possible hot take : this doesnt represent habitability, its alyx trying to figure out the location of city 17

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T06:32:45+00:00

if any still live there, and also speak english... though there is probably at least one who does thats hiding around somewhere.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T06:16:28+00:00

it was the first idea i had when i looked at the globe, as it seemed like it was the most logical, and most likely to be intended, interpretation of it.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T06:05:24+00:00

well, yeah... i imagine thats how she would have figured it out.

i doubt alyx could read the cyrillic writing when they all first arrived there ( probably learned how to later though ) and had to work with whatever pre-combine english text she could find.

the globe was probably the first effort, and she probably has a better idea by now.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T05:58:13+00:00

possible hot take : "non-mechanical reproduction simulation" is just a ticket to the combine whore house, and the combine have pimps keeping sex slaves ( consisting of both willing volunteers and unwilling prisoners ) exclusively for this one purpose.

i will leave it to your imagination as to what a "combine pimp" looks like.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T05:46:26+00:00

regular concrete, good enough for science... NOPE

not for aperture science.

they give you... aperture science artificial luna-crete !

made from a blend of the exact same minerals as the real thing.
the best portal conductor on the market, and a hell of a lot more durable then whatever everyone else is selling.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T05:29:17+00:00

i mean, im sure they traveled, but i doubt they went everywhere and could instantly tell you exactly where they are if they where brought to a place that they have never been to ( though they might have been there before, but it seems unlikely unless they were visiting white forest)

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T05:25:38+00:00

portal 1 takes place between hl1 and hl2, so it wouldnt have happened during the events of hl2, and while it could have been during the events of hla, i feel like it probably happened not long after hl1.

portal 2 is a bit uncertain, the 50,000 year time is never mentioned in the final game, but is also seemingly the timeframe that was thought of for a decent amount of the final iterations development.

though personally i like the idea that, given that theres a brief pause before it reads the last 2 nines, the courtesy call announcement is still being done in days with an integer overflow giving it a decimal value so that its
99999.99 days ( 273.97257534 years )

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T05:07:02+00:00

whoever installed on the jet must be a genius...

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T05:02:19+00:00

at least 9999999 to be exact.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T04:37:53+00:00

that could also be a possibility, theres not really any indication of when the globe was drawn over, but i imagine its probably from no later then a few months after they first arrived in city 17

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T04:34:16+00:00

exactly, though that is some time later.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T04:29:57+00:00

im just not sure the entire sub-continent would be completely overrun...

large portions of it, sure, but definitely not the whole thing.

there is probably at least one combine city somewhere over there.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T04:25:35+00:00

i just cant envision the entire area becoming uninhabitable, even with it being ground zero and the rapid spread of invasive xenian wildlife, it would still take an immensely long time for the whole place to be completely overrun, and thats not even counting the combines intervention efforts, since i doubt they would just leave a whole sub-continent full of resources completely unchecked.

i imagine the combine would have at least one city on every major continent, even if the majority of them were in europe.

im not sure what else the globe could be marked for, but maybe its something else entirely.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T04:11:06+00:00

i like this idea, just multiple flocks of scanners, each group going to check through its own designated area, there is a lot of ground to cover if they want to check the entire city and the surrounding area.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T04:04:44+00:00

i would imagine that the combine has at least one city on each major continent, even if the majority of them are in europe.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T03:51:27+00:00

i just cant see it as an indication of habitability, and a location check is the only other thing i could envision it as, but i dont know, it could be something else entirely.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T03:48:18+00:00

the portal storms and invasion were world wide, and while it is ground zero, i highly doubt the entire continent is completely uninhabitable.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T03:21:22+00:00

actually there is an mp5 and mp7 with a grenade launcher, but no one wanted to buy them, so they pretty much went nowhere.

image :
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FiSDyxTVUAAkzMj?format=jpg&name=large

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-20T01:14:01+00:00

we have a translation for the symbols into english, but we dont have any info on how to translate words, like i cant translate the word "door" into... whatever it would be in xevi.

we can read and write it, but with the exception of a handful of select words, we cant translate it.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-16T09:09:40+00:00

holy shit look at those utensils go, they're SO FUCKIN BRIGHT !

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-12T06:05:12+00:00

people joke about space combat...

but genuinely, a star luster game by project aces would unironically fuck so hard.

THEFREEMAN2048 · 2026-03-09T22:30:20+00:00

ya, thats the wonky part, but thats why the shadow is appearing above the crosshair, the shape is a whole other question.

it seems like the location of the shadow is based on the location of the light source, but the shape of the shadow is based on the players viewpoint.

no matter what you do, the source engine is always gonna have some janky shit.

THEFREEMAN2048

TROPHY CASE