Gordon Freeman

Gordon Freeman
Half-Life series character
File:Gordon Freeman - Valve Concept Art - Walking with a crowbar - cropped.jpeg Gordon Freeman, as seen in Half-Life 2
First game	Half-Life

Gordon Freeman is the silent protagonist of the Half-Life series of first-person shooter video games developed by Valve Software.

A theoretical physicist working at the fictional Black Mesa Research Facility, Gordon is involved in an experiment which accidentally opens an interdimensional portal, releasing confused, hostile beings into the complex. The first Half-Life sees Gordon fighting through the facility alongside fellow employees, engaging the aliens as well as a black ops military unit sent in to contain the situation. In its sequel, Half-Life 2, Gordon is introduced to a dystopian world decades after the Black Mesa incident, and an interdimensional imperial force has established itself as the ruler of Earth. Gordon then joins a human resistance group and aids them in their struggle with the oppressors.

Throughout the series, Freeman prevails in hostile situations despite overwhelming odds. The character never speaks, and there are no cut-scenes or mission briefings— all action is viewed through his eyes, with the player retaining control of Freeman's actions at nearly all times.

Character

A native of Seattle, Gordon Freeman exhibited an early interest in theoretical physics, especially quantum mechanics and the theory of general relativity. His childhood heroes were Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman. After observing a series of teleportation experiments conducted by the Institute for Experimental Physics in Innsbruck, Austria, the transmission of matter became Freeman's obsession. At the beginning of the events of Half-Life, Freeman has no known dependents, and is a graduate of MIT with a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics. He wears glasses, has an athletic, wiry build, and keeps a trim beard. His doctoral thesis on the teleportation of matter through extremely dense elements was titled Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array.

File:FreemanJobLetter.jpg

Freeman's acceptance letter from Black Mesa.

Disappointed with the slow pace of teleportation research, he sought work outside the education sector. He accepted a visiting fellowship position at the Black Mesa Research Facility in May 200-, working on a top secret research project headed by his mentor at MIT, Dr. Isaac Kleiner.

File:Black Mesa Staff.jpg

Gordon Freeman (pictured 2nd from right) along with other members of the Black Mesa team. Found in Half Life 2. The scientist whose face is scratched out is most likely Wallace Breen. Eli Vance is second from the left, and Isaac Kleiner is third from the right.

At the start of Half-Life, Freeman lives and works somewhere in New Mexico deep within Black Mesa, conducting nuclear and subatomic research in its Anomalous Materials department. Although he obtained a Ph.D. from the prestigious MIT, the lab work performed by Freeman in gameplay requires no intellectual effort whatsoever, consisting of little more than pressing a button and pushing a cart. Barney Calhoun wryly notes this irony at the beginning of Half-Life 2, when Freeman performs similar "technical" assistance by flipping a switch and returning a plug to its socket ("Good work, Gordon. Throwing that switch and all. I can see your MIT education really pays for itself"). Despite his education as a theoretical physicist, the work Freeman is involved with at Black Mesa is of a more experimental nature. Prior to the events of Half-Life, Freeman’s exposure to weapons and explosive ordinance is limited to some cursory training in Black Mesa's Hazard Course, and a butane-powered tennis ball cannon he made when he was six.

What little else is known of Gordon's personal life is revealed via in-game dialogue spoken to or around Gordon. According to Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2: Episode One, while working at Black Mesa, Freeman and Calhoun had a friendly rivalry where they would compete to find unconventional ways to retrieve the keys that Dr. Kleiner would frequently lock in his office. This is apparently where Freeman learned to make use of ventilation shafts to infiltrate buildings (a frequently used skill in Half-Life).

According to Valve's documentary book on the game, Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, the name Gordon Freeman is in homage to Freeman Dyson. His original name also pays tribute to Jules Henri Poincaré. The book also reveals that the texture for Gordon's head was "too big of a job for just one person", so Valve designers combined references from four people. An earlier model of Gordon was known as "Ivan the Space Biker", with a full beard that was subsequently trimmed. The book also contains concept images depicting various iterations of Gordon's design.

