headcanon thread - share ur headcanon

[slick]

headcanon thread, share your headcanon of this iteration, i'll start

i've been resisting transhumanization on king-8 for awhile, one of the big talking points of it being that its a "fledgling and replicated technology" of the real BENEFACTOR MADE SHIT
headcanon goes that there's a sparse amount of these benefactor made transhumanization facilities left in the asian sectors, among a few others.

ok excited to see what you guys post, first one was a bit of an underhand

 

[Tinbe]

Antlion in Vortigese is Orm. I think that's from some fanmade language guides that were linked in old Vortigaunt threads as supplementary advice. Inserver, I justified the fact other vort players might not understandably know the term right off the bat by saying that it was mainly used by vorts that used to work in Xen factories - which is the backstory for my former vort.

Combine bases in Southern Carpathians are occupied by a bunch of descendants of Vlad the Impaler that're currently reorganizing themselves after taking over the strongholds.

(Might post more later if additional headcanon comes to mind)

 

[bilack]

Lambda are the true antagonists of Nebulous

 

[Appetite Ruining Kebab]

sector administration & china world power number one

the sector administration model is a direct descendant of china's provincial administration structures. chinese scholars and politicians were recruited by combine early into the occupation to adapt their own country's authoritarian systems into the scale of world government. this has given them incredible cultural capital during the occupation and has essentially made them a world power surpassing the (now a xen wasteland) united states

if youre a bureaucrat and you want a career in the big chairs and make decisions for the entire sector, you gotta learn mandarin; just like how historians today learn french to have easier access to the resources that form the bedrock of their discipline, most modern combine state theory is written and furthered by chinese scholars


croatia - rebel city (ish)

if there is a combine government in croatia at all, it likely harbors the highest percentage of rebellious sentiment in any given workforce. this comes down to the fact that a majority of their men have seen actual combat in the 90s and have already built their own national identity around fighting for their own independence over, and over, and over. virtually all the older people have a military service record; and it is impossible to transhumanize or conscript all of them, especially when the country itself has done a poor job of keeping records of who has and hasn't served (meaning a lot of veterans will slip through the cracks and go on to become prominent resistance fighters)

the civil authority in zagreb probably acknowledges that everyone in the workforce would strangle them in a heartbeat, but somehow need to keep the cogs turning and resort to frequent amnesty programs and desperate habitat renewal projects as an effort to pander to them because killing them all would be wasteful.

essentially, it's an anti-city 24

 

['77 East]

most modern combine state theory is written and furthered by chinese scholars

any citizen who tries to learn about (what didn't happen in) tiananmen square is given an automatic amputation verdict

this is why @GenericPlayer's key method of resisting wasn't the bombings, it was shouting "FIFTEEN APRIL 1989" over loudspeakers.

 

[Tinbe]

anti-city

That's catchy as hell, needs to be used somewhere, like in an event.

 

[Appetite Ruining Kebab]

any citizen who tries to learn about (what didn't happen in) tiananmen square is given an automatic amputation verdict

this is why @GenericPlayer's key method of resisting wasn't the bombings, it was shouting "FIFTEEN APRIL 1989" over loudspeakers.

i think generic and i were talking about the origins of ELA a very long time ago and it involved a bunch of alienated chinese bureaucrats forming their own counter-faction to the neo-communist party simply because they were cut out of the initial deals with the advisors

so the head honchos of ELA (beijing et al.) wouldve been your average slugservants if they werent 'mistreated' by their fellow ruling class

but i might be misremembering it entirely, still a very cool thing to think about

 

[Alexander The Great]

The Combine has created the United Universal Union in order to convert every aquatic specie into a carp,
if you notice, no matter what you kill, it always comes out during butchery process as carp fillets.

they put carp in our wa''ah, in our fish.

 

[GenericPlayer]

i think generic and i were talking about the origins of ELA a very long time ago and it involved a bunch of alienated chinese bureaucrats forming their own counter-faction to the neo-communist party simply because they were cut out of the initial deals with the advisors

so the head honchos of ELA (beijing et al.) wouldve been your average slugservants if they werent 'mistreated' by their fellow ruling class

but i might be misremembering it entirely, still a very cool thing to think about

yeah pretty much. also beijing had major rifts with the indian naxalites as per dee's event and effectively purged them, so the only leadership left were the chinese nomenklatura, and most of them would have been content being slug lapdogs if they kept their piece of the pie.

the lower rungs were of course full of union workers, ideological fanatics, deserters, criminals, farmers, etc etc though

 

[STUCK IN A CAKE]

One thing I like to ponder about a lot is that: even if someone, who lives under the combine, gained some level of authority over others. They are still living under an Orwellian dystopia of their own. Their every move, action and thought are predetermined by an Artificial Intelligence or powers beyond themselves. And anything that deviates from that path would appear as an Error. An error they let happen. There are multiple voice lines to suggest that soldiers, officers and so on have to ask for permission for almost everything they do. Nothing is done by free will, but because a machine tells them otherwise. Which is then further reenfoced by the idea that sometimes, during certain 'situations', these external powers can grant local autonomy to Ground Leaders until the situation returns to normal.

