The Research notes of 'Soko' - "Xenian creatures, their mitigation and utility."

[Kafe]

When Resistance couriers enter the region, 'Soko' has a tendency to provide them with a copy of her own personal research notes and theories, in order to transport these across to other resistance doctors, scientists and other interests groups. Many of these couriers tend to forget to deliver them, or simply get killed. but for the few that enter distribution, they can make for an interesting case study, or humiliating dismissal, such is the way of scientific theory.


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Distributed research notes #43
Gonarch Habitat and potential mutation.

(image source: reddit.com/r/HalfLife/comments/ehkzl6/a_rough_gonarch_sketch/)​

My efforts to confirm the authenticity of leads regarding a Gonarch sighting in the region had finally been confirmed, and not a moment too soon as it would seem, as the beast has begun to establish it's habitat and lay down roots, although in this case it appears more involved than it should.

As we've had limited sightings of the creature in the wild, we've always assumed it's habitat was already present before the beast's arrival, but this is challenging the assumption, I'm at a loss on if this is the common pattern, or a unique case.

The presence of the Gonarch is having devastating effects onto the ruins of the local ecosystem as within a short time frame, the Gonarch has already heavily impacted or replaced the local flora and fauna. Floating brains and tentacle trees have become an increasingly common sight in this region, and their physical appearance has been nothing like I have ever seen in my explorations.

The Gonarch itself has physically appeared comparable to other reports of other instances of Gonarchs being found in the wild, despite being rare to find outside of combine captivity, their physical appearance bears no notable differences to the rest of it's breed in the reports I have.


What is taking me off guard however is the fauna and flora spawning around it, tentacle trees, which in previous explorations had been known with a more pink-flesh like hue, are notably pale with large splotches of bio-luminescent fluid at their base, I've never seen this mutation before, nor have any other reports at my disposal made mention of these types.

What concerns me over all however is their spread, the fluid resembles closely the blood of the Gonarch, which it has done so frequently as the beast has not established it's home without contest from other great alien beasts, the local resistance forces, or the combine presence. it appears after any major conflict where the Gonarch sustained injury, more of these tentacle trees and other flora rapidly begin to emerge.

My current theory in this case is the Gonarch's blood, perhaps a unique mutation or infected by spores, is enabling the rapid spread of flora, the creatures blood being an efficient means to spread these seeds into the landscape.

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Mitigation currently appears to not be a possibility, a violent effort to eliminate the beast may enable an out of control outbreak of alien flora to take hold, faster and beyond the means of the local populations to destroy it.

A potential solution could involve trapping the beast within it's own cave, allowing it to slow starve within it's own containment and prevent the spread of any more of it's flora, although this comes at a great resource cost to the local population, risks many lives and has a high chance to fail outright with the strength of such a creature.

One other consideration I've had is to force it's migration away from the local communities through destroying or obstructing it's original nest, although I do not wish to propose this, under the great possibility that, apon losing it's own cave, the beast will simply migrate into the cave belonging to the main refugee encampment, which would annihilate the local communities.

so far, the second option, as dangerous as it is, is to me the best possible option I can think of right now.

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utilisation however, could be a consideration, if the beast's blood contains spores as I believe, it could be possible to harvest the creature's blood from surfaces after one of it's fights, or directly through bleeding it, or a lucky syringe use.

I believe there could be potential in containing these in glass containers, making bio-grenades that, whilst looking immediately harmless, has the capacity to explode dangerous xenian flora into locations we wish, the potential of tossing a crate of blood samples into the combine outposts, to overwhelm their interior with tentacle trees, which strike at anything that moves to close, and potentially force them to either waste resources at no cost to us, or to force their exfiltration from the region, helping better secure the safety of local communities.

I will see if I can secure blood samples for testing and experimentation, there could be potential in it's utility, if we cannot remove this threat from the region. Should any others take interest, I will help fund your transport here, this is a interesting case.

- Soko

 

[Kafe]

Distributed research notes #48
Gonarch Habitat Zone Long Term observations.

Following my previous investigations into the zone of terrain that the Gonarch has established as it's own, the local landscape and environment has continued to drastically change, a large scale conflict between local communities and combine forces has severely diminished our ability to attempt containment of this situation, and at this point in time I personally consider the region to be unrecoverable.

