Gunships | Half-Life Lore

[Music] after the combines invasion of planet earth the sinister interdimensional empire brought in their forces to keep humanity in line striders roamed the streets city scanners monitored those in open regions and humans brought on to the combine forces kept those they once called neighbors in check in return for additional food and power while the combine maintained tight control of their conquered regions from the ground they brought through one of their deadliest creatures to maintain the skies under the orders of airwatch which creatures followed these orders here we explore the combine gunship just like the combined other units in their devastating military force the combine gunship was once a creature from another planet or dimension that had been overtaken by the combine empire and adapted to become a part of their army in a quest to conquer all known sentient life forced into a life of servitude the creatures were involuntarily rearranged and altered to suit the needs of the combine in this case the combine required forces that could protect and secure locations from the air and so these poor creatures were experimented with until they fit that requirement during its transformation the creature was given equipment to allow it to remain in the air for this it was fitted with various jets installed directly into its flesh and shell while these allowed the creature to maneuver and change directions within the air a running motor installed within the creature maintains a rotating blade to keep the creature airborne indefinitely on either side of the creature two arms protrude seemingly made out of a similar material to the shell that encompasses the creature a combination of these factors allows the gunship to show impressive skills of navigation and the ability to avoid enemy strikes during combat unknown whether to be natural or synthetic a thick shell covers the majority of the creature leaving only its underside unprotected on its front half the shell appears to be decorated in a camouflage-like pattern while the pattern would likely disguise as part of the creature in the event it crashed into a forest region the combine also branded a logo on its shell the creature's second shell is connected directly to the running blade likely needed by the combine to secure the blade and its apparatus while needed to install their equipment to the creature the shell has been observed by the resistance to deflect gunfire from small arms weapons protecting the creature and making it one of the more resilient of the combine forces to take down on either side of the creature's structure and attached to the gunship's front are four compound eyes these eyes are located in the perfect location to observe the surrounding areas with the creatures now airborne the combine then moved on to the next requirement for the gunship weaponry and ammunition installed with two pieces of weaponry the first they attached to the camouflage shell the pulse cannon was installed in front of the creature and in perfect sight of its compound ice with being at the head of the creature this meant that whatever or whoever the gunship was facing it could fire at ease without having to aim capable of firing long bursts of ammunition and with two of its eyes perfectly fitted to aim the gunship had no problem taking out a target while the pulse cannon in combination with the tough shell would be enough to wipe out a target with ease the creature was fitted with a deadlier weapon dubbed the belly cannon after being installed in the center of the gunship's underside this cannon has the ability to emit a ray of energy producing extreme damage to anything struck by it although under the control of airwatch the creatures have been shown to possess a degree of intelligence untact during many conflicts with the resistance many resistance members began to use rockets to attack the creature aware that their small arms simply caused no damage to this the gunship was shown to maneuver avoid rockets and in some cases shoot the rockets before impact in other cases resistance members have stated that the gun ships would seek out explosive materials such as explosive barrels and fired them to take up multiple targets at once in battle originally constructed on the combine overworld and brought through a portal to earth it is believed that there is a section in the citadel dedicated to creating the gunships and improving them although no one has ever escaped from the citadel upon entering it is thought that on the upper levels stalkers are used to repair those coming back after battle where they are then redeployed to required areas with their redeployment it has been observed that when assigned to closed off areas such as city 17 and nova prospect they were deployed in pairs likely to protect each other in closed off locations against rockets from the resistance when deployed to open areas of the coast they were shown to go alone due to having the ability to observe their surroundings freely without being obstructed by tall structures while engineered to be the perfect weapon for the skies their firing mechanism was used by the resistance as a sign that it was just about to fire giving the resistance time to c-cap's cover and avoid their attack load up a rocket into their rpgs and fire when the gunship's long string of ammunition ended this tactic aided the resistance greatly during the assault on city 17 and the citadel once a creature that lived in freedom on a planet out there somewhere in the multiverse the combine came along and took over just like they had done to many other species the gunship now is a force to be reckoned with and a crucial member of the combines army i ask resistance member would you think twice about shooting down a gunship knowing their awful fate or would you fire at it with ease to put it out of its misery behind the scenes in cook content in this section i will be looking at behind-the-scenes content for the konban gunship now first off thank you to the half-life wiki where this behind the scenes content was found starting off in raising the bar we can see how valve originally intended the gun ships to look from this we can see that although they had a slightly synthetic look originally through the changes we can see it became more like the gunship we know now just looking at the final version makes you feel sorry for them they are literally creatures that have machinery grafted onto them while we do have to deal with the pulse cannon and belly cannon in the game we can see here that valve originally intended the gunship to launch rocket projectiles at enemies just imagine the damage these could have done if you had to deal with them while i guess it would have been a challenge to fight these guys the weapons selection we were given was good enough to give us a challenging fight we know the ai involved games is fairly hit and miss but the fact that gunships would rather attack a rocket instead of the player is genius it adds character to the creatures that they're intelligent enough to fight for their survival choosing the weapon over the person using the weapon well this was actually an unintentional feature which was noticed during play testing the play testers loved this so much that valve kept this feature in the finished game and used it to make the game more interesting for the players a huge feature we did miss out on was the gunship factory in this cut level the players would traverse through a factory where the gunships are created and subsequently set the place on fire while navigating new hostile gunships and combine forces it would have been awesome to see what the gunships look like without their modifications and get an idea of how the creatures originally looked while the level design looks great we got a completely trimmed down version of this when gordon simply rides past gunships being worked on while trapped in a pod on his way to see wallace breen at the top of the citadel during half-life 2 episode 1 according to scott dalton a designer for episode 1 in the hospital level there was originally meant to be a sequence where the environment becomes more destroyed as the gunships attack the player requiring the player to seek shelter elsewhere and avoid the gunfire while the shelter above the player was destroyed it would have given them an opportunity to strike the gunship again unfortunately this did not make it into the finished game valve really did a great job with showing how brutal the combine empire really are by creating these tragic creatures and having us fight them they are probably one of the most creative enemies i have come across while playing through a game i guess every vile creature is if i had to guess i would say that the gunship may have been originally an aquatic creature i guess just by the way it's shaped and colour palette it just looks like a combination between a dolphin and maybe a whale the arms look like turtle arms so we could just wade through the water with them then again i'm not a biologist so who knows thanks again to the wiki for the behind the scenes information it really is a great place to go and learn these interesting facts about your favorite games i'll link it below now what do you think about gunships did you find them interesting did you find them challenging or just generally annoying let me know below now resistance member enjoy your day bye [Music] you

Channel: Skyrionn

Views: 102,354

Keywords: half-life, lore, half-life 2, alyx, alyx vance, lemons

Id: MDvg4GCA7Go

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021