Black Mesa incident

The Black Mesa incident – also referred to as the Lambda incident – was a disaster that occurred at the Black Mesa Research Facility, New Mexico. It began on the morning of May 16, 200- when a resonance cascade occurred in the Anomalous Materials Laboratory, causing significant structural damage and forming a dimensional anomaly that flooded the facility with hostile alien creatures from the Xen dimensional borderworld. The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit (HECU) U.S. military force was dispatched to the facility to deal with the disaster. While their primary objective was to eliminate the alien threat, they were also ordered to eliminate the facility’s civilian personnel so that the incident could be covered-up.

Surviving members of the science team (including Dr. Gina Cross, Dr. Colette Green and Dr. Richard Keller) managed to cause a resonance reversal and halt the expansion of the dimensional rift, but they were unable to seal it. Although at first many of the Xen organisms were accidentally teleported to our world by the anomaly, before long a concerted alien invasion began. On May 17 the HECU pulled out of the facility due to ever increasing casualties and no end to the conflict in sight. The situation worsened when the dimensional rift was also detected by another group of extra-dimensional beings, known as Race X, as these beings also commenced their own independent invasion. The invasion from Xen ended early on May 18 when scientist Gordon Freeman defeated Nihilanth, Xen’s controlling intelligence. The Race X invasion continued, however, although Corporal Adrian Shephard was able to strike this invasion a serious blow by killing the Gene Worm. The three-day conflict culminated in the facility’s destruction on May 18 by a thermonuclear warhead planted by Black Ops commandos.

The dimensional rift remained, but the Race X invasion came to an end as the Black Mesa area had become an inhospitable environment. There were aftershocks of the disaster in the form of portal storms that spread over the course of the planet in the following years, randomly depositing various Xen organisms across the globe. More significantly, the Combine were able to use the Black Mesa dimensional anomaly to invade our world, resulting in the Seven Hour War and the Combine enslavement of Earth.

These events have also been referred to as the “Lambda incident”, as some consider the entirety of Black Mesa’s Lambda project to have been a disaster waiting to happen. It has even been suggested that the Lambda project was driven by a hidden agenda on the part of Administrator Dr. Wallace Breen, and that the resonance cascade was the intentional culmination of this scheme. Black Mesa survivors have defended the project, however, and maintain that the Lambda project had noble aims that could have benefited all mankind if it were not for a terrible accident that occurred in the Anomalous Materials Laboratories on May 16th.

= Chronology of events =

Prior to the incident
In March the Department of Defense formed a new special operations force called the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, which recruited mainly from the U.S. Marine Corps. This new military unit was trained for a mission at Black Mesa, such as dealing with alien quarantine failures or other crises, which were thought especially likely at the start of the Gamma Complex’s displacement beacon experiments. The HECU could be relied upon to rescue the personnel, and secure the area so that aliens could not escape from the facility. The journal of Corporal Adrian Shephard indicates that the G-Man may have overseen the training program, however, and it has been theorised that in fact the resonance cascade was anticipated.

In the two months leading up to the incident the Anomalous Materials tests had been given a high priority by the Administrator and the senior staff, and Dr. Richard Keller, the head of the Gamma Complex research, had been placed in charge. The Anomalous Materials researchers had achieved only limited success in explaining the extraordinary properties of the crystalline material found in the “Xen” dimensional borderworld, and it was determined that the maximum resolution of the anti-mass spectrometer was insufficient for an analysis of the critical internal processes. Keller and the heads of the AM research team informed the Administrator that boosting the scanners to 110% might allow a sufficient resolution, but to do this one of the spectrometer’s safety systems would have to be disabled.

The Anomalous Materials research had become increasingly important, as the Lambda survey teams to the borderworld were encountering significant resistance from the native creatures. It was possible to retrieve Xen life forms relatively safely by using the Gamma Complex’s displacement beacon to form small controlled dimensional rifts, so the expeditions to retrieve living creatures were ended. The problem was that this technique could not be used to retrieve crystal samples, as Xen crystals in their natural form would not naturally fall through dimensional rifts (as their internal structure was such that their fields actually shielded them from being pulled to Earth). This stability did not apply to the small but highly-refined quantities of the material that were present within Xen life forms. Xen animals had evolved to take advantage of the crystal’s energetic properties and so they consumed it and stored it like any other mineral. The result was that as well as a bioelectrical field the Xen animals also had a bio-displacement field that made them prone to fall through any spatial instabilities.

