Thoughts on Combine and Corvolt

[Dhalo]

The Combine dissolved families and friend groups by regularly transferring citizens to different cities.
If a mistake in paperwork results in relatives or loved ones being placed on the same train, there is a risk of one of them being removed by Overwatch and likely executed. The other individual may be executed or sent someplace remote.

This is because spending time with family and friends reminds someone of what they are fighting for and creates humanised resistance instead of allowing humanity to die quietly. Consider that in Half Life 2, humanity is not allowed to reproduce, either. "Humanity dying quietly" is an appropriate statement.

A Youtuber named Leadhead made the video where I'm getting this from and labels the tactic "Civil Confusion".

I'm considering the Corvolt Imperium may have behaved similarly since it takes massive influences from the Combine.
Earth is, in our Earth-centric and human view point, a gem in space. The world offers various artifacts, phenomena and resources. A hefty portion of the Milky Way Galaxy which surrounds it does not contain the capacity to support terrestrial life. There are other planets, yes, with various differences in makeup, and the inhabited ones tend to have considerably different species as occupants.
For spacefaring human or near-human conquerors, Earth presents a new colony to populate with their version of humanity. It might be that, aside from a few loyal hangers-on, the Earth-based humans are meant to slowly die out or experience gene-therapy to become more like the Corvolt.
Meanwhile, the undesirables -non-humans included- are steadily exterminated. Mobians, Lylatians, Lyvek, Gurhaans, hybrids, a significant portion of disabled people, and anyone who has either spoken out against the Corvolt Imperium or practises a way of life which the Corvolts don't like.

The Corvolt Imperium's plan is perhaps worse than we initially realised. Maybe instead of just dominating Earth and killing off non-humans, -WHICH IS HORRIFIC ENOUGH!- and using Earth as a staging point to conquer more of the Milky Way...
...Maybe the Corvolt's plan is to corrupt Earth until they are basically the only sentient life on it, with Earth's humanity being a dwindling slave force, aside from the small number of those converted to be more like the Corvolt, their descendants bringing genetic diversity that the Corvolt bloodlines need to stay alive. Earth's resources, gradually sucked out to fuel experiments and war machines and a new colony for the Corvolt. Ancient powers and artifacts awoken, toyed with, pacts formed, things gained or destroyed.
The mind wonders.

 

ADDITION:

Drones detect a miscount - an extra person has entered a populated area.
The response - everyone inside must die if they do not place themselves on the floor and identify themselves.
Members of Civil Protection who kill dangerous individuals are rewarded with preserved family cohesion.
Cohesion means life. If a member of a Protection Team dies, they are non-cohesive.
That means members of Overwatch who fail, lose their families.

Civil Protectors receive anti-fatigue stimulants in milligrams to allow for continued movement, otherwise they are barely conscious. They are slightly less malnourished than civilians.
Personnel whom apply for memory replacement embark on the first step to becoming Overwatch soldiers. The Overwatch soldiers have their minds scrubbed of memories, emotion, sympathy and empathy.

SECOND ADDITION: A difference between the two factions! The Combine is a combination, it's leadership views itself as a single whole. Everything brought under it's thrall becomes part of that whole, and any resisters are malignant, and treated like a virus to be amputated from the larger body of the Combine. Gordon Freeman deviates from this because it views him as a highly dangerous individual. It's the Combine vs Freeman. The Combine is a planet-sucking parasite that treats dissenters as cancers.

The Corvolt appear to have Commanding Officers (COs) whom act with some degree of free will, and the Corvolt Imperium has a human command structure. If they are secretly ran by aliens, said aliens either view themselves as individual, or have yet to instill their beliefs on the Corvolt humans, or allow the Corvolt to remain individuals to serve the purpose of the greater alien organism.

 

THIRD ADDITION: How does Corvolt Imperium architecture function? The Combine in Half Life functions as a parasite architecturally, choosing to integrate human buildings and civilisation with it's technology instead of simply destroying and rebuilding cities. Of note, Sprite Wars possesses multiple factions which have integrated science fiction technology into pre-existing tech. The Terran Command -a villainous, humaneocentrist faction whose leader was in actuality a Worldbuilder out to dominate humanity- had some similar designs to the Combine, with boards, panels and notices integrated into human architecture. This trend does not always point to a hivemind or collective alien identity such as the Combine, then.

 

 

[Briano]

This is honestly some rather interesting theory and thoughts to pontificate on...

Makes one wounder to be honest...

[Dhalo]

11 hours ago, Briano said:

This is honestly some rather interesting theory and thoughts to pontificate on...

Makes one wounder to be honest...

They're still out there.