Games - Seven Hour War

Home > Listing Index > Games > Seven Hour War

	Games - Seven Hour War

The Seven Hour War is a fictional conflict appearing in the backstory of the 2004 computer game Half-Life 2. Although never discussed directly in the game, the war is mentioned briefly by Eli Vance if the player stares at the newspaper clippings long enough and more details can be gathered through newspaper clippings and conversations.

The portal storms, believed to be caused by the death of the Nihilanth, raged (and still do according to Marc Laidlaw), spreading Xen life forms across Earth causing the people to move into cities for protection. These portal storms attracted an alien empire known as the Combine that defeated all of Earth's armed forces in only seven hours. Dr. Wallace Breen apparently negotiated a surrender on behalf of the entire planet, saving the survivors at the cost of their freedom. Breen was appointed ruler of Earth, but remains under control of the Combine. (There is some indication that Breen, who was also the administrator of Black Mesa, mentioned but never seen in Half-Life, intentionally arranged the disastrous resonance cascade; this may explain why he was in a position to plead for mercy from the Combine on humanity's behalf. Among such evidence for this is the fact that the scientists in the original Half-Life mention that the material being used for the teleportation test that caused the resonance cascade was given to them by the Administrator and that "he went through some lengths to get it," perhaps making a deal with the Combine. This is a theory that has not been confirmed, however.)

At the beginning of Half-Life 2, the G-Man makes a brief reference to the war, telling Gordon Freeman that "all the effort in the world would have gone to waste." This is generally understood to be a direct reference to the war, the establishment of Dr. Breen's terror state, and the reasons for Freeman's stasis. Despite Freeman's superhuman triumph at Black Mesa, there was nothing that he or the entire human race could have done to save Earth from the unimaginably superior forces of the Combine Empire.

Half-Life 2 begins an undisclosed number of years after this war, after the rule of the Combine has been firmly established. There is, however, some evidence from Raising the Bar indicating Half-Life 2 takes place ten years after the Black Mesa Incident.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Seven Hour War ]

Searches on eBay

seven hour war