How to Enslave Humanity in Seven Hours.

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The Seven Hour War rings a bell for many old people and fans of the magical world created by Valve nearly two decades ago, but as with any old story, the world of Half-Life was mostly forgotten as the fans continue to wait for the third chapter to come out. It is still important to remember how big of an impact the universe had on the Gaming industry and exactly why it became popular. The answer to that would be how terribly things end for all of humanity after a failure at a research facility in the New Mexico desert.

sCREENSHOT from a video game Black Mesa.

The first chapter begins with the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, an associate scientist working for a research facility “Black Mesa”, attempting to develop a teleportation device with other scientists and then activating said device which indirectly caused the interdimensional rift between two universes to open. The combine, which is a vast interdimensional empire spanning an indefinite number of universes and star systems, comprising countless species as allies and as slaves, launched an invasion force that caught the human population by surprise through the newly opened portals and overpowered all Earth’s militaries in only seven hours.

Half life 2 screenshot

Half Life: Alyx. Screenshot.

Half life 2 screenshot

As the Combine settles down, the oceans and all of Earth’s natural resources are drained, the cities are destroyed, and most species go extinct. The Combine existence is fueled by war and exploitation of foreign worlds and so they are more than qualified to enslave an entire planet and concrete their presence. The unfathomable ways through which the Combine achieve this may be considered harsher than the ways through which Nazi Germany treated its captured discriminated people.

Half life: Alyx. Poster.

The second chapter begins with Gordon entering City-17 by train and seeing the suffering people endure. The first noticeable thing to keep in mind is how many people stand by the gates waiting for their relatives or friends to come out. Some have been waiting for weeks now and most forgot whom or what they were waiting for but keep coming back. A stranger tells Gordon “They” put something in the water that makes you forget.

In game grafitti (half life 2)

Instead of bringing other races to guard Humans, the Combine begin converting those humans that prove their loyalty to the Combine Empire into brain-dead soldiers physically superior to us. Humans are best at killing humans.

Regular civilian buildings are under constant police searches and if you do not manage to open as soon as the officers knock, regardless of the reasoning, the door will be brought down, and you executed. They start with a building, then the entire block; if the police do not have a reason to search the building, they will make one. Even if you, a regular civilian, manage to survive through this barrage of constant police searches, the Combine will forcefully move you to a different city sooner or later.

By keeping the population completely disorganized, disoriented, and in constant fear, there will be no way for them to form any kind of resistance. Even if you succeed in convincing somebody to join you and never get find out, they will force you out, separate you, and make sure you forget everyone you ever knew.

Humanity is on “life support.” It is an organism that the Combine wants to exploit for its natural resources and the only reason Humanity has not been completely purged is the Combine has a limited grasp of local teleportation and attempts to find the humans that will make it possible. While the Combine can teleport between universes, they have not been successful in finding a way to teleport between locations in the same universe. Humanity is an asset, and the Combine is not letting it live, but keeping it alive.

Half life: alyx. Screenshot.

Half life: alyx. Screenshot.

Will humanity ever set itself free? In such a world, I do not believe so. Combine’s ultimate goal is to enslave and control the entire Multiverse, combining it into one union. They control an immeasurable number of stars and universes; losing Earth to the Combine would feel the same as a kennel proclaiming independence within the United States to us. Unless humans figure out a way to deny the Combine entering the universe, there is no plausible way for Earth to keep its independence.

Written by Maddie Tim Fox


I’m a content creator, artist, screenwriter, and engineer. Reviewing content such as shows, movies, and games for me is a hobby I adore, secrets and content of which cannot wait to share with you.

Half life: Alyx. G-Man screenshot.

HOW TO RELIVE THE SAME WORLD A MILLION TIMES

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When thinking of fictional universes, the stories of all worlds are stone. Some fan fiction depicting an alternative ending exists, but most of the time it simply does not match the same quality of writing and creative input as source material.

There are very few ways for ordinary people to experience or affect the story of the world without being the scriptwriter; one of the tools that allow any individual to control the story is a game, often referred to as a random story generator, Rimworld.

RATED R.

Rimworld is a game which has several starting scenarios, but the one will try is “crashlanded”. In the mentioned scenario, three randomly generated characters must evacuate a destroyed spaceship. They board the escape pods and land on the closest hospitable planet. As they land with what little resources and weaponry they managed to grab from the ship, their goal Is to survive and find a way to escape this prison of a planet.

The characters have unique personalities, traits, skills, passions, and relations with their acquaintances. Some may enter relationships or become rivals. Characters often experience mental breakdowns, and it impacts how your story moves forward.  

Screenshot of a forest the characters might land in.

