Click the post title to be taken to the WPR #9 news post over at Mod.DB
First let me throw out a disclaimer, the time-line may or may not be accurate. I was unable to find when Half-life 2 happened on wiki or through google, so please keep that in mind for the time line.
This is also not a finished document. I will likely be updating it fro time to time with new information. I have omitted a few things due to them being plot devices in the story, I will add these back in when we release the mod.
Without further ado, the back story:
Time Line:
2012- Seven Hour War breaks out
2015- Gordan Freeman appears once again
2015- Combine Citadel destroyed after its core melted down during a teleport malfunction caused by Freeman when he attempted to stop Breen from escaping.
2015- Freeman disappears
2015- Resistance reorganizes and fights back against the remaining Combine forces on Earth, rejuvenated by the destruction of the Citadel
2016- Resistance drive off all major Combine forces from the planet, there is a temporary peace
2018- Combine complete their teleportation technology and reinvade Earth, leads to the Three-Hour War. The Combine decimates the defense of the Resistance with new and improved weaponry, armor, and vehicles. This time there is no surrender, many Resistance bases are crushed, and those that were not were abandoned and relocated to safer havens.
2018- The Combine regains their foothold within only two days of the Three-Hour war. Using their new portal technology they are able to transport troops directly to their destinations, this quickly foils the Resistance's attempts to reorganize and further weakens their position.
2019- Dr. Kliner invents teleportation blocking technology capable of blocking the Combine's teleportation. Prototype device first used at Black Mesa 2; test was successful, the few remaining Resistance Bases are soon outfitted with such devices. Combine unable to stamp out the Resistance because of this.
2019- Combine begin tampering with Human Genetics, through which they are able to create several devices aiming to bring the remaining Human population under their control and or surveillance. This is a huge crush to the Resistance as the Combine discover their base locations.
2020- Alyx attempts her first hacking attempt into the Combine para-communications satellite. First attempt failed but went unnoticed. She tried again a week later and is able to access the system as a System Administrator. With this she creates a feedback loop to mask the new frequency she opens within the satellite. This loop will feed bogus information to the Combine while coving the new network being used by the Resistance.
2020- Combine reopens Nova Prospect Zero, their test facility for Nova Prospect. It was closed when NP was completed, but after its destruction in 2015 the Combine are forced to use this test facility. Cellblock capacity was three thousand prisoners at last report. That was two months ago when a reconnaissance party was scouting the area. They were discovered by Shield Scanners and killed later on by Hunters.
2020- Combine begin the aggressively attack cities in which Resistance Bases are supposed to be located. Base after base falls. Suspect that only three Major bases remain; Base 83 in City 25, Black Mesa 2, and Base 5 in City 18, all other major Resistance bases have gone black on the communications network.
2020- Combine begins mass-producing Striders, Gunships, Hunters, APCs, and Helicopters. They begin upgrading all remaining Camera Scanners into Shield Scanners, which are capable of contacting either Striders or Hunters. Combine begin work on seven citadels world-wide. These new citadels are linked to an eighth with thousands of miles of underground cabling for power, communication, and resources. This eighth citadel is nicknamed "The So-Called "Mega" Citadel" by Alyx. Eli tells her that she is not far off with that name.
2021- Combine continues research into Human Genetics. They start cloning Breen; he may not be too influential, but his knowledge of the planet has been useful to the Combine Hierarchy. They make one clone for each citadel. Clones take seven months to grow and are all made at NPZ.
2021- Resistance starts to gain a little ground as the Combine start to run out of resources. Oceans have been almost completely dried up, ice caps have been melted, and most of the world's rain forests have been harvested.
2021- Operation Black Storm is planned by the Combine. It is a tactical shell attack on several major Resistance strongholds.
2021- Gordan Freeman returns
2021- Barney intercepts a short-range radio communiqué from a Combine patrol to NPZ; it was very short: Anti-Citizen One in custody. Shortly after this Alyx plans a rescue mission.
Background Story:
Three-Hour War:
"It was not more then two years after we finally rid the world of most of the Combine that we faced yet another oppression. Those two years were the best anyone could remember. We finally had peace after four long years of fighting. Wish Freeman were still around to see it, it was because of him that it was possible in the first place. No one knows what happened to him after the Vorts saved Alyx. It was strange, everyone involved in rescuing them seem to have lost a small amount of their memory, they cant remember what happened for several minutes after the Vorts got to Alyx. Anyway after the fighting stopped we were able to get a lot of our old defenses rebuilt and back online. We weren't going to make the same mistake twice. But we never imagined the ferocity of the next combine invasion; in truth we all naively thought that they would not return. It was a shock to everyone when a Super Portal opened up over what was left of City 17. Not only because what was left of the city was decimated but also because the resulting portal cascade led to the Three-Hour War. We were not prepared for this at all, the Combine had upgraded their technology; they were stronger and faster then before. They re-armored themselves, our ammo had little effect on it; it was more like trying to shoot holes in a plate of steel with rubber bullets. Kleiner thought that they might have embedded their shield technology into their large-scale armor as well; such as their Striders and Gunships. He was right; rpg's no longer had any effect on them. Good thing Kleiner is a damn good scientist, he got us what we needed to fight back, I still don't really understand how it all works, and really I don't care as long as it keeps working!
