Half-Life's Strangest Mystery | Breengrub EXPLAINED | Half-Life Deep Dive & Lore

the fall of the citadel in city 17 was felt across the entire planet as the resistance now had a major victory against the combine under their belt not only had this building acted as a base of operations for the brutal multi-dimensional alien empire but it had also been home to earth's interim administrator dr wallace breen during the altercation that had brought this giant structure down wallace had been attempting to flee the planet using a portal to the combine overworld but a member of the resistance dr gordon freeman managed to stop his escape by destroying the power source of the portal not only did this result in the closing of the portal but it also led to mass destruction at the top of the tower throwing wallace into the depths of the citadel below to his death with half-life 2 being followed by episode 1 and episode 2 breen's influence was still felt throughout these installments where episode 3 was expected to follow up shortly to give an ending to this industry changing series but it never came after a long five-year wait following episode 2's release in 2012 the story continued in a new format where it would tell a continuation of wallace breen's life through 180 tweets over the course of two years on a twitter account following this a new story would follow in the form of epistle 3 an additional five years later in 2017 both written by valve writer mark laidlaw how do these additions to our story impact the events of the half-life universe and would these at least give a little closure of a fantastic story to half-life fans here we explore in the lore and story behind breen grub having died from his fall a new wallace wakes up in a new form a new body with a chunk of his memories missing becoming conscious on may 31st wallace adjusts to his new body something is different and communication is difficult in this form his first attempt on this medium only sends out a garbled message he knows what he wants to say and who he wants to receive it but he just needs to get on the correct thought path and finally five attempts later he manages to send out a coherent message things you should know in victory he sends out a yes yes he can do this although this is a small victory he still has to be careful unsure on how long he has until they notice he can at least feel safe with the belief that this is a secure channel to communicate on continuing on with his transmissions he explains that without his information there could be no revolution but due to this form of communication still being new to him the information would be unclear at least until he masters it furthermore this transmission confirms these messages are intended for the resistance against the combine and this wallace is somewhat different to the man that gordon had met at the top of the citadel in fear they had noticed his activity after 6 38 pm he stands out quiet someone may have noticed and stops communication around three and a half hours later at 10 09 pm breen returns during this time it appears that breen had managed to get his head around how to communicate properly on this channel he explains that he will go away from time to time thus there is no malevolent purpose to it he is just unsure on if he is being monitored now composed he explains that panic is of no use this message must not be garbled that information is the only hope we have information that feeds revolution without hope without information there can be no revolution having gathered information during his time as earth's administrator with access to the combine network wallace could now share it with the resistance to help them this version of wallace was not the one they had known but it could be the one they he states that the resistance will need this information if they are to succeed that although he cannot use the information himself if he can be of use that is enough now able to play his part in this revolution he confirms that first the resistance have allies and this should give them hope there can be no revolution without hope moving on he explains that nothing can be without floor and that the combine superstructure is riddled with cracks they are vulnerable and they are compromised his existence and ability to communicate with the resistance and tell their secret being living proof of that living being an interesting word considering the situation he himself was in which would become clear later still attempting not to draw attention to himself with these transmissions breen makes an effort to be tactful in what he can say safely fearful of certain words alerting the combine of his communication with this he decides to use parts of the language of the vortigaunt a language that defied even the combines comprehension introducing the vortigaunt word shu ulathoi as they do not recognize that term breen believes he can now pass on this valuable information to the resistance however still adapting to whatever form he had found himself in he begins to doubt that anyone can hear him at all that he may actually be entirely alone with his thoughts heard by no one but shortly snaps himself out of this thought when he senses their interest and must wait for the scuttling to stop before he can continue with his transmission on june 1st his communication stops if anything was gained from this first contact it appeared that breen's new form was able to communicate by thought alone but from this if the resistance were listening in they would now know the word shu ulathoi and would simply have to wait for breen to continue his communication to understand what it meant and how it could help them 347 days 18 hours and 57 minutes later breen regains contact with i think they're gone on may 15th although it had almost been a year since his last communication breen continues with urgency still attempting to be careful not to catch the attention of the combine he understands that he could not wait forever or the war would be over and he would not have contributed anything to the cause following on he explains that there is a world the home of the shu ulathoy but he does not know the name of it but the vortigorns do not only that