Appearances and role

Half-Life

Main article: Half-Life (video game)

At the beginning of the first game, Gordon Freeman and his research team perform an experiment that inadvertently creates a resonance cascade effect that tears dimensional rifts in the space-time continuum. Intelligent and confused alien life forms from the Xen dimension come pouring through multiple breaches scattered about the Black Mesa facility, attacking anything in sight. As scientific, military and civilian personnel fall under the alien onslaught, Freeman finds himself targeted not only by the xenomorphic incursion, but also the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a military cleanup team sent to contain the situation. Against all odds, the untrained theoretical physicist somehow manages to survive the chaos, impressing the few surviving scientists and security guards with his heroic acts, while quickly becoming the HECU's top priority target.

After conquering numerous challenges and eliminating countless aliens and soldiers, Freeman is eventually transported by a few surviving Lambda Team scientists to the alien home world Xen. After the successful elimination of the alien leader Nihilanth, Freeman is confronted by the mysterious G-Man, who has been remotely observing Freeman throughout the entire Black Mesa incident, and perhaps is even manipulating his fate. The enigmatic G-Man shows Freeman several locations throughout Earth and Xen and offers Freeman a hobson's choice: either agree to work for him and his mysterious "employers", or be left to die on Xen surrounded by hostile lifeforms without weapons to defend himself. Half-Life 2 proceeds with Gordon choosing the former.

Half-Life 2

Main article: Half-Life 2

Half-Life 2 begins with the G-Man speaking to Gordon. Like the ending of the original game, the scene is somewhat inexplicable and psychedelic, with the G-Man's face in extreme close-up fading in and out of visibility over backgrounds representing scenes from the original Half-Life as well as scenes he will visit in the course of Half-Life 2. The G-Man delivers a typically cryptic speech, commenting that "the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world." and concludes by telling Freeman to "wake up, and smell the ashes". According to the Half-Life 2: Episode One story page, the G-Man kept Freeman "in stasis far from Earth, thought, and time itself" for nearly two decades. It is implied by Eli Vance that Freeman didn't physically age at all during his stasis, a fact that was made more explicit in the game's beta version. Freeman then wakes up on a train with two citizens being "relocated" to City 17. One of the passengers even states that he doesn't remember Gordon ever entering the tram. Freeman quickly learns that Earth has been conquered and occupied by the trans-dimensional Combine empire, with a military force powerful enough to have subdued the entirety of Earth's nations within a period of 7 hours. He soon meets up with Barney Calhoun and Alyx Vance, and joins the resistance against the Combine.

During the course of the second game, Freeman battles the forces of the Combine in order to free humanity from its grasp. Already famous for his role in the Black Mesa Incident, Gordon quickly develops a legendary reputation among Earth's surviving human populace, who begin to look up to him and refer to him by such messianic titles as "The One Free Man" (a pun on his last name, Freeman). After slaying scores of Combine soldiers and leading an assault against the Combine stronghold of Nova Prospekt, Gordon eventually sparks a full-scale rebellion against the Combine domination, in which he becomes a combatant. Gordon infiltrates one of the Combine's footholds on Earth, the City 17 Citadel, and destroys it by detonating its Dark Energy Reactor. Although caught in the reactor's explosion along with Alyx Vance, Gordon is rescued by the G-Man, who tells Freeman that he "is impressed with his work and has received several tempting offers for his 'services'." The G-Man finally informs Freeman that, rather than offering him "the illusion of free choice", the G-Man has taken the liberty of choosing for him, and deposits Freeman back in stasis until he is needed once again. Thus, Half-Life 2 "concludes" just as cryptically as its predecessor did, with perhaps even more questions unanswered.