I have noted over the past two weeks a heavy surge in the density of xenian life and it's variety, in this short time manta ray like alien lifeforms have migrated into the region, flying overhead, Bullsquids have been spotted more frequently in the area with some having been taken into captivity by the local community, and more disturbingly the prolonged presence of the Gonarch has led to a spike in Necrotic, alien lifeforms.

Headcrab zombies have been spotted more frequently alongside their bespoke varieties, in the case of Fast or poison variants, headcrab shell canisters have been found impacted and spent in the local area by the combine, likely accounting for the rarer offshoots.

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With the greater intensity of alien life in the region and the combine's interest in establishing more infrastructure here, I believe the combine has taken notice and intend to capture and utilise this gonarch for weaponization.

At this point in time my conclusions are two fold, the local landscape is beyond recovery or mitigation, and we appear to have a crisis on hand with the combine capturing another gonarch to weaponize.
As much as I regret to lose a major research opportunity with a rare creature such as this, we are in an emergency situation, and regardless of what may happen as a result of our intervention, the extermination of the gonarch is paramount at this time, under no circumstances can this creature continue to remain alive and active when we abandon the region.

I will be appealing out to Lambda contacts and couriers to get external assistance on board and acquire what resources we can to achieve this goal, be in trapping it in it's caves or killing it outright, it's essential this work is done.

Destroy the beast, deny the combine another weapon.​

- Soko

 

[Kafe]

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Distributed research notes #49
Conclusions and failure in Gonarch Habitat, Combine interference.

The timeline surrounding the wasteland dominated by the Gonarch's habitat progressed significantly faster than I had initially anticipated, I received reports from local refugee and resistance groups, alongside confirming at the habitat site that the Gonarch was forcefully migrated by resistance and combine conflicts in the area, including a reported confrontation at it's original cave.

At this time the Gonarch has left the region and it's whereabouts is unknown, I do however intend to keep active contacts with the remaining local groups for any future sightings, as there's still a great risk of the creature repeating these events in another location.

In my last explorations of the region, much of the alien flora and fauna had still remained, bullsquids especially were notably more common with some in captivity, although how the local groups managed to contain these creatures had alluded me, for now I theorise that the local groups simply satisfied the needs of the creatures sufficiently so that they did not need to expend the energy to escape captivity. I will inquire with these people when I regroup with them at their next location.

-

Whilst some of this life had still remained, it is noted that their population had begun a decline in recent days, although in this case I do not believe this to correlate with the Gonarch's Migration, but from Combine interference.
The Combine to me are typically not of any interest within my research, whilst they have mechanically altered a large number of alien lifeforms, and some are hard to distinguish between machine or creature (in this case, Hunters still confuse me), they were often not creatures that existed wild on earth at any point of time excluding headcrab parsites or 'conscript biotic' vortigaunts as known cases.

The Combine however deployed a large scale machine referred to as 'the spire', I do not know what the express purpose of this structure had been, although it's usage by the Combine in the final days of our presence in the region had triggered a large scale weather altering effect, violent thunderstorms, heavy rainfall and a green hue fog descended on the region. - I will need to monitor the refugee groups during their travels to check for any latent or potential long term illness from this event.

Much of my final days in the region involved medical assistance to resistance groups, combat surrounding this spire led to numerous fatalities and serious injuries on surviving members. the surviving remnants of these refugee and resistance groups evacuated the region with help from lambda escape vehicles.

-

This has become a grounding moment in my explorations, despite the Combine's diminished state following the battle of seventeen, they are still extremely well equipped and capable, and with much of the conflict moving from the cities to the outlands, I am expecting to be more exposed to the dangers of these conflicts than I may have done so in the past during solo travels across the wilds. I fear my solo ventures will be coming to a close at this time as the surrounding regions have gotten far too dangerous.

I will be looking to apply my research efforts to greater utility, whilst I had hoped to not put myself in this situation once again after previous ventures, at this point in time I believe the situation calls for it, Once I regroup with the refugee and resistance groups, I will see what is at my disposal and where best to begin.​

 

[Kafe]

Distributed research notes #50
New Environment - The potential of Xenian life in medical applications.

It has been an extended period since my last release of information, a large scale move of the local resistance group from the wastelands to their new settlement had been tiresome and somehow more violent than the wastelands, safe to say my responsibilities as a medic had taken precedent over a lot of my research work.

