Overview
Wallace Breen showed fine initiative, making himself ruler of the earth in collusion with a genocidal species of all-powerful multidimensional aliens – but he let it all slip through his fingers with a catalogue of errors.Here is a list of 101 things I would have done differently if I was in his position. If you care little about saving humankind and instead consider yourself an aspiring megalomaniac, this is the guide for you.[With apologies to the legendary Evil Overlord list.]
Introduction
It is therefore so frustrating that this man (hereafter referred to as the so-called “villain”) who so ingeniously engineered a nightmarish dystopia threw it all away with a catalogue of errors. The actions of a single dissident (hereafter referred to as the so-called “hero”) created a chain of events that brought the whole thing crashing down. And what’s worse, most of these were really basic mistakes. The best explanation I’ve ever heard for these needless blunders is “balance” or “fairness”, but as a genocide-crazed tyrant why should I be concerned with fairness?
In the event that the Combine attempt a conquest of Earth in this timeline, I would like to put myself forward as interim leader. Only this time, I will make the following changes to my reign of terror:
General management of dystopia
1. When transporting citizens from city to city by rail, I will keep records of who boarded and who alighted the train on each journey. Had someone noticed two people got on the train but three got off, the whole problem could have been nipped in the bud.
3. And if I must bull about suppression fields and benefactors, I’d at least keep my vanity in check. A soft drink called “Dr. Breen’s Private Reserve”? Even his Combine Masters must have thought he was a bit of a w*nker.
4. I will have background checks performed on Civil Protection. A little more diligence in recruitment and an unarmed Gordon Freeman would have been straight on to Nova Prospect.
5. And as an additional precaution, at least two CPs must be present in all interrogation/torture/murder sessions.
6. Any CPs who fall behind on beating quotas shall swiftly have their movements investigated.
7. I will take some pride in my dystopian metropolis. “Keep City 17 Tidy” may not seem important, but you would not believe how much trouble is caused leaving empty crates lying around.
8. CPs will only engage in brutality when it is warranted. Terrorising citizens connected with any kind of subversive activity is of course necessary for the greater evil – I mean the greater good – but beating citizens who don’t put a cans in the bin is just petty, and only convinces them they have nothing to lose by joining the rebels.
9. High-sensitivity sound receivers will be placed in public places such as the station so that when anyone says “we can’t be seen talking to each other” they shall both be brought in for questioning.
10. Likewise, anyone attempting to pass through a portal to an unauthorised precinct will also be questioned. I get that Dr. Breen used City Scanners to take pictures of suspicious activity, but by the time anyone looks at this he’s already shot up half the city.
11. If someone approaches a Combine barrier where a Strider’s busy murdering someone on the other side and he just strolls down an alley like nothing’s happened, for God’s sake see what he’s up to.
12. If I restrict citizens’ access to other streets with wire fences (and I’m really sceptical over that effectiveness – surely wire-cutters are still around?), I will check to see if there are any nearby bins, ladders or fire exits that someone could climb over.
13. I will not “find a reason” to raid an entire apartment blocks. Again, unprovoked violence merely convinces citizens they have nothing to lose when assisting a malcontent.
14. In fact, I would make a substantial investment in a team of psychologists who can best advise of how to subsume a population into meek compliance. Brutal terrorisation is all very well, but you need to accompany this with some vague hope that it’ll be okay if you keep your head down and do as you’re told.
15. Miscounted occupants in an apartment block will set the alarm off as soon as they enter, not half-way through the first floor. That leaves more than enough time to escape.
16. All roofs will be boarded off. Far too easy a means of escape.
17. Alternatively, I might booby-trap ledges on the top of buildings. A long shot I admit, but it would be really satisfying for Dr. Freeman’s first and final appearance after his 20-year hiatus to be an explosion and plummet into the street below.
18. If I suddenly lose contact with three CPs who went after an escapee, I will immediately send twenty more to the same spot, this time with guns at the ready.
20. If I must have these stupid vending machines named after me, I’ll at least have them regularly restocked, and checked for secret doors to hiddens labs whilst we’re at it.
21. I will properly monitor network communications. Those rebels were confident enough to relay vital information through the Combine systems, and that’s just taking the p*ss.
22. Given I already know about the rebels’ teleportation technology, I will work out how to shield my office from unexpected arrivals. Whilst the hero’s brief appearance was a useful warning, he could just as easily have appeared with a loaded rocket launcher.
23. Or, better still, I will work out how to intercept my uninvited guest. Plonking an unarmed Dr. Freeman in the inner depths of The Citadel would wipe the smile off his face.
