#discussion post

Emmett Calhoun has a different name spelling, like Benrey does. In HLAGE Act 2: Part 2 (25:49-26:27), the Red Gnome’s subtitle spells their names as “Benry” and “Emmet.” Then, in Final Act: Part 2 (18:31), Gabe Newell/Newman spells their names as “Benrey” and “Emmett” (then, the Red Gnome spelled it as “Emmett” afterwards at 18:56). 

For context, Wayne had stated before that “Benrey” is how a human would write it and “Benry” is his alien name, although despite that, it is canon he has different name iteration. I do not believe Emmett’s name spelling is a mistake because Wayne also added Benrey’s name variations, too. Whether that implies Emmett is also an alien and biologically related to Benrey is debatable.

The Red Gnome is never supposed to be in HLA in the first place, but the Blue Gnome is. The biggest indicator comes from Gabe Newell’s commentary at 19:33, Final Act: Part 1:

“The blue gnome provided an interesting challenge to our development team. But not in the usual way, you might expect. Before we, uh, managed to, bring in a voice actor to record its dialogue, its voice, … had somehow, inexplicably… already appeared in our system. Fully formed, as if it’d been waiting for us all along. Really scared the bejeezus out of all of us. We don’t know why he sounds like that, either. Sorry.” 

Not only does Gabe not react to the Blue Gnome’s presence as apprehensively as with the Red Gnome, but he directly confirms that Blue was an intended feature of Half-Life: Alyx. The VOX emphasizes this verbatim at 39:51, Final Act: Part 2, “Congratulations. That was the toughest part of the game… The Blue Gnome is an intended feature. Please be polite to him in the future.” Furthermore, his backstory implied he had a whole different script, voice, mechanic, and purpose in the game. What that would be is unknown. With his constant reverberating that Red is “an imposter,” I believe that, horrifically, this lustful gnome has been telling the truth the entire time, although his intentions are likely skewed (just so Gordon could “carry” him.)

As for the Red Gnome, I’ve found some hints towards him being the HL2 Gnome. Again, the most profound, but ambiguous evidence in my opinion is Gabe’s monologue at 48:31, The End:

“It wasn’t until we started development on Episode 2 when the dread started to overtake me… I went into work that mornin’. And that was the day… he appeared.”

 For those who don’t know, the actual Half Life 2 has two expansion games called Episode 1 and 2. Episode 2 is where the White Forest is first referenced. It is also where you must escort Gnome Chompski to be placed in a rocket in Dr. Magnusson’s lab, which will be launched into space to get the achievement. However, we do not know exactly who “he” is, but it is heavily implied that it’s the Red Gnome. Additionally, because in both episodes, Alyx is your companion till the end, this line at 37:29, Act 2: Part 2 has heavy significance: “Alyx was a kind person. By being rude to the gnome, you are desyncing with the Animus." Dr. Magnusson is casually mentioned in Act 1: Part 2 (4:53):

What that entails, I don't know. I do know that the Animus is a virtual reality device in Assassin’s Creed to access your ancestors’ memories. We just gotta wait and see.

The next biggest evidence has to be at 32:50, Act 3: Part 2, where the Red Gnome says, “The void is calling to me… this is the rocket, right?” Interestingly, the chapter’s name during this section is also called “Dreams of the Void.” Sure, this could be a throwaway line but with the previous evidence stacking up, I don't think so anymore.

Lastly, the next indication I could find is at 24:20 in Part 1: Act 1 of Baaulp mentioning, “I’m guessing this mod was made for, for, Half-Life 2, and then they just, y’know.” I wonder why he would say that during his dispute with the Red Gnome?

Two more things I want to point out about the gnomes:

They are a foil to one another. The dichotomy of the Blue Gnome being the freakiest, most vile guy to exist, yet sincere and brutally honest. His existence is intentional, yet not expected, yet pushed aside for another AI Gnome that was not supposed to be there in the first place. Blue’s backstory is firmly established; he knows exactly what he wants, what he is doing, how he came to be, and why he is there. All the while, Red Gnome’s demeanor constantly fluctuates from being incredibly affectionate to threatening Gordon in the next second. His backstory is inconsistent with having so many spouses to one girlfriend, to being older and younger at the same time. Maybe even lies too much. What they both know is that their main goal is to get the player to the end of the game to win the challenge.