Episode One

Main article: Half-Life 2: Episode One

Half-Life 2: Episode One rejoins Freeman and Alyx Vance as they embark on the flight from City 17, doomed by the destruction of the Citadel's dark fusion reactor at the retconned end of Half-Life 2. At the beginning of the game, the G-Man appears once more to Gordon, but this time, he is interrupted by the appearance of a group of chanting, purple-glowing Vortigaunts, who take Gordon away while blocking the G-Man's path. The G-Man appears most displeased by this development, and responds by scowling and darkly stating "We'll see... about that!"

Gordon regains consciousness under a pile of rubble and is found by Alyx and Dog. It is later revealed that the only way to flee the Citadel's explosion, which would level much of City 17, is to contain the Citadel's core, stalling the structure's destruction enough for an escape. Gordon and Alyx succeed in doing so, but learn that the local Combine forces are attempting to send a distress message for offworld assistance. In order to generate enough energy to send the message, the local Combine are willing to overload the Citadel's reactor, going so far as to completely destroy the Citadel if necessary. The Combine consider this a positive, as the subsequent explosion would destroy all of City 17 and much of the surrounding countryside, which has been all but lost to human Resistance forces. With a copy of the distress message, Gordon and Alyx escape the Citadel and meet up with Barney and other survivors.

The pair escape City 17 via an evacuation train as the Citadel goes critical. Evidently, the Combine message is successfully transmitted when several Combine pods fly away from the Citadel at great speed. The train carrying Freeman and Alyx is still close by and is hit by a shockwave as the Citadel is seemingly destroyed.

Episode Two

Main article: Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Gordon Freeman wakes up in a wrecked train and soon meets Alyx who had earlier escaped the wreckage. After seeing the Combine Superportal, a Portal Storm shockwave creates a path that allows Gordon and Alyx to travel to a Trainyard, in which Alyx is critically wounded by a Hunter. She is rescued by a Vortigaunt who calls for assistance from his friends. Gordon is split up from the Vortigaunt but after traveling through an antlion den he meets up with it again in an underground rebel base. After fending off hordes of Antlions, Gordon is sent along with a Vortigaunt to acquire some Larval Extract to heal Alyx from the Hunter's attack.

After the Extract has been retrieved, the Vortigaunts begin the healing ritual. Now that the Vortigaunts are finally pre-occupied, the G-Man is released and speaks to Gordon. During this cutscene, the G-Man reveals to Gordon that he had saved Alyx from the Black Mesa incident as a way to leave Eli Vance, Alyx's father, in debt to him. He then leans close to Alyx's unconscious form and asks her to relay a message to Eli: 'Prepare for unforeseen consequences'. After the ritual is complete and Alyx has recovered, she and Gordon leave the mines. After defeating two Antlion Guardians, with the help of one of the Vortigaunts, they reach a rebel outpost. G-man is sighted walking along a nearby bridge. Alyx spots a car on the bridge, and Gordon sets off to get it, with Alyx assisting him with a Sniper Rifle. Gordon acquires a car, and continues on the road to White Forest with Alyx.

Shortly after, they reach an abandoned radio tower, at which Alyx attempts to make contact with the White Forest base at which Dr. Kleiner and Eli Vance are holding up, along with a new character to the story, Dr. Magnusson, who is another survivor from Black Mesa. Traveling on, Alyx and Gordon encounter a young Advisor which nearly kills Gordon but then is injured and flees, calling Combine forces to its position. After defeating the Combine squad, Gordon and Alyx depart from the advisor crash site when they are attacked by a Hunter Chopper which, after crippling the car, Gordon destroys by launching its mines back at it with the Gravity Gun.

Alyx stays with one of the rebels to repair the damaged car while Gordon is sent to destroy a Combine Autogun which is impeding their progress. After destroying the Autogun, Gordon and Alyx leave the rebel outpost and reach White Forest, where they are reunited with Dr. Kleiner, Dr. Vance and are formally introduced to a Dr. Arne Magnusson and his assistant, a Vortigaunt named Uriah.