The expeditions to Xen to retrieve crystal samples met with increasingly hostility, with survey teams finding themselves confronted with armies of alien creatures. This is hardly surprising, as Black Mesa's science team had been abducting sentient Xen creatures and removing valuable natural resources such as the Xen crystals. It is probable that the Nihilanth believed this would eventually lead to humanity attempting to take over the borderworld. Unknown to Black Mesa’s scientists, the Xen beings were no strangers to warfare and had migrated to the borderworld to escape from Combine enslavement. The one thing that kept Black Mesa’s scientists safe from retaliation was the fact that the Nihilanth’s organic teleportation techniques lacked the capability to cross the dimensional divide and reach Earth. Nihilanth was readying Xen to take advantage of any opportunity that might arise to strike back against the human invaders.

May 11
It was decided by the Black Mesa Research Facility’s senior staff that sample GG-3883 would replace EP-0021 in the next anti-mass spectrometer analysis by the Anomalous Materials Laboratories. Both were samples of the anomalous crystalline structures from the Xen borderworld, collected during extra-dimensional expeditions by the Lambda team.

Research Associate Dr. Colette Green’s substance evaluation report on the samples from the GG expedition had indicated GG-3883 to not only be the largest sample retrieved so far, but also the purest. Despite unexpected spectral fluctuations revealed by Dr. Green’s experiments, the senior staff had decided to move forward with the program; an analysis of this sample offered the likelihood of a far more accurate simulation of the nature of the displacement fields within the Xen crystal’s internal structure than could be hoped with sample EP-0021. The Administrator authorised deviations from the standard procedure so that the sample could be ready in time, although this was a violation of normal anomalous materials handling protocol.

May 16: Day One
In the early hours of the morning a system-wide computer failure occurred throughout the Black Mesa Research Facility. The facility’s computer scientists swiftly re-established the computer network but the crash had resulted in numerous problems with the security system and electronic doors, and also with some other computer-dependent devices. This was also the morning that sample GG-3883 was scheduled for analysis in the anti-mass spectrometer. Gordon Freeman attended hazardous environment suit training with holographic instruction at 7:30 AM. After completing the Hazard Course Dr. Freeman had some free time before he was needed at the Anomalous Materials Laboratory, and he returned to the communal areas of the Level 3 Dormitories for some socialising and recreation.

Dr. Rosenberg, the designer of the anti-mass spectrometer, met Dr. Keller in the Anomalous Materials Laboratory with concerns he had about the experiment. He had never intended the machine to be put under the strain it would experience when running at 110%, the scanners normally being run at a power level of 80% of their designed capacity. He warned Dr. Keller that the spectrometer would overload, which could result in significant damage and might be dangerous. This was dismissed as personnel had been trained in emergency procedures for if an anti-mass spectrometer overload did occur, and the senior staff felt that the theoretical and practical gains that could be had from further understanding the Xen crystals’ space-time effects outweighed the cost of replacing a destroyed anti-mass spectrometer.

A few other scientists had expressed concerns that such a pure specimen, with little internal interference to its displacement fields and a vast amount of potential displacement energy, would also be the most unstable sample ever analysed. This hypothesis was supported by the sample’s unusual spectral fluctuations. The worry was that scans of such untried intensities could release an unprecedented burst of displacement energy, potentially sufficient to cause the resonance cascade scenario that had been once been hypothesised – where an extremely powerful Earth-based displacement field would attract the natural fields in the Xen borderworld, the resulting influx of displacement energy tearing a dimensional breach between Xen space-time and our own. Many scientists doubted that a resonance cascade was actually physically possible, and in any case the facility’s containment system (which created powerful dampening fields to neutralise stray displacement energy) would collect any dangerous excesses that were released during the scan.

