Black Mesa East

"It's not Black Mesa, but it's served us well enough."

- Eli Vance

Black Mesa East is a Resistance base located in the Wasteland end of the Canals outside of City 17, opposite to a dam, its generating station and its reservoir, and right next to the abandoned mining town of Ravenholm. Black Mesa East is where Doctor Eli Vance, Doctor Judith Mossman, Alyx Vance, and many other Resistance members, including some Vortigaunts, used to live before its destruction.

Overview


Black Mesa East is set several stories underground, and includes many facilities that make it self-sufficient, such as its own power generators, kitchens, recreational areas, and most importantly, Eli Vance's lab, where he is constantly refining the teleportation technology salvaged from the Black Mesa Research Facility. Eli works with Doctor Isaac Kleiner, who also has his own lab, hidden in downtown City 17. They eventually established a working teleportation system that would have eliminated the need for the Civilian Militia's Underground Railroad (which was, incidentally, on the same day the teleportation systems began functioning, destroyed by the Combine) but Alyx Vance was the only person to be successfully teleported to Black Mesa East before it was invaded by the Combine.

The Vortigaunts at Black Mesa East appear to do a lot of the work around the place, such as preparing food or powering generators with their natural ability to generate electricity. They also help Eli around the lab, by manning computers or installing or powering parts for various machines. Another area briefly seen is the barracks for members of the Resistance, which is shared by both Vortigaunts and people. In this area soldiers rest and pass their free time.

All entry points to Black Mesa East are under constant surveillance by CCTV cameras, and contain decontamination chambers with heavy blast doors to hold anyone or anything that isn't meant to enter. Black Mesa East is directly connected to Ravenholm via a tunnel that has been barricaded off since the shelling of Ravenholm took place, to prevent zombies and Headcrabs from entering the facility.

Half-Life 2


Gordon Freeman arrives at Black Mesa East for a short visit during the events of Half-Life 2. He is greeted by Judith in one of the decontamination chambers, and she brings him up to speed on the scientific breakthroughs that have taken place in the last few months. She soon after takes him down to Eli's lab, where Eli and Alyx talk to him, and show him that much of the research begun at the original Black Mesa is continuing at this new facility.



Gordon also learns about events such as the Seven Hour War and the Portal Storms by reading newspaper clippings found in the lab. Other interesting things such as a Cremator's head in formaldehyde can be seen in Eli's lab. There is also machine simulating a small resonance cascade called the Rotato located here, containing a Xen crystal similar to the one used in the original experiment. Eli will make comments on various other things around the place, such as an old family photo containing him, Alyx, and his deceased wife, Azian Vance. The photo has been salvaged somehow from the Black Mesa East destruction and can be seen in White Forest.

Soon after Gordon arrives in Eli's lab, Alyx takes him to an outdoor scrapyard, and gives him training with the gravity gun Eli built (it was originally designed for heavy lifting and the handling of hazardous materials, but Gordon finds a much better use for it - turning it into a weapon which will serve him well throughout the rest of his mission). Alyx also introduces Gordon to Dog, the robot built by Eli to protect her while she was young. Gordon and Dog play a game of fetch using a Combine rollermine which has had its ability to electrocute people disabled, and use the gravity gun on various other objects such as crates, found in the scrapyard. Alyx also introduces the limitations of the Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator, ordering Dog to throw something bigger and stopping him upon choosing a dumpster the regular Gravity Gun cannot hold.

Black Mesa East is eventually raided by the Combine. They launch a massive attack using scanners, headcrab shells, and hunter-choppers in the air, and Overwatch soldiers in the facility. The Vortigaunts present attempt to fight off the internal attack, but are overpowered and Eli Vance ends up being captured and taken to Nova Prospekt. The raid was actually made possible by Judith, as it was revealed while watching a conversation she has with Doctor Breen over a screen at Nova Prospekt that she had provided him the information on Black Mesa East's location, during which her secret alliance with the Combine is revealed.

During the course of the raid, Black Mesa East is heavily damaged, and much of its personnel are presumed to have been killed or escaped (there is a large pipe opening high on one of the scrapyard's natural walls, capable of accommodating large numbers of escapees, though this could be countered with Manhacks). Due to hallways being blocked off by rubble and collapsed ceilings, Gordon Freeman is forced to go through Ravenholm on his way to the coast, as it is the only remaining exit from the facility. After this, Black Mesa East is not seen again for the rest of the game.

Behind the scenes



 * Black Mesa East was originally to be an underground lab installed in some kind of scrapyard cave, right after the original, yet unnamed, Ravenholm. Gordon was to meet there Eli Maxwell, unrelated to Alyx, and Dog. Maxwell was to demonstrate the abilities of the original physics manipulator and show Gordon a slideshow of what had happened during the last 10 years (which was later said to be 20 years ), including the loss of his leg to a Bullsquid . Eli's lab was finally transformed into a real underground building, the scrapyard being kept only for playing fetch with Dog and the Gravity Gun. Then Eli Maxwell was merged with Captain Vance to become Eli Vance. A prototype map of the original cave lab, last edited in August 2001, can be found in the WC mappack under the name " " ("Eli's den"), but it does not contain the actual lab, but rather some sort of garage.


 * Originally, Gordon was not to be teleported to Black Mesa East at the start of the game but to Kraken Base, since Eli's lab was very simple and its teleport was in pieces and therefore not working. The teleportation would then fail and Gordon was to go to Eli's lab instead.


 * Some players have been confused about Black Mesa East being the "east" section or wing of the Black Mesa Research Facility, the secret research facility where the majority of Half-Life takes place. However, this is not the case - they are actually two separate places. The Black Mesa "Research Facility" was located in Black Mesa, New Mexico, USA, while Black Mesa "East" is situated outside of City 17, which is located in Eastern Europe, hence Black Mesa "East". A possible reason why "Black Mesa" is in the base's name is because it may have well been founded by Eli Vance, who originally worked at the Black Mesa Research Facility, and might have wanted the name to live on. The only things the two facilities share in common is the name, and that it is self-sufficient on its own level somewhat like Black Mesa. It is, however, doing similar research. Eli Vance explicitly states, "It's not Black Mesa, but it's served us well enough."

Trivia
Several books can be found on the shelf located left of the teleport. They include:


 * Lost Socks
 * Calabi-Yau Space
 * Book apparently written in Chinese
 * To the 8th Dimension and Back Again
 * From Here to There in Under a Second by Isaac Kleiner
 * Aeronautical Robotics by William C. Wood
 * The Extreme Aggrotato by Marc Laidlaw
 * Strings, Quarks and Me
 * Applied Dynamics
 * Advanced Modular Theory and Speculation
 * The Big Book of Big Text by Dayyan Eng

Dayyan Eng is an Chinese-American filmmaker, likely related to Dhabih Eng, who designed Black Mesa East and produced one of Dayyan's short films. Marc Laidlaw is the Half-Life series' writer.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar