strongest and most capable” * guard in front immediately stands up, directly lining its head with the line of fire *

Please what is that background music you use? Every time I open a video of yours, I always get so excited!

An alternative feature of the inside of the vault, could be tgat it is designed to isolate prisoners in their own pocket of sorts, as a means to prevent them from teaming up to plan an escape.

lore is a tool to keep a series alive, right now half life universe have so much potential, so much unknowns, that means more mind blowing half life games will come if we keep staying alive

I would free him just because hes clearly a problem for the combine and letting him loose might weaken the combine enough that they can be removed and the earth reclaimed even if he himself is no ally he can still be a problem for my enemies and that suits me just fine

Just imagine G-man's employers is Gary Newman and his fellow gmoders

I just imagine the super Mario rpg intro where the gman is going through some folders, when a combine gunship swoops in and steals him away

Since we dont see any "alien" combine in the half-life it is entirely possible that "other worlds" they were conquering are just different variations of earth, so they`ve been capturing earth over and over and over again, it is also entirely possible that gman is a human employed by black-mesa in the earth that was NOT captured by combine and DID successfully evolve an ultimate teleportation device.

So we gonna forgot that guy called sergeant shepherd? Gman trap him on the void for its use

If the Combine used their BEST tech to capture the Gman, I can’t wait to see his employers

you know I kinda expected the auto generated subtitles to get alyx right at the start of the video, but apparently this time it's decided it wants to actually get the real words correct this time

In the beginning, you mentioned that the Combine kept humanity around for their teleportation technology, and that's correct, but it's not because the Combine couldn't teleport within the same universe. Humanity was able to invent a nearly instantaneous method of teleportation, whereas the Combine's method took far longer (a whole week to teleport a few miles away, for example).

17:17 i mean he is helping the humans fight off the combine right? and also stoppet eli from dying.

I like to think that it’s in the same timeline. If it’s in another one, I think that completely takes away from the cliffhanger ending. I think the story is a lot more fun and interesting if it’s the same universe.

I think i would have freed him only if i had more knowledge about how time manipulation works. Cuz if he had stayed in the vault freeman would have more likely died after defeating the Nihilanth with no way going back to Earth. But if thats another pathway of this time line like it provably happened as we see at the end of half life alyx. Gordon is oretty much alive and exactly where we have left him. There is a couple possible outcomes but i think we should discuss that another *time*

this game was so good. i was never interested in getting 100% achievement in a game before, but i did for this one. maybe the best compliment i can give it is that it belongs as a half life game. amazing.

Crazy how little we know about Xen and the energy Vorts harness from

Been waiting for this vid

excellent video!

You know, the vault really makes me wonder what the combines space ships look like, giant monolithic shardlike ships pulsing with energy. Crewed with half biological, half cyborg homonculi, psychic aliens and maybe even superintelligent AI.

Theory: Half-Life Alyx does take place during or after Episode 1 when Gordon with the help of Vortigaunts escape G-man's controll which disappointed and decided to focus more on Alyx by creating Half-Life Alyx timeline to test her combat and skills without Gordon Freeman if you deep a little deeper into the lore. Just a thought of mine which could make sense.

Bro what you do is amazing. The scale, the quality omg beyond amazing

The second the Gman allowed himself to be captured He knew that he was triumphant

I mean, it was made clear in games that Combine forces that are on planet during HL2 are small security force. Their actual fighting force took down entire earth in 7 hours, with all their nukes etc, genocided many kuch more powerful alien races and enslaved many more. Sauing that combine is weak, based on hl2, is like beating mall cop and saying "US Army is weak!". That, and the fact, that gordon is huge reason for their defeat. Guy that was killing spec ops, marines and aliens even before he was formaly employee of powerful entity of alien origin. With that, I don't buy into "g-man let himself be captured". I wouldn't underestimate Combine like that. They are powerful, they control many worlds. If g-mans was so op he could easly destroy comhine, he and his employers wouldn't need to use humans in their plans. I think combine is completly capable of capturing g-man, if they put effort in that. And they did so.

Too much fascination with the vault itself. It is far more amusing as a plot device than on its own.

I would definitely save the gman if I knew beforehand... he seems like a very fantastic person to have owe you a favor.

I believe that gman let himself get captured so that vance would come save him, earning her a nudge. He chose for her (as he always does) and used her nudge as his own, "nudging" Eli's death out of canon, or atleast out of one timeline. This just makes me think, from gordons pov, did he experience ALL of episode 1 & 2 with alyx, and she just dissapeared at the end of ep2? From alyxs pov, she hadnt even THOUGHT of anything that happened in episode 2 yet, so shes just time travelling past that point via stasis? What does she know?

Security force officer: *Tosses Gman into vault in front of Alyx* "Pick up that man."

Was Gman consciously aware that he was captured? It could be that like the phantoms Gman was stuck in time in the moment he was staring out that window. So when he senses that something's off he turns around with a notable facial movement that, to me feels like he's reacting with confusion. He turns like "Wait- what? Ooohh I see, you'll be of more use than I first thought miss Vance"

Two years late I know but I had a thought- people say this time travel to change events changes everything. I don’t think so, I think this does not wipe the slate clean or anything like that. The only thing missing is Alyx and my assumption is Gordon either goes alone to the Borealis or Eli joins him or dog is sent with him. But I think this does not change anything but removes Alyx from the storyline for the time being, we may even get to see Adrian Shepard come into play soon with this. Or maybe shepherd is the unwilling individual mentioned by Gman, and the unable individual is Gordon. Whatever the case is I don’t think this changes as much as people have been saying.

Here's my two cents: I think the craziness within the Vault is the manifestation of the tug-of-war between the G-Man and the Vortessence powered machines. The G-Man's powers seem to be centered around manipulating space and time. To the point where I don't think he teleports in the traditional sense. I think it's one of the cooler cousins of teleportation. You know, like he's not moving himself, but folding space and time to bring where he is and where he's going to the same point. Nor do I think we've seen anywhere close to the full extent of his powers. The Vortigons, likewise, have powers that manipulate space and time. And they can come together to resist even the G-Man. Where Vortessence is concerned, I think the Combine are still rookies. They've gotten their toes wet in that sweet, green electric ocean, but they don't really understand it like the Vortigon do. So, even though they had the POWER to hold the G-Man, they didn't have the finesse. As a result, the whole building they scooped up was getting pushed and pulled, tugged backwards and forwards through time and space, often folding to overlap on itself, even turning at odd, impossible angles so that it was partway between dimensions. I also think it's telling that, when he's freed and turns around to face Alex, all the items floating around him just drop, like the tug-of-war is over and gravity is the predominant force in the room, again.

You forgot to mention that Alyx's first attempt to take down the vault failed and the Emergency Backup activated to prevent the vault from falling.

if gman really was caught by surprise then gordon wouldn't have been able to help him escape.

Just something quick that I didn't noticed anyone commenting. When you reach the final bridge before releasing G-Man, there is an advisor dead on the floor. :)

You (may have) forgot to mention that Gman was the cause of the cascade event in Half Life 1.

But a question worth of being asked, if the events of half life alyx was conducted 5 years before the citadel explosion and Gordon's appearance and G-man used her to change the timeline, how does she exist in the regular one that we all played HL2 E2 although gordon wasn't there 5 years ago?!... the whole things is confusing and i really love the confusion that valve is making to us and OK with waiting for 13 years more to get another extension for HL universe 🤩