However, I feel like they do not realize that getting to the end means the end of their existence, too. They are not seen as “people” with real feelings, but a commodified trophy for players to put along with their many other awards. Maybe it is best for the Blue Gnome to be crushed because at least he has the chance to be revived. (I’m referring to when Wayne said in the Behind The Scenes VOD at 5:18:02 that the Blue Gnome’s soul is compacted into his computer, so his voice can be freely used for future projects. As far as I know, only the Red Gnome’s voice was deleted). Secondly, I don’t think people realize that Blue Gnome generated his own voice when he gained sentiency. Literally, an AI-generation, lol. It makes total sense why the gnomes had such broken voices. You could attribute that the HLVRAI characters had normal speeches because they already had voice actors in-universe. Meta-versly speaking, Gnome Chompski doesn’t talk to you in the actual game.

2. Secondly, I don’t think people realize that Blue Gnome generated his own voice when he gained sentiency. Literally, an AI-generation, lol. It makes total sense why the gnomes had such broken voices. You could attribute that the HLVRAI characters had normal speeches because they already had voice actors in-universe. Meta-versely speaking, Gnome Chompski doesn’t talk to you in the actual game.

I think it’s worth mentioning the Eye Module AI. This is cut from the main HLAGE Youtube video, but it can be heard in the unedited VOD in Final Act. Transcript (timestamp, 52:21): 

 "Originally, Half Life: Alyx and the Valve Index, were supposed to ship with an eye tracking module. Unfortunately, due to an error in our source code, we could not stop an in-game text-to-speech, similar to the HEV Suit's VOX, from stating the name of every object the player would look at. Lamp, cup, leaf, gnome, USB drive. You get the idea. This resulted in scrapping the module, entirely. I still get sad when I think of it."

I personally think the list of objects is not detecting the objects within the game, but actually detecting the Player’s real room. Think about it. Lamp, cup and USB drive are all things that are found in someone’s room with a computer. The leaf can be referring to tree leaves outside of a window. In this context, the gnome being manifested inside this player’s room in the real world is an eerie visual, but something that is not impossible as we know by the HLAGE ending. Almost like foreshadowing. I hope we get more non-bodied sentient AIs like the VOX and the eye module in the future. Possibly the overwatch voice. 

The implications of Gabe Newell’s monologue in the ending of HLAGE. Transcript: 

“Half-Life… Half-Life is not, what it seems. These games… uh.. should NEVER be played, by mankind. But.. we here at Valve… we knew how well they would sell. We knew the success that would come. And we knew what chaos could be wrought, what… dark dreams, could waken, and… and we distributed Half-Life anyway. This, is my biggest regret. […] We’d used the seal before. Many times, actually. It allowed Half-Life to achieve the legacy it has today? The games, each of them… were, amazing. As I’m sure you experienced, having done this challenge. […] All of these commentary lines are encrypted. And will delete themselves from Steam’s update repository, once a player has listened to them, removing them from all copies of Half-Life: Alyx.”

All Half-Life games (including HL1, HL2, HLA, and possibly the Gearbox games) have some percentage of sentiency into their coding. Whether that means that all games are personalized to their players, or the players have their own sentient AIs, or experienced similar things to Gordon is unknown.

The parallel between Gordon and Gabe Newell. Both are humans that had a great impact on the Half-Life games while interacting with the AIs within them. However, both are careless in their way of handling them because they don’t realize the extent these beings and the Game could do. One way is their exploitation of the AIs. Gordon live-streaming them for views, likes and donations + Gabe selling the games for his own profit (Gordon confirms this when Baaulp asks why he downloads these mods, and Gordon replies, “I don't know. Content?” at 42:01 in Final Act: Part 2). The only difference is that Gabe is scared of his own creations and will not be willing to fix his relationship with them.

While we are on the topic, I noticed that throughout the series, all humans' font appearances are depicted in only white letters with black borders/strokes around it (including Gordon’s youtube subtitles). I just wanted to point this out in case it is significant.