he does not know if it is a world that can be found he goes on to state that even the combine enforce the belief that the existence of this world is merely a myth but during his time as earth's administrator breen did have access to combat communications records and proof only now all he can do is rely on his memories all he has are his thoughts if the combine were to deny the existence of such a place what secret might it hold and could it be a weakness for the resistance to exploit once again hearing the scuttling and scrambling breen fears that he has said too much and to protect this channel he seeks silence again four days later breen explains that they the combine empire come from everywhere and anywhere but the host bodies the flying grub known to humanity as the combine advisor have a specific origin the lost world he had mentioned previously this is where the once innocent free and unchanged shu oolathor had lived before they were turned into hosts he shares that this world exists within a global cluster that is home to extreme erratic seasons with lethal properties way back before having been subjected to the combines cruel treatment the shoe oolathoy in the larval stages would lay dormant and buried in long periods of this extreme weather waiting to hatch but not wasting their time in the more pleasant weather the mature freest forms crawled and flew around but were mindless greedy and bent only on reproduction while these three members of the species allowed the continuation of the shoe ulathoy it was in the dormant form that they thrived although not physically interacting with one another through a racial telepathy the shoe ulethor created a psychic dreamers world with philosophers scientists dreamers sages and composers of intricate art forms that existed only within their minds they had or still have an invisible culture that has persisted for aeons a place where their telepathic visions were traded like currency in their unseen worlds a grand culture of dreamers with little use for the waking world or its insistence on material things breen continues to explain that during their larval stage their psychic strength is such that the shoe ulathoy can imprint upon their cells and dictate the form they will take upon hatching but hatching from the larval stage came with its own issues although they had their new form they had awoken from this dream and as such had lost their connection to the dreamers world and so the shoe ulathoy scarcely acknowledged them now left to survive in the physical realm on a dangerous planet for countless years this cycle continued but their strong telepathic network would ultimately lead to their undoing with each grub adding to the shared worlds one somehow formed a malformed thought with physical ramifications where it quickly spread to the entire race of sleeping philosophers like a parasite with this the strongest of the race survived with natural defenses that kept the parasites in check but the weakest fell victim to thought paths of depravity leading to the inability to reproduce to deal with this and future eruptions the grubs developed social mechanisms for isolating their depraved kin where they would sever them from telepathic contact so that these bad thoughts could not spread to the rest of the species for those that would conjure these maligned resonances they would die in solitude cut off from their race this method would work for the species for the generations to come but the initial malign thought had physically become a part of them all and adapted to their bodies but it lay dormant that was until the combine became aware of their existence having told this large chunk of the history of the shoe ulathoi breen once again went silent 13 days later on june 10th breen reaches out again this time something is different feeling as if there had been a transition but with no sensory input to prove this to himself he could only guess following this thought pattern he speculates that he may have been moved physically or moved to another host but with this thought came even more questions had the combine become aware of him or was someone actually looking out for him then it dawns on him that there could be a third option that he had been terminated and another version of him had been activated and placed into a storage host before he can truly understand and explain how this would be possible he shuts down the channel and communication ceases once more although brief this communication would solidify the idea that breen or an older saved memory of breen before he had fully turned on humanity had indeed been uploaded to a host body this would also explain how he was able to project his thoughts to a secure channel through a telepathic connection but if the resistance we're listening is unknown and how hard the combine managed to transfer a consciousness into these creatures six months later on january 10th greengrub makes brief contact but struggles to even function with only out of my mind scattered between garbled transmissions jumping ahead another five months on june 12th the channel opens again feeling different greengrub explains that he has seen the repository a place full of versions of himself at different states during his life but during these periods of inactivity the number of versions of him had reduced leaving him to question which one is he now each of these younger with fewer genuine memories suggesting the combine were able to manipulate the consciousness they had managed to replicate some of these versions likely adapted to fulfill combine propaganda while others lay innocent to who breen had been following this breengrub once again questions everything asking himself how do i know i haven't been altered as he continues to seemingly shift between versions growing younger and younger he senses distress and futility that his earlier versions would not have the wisdom of the older falling farther and farther away from himself becoming a creature that grows more youthful and more senile at the same time and then he is moved once more into a younger form but this time he feels more optimistic about his situation his spiraling thoughts now become grounded once more and then