Barney Calhoun


 * This article is about the standalone character. For the generic Black Mesa security guard, see Barney.

"Now, about that beer I owed you. It's me Gordon! Barney, from Black Mesa!"

- Barney Calhoun

Barney Calhoun is a main character in the Half-Life games. He was a security guard at Black Mesa before becoming a key Resistance leader. Although initially considered a "throwaway" character (in fact, an entire class of throwaway characters), Barney has played increasingly prominent roles as the series has progressed. He is notable as one of only two playable characters in the series to be heard speaking, the other being Gina Cross as a hologram training program.

Although Barney Calhoun became the name of a specific character in the Half-Life story, the name "Barney" originally applied to the Black Mesa security officers in general.

Background


Barney Calhoun, an undecided two-year major from Martinson College, was employed as a mid-level security officer at the Black Mesa Research Facility, with Level 3 security clearance. He was friends with Gordon Freeman, Isaac Kleiner and Otis who were also employees of Black Mesa.

During the Black Mesa Incident, Barney managed to escape the facility and head underground until many years later; after the Portal Storms, Seven Hour War and subsequent Combine take over, Barney became a Resistance leader and worked undercover as a Civil Protection officer to gain information on the Combine. He later lead several of the pushes during the City 17 Rebellion, teaming up with Gordon Freeman for the final push on the Citadel.

Black Mesa
As a Black Mesa guard, he was tasked with duties including guarding assigned sections, performing general maintenance, and assisting the Science Team as and when he was required. His "Disaster Response Priority" was to protect the Black Mesa facility and its equipment in the event of an emergency, with secondary priority to safeguard members of the science team whilst his own personal safety was of relatively low importance.

Combine occupation
At some point after the Combine took over, Barney was presumably relocated to City 17 where he signed up for Civil Protection. This would have been valuable to gain inside information and distribute warnings about upcoming raids or provide misleading intelligence to the Combine though it was likely quite risky to his own safety. At some point before or after his relocation, he came back into contact with Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance who had also apparently been relocated to City 17 prior to Half-Life 2 and participated in their Resistance movement.

On one memorable occasion, Barney was assisting with Kleiner's teleport experiments where Kleiner attempted to transport a cat as a test experiment and something traumatizing happened to it. Barney claims to have persistent nightmares about the cat and even mistakes a distant Strider roar as a meow late in Half-Life 2.

When you enter Dr. Kleiner's lab the first time, there is a small teleport to the left with a small cactus-like plant on it. If you teleport the plant a few times the teleport breaks down, making the plant disintegrate. A lot of players see this as an explanation to what happened to the cat.

Half-Life: Blue Shift
Barney gained a starring role in the Half-Life expansion, Half-Life: Blue Shift. He was finally given a surname (Calhoun) along with an improved appearance. Unlike Gordon Freeman and Adrian Shephard, Barney lacked any form of power armor and was equipped only with a simple armored vest and helmet. Thus, instead of utilizing HEV recharging stations, Calhoun would restore his damaged armor by picking up fresh vests from fallen comrades along the way. Note that unlike Freeman and Shephard he does not come across any living security guards after the cascade except for one towards the end of the game who only lives long enough to tell him about recharging the power cell and then immediately dies.

At the beginning of Blue Shift, the player may notice strange material in the character's locker: books titled The Truth About Aliens and Government Conspiracies that show that Barney may be paranoid, or at least something of a conspiracy theorist. This could also be foreshadowing, since the game centers on aliens and government conspiracies. Also seen in Calhoun's locker is a picture of a young woman, which suggests, along with the fact that the Blue Shift manual says "Buy flowers for Lauren," that Calhoun has a wife or girlfriend. A box in his locker reveals, when destroyed, a chumtoad creature as a small Easter egg.

At the end of the game Barney, along with a few scientists, manages to escape from the Black Mesa Research Facility, and he is described as being "Out of range" by the textual summary, as compared to Gordon Freeman, listed as "hired," (or "Observation Terminated," depending on the choice the player makes) and Adrian Shephard, listed as "detained".