Dr. Freeman did not give himself enough time to travel from the Dormitories to the Anomalous Materials Laboratory. His late arrival was especially frowned upon due to the importance of the day’s experiment. Dr. Gina Cross inserted the sample into the test chamber’s sample delivery elevator, while Dr. Colette Green allowed the spectrometer to be run at 110% by disabling the appropriate safety system. Dr. Gordon Freeman activated the rotors of the anti-mass spectrometer while Dr. Colette Green monitored the system. All three of these scientists wore MK. IV HEV Hazardous Environment protective suits.

9:20 AM Resonance Cascade Event
Gordon Freeman inserted GG expedition anomalous materials sample 3883 into the anti-mass spectrometer. A displacement field of incredible strength immediately formed within the crystal and then expanded rapidly. A powerful electromagnetic field was also produced which interfered with the electronic equipment, preventing the scientists in the control room from shutting down the spectrometer.

A phenomenon encountered during Black Mesa’s teleportation was that displacement fields on Earth experience interference from the crystal fields in the borderworld; the field created by sample GG-3883 was so powerful that it affected the displacement fields throughout Xen. Displacement energy from the Xen crystals poured through “inter-space” and amplified the field on Earth, until it became self-sustaining – a resonance cascade. Dr. Gordon Freeman, located only metres away from the test sample, was caught within the resonating space-time and momentarily propelled into the borderworld, before falling back into our own universe.

In the period shortly after the resonance cascade, the fluctuating displacement field of the dimensional breach caused vast numbers of various Xen life forms to randomly materialise throughout the Black Mesa Research Facility. Most of the Black Mesa personnel made their way from the base’s sub-levels to the surface of the facility in the hope of rescue. Gordon Freeman left the Anomalous Materials laboratories via the Sector B Coolant Reserve. Dr. Keller wanted to take immediate action to prevent the further expansion of the dimensional breach, but Dr. Rosenberg felt that their main priority should be the lives of the people in Black Mesa, and therefore they should send a signal so that military forces could be sent in to rescue them.

Rosenberg, Gina Cross and Colette Green used the Anomalous Materials Laboratory’s still functioning elevator. The elevator that would allow them to reach the surface was located in Sector A, but it was not properly functioning and Gina and Colette passed through the training facility’s Hazard Course to operate the manual controls. When they reached the communications facility, they re-aligned the dish and Dr. Rosenberg was able to establish a satellite uplink and made contact with the outside world.

The scientists expected that it would take some time for the military to reach the facility and rescue everyone, and in the meantime the dimensional rift was widening. Dr. Keller was concerned that the rift could expand to such a degree that it would become impossible to seal, and therefore action had to be taken immediately. Although the dampening fields had failed to prevent the resonance cascade it was hoped that if the fields were re-initialised they could absorb the rift’s displacement energy and cause a resonance reversal, sealing the dimensional breach. The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit arrived by helicopter just as Cross and Green reset the secondary and then the primary dampening locks, but the scientists’ efforts were fruitless. Keller discovered that displacement energy was being beamed through the rift from the borderworld and this prevented the containment system from stopping the rift’s expansion.

The resonance cascade had ended so the only explanation for this continuous influx of energy was that the sentient Xen beings were purposely holding the rift open – in which case not all of the aliens had appeared by accident, and this was an actual invasion.. , The dimensional breach allowed them to use their organic teleportation techniques to reach Earth and the sentient Xen creatures were taking the opportunity to make a coordinated attack.

The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit quickly put the facility under lock-down conditions and took control of Black Mesa’s central control centre. When the scale of the disaster became clear, additional forces arrived from various military bases by aircraft, by road and by the New Mexico Railway. The Black Mesa civilians that reached the surface were not evacuated – instead of the standard containment procedure, from the top came the command for a full-scale clean-up operation. Containment was the operation’s main priority; but in this case it was the containment of information as well as the alien threat. The soldiers could be ordered to “forget” all that they saw, but the scientists and security guards of Black Mesa could not be expected to keep quiet. The soldiers were ordered to silence them, and very few questioned their orders. Most of the Black Mesa personnel were immediately killed on sight, while others were detained for interrogation in various secured locations such as cargo containers within the facility’s freight yard.

