Combine Advisors

## Hostile Species

The **Combine Advisors** are the main antagonists of the *Half-Life* series. They are bio-mechanical emotionless, cultureless, logical beings who enslave, assimilate and exploit all other sentient life for their own purposes, mostly for amoral scientific advancement. They allegedly serve as the primary controlling force and the leaders of the entire Combine Empire. The Advisors are responsible for the Seven Hour War, which was the beginning of their invasion of Earth and the conquer of humanity within the aforementioned 7 hours.

## Appearance:

The Combine Advisors are large, pale, super-intelligent grub-like creatures with no discernible facial features. The Advisors have a device similar to a gas mask attached to their front end. The Advisors also have a cybernetic eyepiece on the left-hand side of the faceplate.

Each Advisor wears a skin-tight olive-green bodysuit that covers all but the ends of their bodies, with a collar adorned with golden glyphs around their "necks." They also have a pair of thin black robotic arms implanted to their backs, capable of grabbing and lifting an adult human and moving the Advisor's weight. They also have an appendage that can protrude from their mouth like an elongated tongue, though it is more or less phallic in appearance. The appendage is used similarly to an invertebrate's proboscis and plunged into a weak point, such as the human neck shown from a scene in *Half-Life 2: Episode Two*.

Combine Advisors have a wide range of odd vocalizations, from robotic growls and groans to loud shouting noises and screeching. Besides their technological prowess, they also appear to possess incredible psychic and telekinetic powers. They can communicate with others telepathically as well.

## In-Game:

### *Half-Life 2*

A single Combine Advisor serves as the overarching antagonist, occasionally seen on screens giving Wallace Breen orders.

In the final battle of the game, the Advisor orders Breen to teleport using the Dark Fusion Reactor of the Citadel to enter their own universe, where it demands Breen be put in a host body (presumably another Advisor) to survive. The Advisor then gains control of the computers and signs off from the screen, preventing Alyx from gaining control when she tries to stop the teleportation. The Advisor finally opens a portal for Breen to travel through during the final battle against Gordon Freeman, although Gordon destroys it, foiling the Advisor and presumably sending Breen falling to his death.

### *Half-Life 2: Episode One*

The Advisors are the main antagonists of *Episode One*.

When Gordon and Alyx head back to the Citadel, a recording of Breen is seen from the Advisor's point of view, at which the creature's face appears all over the screens and a real Advisor appears squirming in its Incubation Pod, ready to eject itself from the Citadel. Alyx taps the glass and this apparently angers it, sending telekinetic waves through the room as it ejects from the Citadel at top speed.

Throughout the rest of the game, an Advisor can be briefly seen on cameras giving orders to Combine units.

After the powerful Strider is brought down at the end, Gordon and Alyx escape City 17 via train as the Citadel explodes, creating a super portal through which more forces may arrive through. The last shot of the game is that of the Advisor pods dominating the skies as the Citadel explodes, sending the train off tracks.

### *Half-Life 2: Episode Two*

The Advisors are once again the main antagonists, taking a far more direct role and even engaging the protagonists. The most prominent among the Advisors is the Barn Advisor (the one who literally crashed in a Barn safe house).

The Advisors (known as Shu'ulathoi by the Vortigaunts) are still in their Incubation Pods and have not yet hatched, but are safeguarded by the most powerful Combine forces on their journey to destroy White Forest.

The Barn Advisor, however, ejected itself to safety from the Citadel during the events of Episode 1 and crashed in a nearby barn, emerging from its pod and building a protective life support structure around itself to rest and mature in growth and abilities. Gordon and Alyx encounter the crashed pod and begin experiencing powerful illusions and telekinetic disturbances as they get nearer to the Advisor. Alyx and Gordon decide to kill it before it wakes up by shutting off its life support system.

Gordon does so using the Gravity Gun, however all this does is cause the structure to peel back and reveal the now-awakened Barn Advisor, who casually slams Gordon and Alyx up against the wall and begins testing its powers on the surroundings, picking up objects and draining a dead man of his blood before twisting him and effortlessly throwing him across the room. It then decides to feed on Gordon until the structure encasing it explodes, resulting in it being injured and enraged by a bar being stuck partially in the side of its head. Deciding to leave immediately and heal itself, it tears the roof to shreds and tosses Gordon and Alyx to the ground, using the pieces of the roof as a powerful makeshift shield swirling around it before flying away.

As Gordon battles the Combine army to protect the silo within White Forest, an Advisor hovers over the entrance before Gordon secures it shut, sending more troops through. It is unknown if this is the Barn Advisor having healed itself (notice there is no metal bar or any sign of injuries) or one of its accomplices having awoken as well.

After Gordon successfully defeats the army of Striders and Hunters attacking the White Forest Rocket, Gordon presses the button and the rocket destroys the super portal, preventing more Combine forces from coming through and foiling the Advisors' plans yet again. Now extremely enraged, the Advisors decide to deal with matters personally.

As Gordon, Alyx, and her father Eli begin preparations for the former two to take off using the helicopter to find the Aurora Borealis (a ship manufactured by Aperture Science which appears to be a weapon both the G-Man and the Advisors could potentially use against the other side) and destroy it to prevent it being used, a furious Advisor tears through the roof of the garage and floors the trio, pinning Gordon and Alyx against the wall and beginning to attack Eli. Eli reminds them to destroy the ship before fighting back against the Advisor with a pipe and whacking it in the face, only annoying it further. Before he can do anything else, the first Advisor smacks the pipe out of his hands and a second Advisor arrives, picking up Eli as the first grabs Gordon and Alyx. Eli tells Alyx he loves her and to turn away and don't look, knowing exactly what the Advisor will do to him.

In mere moments, Eli has his brain pierced by the second Advisor's tongue and has the information in his mind drained as well as his life energy. With Eli finished, the first Advisor personally prepares to do the same to Gordon, however, help is on the way as D0G tears through the roof and heavily injures the first Advisor, causing it to drop Gordon and Alyx and fly out the roof to recover. The second Advisor promptly drops Eli and follows suit, both barely escaping with their lives but causing a major blow to the hearts of the Resistance.

## Trivia:

* It is implied that the Advisors seen are only in their lowest larval-like form, suggesting that upon hatching they will begin to evolve and become far larger and more powerful.
* It is suggested that the Advisors are the true and original Combine species that learned to evolve and adapt to space travel and enslave other species to integrate into their empire.
* The Advisors had enslaved most of the Xen aliens prior to their invasion in the first game. The Nihilanth even states that it is the last of its kind, implying that the Advisors either killed or enslaved all other Nihilanth individuals.
* As the script for *Episode Three* states that Gordon and Alyx failed to destroy the Combine Homeworld, the Advisors may have succeeded in conquering the universe unless Earth was saved by the Borealis' destruction of the Command Center or G-Man and Alyx worked together on a counterattack. Gordon's final fate is currently unknown.
* Some of the voices Advisors make are actually slowed-down recordings of Vortigaunts from the original *Half-Life*.