I have lost too many allies this time around, most of my unit is gone and we are relocating to Base 83. The combine caught wind that we had a small base in Manchester. They razed the entire city to the ground with shells; it's a zombie Hellhole now. Only around a hundred of the several hundred thousand citizens got out alive, and only around eighty of the five hundred Resistance members made it.
I still remember those three hours of my life; they were the most frightening that I have ever lived so far.
I thought everyone was dead, the Combine were showing up everywhere. With in five minutes the Combine had twice the military power on-world then before we got rid of em. The moment that Super Portal opened will forever be burned into my brain.
We were celebrating our victory over the last pocket of heavy Combine forces. It was on a Friday, don't know the date, doubt anyone else could tell you either, everyone lost track of the days after the Seven Hour war. We kept track by how many of our friends and allies were captured. But we were in Manchester celebrating the second anniversary of our independence. The skies changed suddenly, it got real cloudy and then way off to the east you could see them parting. I thought nothing of it till the intense blue and red flashing started to come from there.Then there was traffic all over the old Resistance radio frequencies seconds later; reports were flooding in from seven different bases that Combine were attacking. We couldn't believe it, two years of peace ended so abruptly. Then it all went silent. We didn't know if they had all been wiped out or if the Combine had used some sort of communications jammer. It was a very intense three hours waiting for something. Then we heard Eli. He sounded angry and also extremely downhearted as he broke the news. The Combine were back."
-Journal of unknown author found in Manchester ruins
"It was like something out a nightmare. All I remember seeing was a flash of blue and red then City 17 was gone. All that was left behind was a crater full of Combine. I don't think that anyone in the high ranks of the Resistance thought that we had seen the last of the Combine, but I doubt anyone anticipated that they would return so quickly."
-Eli Vance's recount of the opening of the Super Portal
"I was working on Dog when I heard that the Combine were back.... To tell you the truth, I am afraid. From what we saw during the Three Hour War, this time we don't stand much of a chance..."
-Alyx Vance on the return of the Combine
"The Combine have come back, very much so. Though their technology seems to have increased since we last saw them. It is actually kind of fascinating what they have come up with. Shield generating armors, anti-projectile plates for their large weaponry, phasic rounds for their smaller weapons. I was able to learn a lot more about how the Combine technology functions and was able to incorporate this into some modifications for our weapons and structures. I have replicated their phasic rounds, which are designed to penetrate shielding, and applied the technology to all of our current weaponry.
More discouraging though is that they have completed their teleportation technology. While it is fundamentally different from ours, I hypothesize they were able to complete theirs with help from some documents that Dr. Mossman said they had retrieved from the Borealis. We failed to find Aperture's Portal Flux device, but that was never proven to have existed anyway. After we cleared the ship of the Combine we immediately grabbed what little information still remained and scuttled the vessel. It is not something anyone should get his or her hands onto.
The Combine technology, instead of using Xen as a junction point, feeds back to a central teleportation hub on the Combine Home world, or so my theory goes. Any matter that uses their teleportation system must pass through here. It is then redirected with astounding precision back to the destination coordinates. Ingenious really, it is many times more precise then ours. It also affords them security; they can vaporize any unapproved matter. I have been able to isolate the spatial wave-length that they use for their system and have made a generator capable of blocking these wave-lengths from forming. While I have only gotten this device to emit its field over several kilometers I hope to one day be able to protect the entire planet with this device.
Along with the upgraded technology the Combine have some new experiments; Synthetic life forms. From the remains I have studied they seem to be quite battle capable and dangerous. In addition they also have some new weaponry. I have only heard reports of it from the front lines and not actually seen them for myself. But it was said that of these there are a new breed of Hunter that is supposed to be much more versatile then the old versions. One of our biggest bases was wiped out by only ten of these Hunters. These are dangerous times, but I still urge all Humanity to do their part for the survival of the species."
-Dr. Isaac Kleiner on the return of the Combine
"We feel sorry for the Humans. They finally removed themselves from the clutches of the Combine only to find themselves back in that position yet again. But not all is lost, the Freeman lives, lost in the depths of the Business Man's realm. We might have failed to rescue him, but we know that he will be back one day soon. Our vortessence tells us that this is the case."
-Vortigaunt on combine reemergence
"Really I can't express how I feel about the Combine returning. I seriously thought we were done with them. I felt the price was high enough, we lost Freeman, and we lost a lot of friends and family as well. Most of our cities are severely crippled, some completely destroyed, and our moral has been in the gutter till recently. But now, they are back, stronger then ever. I don't think we can survive this time, even with the Vort's help. God I need a smoke..."
