Combine Advisor

The Combine Advisors are the face of the Combine Empire on Earth, and are possibly the original master race behind the alien empire. They briefly appear in Half-Life 2, in Dr. Breen's office on giant monitors, and they can be seen several times during Episode One. They play a much larger role in Episode Two. Physically, they resemble large grub-like creatures, belonging to a species which most likely passed its singularity long ago. As a result of their expertise in developing advanced technology, the Advisors have evolved to an artificial state which may be vastly different from their original physical state.

Overview


In terms of size, an Advisor is about as large as a rhinoceros. They are able to hover, possibly through some form of anti-gravity technology, but most likely some form of telekinesis, can completely immobilize and levitate objects and living beings. Advisors are virtually featureless, with no visible eyes, ears, mouth, or limbs. This may be the explanation for the many mechanical augmentations they bear. They have no visible eyes, though they do possess an eye-like mechanical device attached to one side of their "head". At one point in Episode Two, the first Advisor encountered mistakes a barrel for a human, however, it used its tongue afterwards to figure out what it had wasn't human. Their "faces" are covered by what may be some form of respirator, though as the hose attached to it does not lead to any obvious tank, and thus, the device's true purpose is unknown. Advisors rest inside a metal cradle which has two mechanical claw-like arms protruding from the upper section. However, in Episode Two, Advisors can be seen both with and without the cradle and mechanical arms. Their appearance seems to change significantly between Half-Life 2 and Episode Two. The reason for this is unknown. Advisors have a ring where the body meets the head that bears strange markings which could possibly be evidence of the original Combine language. Each Advisor wears a stitched olive-green body suit, leaving only the mostly featureless "face" and part of the tail fully visible. The suit also has a black collar adorned with golden hieroglyphs on it. Advisors appear to feed on something inside humans and, presumably, other species. After immobilizing a victim, an Advisor extends a long flexible proboscis from an opening in its face, which it then jabs into the victim's neck. It is unknown what the Advisor is consuming from the body, possibly brain matter or something of the like. One popular theory contends that Advisors can extract useful information from the brains of those they kill, in a similar fashion to the brain bug from the Starship Troopers series. They are shown to feed on both the living and dead. It is worth noting that the Advisors' proboscis has yet to be confirmed as a means of consumption or if it is simply a sensory organ. Besides "Advisor", the only other spoken term for these creatures is "Shu'ulathoi", as mentioned by a Vortigaunt in the Freeman Pontifex chapter of Episode Two. "Shu'ulathoi" may mean, more specifically, the ones who are still in the Pods. Also the golden ring on the Advisors' neck, inscribed with old Combine scripture, and their grublike body shape suggest that Advisors are very primitive.



Advisor rule
Under normal circumstances the Advisors seem happy to live in artificial seclusion. During the Combine rule of Earth, a number of them lived within the Citadel and ruled the planet through the medium of Dr. Breen, who was more or less their puppet. They subsisted in pods during this time, apparently reliant on life support systems. None of the citizens of City 17 or even the Resistance seem to have been aware of their existence; the outward face of the Combine on Earth was Dr. Breen and his post human minions, and the Advisors seemed happy to retain this facade.

During the events of Half-Life 2, it becomes obvious through the increasingly panicked Breencasts that the Advisors have grown to suspect both Dr. Breen's motives and his usefulness to them. One is shown communicating telepathically with Breen as he pleads and bargains for rescue. With the apparent death of Breen at the end of Half-Life 2, the Advisors seem to have taken control of the Combine on Earth directly. In Episode One, they are shown preparing to evacuate themselves from the damaged Citadel while their soldiers and other minions are ordered to destroy the Citadel's dark fusion reactor to send an unknown message to the Combine Overworld. This indicates that they are of a high position in the known Combine hierarchy, as their minions have no chance to evacuate once the reactor begins to detonate, whilst their escape pods ensure they can flee to a safe distance. After Gordon and Alyx has killed a combine sniper and Alyx has taken controll of the gun, in the next building they enter there will be a screen showing an advisor in a room with combine soldiers, wich indicates the advisor had just been giving the soldiers orders, but shortly after Gordon enters the room the screen will turn of. At the end of Episode One when Gordon and Alyx has borded the escape train, as the Citadel sends the message several advisor pods can be spottet evacuating the Citadel, 4 going left of Gordon and Alyx's direction, 4 right, and 3 passing right over them.

Metamorphosis


Following their escape of the Citadel, the Advisors seem to have gradually abandoned their life support systems; they have, in the words of the Vortigaunts, begun to "hatch". It seems that when forced to the Advisors undergo a change or even rebirth that allows them to regain the power to cope in the outside world. During Episode Two, Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance shut off the life support systems of one, but it is evidently too late to kill the Advisor they are attached to. During the events of Episodes One and Two, they are shown to have a keen interest in Gordon Freeman (most likely due to Wallace Breen noticing him in a malfunctioning teleport and then alerting Advisors to his presence) and Alyx Vance (frequent Combine deaths and the daughter of Eli Vance), frequently appearing on screens and in the open, monitoring their progress and dispatching Combine Soldiers to apprehend them.

Telekinesis
As well as their apparent telepathic abilities, the Advisors cause visual disturbances to anyone who approaches them, and have considerable overt psychic powers. Twice in Episode Two they are shown pinning multiple humans to walls telekinetically without any noticeable effort, and one is shown to snap a human's body in half once it no longer interests it. Their concentration, however, is broken both times by an outside source inflicting pain on them.

It is theorized that the impaling tongue appendage may be a way to extract information directly from a human's brain, similar to that of the "Brain Bug" from the loose film adaptation of the novel Starship Troopers. This can be inferred by earlier dialog between Dr. Kleiner and Eli Vance concerning what would happen should Dr. Judith Mossman be captured by the Combine. The possible ramifications of Eli's death include the Combine acquiring Eli's knowledge of the Resistance and possibly his knowledge of Portal technology.

Episode Three


Commentary from the first Advisor encounter in Episode Two suggests that the player will have to directly fight at least one Advisor in Episode Three.

Behind the scenes

 * When viewing earlier versions of the Advisor in model viewer, they appear to have another attack which uses their mechanical arms. There seems to be a small amount of this at the end of Episode Two when they confront Eli Vance.
 * In Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, Ted Backman mentions that the immense, worm-like form of the Combine Advisor was inspired by the work of Frank Herbert, most likely the images of the Spacing Guild Navigators from the Dune novels and the original 1984 film.
 * The Advisor might be partially based on the Kingpin concept, due to the similarities to the Kingpin's second design and the concept of psionic attacks.
 * The shaft seen in the Citadel in Episode One where the Advisor leaves is one of the oldest concepts created for Half-Life 2. An early WC mappack map (" ", last edited on October 12th, 2001) features a prototype version of it.
 * Several different texture colors can be found in the playable Half-Life 2 Beta files. They include yellowing tones, red, blue or green. It is likely that the Advisor were to come in only one color and that these files are only experimentation.
 * In the final map in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, if the player uses noclip, they can fly behind the building. There are two idle advisors here. They can be damaged with weapons, causing them to actually play a sound and an animation. (If they are killed, the end cutscene will be broken.) This shows that Valve has already scripted the Advisor, possibly to be used in Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Another hint is the console command sk_advisor_health 1000.
 * If you listen closely, during the beginning of a scene in Episode 1 you can hear "speaking" while an Advisor is on a screen, just before Combine soldiers come out. This is actually the sound of Vortigaunts from the original Half-Life slowed down. If this is indeed the Advisor speaking this suggests that they speak the same language as the Vortigaunts, although this is more likely just recycling old sounds.

List of appearances

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