Good practice in manhunts
24. Whilst the return of my #1 enemy is a reasonable cause for alarm, rather than indiscriminately deploy every last unit over the whole city, I would deploy half my units for searching, and keep the rest on standby for the moment he’s spotted.
25. I will instruct Civil Protection to pay a bit more attention when they hear something being whacked with a crowbar. This was my arch-enemy’s weapon/tool of choice on Black Mesa so there’s really no excuse to not be vigilant.
26. I will find a better supplier of body armour. I don’t care if the hero has an HEV suit or secret military training – if he can whack two armed CPs to death with lump of metal, I’m being ripped off.
27. I will not bother with health charging points, nor will I leave med-kits lying around areas I control. I am, after all, a heartless sociopath who cares little for the lives of wounded underlings. Besides, the only people who seem to make use of these are the very people I’m trying to kill.
28. My CPs will be trained to not stand next to oil drums when engaging in firefights.
29. In fact, I would make sure these exploding barrels are stored out of harm’s way. I don’t mind selling my CPs lives cheaply, but that’s just embarrassing.
30. And if exploding oil drums absolutely must be left where they are, I will not mark them out with red paint and massive flame symbols that can be seen at a distance.
31. I will give my CPs a bit of rudimentary training in taking cover. A covert operative who has been in stasis for twenty years is probably a little rusty on combat, so the last thing I want is for them to serve as target practice.
32. Instead of killing a wounded rebel in cold blood, I will have my CPs shout “ceasefire” so that Freeman may peacefully reach his stricken colleague. The moment he started tending to these wounds they’ll open fire on both.
33. Access to my deadly mounted machine guns will only be possible by entering a 6-digit combination known only to designated gunners.
34. I will not bother with the Orwellian double-speak for Overwatch Voice. Everyone knows “Cease evasion immediately, receive your verdict” means “Turn yourself in so we can kill you”, so let’s just get straight to the point.
35. I will feed optimum nutrients for barnacles into City 17’s sewers. It is unfortunate that all cities transformed into dystopian metropoles seem to have unusually spacious sewer systems that are impossible to police, but it won’t be such as easy escape route if it’s infested with our favourite man-eating alien species.
36. Hunter Choppers will go straight to dropping mines on sight of City 17’s most wanted. Leaving it until he’s in the canals with a nimble boat is too late, but he’d have been toast if we’d dumped the whole lot in that narrow space whilst he was still on foot.
37. CPs with submachine guns will be deployed on vantage points out of reach of fugitives. There’s no worse use than sending your first CP to get killed so that Freeman can take his machine gun and shoot everyone else.
38. I will pick my locations for headcrab rockets more carefully. Granted, it is quite satisfying to force Freeman to kill all his former friend transformed into Zombies, but a precision strike on a hovercraft would stop him in his tracks.
39. Obviously I don’t want citizens talking of legends of “The One Free Man” or “The Opener of the Way”, but I won’t do it by telling everybody not to talk about it. Has no-one in the Combine heard of the Streisand effect?
40. Also, I won’t try appealing to my citizens’ better nature to hand in the hero. I get it, they already hate me, let’s go straight to the threats of what happens to those who collude.
41. I won’t let CPs store grenades because a) they never use them and b) the grenades keep getting nicked and c) the nicked grenades then blow up the CPs who were keeping them.
42. If I lose contact with the entire personnel of an outpost, then also lose contact with the reinforcements sent to investigate an explosion, that’s pretty conclusive evidence of our anticitizen’s wherabouts. Scramble every freaking unit in the city.
43. I will forbid the use of padlocks. They are easily blown off with a single shot of a pistol and every man and his dog has one of those. A blanket ban might encourage my inept mooks to lock things up securely.
45. Much as I appreciate the dedication of a going on a white-knuckle chase after getting machine-gunned, vengeful hunter-chopper pilots will radio for reinforcement airpower first.
46. I will properly map all the underground sections of the canals, so that any waterborne fugitives will be blown to bits the moment they ride back into view.
47. Bearing in mind I know where Dr. Freeman is headed, I will station ten hunter-choppers over the reservoir he has to pass through.
48. And they can bomb the CPs in that building whilst they’re at it. There’s really no hope, if they just sit there whilst a helicopter fighter goes on outside until someone comes in and shoots them all. Let’s just speed it up.
Best use of a transhuman army
49. Now, I’m prepared to consider that all the mistakes made so far were in fact deliberate, so that Gordon Freeman could reach Black Mesa East, and the subsequent attack be blamed on him. But I would, well in advance, supplement my intel of the location of the secret base with the location of all the escape routes.
50. And I will definitely not assume no-one’s going to make it out the Ravenholm route. If anyone can make it through a zombie-infested town, it’s him. Carpet-bombing the town shortly after the Black Mesa East assault should do the trick.
