Dreams of Half-Life... 3

My man gabe newell was contractually obligated to show up to what would've been the launch event for Half-Life 2, shortly after delaying the game (to much backlash).

He was apparently very concious about the public outcry, later saying that the team was paralysed about announcing the delay, and he knew it was very embarrassing for him.

Still, he showed up to Alcatraz, opening up with "Have you ever had one of those weeks?" before giving his Source engine presentation and leaving without answering any questions.

Those words are important because they show where they were at the time. Half-Life 2 was in a very poor state, developer morale was very low, ongoing legal battles with their parent company threatened Valve's existence, and overall it like like they were in deep shit.

That was on September the 30th.

"From June 16th to June 23rd, Mobilise your Dick with Steam's Whale Fucking Fest, where you'll find loads of sperm whales, hump back whales, cum whales, and many more! Whalecum to Steam's Whale Fucking Fest, see you then!"

The world of Half-Life is pretty significantly more advanced that ours in terms of scientific advancement, even before the Black Mesa incident we know that humanity's developed:

Holograms

Large quadrupedal robots

Portal technology (both spatial and inter-dimensional)

It's pretty clear that this universe has got it pretty good in terms of technological prowess, considering this is just in the year 200X.

My headcanon is this: following WW2, technology research skyrocketed, resulting in amazing technological development that led to the invention of teleportation, advanced robotics, holograms etc. This may have been an arms race, with the US and USSR competing for teleportation technology, but the important factor is that all this technology was very very expensive, only viable in large research facilities like Black Mesa and Aperture Science.

That's why these two corporations were competing: not to see who could invent teleportation first, but to be the first to create commercial teleportation. Aperture Science spent decades refining their handheld portal device in an attempt to make it commercially viable, while Black Mesa focused on location-based teleports, accidentally discovering Xen and shifting their focus exploring a new dimension.

Also check out this analogue horror about Oppenheimer founding Black Mesa in the 40s, it was my primary inspiration for this headcanon: