Who or what is G-man?

[Digitalpotato]

He's someone who loves to have a wonderful time by spinning around the officer chair, going to britain, smiling really really stupidly, or having chair races, and who was so dedicated to his work freezing people like Adrian Shepherds he had his briefcase surgically grafted to his hand. (Why else do you think you can't remove it in Half Life 2's Gmod?)


Not to mention he enjoys telling Alyx to swear to her daddy. (I dunno if I can link you to that Youtube Poop video without getting a warning)

 

[fedpayne]

I think most stuff from HL1 can be discounted, because once we got HL2 the plot became a believable universe, when before it had been b-movie grade nonsense. Enjoyable nonsense, though. To be honest, I hope we don't find out who the gman is. But I reckon middle-management. There are powers at the top, and they enjoy messing with people, and Gman is their tool.

 

[zachatree]

Wasn't he the Boss at black masa? I never played Half-life 1 but thats what I heard. But I think hes like...I don't know, a time traveler or a god or something. Maybe we'll never know, I think they could keep the mystery going until Half-life 3 before it starts getting boring, I just hope its not a let down and hes infact gordon

no the boss of black masa was the guy who ran city 17 for the combine

 

[Knight Templar]

We don't know, and there isn't enough infomation to be sure.

 

[xitel]

I think he's an employee of Aperture Science, but that's just a huge hunch.

 

[Jamash]

Rich Goins [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E__ETktVRP0] was the G-Man.

He was a hilarious early UFC announcer who seemed really nervous & not used to public speaking.

I got the impression he was a college buddy of one of the organisers or somebody they just roped off the street, dressed in a tux, handed & microphone & cue cards, then shoved into the ring.

"and now fighting out of the blue...um..red corner..."

 

[implodingMan]

Concerning the nature of Gordon's "employment", I think its worth thinking about who Gordon is truly working for.

At the end of HL2 Breen mentions that Gordon could be working for him. If you assume that this means Breen instead of the Gman, then what is keeping Gordon from simply saying "how about no" and leaving Breen? Obviously Gordon would still be under the Gman's control, he would just have Breen's objectives.

Whoever Gordon's true employer is seems to have a leash on the Gman himself. He states in HL2EP2 that he "agreed to abide certain... restrictions" during his work with Gordon. This is pretty obvious, considering he can control the space time continuum and is immune to physical damage and he never uses these abilities to help you.

The real question is why the person that gordon and the Gman work for doesn't simply get the Gman to do everything himself. He is certainly powerful enough to kill headcrabs and dimwitted combine soldiers.

 

[Koji Arala]

My take on the situation would be that the G-Man is a kind of inter-dimensional "Fixer", in the line of thought of "Whatever you want done, I have someone in the universe you want to screw with, who can get it done." Clearly his plans involve multiple individuals and an understanding of their motivations if he can just release an unwilling agent into the world and have them end up completing their epic quest, not just being ignorant of the fact they are undertaking it, but thinking they are persuing their own goals.

As for his apperance and speech.. if he is an extra-dimensional fixer, we can assume he is not human. If he isnt human (a reasonable assumption considering all other life we have seen from other dimensions in the half life universe), then how he looks is simply a matter of personal choice. If we are looking at it from this perspective, his choice of brief case, suit, government agent persona, would simply come from him seeing such an archetype as a figure of authority. For all we know he looks like a Vortigaunt if he chooses to appear to them. His speech, in this line of thought, is easily explained by him not having ever spoken English, or indeed probably any language that human vocal cords can produce; his strange emphasis likley being something akin to a dimensional "accent".

 

[Radelaide]

Couple of things:
1: What's rick-roll?

2: What happened at Black Mesa? I've play HL2, plus the episodes, but haven't quite figured out what happened.

3: I have this weird theory that the G-Man know's what happens on Xen, whatever it is, and is working for the Government and just hints at Gordon. Mind you, I also have a theory that Gordon is going to awaken one day and all of it is just a dream and the G-Man was either a figment on his hallucination or his Doctor...

 

[HydraZulu]

Well I read somewhere (can't remember where, though), that G-Man's speech problem is caused by the fact that he doesn't perceive time the way we do. That way he can't judge the proper length of syllables, and when to change pitch. His different perception of time could be a result of his space and time traveling abilities. I don't know as much as the rest of the Half-Lifers here, because my computer refuses to play Ep 1 and 2, even though I know it can. Some error...That makes me sad. It seems that it was already established that he is hired by somebody, and my theory on WHY is: somebody (human or otherwise, i don't know) doesn't like the way that history turned out, or the present, so they hire G-Man, or G-Man's employers (there may be more than one person doing what G-Man does), to change history. There is no evidence of G-Man or his coworkers work, because if you change the past, nobody notices, because they don't remember the other past, because it never happened. I could keep going, but I think you see the point.

 

[flare09]

Well, I say we should wait for Valve to finish their new episode within the next 2 years, and then we'll find out.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

Well, I say we should wait for Valve to finish their new episode within the next 2 years, and then we'll find out.

There's a Half-Life 3 after Episode 3. Thought I'd clear that one up.

 

[MrHappy255]

Personally I think G man is the flipside of Gordon (get it half life). I also think he is traveling back through time and that is why he sounds funny because he has to talk backwards so we can understand him. (try it talk backwards and see how stupid you sound)

But hey this is all just guess work and stuff like that. Plus I think it would be cool but most likely it will be some simple thing 'cause valve probably has no idea who he is at the moment either.

 

[semaj1337]

... But this brings up the question...who was employing Gordon to work for the rebels?

In the Highway 18 level of Half life 2 (I believe), you'll find a house with a telescope in it. If you look through it, the image pans across a pier or something, where a bunch of rebels are hanging out. If you wait long enough, you'll see Colonel Odessa Cubbage conversing with G-man, so this might be who employed him.

 

[Radelaide]

Couple of things:
1: What's rick-roll?

2: What happened at Black Mesa? I've play HL2, plus the episodes, but haven't quite figured out what happened.

3: I have this weird theory that the G-Man know's what happens on Xen, whatever it is, and is working for the Government and just hints at Gordon. Mind you, I also have a theory that Gordon is going to awaken one day and all of it is just a dream and the G-Man was either a figment on his hallucination or his Doctor...

Unsure if you're trolling or honestly asking, so I'll assume the best of people...

Rick Roll is an intentional misdirection, where you post a link to something and make a claim as to what it is, but in fact it leads to an unrelated item/picture/topic. Originated on 4Chan, it was first called Duckroll, and the image used was a mallard with wheels (hence duck roll). Later, RickRoll surpassed DuckRoll, wherein the offender linked to a video of "Never gonna give you up" by Rick Astley (A pretty good song IMHO but I'm an 80s freak). Today, RickRoll applies to any misdirection, whether to that video or something else.

An experiment at Black Mesa went wrong, and instead of opening a simple portal, they pissed off an entire alien collective, who proceeded to take over the facility, and later, earth. Halflife 1 took place entirely within the Black Mesa facility and on an alien world. In case you never figured it out, it was Freeman's experiment that went wrong, and he was spared the devastation because he was in that suit of his, while almost everyone else died, or worse. The "survivors" like Eli Vance and Traitorous Whorebitch are entirely a Halflife2 addin, but Barney and Doctor Headcrab Fettish were in HL1.

Whoever it is that G-Man works for, it is not an earth government, and it is still open for debate if G-Man himself is at all human.

Don't worry, I wasn't trolling. I are naive internet user! My friend showed me the ED article of Rick-rolling, but thanks for the help! And assuming the best of me ^^

 

[TsunamiWombat]

The G-Man's name is a reference to the fact he looks like a standard midlevel government employee, with his uptight suit and briefcase. Corporal Shepard even refers to him as a "G-Man" in his journal (Opposing Force user manual).

The G-Man is, I believe, an intergalactic "Fixer". For whatever reason, the various powers in the interdimensional universe cannot interfere directly. The G-Man saw an opportunity in Gordon, who by some means survived Black Mesa - an incident the G-Man likly arranged at the behest of the Nilhinath so that it could attempt to escape the Combine. The G-Man however is not all powerful- he seems to be able to move out of synch with time, and through space. But he was blocked by the Vortigaunts in Episode 1, suggesting that the gestalt power of the Vortigaunt race is equal to or greater then his. He also seems unable to interfere except on a very limited basis. The G man likly represents some powerful, mind bending form of life that early man would've confused with angels and demons... infact, some sort of demon is the best way I could describe G-Man. He's an influence broker, but he can't directly intervene.

The plot of Halflife is a bit hard to follow because it's not clearly explained in the games- one of my few griefs with it- but the bigbad of Halflife was the Nihilinath, the giant baby thingy. It was formerly a part of the Combine, or threatened by the Combine, and stole a great deal of slaves (such as the Vortigaunts) and fled with them. In order to escape the combine, it siezed on the breach created by the resonance Cascade, until Gorden slew the Nihilinath. The Combine glimpsed earth during this period and followed some years later into our dimension, resulting in the 24 hour war where earth was Pwnt. Dr. Breen, who had become Secretary of Extra Terrestrial Affairs in the ensuing time due to his experiance at Black Mesa, surrendered Earth to the Combine to prevent immediate extinction.

A thought occured to me though, that the people employing Gordon Freeman through the G-Man might be the Vortigaunts themselves. The reference to "Their only experiance with mankind at the time being someone running down the hall towards them with a crowbar" quote makes me think of them. Their conflict with the G-Man in Episode 1 maybe a result of them desiring to prevent him from selling Gordons services off to another bidder, or keeping him for themselves for longer then was agreed upon. The Vortigaunts have been enslaved by the Nihilnath and the Combine for millenia supposedly, and Gordon is their ticket to freedom. You gotta listen to the Vortigaunt at the start of Route Kanal talk for a while to get everything, and it's somewhat cryptic- but 'The Freeman' free'd them from slavery to the Nihilinath, and now the Combine is killing them on sight because they can't be directly controlled anymore.

 

[Apocalypse Tank]

Possibly:

A computer program created for the destruction of the Combine

OR

A messenger that will eventually unite all rebelling factions to fight the Combine