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This subject is from the Black Mesa Incident era.This is a safe article.
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"The biggest embarrassment has been Black Mesa facility, but I think that's finally taken care of itself... quite so."
The G-Man[src]
 
 
"Are you crazy? I'm not opening this door until someone turns that bomb off."
―A Black Mesa Security Force Guard
 

The Mark IV Thermonuclear Device, nicknamed "The Package", is a thermonuclear warhead stolen by the Black Ops, and used to destroy the Black Mesa Research Facility.

Overview[]

G-Man bomb activate

The G-Man reactivating the bomb.

In the thirteenth chapter, "The Package", Shephard discovers two other Black Ops assassins setting up the bomb in an underground parking lot under the large Ordinance Storage Facility and connected to Sector E Materials Transport. After killing the assassins, he deactivates it. Afterwards, he proceeds to a nearby room with a view on the truck, and witnesses the G-Man reactivating it. He cannot return to the truck, making the destruction of Black Mesa inevitable.

The bomb explodes when Shephard is detained by the G-Man aboard an Osprey at the end of the game, when a white flash covers the screen while the G-Man makes a slight pause in his monologue.

Despite the fact the Gearbox expansions were rendered non-canon by Valve, the nuclear demise of Black Mesa is considered canon.

Instructions[]

The following instructions are written inside the bomb's lid:

MANUAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR A:
MARK IV THERMONUCLEAR DEVICE

This device carries a GRADE C plutonium control detonator.
With this device an approximate safe distance of
55 kilometers is recommended.

STEP1:
Indispose the gravatronic rev limiter to 11.
STEP2:
Rotate red knob to the on position.
STEP3:
Press button labeled B.


Behind the scenes[]

Although subsequent games tend to disregard the Gearbox expansions' storyline, series' writer Marc Laidlaw has confirmed that the destruction of the Black Mesa Research Facility at the end of Opposing Force is canon.[1]

Trivia[]

  • In the chapter Friendly Fire, the bomb only appears as a rough brush, while it is a detailed model in the chapter "The Package".
  • The warhead's lid has a set of instructions, one of them humorously reads: "Indispose the gravatronic rev limiter to 11." This being a reference to the film 'Spinal Tap' and the famous amp scene, the joke here being that a nuclear bomb's damage lever doesn't end at 10, it unnecessarily goes one higher.
  • The events that lead up to Adrian Shephard attempting to deactivate the bomb is very similar to the 1999 film Fight Club, with both protagonists frantically fighting through an underground parking garage, finding the bomb located in the back of a truck and successfully deactivating it, only for both the respective protagonists actions being rendered null and void in the final seconds. Additionally, both the game and film were made in the same year of 1999. Tyler Durden and the G-Man even share similar characteristics of being unpredictable enigmas.
  • The device outwardly resembles the slim conical re-entry vehicles (RVs) common to numerous American thermonuclear warheads, from the now retired W62 device of 1960s vintage to the somewhat more recent W76 or W87/88 family of warheads. These similarities, however, end with the Mark IV's included control panel, which is a feature alien to the devices upon which the Mark IV appears to be based. Diegetically, this might indicate the Black Mesa Research Facility's modification of a pre-existing warhead/re-entry vehicle design or, a divergence in the design and development of nuclear weapons in the Half-Life universe from our own.
  • While the Mark IV does not appear to share the nomenclature of outwardly similar American thermonuclear warheads, it almost shares the Mark IV designator with the United States Navy's similarly conical Mk4 re-entry vehicle (not to be confused with the United States Air Force's Mk4 re-entry vehicle which predates it by some margin and bears little resemblance to either Black Mesa's Mark IV or the Navy's Mk4 RV). Given that certain publications combine the physics package (the nuclear explosive) and re-entry vehicle designations when referring to a warhead (e.g. W87-Mk4) it is possible that the Mark IV designation was picked up from such a source.[2] [3] [4] [5]
  • The instructions on this device suggest that, when detonated, it will destroy everything in a 55 kilometer radius, with significant damage and radioactive fallout outside that radius. This (pi times 55 km squared) translates to almost 10,000 square kilometers, or about 3% of New Mexico's territory.

Gallery[]

List of appearances[]

References[]

  1. Ia icon Marc Laidlaw Vault - About the expansion involvement on ValveTime (Archived)
  2. Trident II (D5) Missile on Navy.mil
  3. Missile, Reentry Vehicle, Mark 4, describing the Air Force Mk4 re-entry vehicle on The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum site.
  4. Envisioning the W93 on the Los Alamos National Laboratory's site, which discusses the then proposed Navy Mk7 re-entry vehicle in comparison to the already in service Mk4 and 5 Navy RVs.
  5. W88 on Wikipedia which references the Navy's in service Mk4 and Mk5 RVs.
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