-Resistance fighter from former base 12
"It's all gone to Hell these days. Ever since the Combine found and reopened Nova Prospect Zero they have been raiding cities and taking off thousands of prisoners. Manchester was completely leveled to the ground, along with London, Paris, and several other cities. Casualties range into the hundreds of millions, and millions are still unaccounted for. We don't know what the Combine plan to do with the prisoners, but from what they did to them at old Nova Prospect we know it wont be a pleasant sight. They might even be turning them into stalkers......"
-Resistance fighter from base 83
"I don't know what kind of technology the Combine stole from the Borealis, but there was not much left when we got to it. There were several Trans-Human units inside, we killed them and scoured the vessel for any working computers or paper documents. What we found was not much. There was more information at one time but most of the documentation and files had been destroyed prior to our arrival. I don't know if it was the Combine or the Borealis crew that did it, however."
- Judith Mossman on the finding of the Borealis.
"I don't really know what the Combine are bringing to the table this time. But I know that we probably will not be ready for it. Kleiner got lucky on being able to adapt our technology to compensate for the Combine's new shielding, and that offers a small drop of help to us, but overall his discovery has not helped at all. I had figured out that the Combine use Theta Waves during their transports but I never was able to figure out how to completely block them. I gave Kleiner access to my research and he used it to create a machine that can block them. Again, his invention helps us in the short, but not long term. We do not know how the Combine will behave this time around. Last time they took on a kind of fatherly propagator, but this time they may be a tad more aggressive. Now please, no more question, I am extremely busy."
- Dr. Arne Magnusson on the Combine Reinvasion.
Nova Prospekt Zero:
"While many people know about the official Nova Prospekt, not too many knew about the existence of Zero. A few of us in the higher ranks of the Resistance had theories though. What we do know is that the Combine have refocused their agenda in regards to the activities of Zero. While I was undercover I was stationed there for several months. It was right as they started the mass-abductions. I've never seen so many prisoners ever in a Combine facility. Though not many of them stayed there for too long. Most of them were used in experiments they were doing with the zombies and head humpers. According to the data I recorded from their mainframe Kleiner seems to think they were Bioengineering them to have special traits. While I was there I saw horrible things down on the third floor of the complex; chewed up body parts, prisoners turned inside out, mangled bodies and the like. Kleiner says that in the info I gathered he picked out that they are also testing out new methods of teleportation. He said it was worrisome because what they were doing would bypass the shield he made several months ago by use some kind of untraceable wave length or other; I don't really understand what he's been blabbering on about. I asked him to explain it to me once, big mistake. Had to stop him five minutes in, he was starting to give me a headache with all his talk of "particle acceleration theory"-this and "spatial wave length theorem"-that. It did not help that Magnusson was in there either, I swear with all their arguing you would think they were a couple, ha! But anyway, I hope Gordon makes it back some day, I still owe him that beer!"
- Barney Calhoun's Recount of Nova Prospekt Zero
"The information that Barney gathered while stationed with the Combine has gleaned many advancements in our own technology. But it is troublesome as the same time. From what I can gather the Combine are attempting to move their teleportation system out of the current Wave Length system that we both employ. It seems that they are attempting to use the same methodology that Aperture was designing for their Space Portaling Device. This suggests that they did, in fact, get some viable information from the Borealis. We were not sure at all but this seems to confirm it. This could be very unsettling. If the Combine succeed in perfecting this new teleportation system, we would be unable to stop them in the fashion we do now. I, or Magnusson, would have to attempt to reverse engineer Aperture's designs, a feat of no non-complexity. They had a certain nack for portal technology, and it did help that they had a Super Computer with information processing abilities far out stretching the Human mind. We searched the Borealis for this computer, code name GlaDOS, but found no trace of it but a few parts of it lying around in a large cargo hold of the ship. I thought that strange, I now wonder if the Combine disassembled it for information. In any case, what Barney retrieved makes it seem as though the Combine have been attempting to move to a new energy system all together. We recently discovered this form of matter ourselves, but apparently the Combine have been aware of it for many decades; White Matter. Not to be confused with brain tissue, this White Matter is many times more potent then Dark Matter. If the Combine harnesses it, we could be in a lot of trouble, very much so. It could boost the Combine's efficiency three hundred fold of what it is now; with that kind of power they could easy take over this entire planet in a matter of moments because they could create multiple Super Portals many times bigger then the one preceding the Three Hour War. But not to fear, from the information it looks as though they will not be able to tap into this new power source any time soon. Not even Combine technology is advanced enough yet to do so. Time is on our side; I believe that we can use Dark Matter to our advantage. The Combine do not yet know that we are in the process of building a Dark Matter Cannon. This is our secret weapon, we plan to fire this cannon directly into a Super Portal. According to my theories, doing so should seal Earth permanently from the dimensional qualities that allow for teleportation to occur, thus making us impervious to outside teleportation. We are still several years away from making this plan a reality but we are making progress, no matter how small that progress may be it is progress none the less."
- Dr. Isaac Kleiner's report on his review of the information retrieved by Barney Calhoun
