Gordon Freeman

Gordon Freeman, Ph.D., is the fictitious silent protagonist of the Half-Life series of first-person shooter computer games. He is a theoretical physicist who is forced to defend himself and his fellow beings against hostile aliens and other enemies following an experiment gone wrong. In the process, he becomes an almost-mythical resistance hero, eventually becoming one of the leaders of an uprising against alien invaders.

Character
Facts known about Freeman include that he is 27 years old at the time of Half-Life, has no dependents, and is a graduate of MIT, having earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. His thesis was titled Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array (the teleportation of matter through extremely dense elements). A native of Seattle, Washington, Freeman harbored an early interest in theoretical physics, such as quantum mechanics and relativity. His earliest heroes were Einstein, Hawking and Feynman. After observing a series of teleportation experiments conducted by the Institute for Experimental Physics in Innsbruck, Austria, applications of teleportation became Freeman's obsession.



Eventually, he became disappointed with the slow pace of teleportation research in academia and began to search for a job outside the education sector. By coincidence, Freeman's MIT mentor Dr. Isaac Kleiner had taken charge of a top-secret research project at a top secret, integrated research facility known as the Black Mesa Research Facility and was looking for some associates. Freeman was an obvious choice. He accepted the job offer, hoping that at least part of the immense funding would go towards civilian applications of astrophysics and quantum computing.

At the start of the first game, Freeman is employed at, and lives in, the Black Mesa Research Facility, located somewhere in New Mexico. He is assigned to the Anomalous Materials department, located deep inside the facility, doing nuclear and subatomic research. Quite humorously, while having obtained a Ph.D from the prestigious MIT, the laboratory work that the player actually does as Freeman (pressing a button and pushing a cart) does not require any intellectual expertise at all. Barney Calhoun pokes fun at this in the beginning portion of Half-Life 2, when Freeman performs similar "technical" assistance (pushing a switch and attaching a fallen plug back into a socket). In Half-Life, a picture of a baby could be found in Freeman's locker. Although this was officially explained as being an Easter egg placed by the level designer, Marc Laidlaw offered the idea that it could be an infant relative of Gordon's, such as a niece or nephew. Others suggest that it depicts a young Alyx Vance since it is similar to a picture of her found in Half-Life 2. However, this was never detailed or referenced anywhere else in the series.

According to dialogue by Alyx in Half-Life 2: Episode One, Dr. Freeman and Calhoun would compete with each other to be the first to retrieve Dr. Kleiner's keys whenever he locked them in his office in Black Mesa (apparently a fairly regular occurrence) without resorting to conventional means. This is reputedly where Freeman learned to make use of ventilation shafts to infiltrate buildings. It could also be a sly reference to the numerous ventilation shafts crawled through by Gordon and Barney in Half-Life and Blue Shift respectively.

Freeman is bespectacled, of good build, wears a goatee, and is quite athletic. Although seeming to be an expert with weapons and explosives, Freeman had actually not handled any weapons until some cursory training at the Black Mesa Research Facility's Hazard Course (aside from the butane-powered tennis ball cannon he constructed at age 6). What separates Gordon Freeman from other games' heroes is that he is a scientist – a rather unlikely kind of hero when compared to more traditional video-game characters such as Duke Nukem, or soldier types in many other games, such as Doomguy or Master Chief.

According to Valve's documentary book on the game, Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, the name Gordon Freeman is an homage to Freeman Dyson.

Half-Life


On May 16, 200- [sic], Freeman and his team perform an experiment that goes horribly wrong (possibly intentionally, due to outside manipulation). As a result, the space-time continuum is ruptured, allowing alien lifeforms to enter the Black Mesa facility. They immediately begin killing any humans they can find. Freeman finds himself hunted by two groups: the invading aliens and the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a military cleanup team that has been sent to contain the situation, silencing aliens and surviving personnel alike. Against all odds, the untrained theoretical physicist somehow manages to survive the chaos, impressing the few surviving scientists and security guards with his heroic acts while quickly becoming the HECU's top priority target.