 

[Trains]

 

[Trains]

the sahara desert is home to some form of large evolution of the antlion and other such creatures, and underneath it stretches an immense system of nests and tunnels that span virtually the entire continent of Africa and the Middle East. it’s near impossible to contain, aside from certain areas where the combine have control, or vortigaunts either have some form of way to handle it - or have taught humans how to do so

but in the long term, it’s pretty much lost to extra terrestria

(I have never watched dune)

 

[Rabid]

the sahara desert is home to some form of large evolution of the antlion and other such creatures, and underneath it stretches an immense system of nests and tunnels that span virtually the entire continent of Africa and the Middle East. it’s near impossible to contain, aside from certain areas where the combine have control, or vortigaunts either have some form of way to handle it - or have taught humans how to do so

but in the long term, it’s pretty much lost to extra terrestria

(I have never watched dune)

As Hoovie and I wrote the original Helix lore yeah, this is actually absolutely spot on lmao. We had a whole event line planned out involving it.

I can't speak for how things are now though ofc.

 

[Trains]

leeches only exist in the immediate coast. the open ocean is still completely fine, save for alien life

civil protection tried to market itself towards kids and sold action figures and stuff to try and seem cool

human scientists did far more to progress the combine’s adaptation of earth’s resources than the combine itself did, probably in exchange for a better life

 

[slick]

yeah pretty much. also beijing had major rifts with the indian naxalites as per dee's event and effectively purged them, so the only leadership left were the chinese nomenklatura, and most of them would have been content being slug lapdogs if they kept their piece of the pie.

the lower rungs were of course full of union workers, ideological fanatics, deserters, criminals, farmers, etc etc though

i had written most of that event actually with dee's help, he did a lot more work on the wendigo though
next bit of headcanon: i think corporations are still likely to exist in certain parts of the world that work in cooperation with the greater combine apparatus but are semi-autonomous political entities, such as Heckler and Koch. speaking of, my headcanon for the requirement to use the standard CP weapons (USP, MP5, MP7) is that H&K put pressure on the wider European sectors to only provide their guns

 

[Trains]

i had written most of that event actually with dee's help, he did a lot more work on the wendigo though
next bit of headcanon: i think corporations are still likely to exist in certain parts of the world that work in cooperation with the greater combine apparatus but are semi-autonomous political entities, such as Heckler and Koch. speaking of, my headcanon for the requirement to use the standard CP weapons (USP, MP5, MP7) is that H&K put pressure on the wider European sectors to only provide their guns

lol we had a HK executive show up in an event once

 

[Erkor]

synths are genetically modified clones of actual animals, not captured and biomechanically modified creatures

transhumanization is the early testing period of this process for humanity, wherein the Combine begin to explore the human body's benefits and limitations by experimenting with various characteristics (different forms of eyesight; different means of imbibing food; changing biological attributes) until they (read: the combine human element or the combine alien element) are satisfied enough to begin creating synthetic humans

 

[Ricsow]

Vienna remains as City 420
@Erkor you bastard

 

[constantdisplay]

most major animal species are not totally extinct, either being looked after in captivity for the entertainment of cab higher ups or contained in remote farms/islands. remaining species in the wild are beginning to adapt to presence of xenian wildlife

large lone predators and pack predators are actually thriving in areas which they were historically pushed out of, due to the combination of humans being pushed into combine cities and new xenian prey, controlling areas of territory which they contest with bullsquids/houndeye packs (eg grizzly bears and grey wolves)

most zombies are not as outwardly aggressive as in hl2, with most of their headcrabs prioritising their self preservation when possible, feeding on rotting viscera and scraps. fast zombies also take up more of a stalker/l4d2 hunter role (i try to do this on mine)

 

[Trains]

most major animal species are not totally extinct, either being looked after in captivity for the entertainment of cab higher ups or contained in remote farms/islands. remaining species in the wild are beginning to adapt to presence of xenian wildlife

large lone predators and pack predators are actually thriving in areas which they were historically pushed out of, due to the combination of humans being pushed into combine cities and new xenian prey, controlling areas of territory which they contest with bullsquids/houndeye packs (grizzly bears and grey wolves)

most zombies are not as outwardly aggressive as in hl2, with most of their headcrabs prioritising their self preservation when possible, feeding on rotting viscera and scraps. fast zombies also take up more of a stalker/l4d2 hunter role (i try to do this on mine)

i still believe fast and poison crabs are genetically modified by the combine because you basically never see them except in places the combine have been

ain’t gonna say hl1 because that’s unfair it was the 90s but e