It is unclear where Black Mesa’s Administrator was during all this. He may have been given V.I.P. status and rescued from the facility by military personnel, or he could have remained in Black Mesa’s control centre and assisted the HECU’s operations. Alternatively Dr. Breen may not even have been present in Black Mesa when the resonance cascade occurred.

During the conflict, the HECU soldiers were instructed to stay out of the way of a number of “Black Ops”, and obey any commands they gave. These black operators were elite agents that carried out extremely secret “black bag operations” for the civilian government agency that financed Black Mesa’s research. The Black Ops were trained to deal with exceptionally hostile situations of an extraordinary nature and they consisted of both men and women; while the men generally had some advantages with regard to strength and stamina, the women were generally more agile and therefore better suited to assassination. This combined force was expert in efficient achieving objectives with surgical precision. Although the HECU was attempting to subdue the alien menace and pacify the facility, the Black Ops had been sent in to extract especially important data and materials that could damaged in the conflict.

Several scientists were freed from captivity by security guard Barney Calhoun. One of these was Dr. Rosenberg, and Calhoun helped him reach the abandoned Section A-17 Prototype Laboratories located beneath the freight yards, where two other scientists (Walter and Simmons) were waiting. They had formulated a plan to use the outdated displacement field machinery to teleport outside of the perimeter that the military had established, but the old technology was not calibrated to account for the spatial interference from Xen’s anomalous crystalline structures. The displacement device could not accurately target an Earth target without a signal from an untested relay device that had been left in the Xen borderworld. Barney Calhoun was teleported to the borderworld to activate the device.

Although the dampening fields from the facility’s containment system had proven useless, Dr. Keller believed that the prototype displacement beacon at the Gamma Complex could be used instead to cause a resonance reversal, seal the dimensional rift and end the invasion. The beacon used three (impure) Xen crystals to generate a powerful displacement field, which previously had been used to create miniature dimensional breaches which would pull alien specimens to Earth and directly into a holding area for capture. For the beacon to cause a resonance reversal, its displacement field would have to be correctly calibrated to neutralise the one within the dimensional rift, but unfortunately the advanced sensor equipment in the Lambda Complex could not scan the rift because it was too close to the anomaly. The necessary analysis could be made if the Omega Satellite was launched into geo-stationary orbit, since it was equipped with sensors designed to detect displacement events and monitor the teleportation networks in the Black Mesa facility. Unfortunately no rockets could be launched while the military’s “lock-down” was in effect, and an “all-clear” signal would have to be transmitted.

Doctors Cross and Green headed through the Level 3 Dormitories and found a security guard with the necessary codes. While Dr. Freeman was using an experimental rocket engine to destroy a tentacle infestation in the Sector D silo, Cross and Green regained control of Black Mesa Air-Traffic Control and uploaded the codes to the delivery rocket in Silo E. The scientists in the High Altitude Launch Facility began the launch procedures, but before they could complete the satellite launch they were killed by the military, which had reached them using the facility’s maze-like materials transport network. The HECU marines did not know the nature of the scientists’ plan, and believing it could be an attempt to compromise the cover-up operation they aborted the rocket launch. A security guard told Gordon Freeman of what had occurred and Freeman fought his way through the rail network to Silo E.

Gina Cross and Colette Green used Black Mesa’s canal system to access a system of service tunnels and maintenance areas, which connected to the silo for the Gamma labs’ prototype displacement beacon. The platform controls had failed, but they were able to manually raise the beacon to the surface. Gordon Freeman eliminated the soldiers in the High Altitude Launch Facility and resumed the rocket launch. The Omega Satellite entered geo-stationary orbit, and the scientists in the Lambda and Gamma labs used the sensor telemetry to correctly calibrate the displacement beacon to initiate a resonance reversal. Before the reversal could be attempted Gina and Colette had to pass through the Gamma Complex’s quarantine labs in order to activate the beam matrix, which provided the displacement energy to power the beacon.