After Gordon seals the Silo from a Combine attack, Gordon, Alyx, Dr. Kleiner and Dr. Vance watch Dr. Mossman's transmission. (Which was acquired by Alyx during their assault on the Citadel in Episode One.) It becomes apparent that she has located the legendary ship, Borealis, which was a ship launched by Black Mesa's old rivals, Aperture Science. Alyx then sees the G-man flicker on a computer screen and suddenly is put into a trance-like state and relays the message from the G-man to her father. After coming out of the trance, she remembers nothing. Eli sends Alyx for a cup of tea while he tells Gordon of his past experience with the G-man but is cut short by Alyx's return.

Gordon then assists Doctor Magnusson by repelling an attack from numerous Striders and their Hunter escorts with the aid of explosive charges known as Magnusson Devices. After repelling the Striders and Hunters, Gordon launches the rocket containing the code to close the portal. Alyx then informs Gordon that she has prepared an old helicopter for them to use to reach the Borealis. As they head for the helicopter, Dog acts nervous and runs ahead. Just as Gordon and Alyx are about to board the helicopter to find Judith Mossman, two Advisors fly in through a window. Alyx and Gordon watch helplessly as they are restrained by one advisor, while the other kills Eli. Dog bursts in, injuring the advisor restraining Alyx and Gordon, causing both Advisors to flee. The game ends with Alyx mourning over Eli's body.

Other appearances in Half-Life series

File:GORDON FREEMAN.jpg

Freeman can briefly be seen, in his HEV suit, carried away by HECU soldiers in Half-Life: Blue Shift.

Two expansions for Half-Life all more or less take place during the same time as Half-Life itself, and as such Gordon is seen at some points of the games.

• In Half-Life: Opposing Force, Adrian Shephard only encounters Gordon once when he witnesses Gordon teleport to Xen in the Lambda Complex. Attempts to follow him through the same portal will result in a "temporal paradox" which sends Shephard falling through Xen's void and ends the game.
• Gordon is seen three times by Barney Calhoun during the course of Half-Life: Blue Shift. Barney first sees Gordon passing by in a tram at the beginning of the game, later heading towards the HEV storage area through a surveillance camera, and lastly being dragged to a trash compactor by a pair of HECU marines.

In these appearances, Gordon maintains his silence, even though he is not the protagonist.

HEV suit

File:HEV suit AYool.jpg

Gordon's HEV suit, in Half-Life as the Mark IV (left) and Half-Life 2 as the Mark V (right).

In much of the Half-Life series, Freeman wears a special full-body hazard suit, known as the HEV suit, HEV standing for Hazardous Environment. The HEV suit was designed by Doctor Gina Cross, one of the main protagonists in Half-Life: Decay. Freeman wears the Mark IV suit in Half-Life, then donning the upgraded Mark V suit in Half-Life 2. Cross was said to have tested a Mark V prototype before the events of the resonance cascade, but it is unknown if this is related to the Mark V suit in Half-Life 2. Designed to protect the user from radiation, energy discharges, and blunt trauma during the handling of hazardous materials, the HEV suit is what allows Gordon, an ordinary human being, to survive the dangers and injuries he faces over the course of his struggles.

The HEV Mark IV suit worn by Freeman in Half-Life has a built-in flashlight, oxygen supply, Geiger counter, morphine administrator (which allows Gordon to function normally even after serious injury), anti-toxin delivery system, an optional long-jumping module which allows jumps over large distances, a radio, many tracking devices, and a heads-up display (HUD) which tracks health status and weapon ammunition usage, as well as including a weapons management system. The suit contains an on-board computer system that constantly monitors the user's health and vital signs, and reacts to any changes in the user's condition. Additionally, the suit features "high impact reactive armor", an electrically powered armor system that can be charged by power modules throughout Black Mesa. While charged, the suit provides greater protection from injury as the charge absorbs more than two-thirds of any damage or trauma experienced by the wearer. With a fully charged suit, Freeman can survive several dozen bullets of small arms fire or even a direct hit from a rocket propelled grenade. The suit also features an optional helmet, as seen on various HEV-enclosed corpses dotted around Xen, mainly at the ruined research camp seen in Blue Shift. Freeman dons the suit at the beginning of the first game, and is allowed to keep it at the end of the game by the G-Man. It has been debated on countless forums as to whether Gordon's HEV suit has a helmet as he is usually depicted without one yet is able to survive in hazardous environments, which would otherwise require its use. The exact technology behind the suit is unknown, although several fanfictions ponder over the possibility that it is based on nanotechnology.