After numerous challenges, and after eliminating countless aliens and soldiers, Freeman is eventually transported by a few surviving Lambda Team scientists to the alien home world of Xen, where he manages to eliminate the alien "leader," Nihilanth. Upon recovering from his final encounter, Freeman is finally confronted by the mysterious G-Man, who has been observing Freeman from a distance throughout the entire game and perhaps even manipulating his fate. The G-Man shows Freeman several locations throughout Earth and Xen, before finally offering Freeman a choice: either agree to work for the G-Man and his mysterious "employers," or be left to die on Xen without any weapons and surrounded by hostile lifeforms. Half-Life 2 assumes that Gordon chooses to accept G-Man's offer of employment.

Half-Life 2


Half-Life 2 begins with the G-Man speaking to Gordon. Like the ending of the original game, the scene is somewhat inexplicable and psychedelic, with the G-Man's face in extreme close-up fading in and out of visibility over backgrounds representing scenes from the original Half-Life as well as scenes he will visit in the course of Half-Life 2. The G-Man delivers a typically cryptic speech, commenting that "the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world." and concludes by telling Freeman to "wake up, and smell the ashes". According to the Half-Life 2: Episode One story page, the G-Man kept Freeman "in stasis far from Earth, thought, and time itself" for "nearly two decades." It is implied by Eli Vance that Freeman didn't physically change during his stasis, a fact that was to be more implicit, as seen in the game's beta version. Freeman then wakes up on a train with two citizens being "relocated" to City 17. Freeman quickly learns that Earth has been conquered and occupied by the trans-dimensional Combine empire. He soon meets up with Barney Calhoun and Alyx Vance, and joins the resistance against the Combine.

During the course of the second game, Freeman battles the forces of the Combine in order to free humanity from its grasp. Already famous for his role in the Black Mesa Incident, Gordon quickly develops a legendary reputation among Earth's surviving human populace, who begin to look up to him and refer to him by such messianic titles as "The One Free Man." After slaying scores of Combine soldiers and leading an assault against the Combine stronghold of Nova Prospekt, Gordon eventually sparks a full-scale rebellion against the Combine domination, in which he becomes a combatant. Gordon infiltrates one of the Combine's foothold on Earth, the City 17 Citadel, and destroys it by detonating its Dark Energy Reactor. Although caught in the reactor's explosion along with Alyx Vance, Gordon is rescued by the G-Man, who tells Freeman that he "is impressed with his work and has received several tempting offers for his 'services'." The G-Man finally informs Freeman that, rather than offering him "the illusion of free choice," the G-Man has taken the liberty of choosing for him, and deposits Freeman back in stasis until he is needed once again. Thus, Half-Life 2 "concludes" just as cryptically as its predecessor did, with perhaps even more questions unanswered.

Half-Life 2: Episode One
Half-Life 2: Episode One rejoins Freeman and Alyx Vance as they embark on the flight from City 17, doomed by the destruction of the Citadel's dark fusion reactor at the end of Half-Life 2. At the beginning of the game, the G-Man appears once more to Gordon, but this time, he is interrupted by the appearance of a group of chanting, purple-glowing vortigaunts, who take Gordon away while blocking the G-Man's path. The G-Man appears most displeased by this development, and responds by scowling and darkly stating "We'll see... about that!"

Gordon regains consciousness under a pile of rubble and is found by Alyx and Dog. It is later revealed that the only way to flee the Citadel's explosion, which would level much of City 17, is to contain the Citadel's core, stalling the structure's destruction enough for an escape. Gordon and Alyx succeed in doing so, but learn that the local Combine forces are attempting to send a distress message for offworld assistance. In order to generate enough energy to send the message, the local Combine are willing to overload the Citadel's reactor, going so far as to completely destroy the Citadel if necessary. The Combine consider this a positive, as the subsequent explosion would destroy all of City 17 and much of the surrounding countryside, which has been all but lost to human Resistance forces. With a copy of the distress message, Gordon and Alyx escape the Citadel and meet up with Barney and other survivors.