Regardless, staying with this community has proven fruitful, their migration has temporarily come to a stop in the outskirts of an old city district, whilst the combine dominate the streets of the former city, the local community has taken control of the countryside and local farmland, as long as the combine does not simply raze the landscape, this group should remain sustainable for the foreseeable future. And for myself specifically, the variations in Xenian life is unique compared to the Gonarch's domain, with previously non-present creatures in the wastelands being found here, Houndeyes being one of the more prominent types.

I have plans for them in future, but more immediately there is greater potential in other creatures.

One of the unique creatures seen is known as the 'Floating Amoeba' to the local residents, a large, floating and translucent Xenian creature, it's typically a non-hostile creature and one I presume to be a scavenger, consuming cuts of flesh and deceased creatures by wrapping around it and slowly enveloping it within it's membrane where it is then digested. They're relatively fragile creatures, so they pose little risk to living creatures, as many aggressions can burst them.

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During one my solo expeditions into the city, I had encountered one and had been performing some behavioural tests on them, alongside testing some claims by other scientist individuals in the local communities.
​

- Claims that Amoebas will consume flesh thrown into them is true, although they can also reject these items as well, it appears to be a more conscious process, somehow becoming smarter than the average barnacle, which would just try to eat anything.

- We should be careful intentionally feeding the creatures, in my test providing this food item triggered a 'split' event for the creature, in which is separated into three, smaller instances of itself. all of which continued normal behaviours.

-When burst by other creatures, larger instances of the Amoeba can reform, although these do become significantly smaller and need to regrow again over time.

The most important part of these tests though was an unintentional discovery, after an injured refugee emerged from the city, after I had applied my own medical practice to help mitigate their injuries, one of these floating Amoebas had moved towards the man, and the first time I've observed, made intentional physical contact with a living creature, specifically, onto the man's injuries.

Initially there was concern the creature may attempt to envelop the man, but the Amoeba, it turns out, had only had an interest in the exposed injury, dead flesh and blood from the injured man that had still been around some of his shrapnel wounds were dissolved, and effectively sterilized in a matter of minutes, all painlessly...
When the man's exposed injuries were clean, the Amoeba disengaged physical contact and returned to it's common behaviours.

-

Xenian life is a strange thing. So often we associate the creatures with harm and death, parasitic headcrabs, barnacles, and many other larger wild creatures have provided the largest reputation for harm, and caution is always still best practice with alien life, but we should still recognise that these creatures are simply wild animals, all have their own unique capabilities and evolved unique behaviours, many of them can be passive, and like former earth based creatures, can be harnessed for beneficial purposes.

The Amoeba appears to be one such example, one which we should explore as these may provide us the potential of gaining access to a potentially effective, harvestable and painless sterilizing agent that we could apply medically in place of traditional medical alcohol and disinfectants. If we can reliably contain Amoebas, and this sterilizing chemical they produce can be extracted and preserved, this could greatly free up our limited resources. as all we would need here is a steady supply of nutrients, which we can get in abundance thanks to the combine air dropping canisters full of headcrabs that the locals have proven effective at hunting and harvesting.​

 

[Kafe]

Specialised Research Note

Infestation Control Re-creation Stage 1
Defining Origin.

Thanks to the diligent efforts of the local resistance groups within the sieged city of Geneva, or city 24. We have acquired a large quantity of the Combine's mass produced Infestation Control materials, the focus here is onto the fluids used in eliminating xenian infestations.

For many people within Urban environments, the look of this substance is familiar, a yellow fluid that is mixed with some sort of expanding foam agent. these are contained in specialised barrels and sprayed through pressured nozzles into infestation zones.
The Fluid makes contact with the infestation matter, coating it in a layer before the expanding foam smothers it entirely.

The main agent in the fluid appears to be largely responsible for destroying infestation matter, whilst the expanding foam suppresses spore dispersal into the air, alongside suffocating any of the undesired organic matter.

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For the longest time we've been unaware of how this material is produced, and the source of the cleaning agent, now that I have access to this material, my hope is to investigate and reverse engineer a solution which would allow us to produce the material ourselves, freeing us from any combine dependency in this area.

equipment available to us will largely slow this progress down at this point in time, however in spite of our limitations, my own personal experience with handling Xenian biology means that we have been able to define the dimension of origin, the cleaning agent appears to be taking heavy use out of xenian materials, My initial assumption due to this is that the chemical utilised in this cleaning agent is likely sourced from a form of xenian flora or fauna to enable the mass production seen across the globe in combine dominated environments. the same origin point as the infestations in the first place.

