Black Mesa Research Facility

"The biggest embarrassment has been Black Mesa facility, but I think that's finally taken care of itself."

- G-Man

The Black Mesa Research Facility, B.M.R.F. for short, is the headquarters of the Black Mesa corporation and the primary setting for Half-Life and its three expansions, Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Decay. It is located in the New Mexico desert, USA.

Overview







 * The Black Mesa facility was apparently built over several decommissioned ICBM launching and testing silo complexes probably constructed during the 1950s, which was converted into a vast civilian institute for the research of almost every conceivable scientific discipline. Several Half-Life texture files names contain the word "fifties", suggesting the facility is as old as from the 1950s. Some areas are also described by characters such as Rosenberg as "old" or "abandoned"; several areas of the complex are badly run-down despite the obvious fact that they are still in use. However the surface areas of Black Mesa feature more modern construction.


 * Black Mesa undertakes its various scientific researches in the facility, which is very high-security complex, as each employee is required to undergo a series of rigorous security checks to access most areas.


 * Black Mesa is apparently self-sufficient, housing its own ventilation, plumbing, sewage, and power generation systems including a hydroelectric dam and multiple types of electrical generators and reactors, some nuclear in design.


 * The facility is dominated by a bewildering number of underground laboratories, test areas (including a powerful Anti-Mass Spectrometer), and administration offices, most of which contain very high-tech equipment, and even a rocket launch site.


 * The complex also features multi-story car parks (where only Black Mesa SUVs can be found), arsenals of nuclear and conventional weapons, and a local electric rail materials transport network.


 * Black Mesa is also apparently kept supplied by a conventional freight rail linked to the outside.


 * Despite being located in the middle of a desert, the underground and indoor sectors of Black Mesa are maintained at a "pleasant" 68° Fahrenheit (20° Celsius) at all times, enabled by Black Mesa's sprawling network of ventilation ducts.


 * As employees are required to live in the complex itself, Black Mesa contains many personnel facilities, including laundromats, recreation and sports areas such as lounges,  at least one basketball court, at least one swimming pool, a video rental outlet, fast food outlets, food courts, cafeterias, many vending machines and at least one bar serving alcoholic beverages.


 * The facility is well-populated by rest areas and dormitories for the employees of the facility. As Eli Vance reveals in Half-Life 2 that his wife and daughter lived in Black Mesa with him, it can be inferred that employees' families reside in the dormitory complexes as well.


 * The complex also has its own newspaper, The Mesa Times, although it is unknown if it is an outside publication or exclusively made by the company for its personnel.


 * In the event of an emergency, the "military" and "trained assassins", referred to as "a dangerous and very efficient clean-up crew" are to enter the facility. This suggests that Black Mesa has experienced problems with escaped specimens in the past and that a possible intervention from the HECU and the Black Ops is a known fact among the personnel. Possibly to deal with potential escaped specimens, or perhaps being a leftover from the facility's days as a military missile complex, Black Mesa contains many automated ceiling turrets, which, when activated, will emerge from armored cupolas and fire upon any moving object in their line of sight.

Personnel
Black Mesa employs in its facility two main groups of civilian employees: a science personnel and a security personnel, along with various other inhabitants including administrative personnel, service personnel and occasionally the employees' families.

The Black Mesa Incident
Occurring on May 16, 200-, the Black Mesa Incident is caused directly by a failed experiment in Sector C, triggering a Resonance Cascade. This leads to the invasion of the facility by Xen creatures, and finally its complete destruction.

Facilities
The various Black Mesa facilities are loosely grouped into seven Sectors.

Sector A Training Facility


Encountered in all four of the Half-Life games, Sector A contains the separate Hazard Courses used for training scientists (predominantly to the use of the HEV Suit) and security guards. Demonstrations are provided by trained instructors or prerecorded Holographic Assistants,   whilst participants are constantly monitored by observing scientists. The two known Hazard Courses are apparently built over old, disused industrial sectors of the facility, and are each divided into an obstacle course and target range. This facility can also be accessed in Opposing Force with the Displacer in the map the weapon is found in.

Sector A also contains a Satellite Communications Center, housing a large satellite uplink dish. This facility is used in Decay when Colette Green and Gina Cross help Dr. Rosenberg to contact the military. Near this area is a vast semi-subterranean freight warehouse, which Cross and Green must traverse to the other side to open the locked door to the dish control room.

Barney Calhoun's schedule also places the Area 4 Personnel Dormitories in this sector.

Sector B Coolant Reserve
The Coolant Reserve (formerly the Section A-17 Prototype Laboratories) apparently stores the industrial coolant used to maintain Black Mesa's thousands of computers and machines. It is first seen by Gordon Freeman when he escapes from Sector C.

The section is the site of the (now decommissioned) Displacement Field Laboratory seen in Blue Shift, where Black Mesa's first teleportation experiments took place. It is powered by the Auxiliary Generator Facility. The surface level of Sector B is a Train Yard and is probably used to ship freight in and out of the facility. The sector also contains the Area 2 Administration Offices.

