City Scanner

"Oh hell, Gordon! Were you followed again?"

- Barney Calhoun

The City Scanner, also known as Scanner Type I and often referred to simply as Scanner, is a lightly armored, flying security camera used by the Combine to monitor City 17's (and possibly other cities) residents. Its Synth counterpart is the Shield Scanner.

Application


Scanners are equipped with a searchlight and a camera used to take photographic images. The flash emitted when taking an image can temporarily blind a person if they are looking directly at the flash. The scanner also has a spotlight mounted on its top, which is used for illumination and can move independently from its source.

Scanners are powered by a single Combine battery, which can occasionally be salvaged from a destroyed unit and reused for armour in the HEV Suit. Scanners are lightly armored and can be destroyed easily by gunfire, impacting against walls or being hit by objects. A critically damaged scanner will frequently attempt to kamikaze dive into its attacker, while spinning on itself and emit an alarm.

As the name implies, Scanners are generally used only in cities and are rarely encountered anywhere else. They are commonly seen patrolling City 17's Canals, searching for refugees. Other applications include reconnaissance and searching for wanted individuals. Scanners help by locating targets and alerting other nearby Combine units. During emergencies, Scanners can be mass-deployed in thousands from the Citadel, to perform a city-wide, and possibly out-of-city search such as when Gordon Freeman was detected in City 17.

Interestingly, it appears that parts from a salvaged City Scanner were used in one of the more recent additions to Dog; both machines have a similar frontal design, though Dog's face possesses three face plates while Scanners have four for some reason.

Behind the scenes

 * While the City Scanner started as a Synth under several variations that made their way into the Shield Scanner, Ted Backman and Dhabih Eng both worked on the Scanners concepts; the first ended up with the Synth version, the second the mechanical one, first known as "Combot".


 * As the Combot, the mechanical Scanner was to throw gas from its front, and fire from the small ergots on its two sides.


 * The mechanical Scanner design was initially modeled after the shape and movement of a piranha.


 * 11 sound files found in the playable Half-Life 2 Beta files also indicate that the mechanical Scanner was to talk directly to people via prerecorded messages. Spoken by a robotic female voice, they include sentences such as "Citizen, do not move", "You may proceed", "Hold still for scan", "Hands on your head" or "Violation has been noted".

Trivia

 * In the Half-Life 2 chapters Anticitizen One and "Follow Freeman!", the  console code spawns a Shield Scanner.


 * Scanners are not directly met in Episode Two; they are only seen on the route to White Forest.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One
 * Source Particle Benchmark
 * Half-Life 2: Episode Two