HL2RP² Lore

[Numbers]

HΛLF LIFE​

The Black Mesa Incident and Combine Invasion themselves are only separated by a few months. In them, a series of events had occurred:

> The loss of major cities to anomalous phenomena and hazardous Xenofauna.

> The American Exodus, bringing a wave of immigrants to Eurasia following the weight of Xen terror at its heart.

> The Seven Hour War, societal capitulation and its restructuring via the introduction of the Civil Administration with Dr. Wallace Breen as its head.

The subsequent occupation employed logistically obsessive control over human elements. The regime remained relatively stable for twenty years, where:

> In its earlier days, it was thanked for recovering portions of the planet from excessive Xenian onslaught.

> The planetary “state of emergency” was exploited to lay totalitarian laws. These were never removed.

> Spires housing large unseen reactors teleported into the planet and spiked into its earth. These would later develop into citadels – beacons of logistical control.

Under the Combine, a clandestine intelligentsia network formed LAMBDA in an effort to dismantle the regime:

> It initially began with plans to smuggle citizens out of Eastern European cities via the “underground railroad” which produced an influx of refugees to house and train. Some sites, such as Ravenholm, were intercepted by the Combine and subsequently destroyed.

> Their offensive efforts did not begin on a larger scale until the arrival of Black Mesa scientist Gordon Freeman, whose appearance is shrouded in conjecture and theory, following his spontaneous strike on Nova Prospekt. The theoretical physicist was scarcely known only to LAMBDA affiliates before the uprising had begun.

> In around two weeks’ time since Freeman’s arrival, the citadel is destroyed, Dr. Wallace Breen is killed in its explosion, and many that worked alongside this enigmatic scientist have suffered similar fates, including the prominent Eli Vance, who died shortly after a rocket launch into the citadel portal.


Now to most, the campaign for Earth seems to be at a stalemate. Many cities, particularly in Europe, face unrest and insurrection. However, these have yet to meet the same level of conflict that ensued in City 17 – their citadels still stand even with their portal systems severed; they continue to house Combine tools of war. LAMBDA’s inner circle and its next-steps remain veiled to their distant allies, and Freeman’s spontaneity coupled with his quasi-mythological status leaves him just that, a myth rather than a practical resistance asset. Ending this limbo will not be through one fell-swoop operation, but a lengthy conflict in the hands of fragmented cells.