The HEV suit is not exclusive to Freeman. Many can be seen worn by slain Black Mesa research members on Xen. Two additional (empty) HEV storage units are seen near the start of the game in Sector C, which are said to have been used by the main protagonists of Decay, Gina Cross and Colette Green. The suits also evidently come in different colors. Although many, including Gordon's and ones belonging to the corpses seen on Xen, are orange, Gina wears a tan suit, while Colette wears a maroon suit.

File:Stained glass Gordon AYool.jpg

A stained glass image from an early demonstration of Half-Life 2. This scene may be found during a Video Stress Test in Counter-Strike: Source, and is likely an Easter egg rather than a part of the Half-Life game world. It is also available as an item in Garry's Mod

In Half-Life 2, despite being allowed to keep it in the previous game, Freeman starts without the suit. After a visit to Dr. Isaac Kleiner, his former professor, Freeman receives an upgraded version of the HEV suit, referred to as a Mark V version. New features include a visual zooming capability, limited enhanced running (sprint) capability, an injector to administer antidote for poison headcrab or snake venom, an optional ammo and health counter on the crosshair (enabled by the player in the game's "Mouse" options), and the capability to use Combine power nodes to charge the suit. This design feature would have an unexpected effect later on in the game, when the suit appears to be infused with "Dark Energy" from a Combine weapon confiscation field, allowing the suit to store twice as much energy as normal. This powered version of his suit remains intact for the start of Half-Life 2: Episode One but the suit returns to its natural state when the player leaves the Citadel. This evidence suggests that, like the Dark Energy gravity gun, the effects wear off after the stabilization of the citadel core. Unlike the Mark IV, the Mark V uses only one auxiliary power source for flashlight, sprinting and oxygen supply; in addition, the long-jumping module is no longer a feature.

In Episode One, during a situation where the player must guide Alyx by using the flashlight in combat due to the lack of other light sources, Alyx mentions that "Dr. Kleiner really needs to fix that flashlight battery". In Episode Two, the flashlight has now its own power supply independent of sprinting or oxygen supply. It was explained in the game commentary that the flashlight "broke" because of the force of explosion and somehow gained its own power supply at the end of Episode 1.

HEV energy chargers in Half-Life have the trademark (tm) symbol added after the HEV letters, which suggests that the chargers, HEV suit, or both, are produced by a non-government company. An Easter egg in Half-Life 2, however, reveals an old cover of an HEV charger lacking the trademark logo.

It has been speculated that the HEV suit, despite its name, was not intended simply for protection in hazardous environments and was in fact designed with combat in mind — perhaps intended as a combat exoskeleton for defense contractors. Black Mesa may have been, after all, a military installation and the Powered Combat Vest worn by the player in Opposing Force apparently uses the same technology (it also is able to replenish its power from Black Mesa chargers). The suit also possesses the capability to track weapons in hand, along with their ammunition. These features may be explained by the visits many Black Mesa personnel made to the border world of Xen which contains many dangerous and hostile forms of life.

The symbol on Gordon's HEV suit is the lower case Greek letter Lambda, λ. This symbol is used by scientists to denote the decay constant of radioactive elements (related to the half-life of an element). As well as appearing on Gordon's suit, the symbol replaces the letter "a" in the game title, Hλlf-Life, and is the name of the complex in the Black Mesa Research Facility where teleportation experiments are conducted. The Lambda symbol is also seen in Half-Life 2 as a marking of the human resistance, seen close to hidden supplies and on the arm bands of better equipped resistance fighters.