May 17: Day Two
Gina Cross and Colette Green returned to the surface and activated the displacement beacon. The Xen beings detected the concentration of displacement energy and they attacked in force to try and destroy the beacon. This attack included an assault by the Xen equivalent of a fighter aircraft, an airborne “manta ray” creature armed with a disintegrating beam of energised plasma, as well as alien soldiers. The two scientists killed the large flying creature with rocket propelled grenades and successfully activated the beacon. The beacon fired displacement energy into several samples of Xen crystal, which created a displacement field specially calibrated to be in anti-phase with the field of the dimensional breach, neutralising the displacement energy and causing the rift to go into recession. The displacement energy that the Xen aliens were transmitting through the rift continued to hold the rift open, however. The rift’s expansion had been halted, but it became clear that direct action would have to be taken against the Xen aliens to collapse the dimensional breach and stop the invasion.

Barney Calhoun returned from Xen after successfully completing his mission, but the teleporter’s power cell had been exhausted and there was not enough power remaining for Barney Calhoun, Dr. Rosenberg, Walter and Simmons to escape. Barney ventured into the auxiliary generator facility beneath the old test labs to activate the old plasma generators and charge a new power cell for the teleportation machinery.

After launching the satellite delivery rocket, Dr. Freeman had passed through flooded maintenance and storage areas. A week prior to the incident some water had been diverted to create a makeshift holding pen for an aquatic Xen creature, as there was not enough room in the aquatic laboratories. When Gordon reached a cryogenic storage area, another scientist told him that both the military and the Black Mesa personnel were following his progress using the facility’s security systems – the HEV suits were full of tracking devices. So far he had survived both alien and human attack due to the reactive armour of his hazard suit and removing this protection was not an option.

A small group of female Black Ops assassins had been given the specific task of killing Dr. Freeman. The research associate had succeeded in killing large numbers of marines and was severely interfering with the military operation. The military surveillance allowed them to ambush him but the assassination attempt failed. Shortly afterwards, however, Freeman was captured by two standard HECU soldiers, who had cleverly hidden themselves and then knocked him out from behind.

After activating the plasma generators Barney Calhoun was able to charge a power cell and send it to the old displacement field lab. A displacement field had to be opened four times; teleportation portals were created for Walter and Simmons first, then Dr. Rosenberg, who set the device on automatic to create a portal for Calhoun. During the portal-formation process the military managed to break into the old lab. It is probable that their commander had been informed by the facility’s Administrator as to the nature of the prototype test labs and that they presented a means of escaping the facility. Some soldiers had crawled through vents and cut through a door, others had used explosives to blast through the lab’s main entrance while some came up the elevator from the auxiliary power facility. Pinned down by gunfire, Barney Calhoun narrowly escaped with his life, reaching the portal just before the displacement field collapsed.

The location that Calhoun and the scientists had been able to reach was a vehicle checkpoint several miles from the perimeter of the facility. After emerging from the portal Barney Calhoun was caught in a harmonic flux and was momentarily teleported to Xen, and then to a storage room in the facility. Before becoming dimensionally stable and returning to the security checkpoint, Calhoun witnessed Gordon Freeman being dragged by the two soldiers. They had been given orders to take him topside for questioning, but the military vendetta that had developed against Freeman led them to try and kill him in an unconventional manner. The soldier’s that had captured Dr. Freeman dumped him in a waste compactor and attempted to crush him. Gordon regained consciousness, however, and managed to clamber on top of the debris to avoid being crushed.

Barney Calhoun re-appeared at the checkpoint and found that Walter had opened the gate and Simmons had hotwired one of the facility’s SUV Explorer vehicles – and Rosenberg told him the wonderful the truth: they had escaped. When the commander of the military operation learnt that his men had failed to secure the old lab in time, it was too late for them to do anything. It was not known where they had teleported to, and it was impractical for forces to be pulled away from fighting aliens in order to go on wild goose chases.

