Seven Hour War

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Seven Hour War
Beginning	Days after the Black Mesa Incident
End	The seventh hour
Location
Earth
Outcome
Decisive Combine victory; unconditional surrender and occupation of Earth
Belligerents
United Nations
Combine
Commanders
Human leadership
Combine Advisors
Strength
Human forces
Combine forces
Casualties
Massive death toll
Unknown

 

"EARTH SURRENDERS"

―The Times newspaper

 

The Seven Hour War was a brief but decisive confrontation between the Combine and the governments of Earth, ultimately leading to a large human death toll and the surrender of the planet in less than seven hours. The victorious Combine began their occupation shortly after.

Overview

In the wake of the Resonance Cascade caused by the Black Mesa Incident, a series of destructive Portal Storms raged across Earth, depositing Xenian lifeforms all around the world. Facing the overwhelming alien onslaught, the planet's populace moved into cities for protection, but even this was not enough. Soon, nearly all world governments were at the point of collapse, with one newspaper reporting that the effort to restore order on Earth had stretched their resources to the breaking point.

Attracted to Earth by the dimensional rift, a vast interdimensional empire known as the Combine invaded the planet. They caught the human population by surprise and defeated all of its armed forces in only seven hours. The human death toll, including both military and civilian, is presumed to be vast. The United Nations Secretariat Building in New York was reported to have been heavily damaged by projectiles from space during the war, suggesting that the Combine may have used orbital bombardments. The newspaper photograph also shows least two Striders also attacking the building.

During the war, the former Black Mesa administrator Dr. Wallace Breen discovered a way to communicate with the Combine directly. The United Nations then authorized Breen to negotiate a peace with the invading extra-terrestrial empire by any means necessary. Breen managed to negotiate a peace by offering humanity's unconditional surrender, "saving" what remained of mankind at the cost of their freedom. Breen was then declared "Interim Administrator" of Earth by the Combine, a position that was largely ceremonial, and Breen served only as a puppet ruler, answering to his Combine overlords. This "negotiation", which could be considered little more than a plea for mercy, ultimately marked the end of the Seven Hour War.

While the Combine would have been a grave threat even if the human militaries had been fully-equipped and ready for battle, Earth's beleaguered armed forces stood no chance in dealing with both the Combine and the ongoing Portal Storms - the War had ended long before it ever truly began.

Aftermath

Clipping from a newspaper labeled "The Times" found in Half-Life: Alyx. The paper details Breen's negotiations with the Combine for Earth's surrender.

In the aftermath of the conflict, the remaining humans were gathered into reorganized city centres, as the world outside of these areas were infested with wildlife native to other worlds. This made the exteriors of cities and the regions beyond dangerous if not downright deadly to not only human life, but also to the rest of Earth's natural fauna. The rest of the planet was slowly reduced to an inhospitable wasteland, infested with xenotheric alien species, and hostile to both humans and the Combine alike.

Facilities like Nova Prospekt were opened within the remnants of the remaining man-made infrastructure- their goals were to forcibly modify humans, erase their memories, and assimilate them into the Combine's workforce and military.

The Combine then began to exploit the resources of Earth such as draining its mineral-rich oceans, which can be seen in chapters Highway 17 and Sandtraps, where dilapidated piers sit barren on the once watery shorelines. The Citadel in City 17 served as the central node or 'link in the chain' between the Combine Overworld and Earth, as the portal storms were no longer active on the planet, and they could no longer use Xen as a connection.

The Combine, since gaining dominance on Earth, has imposed a "Suppression Field," which serves to inhibit human reproduction. Comments made at the train station during Gordon Freeman's arrival suggest that the Combine has been drugging the populace through their water supply, putting "something in the water to make you forget."

At the beginning of Half-Life 2, the G-Man makes a brief reference to the war, telling Gordon Freeman that "all the effort in the world would have gone to waste..." This line is generally understood to be a direct reference to the war, the establishment of Dr. Breen's terror state, and the reasons for Freeman's stasis. Despite Freeman's triumph at Black Mesa, it was theorized that there was nothing that he or the entire human race could have done to save Earth from the superior forces of the Combine empire immediately after the events of Half-Life.

Half-Life 2 begins an undisclosed number of years after this war, and the rule of the Combine has been firmly established. There is, however, some evidence from the Half-Life 2: Episode One official website indicating that Half-Life 2 takes place nearly two decades after the Black Mesa incident. Such a time frame is logically consistent with the aging of the series' characters between Half-Life and Half-Life 2. This time frame explains how Eli Vance's child, Alyx Vance, has matured to an adult since the events of the first game, where she was still an infant at the time.

No children are seen throughout Half-Life 2 and its Episodes. The Combine had set up a reproductive suppression field for all of the remaining humans a short time after the war, preventing any further reproduction for approximately twenty years until the events of Episode One. However, the suppression field is disabled due to the damage the Citadel had taken thanks to Freeman's actions in Half-Life 2.

Trivia

• The Seven Hour War, or more likely, a reenactment of the event, was to be depicted in a Breencast-esque propaganda piece during the events of Half-Life: Alyx. Though this was eventually cut from the retail game, the files associated with the sequence were present in a leaked beta build, which, after some maintenance, allows the scene to be reconstructed.