Sector C Test Labs and Control Facilities


Sector C is notable primarily for housing the Anomalous Materials Laboratories, Gordon Freeman's workplace. This area contains the Anti-Mass Spectrometer (in Test Lab C-33/a), which was the initial source of the Black Mesa Incident, the starting point of the Half-Life series.

In addition to the Anomalous Materials Laboratories, the sector also contains the High-Energy Particle Laboratories and Supercooled Laser Laboratory. (the latter is never seen in-game).

Sector C is patrolled by security guards from the Area 3 Security Facilities. The facility is adjacent to the High-Energy Particle Labs, and encompasses a central lobby, personnel facilities, video surveillance, and an armory.

The sector also contains the Level 3 Dormitories, which feature a library, a cafeteria, and an aquatic center with a large pool. This is the area where Gordon Freeman lives while working at Black Mesa. His dormitory (Dorm 309), which he shares with Montague, can be explored and indicates that the average dormitory room is furnished with a bed, entertainment center (with television) and a small bathroom with shower. Several areas also include carpeted lounges with wide-screen televisions.

Sector D Administration


Seen early in Half-Life, Sector D is mainly a large underground complex of Administration Offices where the bureaucratic aspects of Black Mesa's upkeep take place, along with some limited research.

The Administration Offices are built beneath a High Security Storage Facility, a large semi-subterranean warehouse made of interlocking Storage Areas located on the surface. The lower levels of Sector D also contain the Silo D where rocket] engines are tested. The Silo D sector is made of three silos, also named "Prop Labs": Silo D-01 - Engine Testing, the red-coded and biggest silo where engines are tested and where three [[Tentacles can be found during the Black Mesa Incident, Silo D-02 - Power Facility, the green-coded silo used for Silo D-01's power, and Silo D-03 - Wind Tunnel the yellow-coded silo containing a huge propeller, as well as the fuel and oxygen reserves provided for the Silo D-01 engines.

Sector E Biodome Complex


The Biodome Complex, a relatively recent area of the facility (still under construction at the time of the Black Mesa Incident), contains a series of Specimen Observation Areas, where captured Xen aliens and flora are kept and observed in artificial recreations of their natural habitats. Alongside these enclosures are Specimen Containment Rooms where the aliens are studied in closer detail.

Connected to the Biodome Complex are the Gamma Alien Quarantine Labs, where even more aliens are studied. Even closer detail is seen here, including a partially dissected Headcrab, a blood sample of a headless Zombie, venom sucked out of a partially conscious Bullsquid (the machine to which can be operated), and even a dead Vortigaunt with its slave collars hooked up to a large power device, which, when turned on, reveals that the collars shock the slaves with green energy if doing things out of line.

Cross and Green are sent there by Dr. Keller to turn on a Beam Matrix to power the Displacement Beacon on the surface. The matrix consists of three primary-colored lasers that have be combined to make secondary colored lasers for outlets that power certain parts of the Matrix. Then, when all three lasers are combined and sent through what seem to be multicolored Xen crystals, power flows to this machine.

A crater on the surface of Sector E contains the Prototype Displacement Beacon originally designed for the safe and easy collection of Xen wildlife, housed in a sewer until the time of the Black Mesa Incident, at which point it has to be raised by Cross and Green. Lining the walls of the crater are three huge Xen crystals that must be deployed and charged to create a Resonance Reversal. Near these devices is also a fairly large RPG armory. It should be noted that this entire process works in a polar opposite way to the battle of the Nihilanth.

The lowest underground levels of Sector E contain the Hydrofauna Studies Laboratory where aquatic aliens are kept in older decommissioned areas that have been flooded and converted into makeshift tanks. The sector also contains the Advanced Biological Research Lab, a smaller facility where the aliens are tested on and dissected by an automated robotic Surgical Unit.

The second level of the lab is used as an Experimental Weapon Research Lab, testing dangerous weapons such as the Tau Cannon and a large High-Powered Laser. The other surface areas of Sector E form an Ordnance Storage Facility where vast amounts of munitions and explosives are stored, ranging from small arms to crates of dynamite, even including some nuclear weapons, one of which is stolen by the Black Ops. Also there is a room of boxes and two nuclear warheads cluttered with Laser Tripmines by the HECU in order to slow Gordon's progress. An area of this facility, Storage Unit 04 (also known as the Level 4 Storage Unit) becomes infested with Race X aliens and Black Ops, while a practically abandoned industrial area with giant fan vents below that contain an alien portal that, when apparently powered by hundreds of Sprites, brings in the Gene Worm towards the end of Shephard's journey.

The surface of Sector E contains the bulk of Black Mesa's still-functional military facilities (A U.S. Marine Base topside), including at least three Helicopter Hangars, a Topside Armory and a Topside Barracks. The nearby Silo E High Altitude Launch Center is a silo converted into a fully-functional satellite delivery rocket launchpad. This is used by the Lambda Team, with the help of Gordon Freeman, to launch the satellite that later help revert the Resonance Cascade in Decay and is essential in closing the Superportal in Episode Two.