The pair escape City 17 via an evacuation train as the Citadel goes critical. Evidently, the Combine message is successfully transmitted while several Combine pods fly away from the Citadel at great speed. The train carrying Freeman and Alyx is still close by and is hit by a shockwave as the Citadel is seemingly destroyed. Their subsequent fate will be revealed in Episode Two.

Other appearances in Half-Life series


Two expansions for Half-Life all more or less take place during the same time as Half-Life itself, and as such Gordon is seen at some points of the games.


 * In Half-Life: Opposing Force, Adrian Shephard only encounters Gordon once when he witnesses Gordon teleport to Xen in the Lambda Complex. Attempts to follow him through the same portal will result in a "temporal paradox" which sends Shephard falling through Xen's void and ends the game.
 * Gordon is seen three times by Barney Calhoun during the course of Half-Life: Blue Shift. Barney first sees Gordon passing by in a tram at the beginning of the game, later heading towards the HEV storage area through a surveillance camera, and lastly being dragged to a trash compactor by a pair of HECU marines.

In these appearances, Gordon maintains his silence, even though he is not the protagonist.

H.E.V. suit


In much of the Half-Life series, Freeman wears a special full-body hazard suit, known as the H.E.V. suit, H.E.V. standing for Hazardous Environment. The HEV suit was designed by Doctor Gina Cross, one of the main protagonists in Half-Life: Decay. Freeman wears the Mark IV suit in Half-Life, then donning the upgraded Mark V suit in Half-Life 2. Cross was said to have tested a Mark V prototype before the events of the resonance cascade, but it is unknown if this is related to the Mark V suit in Half-Life 2. Designed to protect the user from radiation, energy discharges, and blunt trauma during the handling of hazardous materials, the HEV suit is what allows Gordon, an ordinary human being, to survive the dangers and injuries he faces over the course of his struggles.

The HEV Mark IV suit worn by Freeman in Half-Life has a built-in flashlight, Geiger counter, morphine administrator (which allows Gordon to function normally even after serious injury), anti-toxin delivery system, an optional long-jumping module which allows jumps over large distances, a radio, and a heads-up display (HUD) which tracks health status and weapon ammunition usage, as well as including a weapons management system. The suit contains an on-board computer system that constantly monitors the user's health and vital signs, and reacts to any changes in the user's condition. Additionally, the suit has an electrically hardened armor system that can be charged by power modules throughout Black Mesa. While charged, the suit provides greater protection from injury as the charge absorbs more than two-thirds of any damage or trauma experienced by the wearer. With a fully charged suit, Freeman can survive several dozen bullets of small arms fire or even a direct hit from a rocket propelled grenade. The suit also features an optional helmet, as seen on various HEV-enclosed corpses dotted around Xen, mainly at the ruined research camp seen in Blue Shift. Freeman dons the suit at the beginning of the first game, and is allowed to keep it at the end of the game by the G-Man. It has been debated on countless forums as to whether Gordon's HEV suit has a helmet as he is usually depicted without one yet is able to survive in hazardous environments, meriting its presence.

The HEV suit is not exclusive to Freeman. Many can be seen worn by slain Black Mesa research members on Xen. Two additional (empty) HEV storage units are seen near the start of the game in Sector C, which are said to have been used by the main protagonists of Decay, Gina Cross and Colette Green. The suits also evidently come in different colors. Although many, including Gordon's and ones belonging to the corpses seen on Xen, are orange, Gina wears a tan suit, while Colette wears a maroon suit.