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This is going to lead to a long path of explorations, most known Xenian lifeforms will need to be investigated, to see if any naturally produce the chemicals or matter used in the infestation control process, or if we can find any examples of their presence reducing infestation events.​

Fauna to investigate
Headcrabs
(unlikely due to liberal use in bombings, but best to make sure)

Bullsquids
(acid spit is a potential candidate, although holds far more collateral damage in comparison, alongside a storage nightmare)

Houndeyes
(No obvious reasons to suspect they have any part in this, but best we make sure)

Antlions
(Personally unknown, do their hives suffer from infestations? may need to investigate all variations, including guards...)

Aquatic fauna
(Unlikely due to infestations being in land environments, but best to confirm)

Vortigaunts
(Highly unlikely, if they were the solution, we'd have known by now, but will ask one of the resident vortigaunts)

Flora is a larger range that will need to be investigated, thankfully some of the locals are growing contained samples in special conditions, so I may be able to work out an arrangement to collect samples.
I have assumptions that flora generally is an unlikely candidate, as many breeds of xenian flora grow with greater strength in infestation environments.

This is likely to be a long process, but a success in this area would prove essential in protecting locations in our control in the future.
I will be seeking out the efforts of the resistance in our area to collect deceased or live xenian creatures for these tests, in the hopes we may find something matching.

I will continue to keep this investigation updated, ideally combine interference will remain limited.​

 

[Kafe]

Specialised Research Note

Infestation Control Re-creation Stage 2
Identified Source

​

Thanks to the efforts of resistance fighters and local refugees, I was able to establish a hunting list of xenian life to bring in for examination. I had many expectations for this process, and many initial assumptions had proven to be true in regards to what xenian life may or may not contribute to the infestation control solution.

It was fortunate for us that an antlion guard had elected to try and assert itself within our territories. while the main beast had survived and fled, it's smaller soldiers had perished in their attack. and it was within the remains of these creatures that we found the key that was missing in our work.

Within the antlion soldier, and likely the guard and workers, held a unique gland within the beast, which produced a unique fluid that carried great resemblance to the samples which we had stolen prior. a strong, yellow glowing fluid was extracted alongside numerous other samples, and through introducing these to infestation flora recovered intact by other rebel assistants, found that this fluid carried the properties present in infestation control. An effective, organic combatant against the spore growths.

This fluid does not appear to posses the expanding foam aspect of the infestation control samples, but I had believed prior that this was a industrial component introduced later to improve performance, I believe this to still be the case. But as there are other xenian creatures untested, I will continue capturing and dissecting these creatures to be certain.

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This realisation is a major one however, and in hindsight makes great sense.
The Antlions, which reproduce in massive numbers, are easily sustained and are capable of being controlled through bug baits, make them ideal candidates for mass harvesting the fluid which they produce, I wonder now if the combine simply farm and slaughter the antlions, or have a means of extracting this whilst keeping the beasts alive.

Regardless, for the time this gives us the perfect opportunity, Antlion hunting should become greatly encouraged, the more we can surface, eliminate and harvest, we can start producing our own solution in due time.

For now the use of this fluid directly appears to function in small, contained conditions, but lacking knowledge on what the combine adds, does reduce it's inherent strengths. But we should be able to make do, as long as there are antlions, we can better fight the spores and infestations present.

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With this discovery made, I permitted the resistance of Geneva to freely utilise the infestation control solutions which we had successfully recovered, as the ruins had seen notably heavy growth over the past few days, rendering some of the facilities and clinic inside unsafe to operate with.

During this work I have focused on making addition observations on the behaviour of infestation control solutions, and in many ways the solution used is not a direct means of killing the infestation growths, but primarily work to suffocate and block any organic processes within the flora, preventing further growth and eventually starving it entirely.

This is an effort that seems to require days for the impact of the control solution to properly work, leaving behind the saturated remains of the infested material, it's notable that the plants become brittle at this point in time, and can be removed from their growth surfaces significantly easier compared to a healthy sample. the remains of these should be contained and stored away safely, or potentially burnt, perhaps akin to these mutant 'cremators' that I've heard of in passing.

One of our residents here possesses such a flamethrower, but have been incapable of utilising it due to environmental limitations, specifically, a strong desire to not burn the majority of the buildings to the ground. I suppose now that concern is no longer necessary.
​