51. I will demolish any entrances to any old mines in territory I control. Nothing good comes from trying to utilise alien-infested mines; the only people who find any use of them are lone renegades heroically fighting their way through to their destination.
52. Snipers will shoot behind reinforced metal grilles, not first floor open windows in grenade-lobbing distance.
53. And if someone does throw a grenade through, they will not say “Watch out” and then stand there like an idiot. They will throw the grenade out again.
54. And I will definitely not leave any grenades lying around near the sniper. That’s like a vampire leaving a mallet and stake by his coffin.
55. Combine Overwatch uniforms will not be colour-coded according to the weapons they are carrying. All that does it show Dr. Freeman who to shoot first.
56. I will have a word with my Combine overlords over the hasty plunder of the oceans. I of course care little for environmental devastation, but the exposed beaches are proving an inconvenient thoroughfare for the hero. If they could hang fire until we have achieved the extinction of all the unworthy branches of the species that would be grand.
57. If I suddenly lose contact with a Combine patrol tasked with surveillance of an enemy base, I will delay the attack on said base until my assault force is at least tripled in size.
58. Once it becomes clear my Combine Soldiers can’t hit the side of a barn door whilst Dr. Freeman guns them down in droves, I will try a new plan. One of them will remove his helmet and beg for his life, claiming he had to fight or his mother and granny would be killed. Meanwhile, the rest of the Soldiers will stay hidden ready for an ambush. (Heroes are famously gullible when given an opportunity to show compassion and humanity.)
59. Given it’s possible to set grenades to different fuse times depending on the thrower, I will not set it to 4 second for Combine and 2 second for rebels. I will set it instead to 2 seconds for Combine and 0 seconds for rebels.
60. Rebel fighters killed by Combine forces will be looted straight after battle. Weapons they were holding have a tendency of ending up in the hands of someone who’s a better shot. Failure to take a short walk to the corpse is just plain laziness.
61. Where a location is important enough to require guarding by force fields, I will have a team of engineers inspect the setup to check if there are any routes to the power supply that bypasses these defences.
62. Also, plugs will not be left within firing range from the other side of the force field it powers. Seriously, schoolboy error.
63. Unattended crates of rockets will not be left around areas I patrol with gunships.
64. Railway lines still in use will be single track with barriers immediately either side, and no refuge spaces. It serves them right – how many times have we said don’t trespass on the railway?
65. Batteries needed to open a vital gate will not be hidden in bathtubs, wrecks of a car, or on top of windmills. That’s like leaving the key to your house under a flower pot.
66. Having seen what happened to my first two gunships, I will not send a third to a vantage point stocked with rockets. Save it for strafing heroes trying to tiptoe over antlion-infested beaches.
67. I will celebrate my occasional victories with more interrogation and less killing. We only need one rebel to blab about the secret cliff path underneath the lighthouse and it’s game, set and match to us.
6
69. Actually, no, let’s see if I can get my top scientist brains to make them slaves, just like the Nihilanth did. Us plus Vortigaunts plus antilions means we’d kick ass every time. Huge missed opportunity there.
70. The great big thumpers protecting my second most important base from antlion hordes will not be turned off by a big red “OFF” button. That will spray bullets on anyone stupid enough to press it. Instead, operation will be controlled remotely using encrypted transmissions.
71. I will design gunships to explode in mid-air rather than crash-land. Although the prospect of taking out a heavily-populated block of flats appeals to me, they seem to have an irritating habit of crashing into my own defences and opening up holes in vital walls.
72. Turret guns will be firmly attached to the floor like we do with hopper mines.
73. Or at least given a wider base so they’re no so easy to knock over. That is a shocking design flaw.
74. Whilst I agree with a lot of what Dr. Breen had to say to his men, that bizarre passive-aggressive broadcast was not at all helpful. A far more productive move would be a high-level meeting with senior Combine commanders to discuss what has been going wrong and how to turn things round. Items 1-73 on this list might be a good start.
75. And if this broadcast really is necessary, I would pay some regard to timing. An villain as evil as I must be devoid of empathy, but when my loyal men are being torn to bits by an unstoppable horde of enraged giant insects, even I see it comes across as insensitive.
76. I will perform some scans of signs of life on Razor Trains entering and leaving Nova Prospekt. I can forgive the Combine forces for not anticipating the insect horde and hole left by a crashed gunship, but sneaking in on a train is pretty basic stuff.
77. I will have my computer terminals regularly tested for security. I appreciate we’re up against a brilliant computer hacker, but the fact she got access so quickly makes me suspect someone’s been using P@ssw0rd1!