I truly believe that Alyx is a human trapped as an AI in the digital world. Why else would Peppa Pig in the HLAGE Finale Act would say:

“And I became friends! With someone else. You will meet her very soon. Don’t worry. Do you hear the sounds of the hollows, Gordon? I hear them. The girl and I, we know them very well. Don’t tell me you can’t hear it, Gordon? The song they sing at the edges of the mind? It’s quite beautiful. Maybe it's better that you can’t hear that. Lest you end up like her. Tis a shame what befall that girl, really.”  

In a way, I think Alyx can be a foil to Gordon. The player embraces the identity of Gordon Freeman, while Alyx is only known as “The Girl.” Her shadow is separated from her HLA body because she is real in the AI world. Gordon has his vessel intact, except he doesn’t have a shadow in HLA because he doesn’t belong in the game. Judging from the HL2VRAI trailer, Alyx is bolder and confident, while Gordon was neurotic and stressed. Alyx likely has a stronger relationship with the Science Team; Gordon does not. Alyx is “a kind person,” while Gordon is apathetic to the AIs. She has everything that Gordon does not have. I could be completely wrong though, but again, we just gotta wait and see.

Breaking Bad is the result of the Game trying to expand on itself and reusing things it had seen before. Sure, BBVRAI could be non-canon, but there is stuff in it that makes me suspect otherwise. Anyways, as Dr. Coomer explains in the trailer, the world has been “updating, evolving,” and becoming “restless.” With the sentiency/supernatural force confirmed to be in all of the Half-Life games, surely it would also spread across the Source engine and utilize its assets. Probably another indication how careless Valve is using the obsidian seal. Whether that also affects the other Valve games like TF2 or Portal, is unknown.

The first indication is during the HLAGE Finale Act, we see the Red Gnome watching the Breaking Bad show. This is possibly where the Game got the idea to remake the show as a game.

Several times throughout the HLAGE series, the Red Gnome repeatedly mentions Denny’s and how he wanted a Grand Slam (timestamp, 22:51 in Final Act: Part 2 as an example). BBVRAI revolves around the setting of Denny’s as a plot point.

It’s in the name lol, Breaking Bad VR But the AI is Self-Aware. Even the youtube description says that “Walter White has come to the Source Engine.”

Speaking of which, the AIs don’t appear to be as self-aware as the HLVRAI ones are. They go by the same name as their OG counterparts, roughly the same backstory, follow an extremely similar plotline, and not many “out-of-character” moments. Walter White, I genuinely believe, is an AI that is meant to mimic a VR player/Wayne. There is no suggestion that he is another player who is roleplaying or that he is wearing a VR headset. As a matter of fact, he is the only one who reacts to “pain” accordingly. When Mike Ehrmantraut beat the shit out of him, he made realistic pained noises, only to get up like nothing happened. He imitated it because that is how he should react. Likely the Game based it off of Gordon’s pained reactions in the past. Furthermore, the rest of the AIs naively believe Walter White is a Good Person that Surely won’t be a Bad Guy because… he’s Walter White! He’s the guy! He’s the protagonist! It’s in their nature as an AI to be attracted towards the “player.”

This leads me to the next point that BBVRAI follows the same VRAI storyplot formula. A guy in VR as the protagonist, meets with an AI, goes on a wacky adventure with them to solve a problem, gets betrayed later down the line, their own friends are trying to kill them, and the protagonist is left alone by the end. 

The Dr. Coomer cameo 

Speaking of the Game, another reason I think it is trying to expand is because there have always been instances of the map changing. For example, the HLVRAI locker room changing in Act 4 compared to Act 1, Darnold’s Lab, Benrey’s Xen cave (all confirmed in the cast-commentary that those locations were custom made by Gir + Wayne). The twisted hallway, real-life fakeout and the theater room in HLAGE. 

Perhaps, Dr. Coomer’s inconsistent time-telling is accurate for how much the map is evolving before the characters can get there, like a House of Leaves situation. After all, he accurately knows HLVRAI was set in 2020 and continues to count til 2040 in HL2VRAI. He also has a mini-map, so surely he is seeing it shift around? 

https://youtu.be/kkQha8pm4iA?si=knzISy6t7Qh4i2k- 

Another detail I noticed throughout is that Gordon is always near a body of water during a major event. The sewage water tunnel when he was trying to escape Dr. Coomer, the Xen’s red water in Benrey’s final fight, the sea/lake he wakes up to at the end of HLAGE. What is the significance of that is unknown.