Space-time was no longer as chaotic as it was immediately following the resonance cascade, and wild Xen animals were falling out of their own dimension into ours less frequently. Nevertheless, the situation worsened. Against the expectations of Black Mesa’s scientists, the invading Xen military force was appearing in the facility in ever increasing numbers, materialising in strategic locations and already in tactical formations. Xen fliers airdropped Alien Grunts and engaged U.S. military aircraft. V-22 Osprey aircraft codenamed Goose 3 was completely destroyed, while Goose 7 – carrying Corporal Adrian Shephard – was damaged and made a crash landing. The containment operation became a full-scale war between human and alien soldiers, with Xen fliers and F-16s struggling for air supremacy.

The second day of the incident also saw the appearance of a new alien presence in the facility. These beings were not from Xen, but in fact from a separate universe that Earth had only just begun to have contact with. In the past experiments with the Gamma labs’ displacement beacon had somehow extracted a few small creatures from their world instead of the Xen dimension - they were the young of the dominant species. The scientists were totally unaware of the threat that the adult creatures would eventually pose - this Race X somehow detected the dimensional rift on Earth using their own organic teleportation technology, and they decided to invade. At first very a few “Shock Troopers” were sent on reconnaissance missions, seizing humans that they encountered and teleporting them back to their own dimension for study. They also released an inferior species known as “Pit Drones” as cannon fodder to wear down both the human and Xen presence in Black Mesa. Once Race X had gathered enough information to formulate a strategy they commenced their own invasion. The motive behind this is unclear, though it has been theorised that they wished to pillage other worlds for resources.

The casualties were mounting and the stream of creatures from the Xen borderworld showed no signs of stopping. If a larger military force were sent in the chances that information regarding the nature of the disaster and the purpose of the facility leaking out would be significantly increased, and the government was adamant that knowledge of the Lambda project could not become public. The agency that ran Black Mesa convinced the Pentagon that their Black Ops ‘specialists’ could end the crisis in a surgical strike, as had they had done in previous situations where the conventional military had embarrassed themselves. On the siege’s second afternoon the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit was ordered to pull out of the Black Mesa facility. This evacuation was hurried and disorganized and many soldiers remained trapped within Black Mesa, including Corporal Adrian Shephard.

A large contingent of additional Black Ops were sent into Black Mesa, and the remaining HECU marines that had been unable to escape assumed that the Black Ops were simply taking over the HECU mission or had been ordered to capture a particular objective. The Black Ops’ true mission was in fact unauthorised by the military chain of command. The dimensional breach did not seem to be widening and the beings were materialising only in the facility area; the U.S. military still wished to recapture the installation, but Black Mesa’s financers decided to cut their losses. They instructed the Black Ops to retrieve as much data, research material and technology as they could manage within a twenty-four hour period, and once this was en-route to various facilities via trucks, aircraft and the New Mexico Railway, they would detonate a thermonuclear warhead and destroy the Black Mesa facility. The Black Ops opened fire on any HECU soldiers they encountered, as they could not allow the marines to interfere with the completion of their objective.

The activation of the displacement beacon caused a resonance reversal that should have caused the dimensional rift to collapse and then be sealed, but something was creating an enormous displacement field from Xen to our world that was holding the breach open. When Gordon Freeman reached Level A of the Lambda Complex, the scientists there gave him a mission – to eliminate whatever entity was creating this powerful portal and controlling the alien invasion. Freeman was sent to the Xen borderworld using the Lambda reactor’s Primary Displacement Field Generator. The unstable space-time conditions caused the machine to malfunction and new displacement fields branched off from the main one, forming several portals between random locations on Earth and Xen. The dimensional rift also caused prototype Displacer personal teleportation devices to open portals to random locations on Earth or Xen instead of their pre-designated teleportation zones; this proved unfortunate for some scientists that attempted to use them to escape from hostile situations, but this allowed Adrian Shepard to put one of these devices to good use.