In Half-Life 2, despite being allowed to keep it in the previous game, Freeman starts without the suit. After a visit to Dr. Isaac Kleiner, his former professor, Freeman receives a new HEV suit, Mark V (Kleiner, as well as other characters occasionally refer to this suit as Gordon's "old suit," indicating that it may simply have been upgraded; if the suit is indeed the same one Gordon had worn in Half-Life, it also raises the unanswered question of how Kleiner obtained the suit when it was in Gordon's possession, as he was first placed in stasis). New features include a visual zooming capability, limited enhanced running (sprint) capability, an injector to administer antidote for poison headcrab venom, an optional ammo and health counter on the crosshair (enabled by the player in the game's "Mouse" options), and the capability to use Combine power nodes to charge the suit. This design feature would have an unexpected effect later on in the game, when the suit appears to be infused with "Dark Energy" from a Combine weapon confiscation field, allowing the suit to store twice as much energy as normal. This powered version of his suit remains intact for the start of Half-Life 2: Episode One but the suit returns to its natural state when the player leaves the Citadel. It seems, like the Dark Energy gravity gun, the effects wear off in time. Unlike the Mark IV, the Mark V uses only one auxiliary power source for flashlight, sprinting and oxygen supply; in addition, the long-jumping module is no longer a feature.

It should be noted that HEV energy chargers in Half-Life have the trademark (tm) symbol added after the HEV letters, which suggests that the chargers, HEV suit, or both, are produced by a non-government company. An Easter egg in Half-Life 2, however, reveals an old cover of an HEV charger lacking the trademark logo.

It has been speculated that the HEV suit, despite its name, was not intended simply for protection in hazardous environments and was in fact designed with combat in mind &mdash; perhaps intended as a combat exoskeleton for defense contractors. Black Mesa may have been, after all, a military installation and the Powered Combat Vest worn by the player in Opposing Force apparently uses the same technology (it also is able to replenish its power from Black Mesa chargers). The suit also possesses the capability to track weapons in hand, along with their ammunition. These features may be explained by the visits many Black Mesa personnel made to the border world of Xen which contains many dangerous and hostile forms of life.

The symbol on Gordon's HEV suit is the lower case Greek letter Lambda, λ. This symbol is used by scientists to denote the decay constant of radioactive elements (related to the half-life of an element). As well as appearing on Gordon's suit, the symbol replaces the letter "a" in the game title, Hλlf-Life, and is the name of the complex in the Black Mesa Research Facility where teleportation experiments are conducted. The Lambda symbol is also seen in Half-Life 2 as a marking of the human resistance, seen close to hidden supplies and on the arm bands of better equipped resistance fighters.

References in popular culture

 * In Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, a character in the game remarks to protagonist Sam Fisher that "crowbars are for geeky video-game characters", poking fun at the fact that Gordon Freeman is a scientist by profession.
 * In Call of Duty: United Offensive, near the start of the second mission, two American soldiers are shown running side-by-side. On the left, Pvt. Gordon, and on the right, Pvt. Freeman.
 * In the "Stark Towers" level of the computer game The Punisher, a scientist refers to another scientist as "Doctor Freeman" and asks what a noise he heard was, to which Doctor Freeman replies (paraphrased) "maybe the quantum physics department finally opened that extradimensional portal!", with the other scientist replying "Extradimensional aliens! Wonder what they look like?", a reference to the opening scene of Half-Life.
 * In The Ship, a game developed using the same game engine as Half-Life 2, the description of the crowbar weapons states it is suitable for any "free man".
 * In TimeSplitters Future Perfect, during the level "breaking and entering", Cortez, the protagonist of the story, changes into a lab coat along with a name tag that reads "Dr. Freeman".
 * In the novel A Big Boy did it and Ran Away by Christopher Brookmyre, the author makes frequent references to various video games including Half-Life; one of the protagonists takes the alias of "Gordon Freeman" while there is an SAS soldier called "Shepard". At one point the male protagonist is equipped with a crowbar and the main action takes place in a largely underground hydroelectric power station with the Gaelic name "Dubh Ardrain" which can be translated as "Black Mesa".
 * In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a lone crowbar can be seen on one of the tables located in the interior of Area 69, an underground army base in a desert.
 * In S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, the player may find the body of a scientist named "Gordon" whose PDA makes mentions of Black Mesa and a crowbar.

Trivia

 * Amongst other names, Gordon Freeman was originally intended to be called Dyson Poincare.

External link

 * Story overview of Half-Life