You may decide to settle and begin building a town or remain nomadic and travel around the planet as a caravan. If settled, the neighbouring villages will eventually acknowledge your existence and begin sending either trading caravans or raiders to kidnap your people to be then enslaved or murdered.

Screenshot of the battlefield.

Screenshot of the aftermaths of a raid.

The world is full of random events as well, one day a huge space battle between multiple starships might occur and chunks of metal begin raining down on your town, another day a dozen tamed dogs may join your community and eat your entire food supply out of the fridge you forgot to close.

Every single game is unique and generates many emotions that both the characters and the player take close to heart. After spending days of real-time observing your character develop, grow as a person, get better at the skills they are passionate about, and get shot in the leg and watch the light slowly leave their eyes from a deadly infection that nobody was able to treat is devastating.

In one of my playthroughs, one of my dogs became an alcoholic and drank all the beer inside our fridge which caused our colonist, another alcoholic, to enter a mental breakdown and while breaking things down they set the farm on fire. Everyone had to abandon their jobs to protect our harvest from getting destroyed but failed nonetheless and we were left with no food for the winter. The colony was forced to look for alternative ways of gathering food which developed the story and solidified relationships between the colonists.

At the start of the game, you get to choose a storyteller and you, as the player, must then fight that storyteller’s tricks. One of them will make the story flow like a marvel movie with nonfatal difficulties at the beginning and a huge devastating battle at the end. Another storyteller called Randy makes your stories feel realistic by not having a set increase in difficulty and completely randomizing story generation. One day you get attacked by a huge hungry bear, another day a bunch of weed lands on the roof of your house causing head trauma to one of the characters.

The beauty of the game is in how unpredictable it is. The difference between Rimworld and any show, movie, or book is that after reviewing the content there’s nothing new to get back to since the story is not going to change. Rimworld offers infinite stories that the player is able to live through, giving you hundreds if not thousands of hours to spend in the world of the game.

Written by Maddie Tim Fox


I’m a content creator, artist, screenwriter, and a huge fan of electronics. Reviewing content such as shows, movies, and games is a hobby I adore and cannot share more with you.

THE HIDDEN SUPERVILLAIN OF THE BOYS

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  • Opening

Spoilers ahead. Season three of The Boys was outstanding. Soldier boy, Black Noir, and the introduction to their team was as quickly and intelligently executed, as those very team members through the season’s eight episodes. Every single season ends with Homelander, the main antagonist, being forced to take a step back and then the main characters make sure he is unable to take a step forward. We have been awaiting Homelander’s demise for three seasons now; however, I am here to convince everyone that most do not know who the actual villain of The Boys even is, even though he has been displayed to be the most horrible person throughout the entire show.

  • The “True” Antagonist

The show does an incredible job of capturing characters’ emotions and personalities; I am yet to find a single character to which I am indifferent. It feels incredibly satisfying to finally see our main heroes be able to leave Homelander bruised. Nobody ever saw him harmed before, and as we all hope our heroes will finally have a way to neutralize Homelander, we all forget why is he exactly the main antagonist, and is he at all? What would killing Homelander achieve? There will be one psychopath with unwieldy power less, but no change long term. I am here to vouch that the real antagonist of the show is Vaught, the corporation that created the superhero serum and superheroes in general. Homelander and the representatives are just a part of an organism that will suffer from losing him but recover. Vaught is not concerned with people or committing acts of heroism or saving lives which the CEO of Vaught, Stan Edgar, confirms during a secret meeting when he says that the official allowed collateral casualties are at around 30 percent. During the plane scene in season two, it was shown how Homelander, instead of saving the plane full of people allows it to crush near the beach to get more PR and recognition from the event. Nothing matters but shareholders and public image.

  • With Great Power…

In the modern world people with immense power do not care about life quality or lives in general, but shareholders and the company’s profits. Disney, Facebook, Amazon, and more corporations purchase more and more companies yearly and as of now hold a monopoly over many sectors of our lives. The whole situation is ironic because the company responsible for turning The Boys from a mildly interesting comic into a fascinating show is Amazon; For those unaware, Amazon is considered to be one of the evillest corporations with worker’s rights violations being a common practice. Not even the government is able to intervene because of the sheer size of these corporations. We might be entering a new age where corporations control everything and hold more power than our governments.

  • Conclusion

In the end, Homeladner is still a fascinating character and could potentially be nominated as the best villain of this decade. It is rare to see a superhero content creator that can take an old idea of an evil superman and make it so relatable to the common folk with our real problems of global corporations overtaking all media and goods we consume and how immense power in one individual’s hands harms the society and our freedoms. I hope that eventually, we will get our own Boys that will begin the fight for the media space to be free of company influence, against monopolies, against the powerful who want to abuse the powerless.

Written by Maddie Tim Fox