References in popular culture

• In the novel A Big Boy did it and Ran Away by Christopher Brookmyre, the author makes frequent references to various video games including Half-Life; the main action takes place in a largely underground hydroelectric power station with the Scots Gaelic name "Dubh Ardrain" which can be translated as "Black Mesa" (dubh - black, ardrain - high part). At one point the male protagonist is equipped with a crowbar, one of the antagonists takes the alias of "Gordon Freeman" and an SAS soldier called "Adrian Shephard" is a minor character.
• In Call of Duty: United Offensive, near the start of the second mission, two American soldiers are shown running side-by-side. On the left, Pvt. Gordon, and on the right, Pvt. Freeman.
• In Destroy All Humans!, one of the scientists says "I mustn't be late, They're waiting for me in the test chamber", but then quickly corrects himself "Oh, wait, wrong game."
• In Destroy All Humans! 2, if the player reads the mind of a Russian man in Tunguska, he will make a comment about how the city of Tunguska is being renamed as City 17.
• In Far Cry Instincts, before the second Fat Boy fight in a near by shack there is a game magazine with a parody reference.
• In The Punisher, a scientist refers to another scientist as "Doctor Freeman" and asks what a noise he heard was, to which Doctor Freeman replies "maybe the quantum physics department finally opened that extradimensional portal!". The reply is "Extradimensional aliens! Wonder what they look like?", a reference to the opening scene of Half-Life.
• In The Simpsons Game while in the Game Engine level, in the level choosing area, there is a game poster that says Zero Life. Professor Frink replaces Gordon Freeman on the cover.
• In S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, the player may find inside a tunnel located in the Wild Territory a body marked "Freeman". When it is searched, Gordon's Personal Digital assistant is found, it is learned Gordon hates his bosses and had to trade his crowbar for a can of meat.
• In Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, during the 'Battery' mission, the protagonist Sam Fisher says that he forgot to bring a crowbar to open the missile control casing, to which Anna Grimsdottir comments that "crowbars are for geeky video-game characters".
• In TimeSplitters Future Perfect, during the level "You Genius, U-Genix", Cortez, the protagonist of the story, changes into a lab coat along with a name tag that reads "Dr. Freeman" and told that his name is Gordon.
• In a strip of the webcomic Slackerz, the character Smith mistakingly calls Adam Savage from the show MythBusters "Gordon Freeman".
• On Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, a man introducing himself as a theoretical physicist named "Gordon" complains about a government agent stalking him.

Games referencing crowbar

• In Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, the first weapon a player finds is a red, grey-tipped crowbar that "should come in handy."
• In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a crowbar can be found in one of the research labs in the underground military base.
• In Halo 3, a crowbar resembling Gordon's can be found in the multiplayer map Sandtrap, which also serves as a reference to a chapter in Half-Life 2.
• In The Ship, a game developed using the same game engine as Half-Life 2, the weapon description for the crowbar states it is suitable for any "free man".
• In Penumbra: Overture, player finds a journal of lost miner, whose friend's first name is Gordon. He is told to be using some kind of new suit for hazardous areas (as this place is frozen lake, underground). Later, player finds a hand sticking out of this frozen lake, grasping a red, rusted crowbar.
• In BioShock, in the beginning of the game, Atlas radios the player, saying "Now, would you kindly pick up a crowbar or something?" Finding no crowbar handy, the player picks up a wrench.
• In Sonny, a Flash-game, There is a crowbar available to buy with the subtext of "It's more than just a weapon... It's the symbol of a Hero."
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory: In level 7, "Battery", after Sam says he hasn't brought a crowbar, Grimsdottir replies, "Crowbars are for geeky video game characters", a reference to Gordon Freeman from Half-Life and Half-Life 2, whose beginning weapon in both games is a crowbar.

References

• Mitchell, Heather. Half-Life instruction manual. Valve Software, 1998.
• Hodgson, David. Half-Life 2: Prima Official Game Guide. Prima Games, 2004. ISBN 0-7615-4362-7.
• Hodgson, David. Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar. Prima Games, 2004. ISBN 0-7615-4364-3.

External links

• Story overview of Half-Life