the channel of communication shuts down once more this transmission had shown breengrub moving through different versions of himself but he did not know who was doing this to him whoever is shifting me helping me leap ahead could there be an outside force attempting to get him onto the correct version so he could finish his story about the shoe ulathoy just under a month later on july 6th breengrub now coherent continues his background on the combine he explains that upon finding the home planet of the shoe oolathoi the race of dreamers were now the perfect targets unaware of the waking world and invasion around them studying the sleeping species the combine detected their connection to one another through a psychic bond and discovered the parasite that had become a part of them having been dormant since the strongest of the shu ulathoy held a natural immunity to it the combine now had a way to take over the species using their technologies the combine weaponized the dormant parasite with their own patterns of thought and reintroduced it into the dreamers world with these new dangerous thoughts now in this grand culture spreading at an extreme pace it corrupted them from within rotting their minds and their culture having dealt with something similar before the philosophers at first thought it only a contagion of natural origin in which they had procedures in place to counteract this but by the time the dreamers truly realized what was being done to them when they finally truly awoke it was too late now awake some decided to thrust themselves into trances that would endure for hundreds of thousands of years where others took flight to freedom escaping the invasion what happened to those that escaped is unknown but some do have theories on what they chose to turn into once they matured having discovered and understood the process of parasitic engineering the combine broke down the shoe oolathoi culture and world for themselves and with this breach they were exhumed from their homes under the combine set upon their first nurseries to adapt and assimilate the species into their own empire from here and with their ability to adapt the parasite the combine developed a method to imprint a conscious mind of the combine's choosing onto the exhumed bodies of the shoe oolathoy in some cases these hosts would then take on a form based to some extent on the inhabiting mentality but only on a rare occasion as this race would lose its psychic connection and abilities after hatching the combine suppressed the shu oolathoi's ability to move on past this grub stage and later engineered devices a locomotion and investigation where the combine advisors were developed as a leading force in the combine army having completed their invasion and adaptation of the species the combine now had host bodies to store the brightest conscious minds they came across throughout the multiverse on their invasions waiting in storage to be of use breengrub continues to elaborate that the finest mines are stored and then imprinted replicated over and over on an endless supply of hosts that even laszlo was there somewhere suggesting the combine had managed to make a copy of his memories before his death or they had acquired it after and extracted it then as for himself breen believed several copies of him were made the first one was made as a condition of surrender part of the bargain after the seven hour war and after that occasional backups this explaining the repository of backups he had mentioned during his last contact he goes on to mention one he believes the last whose memories he does not share so he believes it's lost how he in this young state has only rumors of how things developed aware to some degree of what had happened to his physical body but that is not his path anymore fearful of getting lost in his thoughts again he goes quiet and here he appears to connect to grub poets and philosophers now in a way is true kin speaking of these silent communicants connecting through a telepathic connection he fears that they would not allow him into their cabal if they were to return due to something he had done as a human something the vortigunt would not tell him about but if thoughts can shape an outward form then he hoped his dreams would shape his following this green once again begins to overthink his situation viewing even his own consciousness as susceptible to combine interference where even he could not be trusted to join any group thinking about trust he then begins to question the vortigaunt singing around him doubting their true allegiance to the resistance merely feigning revolutionary thought possibly for their own agenda but then with doubt it always goes down to the roots when it starts it's hard to stop continuing to ramble breen fears that he is forgetting something something critical that during his gaps of inactivity essential knowledge had been claimed from him but before he can get the thought out he hears the vortigaunt saying more of a hush as if the vortigorns were telling him to be quiet becoming more frustrated breen explains that he speaks to hear himself speak that he cannot bear the silence why should he be silenced that he had gotten frustrated with the silence and stillness that he did not care if the combine found him that he was tired of shifting from dark to dark becoming more riled up and then something changes over the following minutes greengrub adapts drastically as he seems to fight off an attack but fails breen is much more different than he had been before suspiciously advertising this communication as a perfectly secure channel he asks those listening in to share a little bit about themselves and although it may appear that he could not hear them he makes reassurances that he can following on in an unnatural state he asks the resistance to share their hopes fears and dreams to a like-minded individual and most importantly their specific location breengrub had clearly been taken over by the combine and this channel of communication was not secure it seems that the latest version of breen had been transmitted to this house body at this point as his phrases appeared to be similar to that of the brain they were aware of or in new