In Blue Shift, Barney is never heard talking from the player's point of view, just as Gordon and Adrian aren't heard speaking. But it is seen that he is the only playable character who speaks, as when you first encounter Dr. Rosenburg, he asks Barney "How did you know my name?" Silence follows, and he continues to say "Oh, I see. Poor Harold." This implies that Barney speaks without the player's consent, a detail VALVe liked to avoid to give the player a feeling of including his/her own thoughts and voice. Barney isn't considered to have spoken in Blue Shift before or after meeting Rosenburg, though.

Half-Life 2


By a twist of fate, probably orchestrated by the G-Man, Gordon Freeman was released from cold storage into the City 17 train station where Barney happened to be having his shift of Civil Protection duty. A security camera rejected Gordon's identity and Barney was able to 'take him away for questioning'. He then contacted Isaac Kleiner, they had a brief chat about how Gordon could get to his lab safely, then Barney let Gordon escape through a back way.

They then met up at Kleiner's lab. After another teleporter mishap that teleported Gordon to several different locations, Barney met Gordon outside the lab and provided him with a crowbar, and directions to escape on foot via the Underground Railroad. Barney travel then back to Kleiner's lab.

Later on, Gordon and Alyx arrived Kleiner's lab, and got a video transmission from Barney, who needed help to push the combine away from the streets of City 17.

During the rebellion in City 17, Barney came to be the impromptu 'field commander' of the Resistance forces and led a push towards the Citadel in order to rescue Eli Vance. He was pinned down by snipers when he met up with Gordon again and together they led a team of citizens into the Overwatch Nexus to disable the Suppression Device. Barney used his Civil Protection status to unlock several barriers Gordon would normally not be able to pass. After Gordon set off towards the Citadel again, Barney continued to oversee the later stages of the assault on the Overwatch Nexus until encountering Dog and following him to Gordon's location. Barney was last seen at the foot of the Citadel telling Gordon that "if [he] see[s] Doctor Breen, tell him I said "Fu-- you"! The actual swears can be heard on the audio file and are not muted, but rather softened for the additional sound effect.

Half-Life 2: Episode One


Barney is encountered late in the story; he was organizing a resistance push on a train station to escape City 17 before the Citadel self destructed. He, again, provides Gordon with a crowbar before setting off to round up survivors in that sector of the city. He, Gordon and Alyx later escorted several groups of citizens through significant Combine resistance into the train station; he was last seen leaving on a train saying, "I'll see ya when I see ya," as Gordon and Alyx decided to take the next one to give him and the citizens time to escape.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Barney does not appear, nor is even referred to, during the course of Episode Two. Given his place as a returning character of note in the series, and that he escaped City 17 ahead of Dr. Freeman, he is presumed to still be alive. However, when Gordon Freeman and other Resistance members return to the silo after defeating a large group of Striders the group of people in the base cheer for him, one of whom has Barney's voice and subtitle color. This suggests that Barney was indeed at White Forest, but wasn't seen or mentioned. It is also possible that he simply was somewhere else, as the destination of the train he boarded at the end of Episode One was unspecified. It is not known if Barney will make an appearance in Half-Life 2: Episode Three.

Behind the scenes

 * It should be noted that the Barney Calhoun from Blue Shift never actually meets Gordon Freeman in the course of the game itself, although Gordon's tram passes by Barney at the start of Blue Shift as he is trapped outside a locked door, in a humorous nod to an identical scene from Gordon's perspective during the tram ride in Half-Life. Gordon can also be spotted through a security camera heading to the test chamber he was tasked to work in. After these encounters, Gordon can be seen for the last time at the end of the game as two Marines are dragging Freeman away. If in the original Half-Life the player, as Gordon, attempts to talk to a security guard before the resonance cascade, one of the responses possible is, "Hey, catch me later, I'll buy you a beer." In Half-Life 2, Barney jokes to Gordon, "Now, about that beer I owed ya!".
 * In an early trailer for Half-Life 2, (featuring gameplay that was heavily edited in the final version of the game - Barney is not in the scene in the release) Barney says to Gordon, "Remember when we thought Black Mesa was as bad as it could get?" This may be a reference to the Uplink demo, featuring a level that did not appear in the full game, at the end of which a 'Barney' security guard makes the soon to be proved totally incorrect exclamation "It can't get any worse than this!"