May 18: Day Three
Gordon Freeman succeeded in reaching Nihilanth, the being that was controlling the attack – an enormous creature that drew displacement energy from the borderworld’s crystalline structures and was capable of manipulating space-time at will. The incursions mankind had made on Xen during the teleportation experiments had shown the creature that humanity was a threat, and the dimensional breach had allowed it to teleport an army of creatures to Black Mesa in a massive counterattack. Gordon Freeman and the alien being fought each other in a pitched battle between Earth weaponry and alien spatial manipulation and eventually Freeman succeeded in killed the entity. Though Xen creatures would continue to randomly appear on Earth due to the dimensional rift, the main portal that Nihilanth had been generating disappeared, ending the invasion. Upon learning this, the G-Man teleported himself to the borderworld, and offered Dr. Gordon Freeman employment.

In a secure underground storage facility, Race-X had managed to create an organic displacement gateway of a type completely unlike that used by humans or the Xen creatures. It appears that Race X feared that the disappearance of the main portal between Xen and Earth could signal that humanity would shortly find a way to seal the dimensional rift, and so Race X grew an organic teleportation portal on our side of the rift to maintain a link between our world and theirs. A group of HECU soldiers and scientists decided to take action. They worked together and prepared two experimental weapons that used small pieces of Xen crystal to fire beams of displacement energy, disrupting space-time and disintegrating matter. The humans used these weapons to destroy a veritable army that came through the portal but they were overwhelmed, and the Shock Troopers seized them and teleported them to their home dimension for study. With the opposition disposed of, a Gene Worm began to come through the Race X portal.

The Gene Worm was a giant creature capable of creating small portals between its home world and our own, and it has been theorised that this was a sort of biological war machine. While Race X had already created their own stable portal, this was static and therefore reinforcements could only arrive on Earth via the underground storage facility in Black Mesa. If the Gene Worm could pass completely through the portal into our world then it could become mobile, and within the creature was a teleportation portal that was a link to its own dimension, allowing the alien species to create a foothold on Earth wherever the giant monster went. Fortunately Adrian Shepard arrived on the scene as the Gene Worm attempted to pass through the portal. He took control of the experimental energy weapons and fired them into the Gene Worm’s vulnerable body areas, its eyes and then the interior of its body, which opened whenever the creature tried to create portals to bring in reinforcements. The dying being retreated into the portal but lost control of its enormous dimensional energies and exploded.

Corporal Shepard had killed the Black Ops who had been arming a thermonuclear warhead, but shortly before Shepard reached the Gene Worm the G-Man re-armed the device. Soon after the destruction of the Gene Worm and the chamber that contained Race X’s dimensional portal, the surface of the Black Mesa Research Facility was vaporised in a thermonuclear explosion, and the underground complexes were smashed and buried beneath the radioactive crater. The G-Man was somewhat impressed by Corporal Shepard, and although he did not offer him employment he decided to detain him in a timeless extra-dimensional void.

The Aftermath
A thermonuclear explosion in New Mexico does not go unnoticed. The Pentagon made a press release, which stated that an army of international terrorists had seized control of a rocket propulsion and space technologies research base. The dangerous nature of some of the materials and substances at the facility meant that the new Hazardous Environment Combat Unit was sent in to try and eliminate them. On the second day of the siege the terrorists had warned that they had a nuclear weapon, so the Marines were pulled out while negotiators attempted to calm the situation. The terrorists never gave any demands and on the third day of the crisis they detonated the warhead, killing all of the facility personnel that had been held hostage. The United States were grateful that the terrorists’ target was a small laboratory facility in the desert rather than a city or other populated area.

The Black Mesa Research Facility had been destroyed (and was out of bounds due to radiation from the blast), but there was still a region of anomalous space-time within the quarantined zone. The cover story did not convince the public for long, as the resonance cascade had after-effects in the form of portal storms that emanated from the Black Mesa dimensional anomaly. The portal storms swept across the planet like weather patterns, depositing all kinds of Xen life forms across the globe and terrorising the people of Earth. Humanity retreated into the cities, as they were easier to defend, while the countryside was turned over to the alien infestation.

Before long, the Combine detected the Black Mesa dimensional anomaly, just as Race X had done. They poured displacement energy into the anomaly and it was once again widened into a dimensional rift, allowing a massive Combine invasion force to pass through. This was the start of the Seven Hour War. The Combine were victorious and Earth was conquered.