consciousness had simply taken control regardless of this he asks for their plans and once again the specific location of co-workers friends consultants allies and enablers of the rebellion in the spirit of transhumanity it seems that no response was given from those reading and so he continues to ask those lurking stay and read a while so that they might come to know their whereabouts you'll be glad you came finally the signal interrupts once more with the final messages of oh hell hello and finally oh no the combine had infiltrated this form of communication but bringrub had already given the information he had planned to give whether this would be useful to the resistance of humanity is unknown but he had at least done his best whatever happened to this version of breengrub is unknown after mark laidlaw stopped tweeting from the account on july 6 2014 two years after seemingly finishing the breengrub story mark left valve leaving major doubt that half-life fans would ever get a half-life 2 episode 3 or even a confirmation if breengrub had been the intended fate of dr wallace breen then on august 25th 2017 mark released a short story on his blog called epistle three labeling it as his own fan fiction for half-life in this story breengrub does feature where he essentially is aware that his earlier consciousness had been transferred into a host body almost following the events of the brain group twitter account possibly but not confirmed a direct continuation of events greengrub is stationed near the borealis which was to be a major plot point for the next installment in the half-life series with this version of his consciousness he is aware that his physical body had died to gordon freeman's actions but he is unsure how as the story progresses he meets alex and gordon in the north at his post and asks them to end his life hating what he has been turned into leaving gordon to make this moral decision dr wallace breen had died a villain to his entire species but bringrub an earlier uploaded version of wallace had attempted to do something good with the knowledge he had access to during his human form he had attempted to aid the resistance by giving them the history of the shu ulathoy and although the value of this information is currently unknown maybe at some point in the future it will become clear to the resistance and they can weaponize it if gordon had chosen to kill him in epistle 3 he had died on his own terms having attempted to redeem himself for the actions of his horrendous future self breengrub was a welcome addition to the half-life extended universe and i do have to say i think i prefer it to epistle 3. the story of the shoe ulathoy always fascinated me and it really does make me sad that this backstory was never properly implemented into the canon game series now on the topic of canon a pretty contentious topic in the half-life community is bring grub cannon firstly let us take a look at what mark laidlaw said in relation to bring grub once a writer for the series basically it's me writing dr breen fanfic i am his biggest fan he did say it is fan fiction so i guess it is i also like to go with the viewpoint that everyone creates their own canon breen's memories being uploaded into a host body just makes sense in the series and again i love the story of the race of dreamers the shoe oolo thoy in my mind or head canon whatever you want to call it it is canon what do you think what i do want to point out is that we received the first brain grub tweet five years after the release of episode 2 in 2012. we then received epistle 3 an additional 5 years after this in 2017 we are now in 2022 five years later what are the chances that we will receive something again maybe i'm just hopeful something that i also want to mention is that this is my understanding of the tweets and with media like this sometimes it is subjective so if anyone does have an alternative view please let me know i would love to think that the twitter account breengrub and the breengrub we met in epistle 3 are one in the same but with half-life you can never be too sure the final point i wanted to briefly touch on is that brain grub mentioned that firstly after the shoe oolathori matured and hatched some had the ability to physically adapt their cells into a form they chose now some of these creatures did fly off and escape during the combine invasion a pretty popular theory is that the g-man and his employers are these very same shoe ulathoi that are now attempting to take down the combine pretty interesting and i do have to say it is something i can get on board with who knows what other powers the shu ulathoy would have upon hatching this was the law and story behind breengrub if you enjoyed this episode i would really appreciate it if you could leave a like and a comment on your thoughts it does help boost the video in the algorithm if you would like to stay up to date with everything i do outside of youtube and fancy some behind the scenes content then follow my twitter and instagram finally i would like to thank my patrons who are on the screen right now you guys are amazing i really do appreciate the constant support and just a quick shout out to my gold tier patrons jonas lewis queen arby and fluffy the dragon and i'd also like to welcome the first youtube channel member null 301 welcome aboard what did you think of this law did you think breengrub had more information to give and do you personally consider greengrub to be canon let me know in the comments below that was everything i wanted to cover in this episode now resistance member enjoy your day bye [Music] you

Channel: Skyrionn

Views: 280,103

Keywords: breengrub, breengrub twitter, half life breengrub, breengrub half life, breengrub half-life, half-life breengrub, breen grub, breen, dr breen, grub, dr. breen, green flu, breen theory, walace breen, pickle breen, wallace breen, is breen alive, breen theories, half life 2 breen, dr wallace breen, dr. wallace breen, half life dr breen, half life 2 dr breen, half life dr. breen, breen advisor theory, breen collaboration, half life 2 breen death, explained, Shu'ulathoi, halflife

Id: CFPRk-Ayyo8

Length: 29min 30sec (1770 seconds)

Published: Tue May 03 2022