Eli Vance

"Gordon... Thanks for everything you've done. For Alyx, for all of us. I couldn't be prouder if you were my own son."

- Eli Vance

Dr. Eli Vance is a brilliant physicist and researcher, an African-American man apparently in his late fifties or early sixties with short gray hair, a beard and moustache. He wears a prosthetic leg to replace his left leg beneath the knee, which was lost when he was attacked by a Bullsquid while helping Isaac Kleiner climb over a barrier to get into City 17.

Background
As seen on his jumper, Eli is presumably a graduate of Harvard University.

He is the father of Alyx Vance. He lost his wife Azian in the aftermath of the Resonance Cascade. All three lived on the premises of Black Mesa. Alyx and a family picture were all he managed to carry out of Black Mesa.

According to the Vortigaunts, Eli was the first human being to make peaceful contact with them ("The Eli Vance was our first collaborator."), quickly persuading the alien race to ally with humanity against the Combine invasion of Earth. Voritigaunts furthermore state that Eli earned their trust, is indispensable to the liberation and that he almost perceives the "All-in-One".

Half-Life


At the time of Half-Life, Vance is employed at the Black Mesa Research Facility, working in the Sector C Anomalous Materials laboratories. As a full-time employee of Black Mesa, he lives in the facility itself with his wife Azian and their young daughter Alyx. Although he was never named during the game or featured as a full character, he is seen on two occasions. First, when Gordon is making his way into the test chamber: Dr. Vance and another scientist voice their concerns that their computer equipment is being damaged due to the heightened strains of the morning's experiment. When Gordon Freeman retraces his steps through Sector C after the Resonance Cascade, he encounters Vance and the scientist he had been with earlier, who is now badly injured. Vance informs Gordon that the telephone network has broken, and sends Gordon up to the surface to seek help. His last act in Half-Life is to operate the Retinal Scanner that starts Gordon on his long quest through the facility.

Half-Life 2


The survivors of the Black Mesa Incident, Eli, Alyx, Isaac Kleiner, and Barney Calhoun, form the core of the Resistance who are attempting to overthrow the Combine who have taken over Earth after the Seven Hour War. The Vances have established a makeshift laboratory, Black Mesa East, on the outskirts of City 17. There, Dr. Judith Mossman assists them in their continuing research in the field of teleportation. Kleiner and Vance briefly establish a working teleport system between their two labs; the system fails on its second attempt due to interference from Lamarr, forcing Gordon to reach Black Mesa East on foot.

When Freeman arrives at Eli's lab, his arrival triggers an invasion by Combine forces, who had been chasing him throughout. The soldiers then capture Eli and take him to Nova Prospekt.

Later Gordon and Alyx storm the prison to free him, fighting off hordes of Combine forces to locate Eli and Mossman. During the final siege, however, Mossman teleports herself and Eli into the Citadel.

While infiltrating the Citadel, Gordon and Alyx are captured; Dr. Breen addresses both Vances and Freeman in his office with Dr. Mossman at his side, revealing her double agent role. Mossman then turns on Breen and frees his hostages, and stays with Eli while Alyx and Gordon pursue the fleeing Breen.

Before the dark fusion reactor is destroyed and before Gordon and Alyx are rescued by Vortigaunts, Eli and Judith use one of Dr. Breen's escape pods to leave the Citadel, and reach a Vortigaunt camp, "way outside the city", possibly in the Outlands.

Half-Life 2: Episode One
In Episode One, Eli appears at the beginning of the game in a monitor transmission with Dr. Kleiner, telling Alyx and Gordon to get out of City 17 before the Citadel Core explodes. He is likely already at White Forest, that he reached with Mossman, who left soon after they arrived.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two


In Episode Two, Eli works with Kleiner and Magnusson at White Forest on a rocket that will neutralize the Portal Storms, and prevent the Combine from drawing reinforcements through their dormant Superportal. When Gordon and Alyx arrive, they deliver a recording of Judith Mossman's transmission about the Borealis, which never reached White Forest. Eli is visibly shaken by the danger Mossman is in, and is only prevented from going after her himself by pressure from Alyx and Kleiner. When the Borealis appears in the transmission, Eli immediately wishes it destroyed, lest the events of Black Mesa repeat themselves. Alyx then delivers a subliminally implanted message given to her by the G-Man, to "prepare for unforeseen consequences." After a moment of extreme shock, Eli appears to dismiss the message, asking that Alyx make him tea in another room.

Once Alyx has left, Eli explains that he too is aware of the G-Man's existence (the first character in the Half-Life universe to openly do so). He indicates to Gordon that the Xen Crystal that began the events of Half-Life was delivered by the G-Man, and that Alyx's survival in Black Mesa was due to his interference. Moments after Gordon entered the Black Mesa test chamber, the G-Man warned Eli to "prepare for unforeseen consequences". He is convinced that the current warning relates to the Borealis, and seems to take it seriously despite his resentment over the way in which it was delivered. Eli indicates he can reveal more about the G-Man, but before he can do so, Alyx re-enters the room, and the conversation is halted.

After the rocket is successfully launched, Eli thanks Gordon for everything and tells him he could not be prouder if he were his own son. He also tells him he has more information to reveal and that he will get back to that later. They then watch the Superportal being shut off by the rocket, then Gordon and Alyx get ready to leave and undertake their search for Judith Mossman with a helicopter. Arrived in the hangar where the helicopter is stationed, Eli and his daughter embrace in an affectionate moment. A few seconds later, Advisors break in and one of them kills Eli while Gordon and Alyx watch helplessly. Alyx then weeps over her father's dead body, as the screen fades to black, and the credits roll.