78. Ventilation shafts in Nova Prospekt that are big enough to crawl through will replaced with smaller ones. Alyx Vance found one in five minutes so there’s no excuse to not look for them.
79. I will hard-code turrets to indiscriminately fire on everything that moves. The customisable feature to specify which people it fires on seemed like a good idea but it’s clearly open to abuse.
80. Whilst I recognise the value of defectors from the resistance, I will still have them killed the moment they talk back. This might seem like a waste, but anyone who gets lippy tends to have a conscience attack at the worst possible moment.
81. Experimental technology shall be constructed with the same stringent health and safety you’d give to a nuclear power plant. Naturally I am indifferent to an entire garrison annihilated by a malfunctioning teleporter, but gigantic explosions that can be seen from miles away give rebels ideas.
Tips & tricks for suppressing an uprising
82. I won’t bother with propaganda broadcasts during an uprising – they weren’t fooling anyone before, it’s not going to work now. Instead, I will broadcast graphic footage of resistance prisoners being tortured and executed.
83. And I definitely won’t follow this up with a personal address to Dr. Freeman. That smacks of desperation.
84. Given that it seems impossible to wire up a room with laser-beam security without Dr. Freeman working a way round, I’ll just stick some red laser beams across the entrance to activate the Room of Death Trap of Certain Death the moment anyone enters.
85. Actually, why are we making the laser beams red instead of infrared? I want to kill anyone entering this room, so why show them the beams they have to avoid?
86. Anyone who has made it across the room to the deactivation switch clearly isn’t supposed to be there, so I won’t have one. Actually, no, keep the Off switch there, but make it set off the Room of Death Trap of Certain Death.
87. That said, the Room of Death Trap of Certain Death was pretty awesome. Let’s wire up the rooms to all three generators this way. We only need one of them to be watertight.
88. Striders will be deployed around the Citadel and other key buildings at the start of the uprising, and not suddenly brought out in a panic when the mega-instadeath-weapon I’d been counting on is deactivated.
89. Striders will refrain from using their warp cannons when they have Dr. Freeman trapped in a blind alley or ruined building, instead using the slower pulse cannon to finish him off. This might seem counter-intuitive, but collapsing masonry brought on by heavy weapons has an annoying habit of providing him with an escape route.
90. Having gone through all the trouble of having moving Combine cells in the Citadel, I will take measures against intruders hitching a ride. I can’t decide what would be more amusing: running it through another flame-zap-type-thing, or just dropping him from maximum height.
91. I will relieve my prisoners of items before placing them in metal coffins, not after they’re released. The idea that you can transport armed prisoners halfway up a fortress of doom then remove their weapons is a very risky assumption.
92. And when I do relieve prisoners of weapons, I will do so manually rather than rely on these so-called “confiscation fields”. To be fair to Dr. Breen, I don’t think anyone could have anticipated an novel energy field to combine with a scientific prototype to form an unstoppable super-weapon, but yet again a heavy price is paid for sheer laziness.
93. All Combine energy outlets in my Combine Fortress of Doom will have a “kill switch” operated remotely from my office to stop working. On second thoughts, let’s make them into devices that electrocute anyone trying to use them.
94. I would make better use of my one-to-ones with my number one foe. Clearly Dr. Breen wants to be a Bond villain, and I appreciate the sentiment, but it would be equally Bond-villainish and much more effective to hold a gun to Alyx Vance and say “Not so fast, Buster, one step forward and the girl gets it.”
95. Alternatively, I could just tell him The Combine has agreed a ceasefire with the rebels and they want him for peace negotiations in the central chamber. We are probably clutching at straws here, but it’s still more likely to work than monologuing.
96. If I finally had Dr. Freeman captured at the last moment, I will have him killed immediately rather than escorted to my office for some face-to-face gloating. I’ve seen enough Bond movies to know it never pays to hold off killing the hero, and I’m sure Dr. Breen had too.
98. And dropping the same all-powerful unstoppable super-weapon on the way to my escape pod. Seriously? Sorry Dr. Breen, you’ve totally lost the plot now.
99. If I’m trying to get away with my super-evil teleporter, I will not attempt to hamper Dr. Freeman’s progress with phrases such as “Ha! Ha! That won’t work!” every time he does the right thing. Anyone’s going to cotton on to that.
100. Obviously getting killed the moment before I escape isn’t Plan A or even Plan B, but I would rehearse a better pre-death line than “You need me”. That’s just lame. Show some dignity, please.
101. As for what to use instead, I’m racking my brains. I’d like to claim Alyx is really Gordon’s daughter, but I don’t think anyone’s going to fall for that. The best parting shot I can think of is to switch on a video showing me plunging to my doom – holding a basket of new-born kittens. Heroes never live something like that down.