Finally, Sector E is the location of Black Mesa's various Waste Processing facilities, including the Biological Waste Processing Plant and the Waste Processing Area 3.

In proportion to the rest of Black Mesa, Sector E is ultimately the largest area.



These various facilities are linked together, and to the rest of the base, by the (largely decommissioned) Sector E Materials Transport system, a network of dilapidated trams extending deep beneath the facility from Sector E Track Control.

Sector F Lambda Complex


The heavily fortified Lambda Reactor Complex was the site of Black Mesa's top secret teleportation labs. The reactor was a huge device consisting of the Lambda Reactor Main Coolant System, and the cylindrical Lambda Reactor Core. The core of the reactor consisted of four levels (Levels A-D) that fueled an extremely powerful teleportation portal on Level A, where survey Teams were equipped and sent to Xen.

Sector F was linked to the rest of the base via the Secured Access Lambda Sector Transport and the Central Complex, which contains Black Mesa's Central Command and Communication Centers and a Mechanized Infantry Repair Bay.

Sector G Hydro Electric
Located at the lowest points of the Black Mesa Research Facility, Sector G channeled power from Black Mesa's rivers and underground Drainage Canal system. Its most prominent feature was the Topside Hydro Plant that consisted of a large hydroelectric dam-which resembles Hoover Dam-that cuts through the center of Sector E. The dam is heavily damaged by military bombardment and alien moss during Opposing Force.

A large lift in was built into Sector G. However, little else is known about Sector G. A tiny chemical-filled laboratory, freight tunnels, and the Small Materials Storage Area are all else that is seen of this area.

Additional / unspecified areas
The following areas were either not linked to a specific sector, or their specific sector is currently unknown.


 * East Personnel Entrance - Only one spot of which is shown, directly in front of Area 8 Topside Dormitories, though there should have been more of this area elsewhere.


 * Area 7 Recreational Facilities - Whilst not seen in the game, a map of Black Mesa's tram routes in Blue Shift mentions Area 7. As Black Mesa's employees were required to live in the facility itself, it can be assumed that Area 7 contained comforts and diversions such as sporting areas, cafeterias, and other personnel facilities.


 * Area 8 Topside Dormitories - One of the many topside dormitories on the surface of Black Mesa, it featured a basketball court and a small train platform. Barney Calhoun lived in one of the Area 8 dorms, which resemble portable houses.


 * Area 9 Transit Hub - The Area 9 Transit Hub acted as one of the many transit security checkpoints throughout the Black Mesa Research Facility. Trams that pass through the Area 9 Transit Hub can be rerouted to both the Sector E, B, and C transit lines.


 * Black Mesa Air-Traffic Control - This building was adjacent a large airstrip, and was used to monitor and direct activity in the airspace above Black Mesa. Special clearance codes had to be entered at this building before any rocket launch can take place in other areas.


 * Infirmary - At the beginning of Opposing Force, Adrian Shephard wakes up in a damaged Black Mesa infirmary, which appears to still be under the control of Black Mesa personnel, who are caring for wounded soldiers and studying zombies under the protection of security officers. The infirmary was equipped with CAT and MRI scanners, which are still functional. Some areas of the infirmary, though, have been abandoned due to parasitic infestation, and have been blocked off with furniture and hospital beds. There are laser-based experiments taking place in this building. It can be assumed that the Infirmary could be located within Sector C, as the route away from that location ends near areas from the "Black Mesa Inbound" chapter from the original game.


 * Level 1 Main Facility Entrance - Never physically seen within any of the Half-Life games, the Level 1 Main Facility Entrance heavily implies that it was used as a central entrance checkpoint for all the facility personnel. The facility was only seen written on a transit map near the Sector G Main Access Lift.

Behind the scenes



 * Series' writer Marc Laidlaw coined the name "Black Mesa Research Facility". He came up with other names during his brainstorming, including "Black Butte [unreadable] Missile Base" (located in Montana instead of New Mexico), "Sand Basin", "Diablo Mesa", "Mesa Diablo", "Diablo Plains", and "Fertile Plains". He states it is great fun for Valve to invent names for their creations, and then see them go out into the world and take on lives of their own. He also states he is very glad he decided to go with "Black Mesa Research Facility" rather instead of "Black Butte".


 * As with Aperture Science, the Black Mesa Research Facility / Black Mesa logo is directly based on the company's name, appearing as a stylized mesa mountain against the sky.

Trivia
The Black Mesa complex bears many similarities to both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Area 51.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life: Day One
 * Half-Life
 * Half-Life: Uplink
 * Half-Life: Opposing Force
 * Half-Life: Blue Shift
 * Half-Life: Decay
 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One
 * Half-Life 2: Episode Two