Lambda
| Lambda | |
|---|---|
 Logo of Lambda, the conworld. | |
| Genre | Alternative fandom-based historical timeline |
| Established | May 27, 2024 |
| Creator | F0rsaken |
| Progress | work in progress |
| Contributors | Erik (for the QCat template) |
| No. of articles | 8 |
| Status | active |
Lambda is a fandom-based project based on Valve's Half-Life and its various sequels and the world developed in the alpha and beta stages of the second game's release. The project intends to expand and grow on the various lore pieces and elements that were left unfinished during the 2003 Half-Life 2 Leak that occurred when Valve's servers were accessed illegally to obtain copies of the next Half-Life game by a German-born hacker named Axel Gembe. This project also seeks to combine release and alpha or beta lore to make a comprehensive look into a more realistic outcome if the Combine had invaded Earth and truly was a Totalitarian power instead of the lesser version we see in the release.
In the lore for Half-Life, a massive accident takes place at the physics-related research center known as the Black Mesa Research Facility, a so-called Resonance Cascade is caused by an accident with an irregularly pure sample of a Xen crystal being pushed into the Anti-Mass Spectrometer, and causes a massive emigration by Xen fauna and wildlife onto the site as the thousands of personnel attempt to escape during the accident. Afterwards, dozens of Portal storms appear across the planet for days or weeks on end, allowing millions of instances of Xen fauna to flood onto Earth. After enduring this, the Combine noticed the massive influx of dimensional movement after a certain period of time of weeks, and begins to scout out. They find Earth in the midst of the Xen Invasion and decide to invade the planet. After a mere seven hours that was wrought with government collapses, billions of deaths, the Universal Union was victorious and gained another planet under their control.
The project will attempt to remain consistent with what has already been written, and will be constrained by the limits of the game series' technology. The series is more or less in the point of view of the character of Russel from Half Life: Alyx, the only VR game in the Half-Life series as of October 2024. In the game, he states that he had downloaded the entire internet during the talk about the Gravity Gloves that he gives Alyx. If it's not an exaggeration, then he would've archived approximately 400 (give or take) Terabytes of what was the early internet back then. This makes him qualified for the point of view, far more than any rebel leader or member that had access to a computer in some form.
Contributors
- F0rsaken (project lead)
- Erik (for the QCat template that'll come in handy for this timeline, and some foresight.)
Pages & Categories
- All pages
- Meta
- Places
- Creatures
- Entities
- History
- Black Mesa Incident (6–7 December 2000)
- Xen Invasion (8 December–15 January 2000)
- Seven Hour War (16 January 2000)
- Combine Occupation (2000–)
What's the difference?
Release Half-Life lore is generally expansive, as it consists of the Journey of Gordon Freeman through City-17, Ravenholm, the coast, Nova Prospekt, the Citadel, then through the underground and to the White Forest Research Facility. But, during its development, Half-Life 2 had many story variations starting from right after the release of the original Half-Life, beginning in 1999. Gordon Freeman was going to originally travel to other planets to ward off Xen fauna, the Combine only really came into the picture in 2000 when a short version of what would become the release's plot was written up, Get Your Free TVs! was one of the first levels created for the game in 2001.
Mixing both eras of Half-Life 2 is important to understand this timeline because much of the locations are outright changed, switched, or don't exist from the release. The concepts of locations in Half-Life 2's release lore do exist, but they're far from where City-17 actually is. City-17 is located on the coast of the former Northeastern United States to fit more with the original concepts of Half-Life 2 from the very early 2000s.
Much of the wasteland surrounding the city is what remains of the New York Harbor, instead of what would it would evolve into during the leaks (which appeared to be the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan.) Locations like the Air Exchange exist but only in Europe and massive swaths of Asia, which is described to be a massive continent spanning wasteland, as the process of air being turned into toxic gasses by process of a chemical process in-universe that I entitled AIREXPO (Air Exchange Process, Air is taken from the atmosphere and is converted into a form of mustard gas.) Weather control was also apart of this process as it helped in the AIREXPO process as it removed air from the atmosphere.
The Borealis ship also is still in the arctic, just farther north near the northern most point in Greenland. Kraken base is also a submarine base in the northern Atlantic ocean. The citadel also exists and is also centered in City-17 in North America, and has the retail design. Wallace Breen is still the world administrator for the Combine, but internally the Earth Occupation Zone (EOZ) is split into separate entities under one banner.
Chronology
The timeline has been modified for a more realistic sequence of events, as the process of the decision to destroy the research facility by a nuclear weapon would probably be decided way earlier than it was in-game. The length of the incident in game was a couple days, and I shortened it down to a day and 5 hours. I also made the gap between the Black Mesa Incident and Seven Hour War much longer as some thought it took days to weeks, and mine took approximately a month and a week or so to take place. Additionally, all events whose placement was in doubt have been given a definitive date, such as the Black Mesa Incident on December 6, 2000, the Xen Invasion from December 7 2000–January 15 2001, and the Seven Hour War taking place on January 16, 2001 in the hours of 3:08 A.M. to 10:08 A.M.
Black Mesa Incident
The Black Mesa Incident is described as a 29 hour event that took place after the clock struck twelve as computational systems and data management systems in the site were notoriously failing because of the overloading systems caused by the power surge that the Anti-Mass Spectrometer caused by it's power input being raised by 5% on top of its full 100% input.
Xen Invasion
The Xen Invasion is a controversial event in the Half-Life story as many people have trouble delineating the dates which it occurred from, and I made a solution that allowed it take place right after the cessation of the Black Mesa Incident after its destruction and just before the Seven Hour War for a period of 5 or so weeks.
Seven Hour War
This is also infamously a controversial event as it literally starts every event after the first game. No person can seem to come to an agreement about when it takes place, but I have a loose date of January 16, 2001. It also allows for future events like the plot of Half-Life 2 and its betas to take place without issue.
Flavor
This project will contain much in the way of miscellaneous "flavor" articles to add completeness to the world of Half-Life, as the intentions of this conworld is to go incredibly indepth in many topics relating to the Combine invasion, Black Mesa Incident, and Xen Invasion.