Alyx Vance


Having lost a wife and a mother, Eli and Alyx are very close. He calls her "baby", "honey" or "sweetheart" and is willing to sacrifice himself for her when she and Gordon come to rescue him at Nova Prospekt. At Black Mesa East and White Forest, Eli also teases her several times about her relationship with Gordon, and suggests he would not mind having grandchildren from them. Eli and Alyx seem even closer in Episode Two, when they are seen embracing and telling each other affectionate words several times. Right before Eli dies, he tells her how he loves her one last time. When the Advisor let go of his body, Alyx weeps over it, devastated, asking him not to leave her.

Gordon Freeman
A few minutes before dying, Eli thanks Gordon for everything and tells him he could not be prouder if he were his own son. He holds Gordon in high esteem and is very admiring of his courage through his ordeals since the Black Mesa Incident. He also does not blame him for what happened in Black Mesa, the error having been made being not on his part.

Isaac Kleiner
Eli and Kleiner have both known each other and worked together since the days of Black Mesa. Kleiner is also affectionately nicknamed "Izzy" by Eli on various occasions. When the Borealis issue is raised, the are both opposed to each other views, Kleiner suggesting they used the technology for the Resistance, Eli insisting that it be destroyed at all costs.

Judith Mossman


Judith and Eli have a somewhat ambiguous relationship. At Black Mesa East, Judith seems fully devoted to Eli. During the confrontation with Breen in the Citadel, it is learned that Mossman had bargained for Eli's life, so he could continue his research. When she realizes Breen changes the plans and will have both Eli and Alyx killed instead while he tries to win Gordon's allegiance, she has a change of heart and saves the trio. After Alyx and Gordon leave Breen's office to pursue the latter, Mossman stays with Eli, telling him she won't leave him again, as they stay sitting on the ground, appearing very close. When later it is learned that Mossman is in danger after having discovered the Borealis, Eli blames himself for the situation, stating he should never have let her go. There is probably more than meets the eye between the two, but Eli died before they could reunite, thus halting the revelation of new clues about their relationship, although Mossman's reaction to Eli's death might be revealed later.

Wallace Breen
Breen, Eli's former boss at Black Mesa, is quickly introduced as being strongly antagonized by Eli when he is introduced by Alyx on the propaganda poster found near Kleiner's Lab hidden entrance. At that point, Alyx suggests Gordon to not get her father started on Dr. Breen. Eli then shows strong despise about Breen selling himself to the Combine to humanity's expense, and later names what he has done to Earthlings to be "beyond words", "genocide", and "indescribable evil". He also challenges Breen to kill him and Alyx, if that is the worst he can do.

Personality and skills
Eli is warm, good-humored, and charismatic, holding everyone around him in the aura of his personal charm. A skilled scientist, he designed the Gravity Gun and Dog, "put together" the Shorepoint Scout Car with his daughter (and added himself the Tau Cannon to it), and was able to rebuild a teleport with the aid of the other key Resistance members.

Behind the scenes



 * Eli is basically the black scientist model ("scientist03", or "Luther") from Half-Life turned into a real character.


 * Eli's face was based on that of Larry "The Count" Heard, a local man who was holding a sign indicating that he was looking for work, found on the street by Valve employees.


 * Eli's texture files from the playable Half-Life 2 Beta, also seen in a Half-Life 2 trailer, indicate that he was originally to wear a Yale jumper, not Harvard.


 * Eli Vance stems from two merged characters, Eli Maxwell and Captain Vance. Maxwell was to be a scientist unrelated to Alyx and fill the same role as Eli in Black Mesa East, already building the Gravity Gun and owning Dog. Captain Vance, Alyx's father, was to be one of the few surviving military leaders of Earth, and the leader of the Conscripts.


 * "Eli" is a an Hebrew name meaning "ascension". In the Old Testament, Eli was the high priest of Israel and the teacher of Samuel. In England, "Eli" has been used as a Christian given name since the Protestant Reformation. "Vance" is an English surname meaning "dweller by a fen, marsh", derived from the Old English "fenn".


 * According to Valve's Bill Van Buren, the decision to kill Eli was not made lightly. Once they made it, they had to figure out how to make it meaningful. They had already established Eli's frailty, as well as his importance to the Resistance and Alyx's devotion to him, so from a narrative point of view the impact of his death seemed obvious. The hard part for the team was to design the death scene. The Advisors' ability to immobilize the player gave them a way to stage it, the animations and the sound design made it believable, but the performances by Merle Dandridge and Robert Guillaume were the key element. Bill Fletcher gives further details: to create the sequence, the team talked it through in great detail, wrote up an outline with all the events they had discussed, and then produced an animatic. They used rough sketches painted over screenshots, and a variety of crude special effects and sounds to create a quick pre-visualization of how the scene would play out. Not only did this help them to converge on a shared vision for the scene, but by working rough, they were able to quickly iterate until they had a design worth implementing in the game.


 * The loss of the leg was originally to be mentioned by Eli in his lab, but was ultimately cut, to be only mentioned in Raising the Bar and the Half-Life 2 Prima Guide. Early sound files found in the playable Half-Life 2 Beta files, dating from when Eli was still known as Eli Maxwell (as the file names feature the name "maxwell"), indicate that he was to lose his leg to a Particle Storm.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life: Day One
 * Half-Life
 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One
 * Half-Life 2: Episode Two