The end will always be Someone Else, but I like fleshing out the story of how the Gordon Geeman got there.
Once Upon a Disparate Timeline...
He was dying. Neither the Vortigaunts or the G-Man could save him from this fate. So a deal was made. Alyx ultimately gave the go-ahead, a decision she wouldn't take lightly, but one she and all of creation would ultimately pay dearly for.
The First Days
The Employers are skeptical but are convinced by the G-Man that bringing the one and only Gordon Freeman into the fold would ensure incredible returns. Gordon, a hopeful glint in his eye, hopes to change things now that he has this power given to him. It’s a long road ahead.
Sacrifices
The Job is not without its drawbacks. You leave everything behind; who you were, who you knew, all that you fought for. But how do you leave behind the horrors and trauma that you’ve both created and defeated? How do you leave all that without seeing it to the end? These doubts begin to burrow in Freeman’s mind. He keeps a single token of the man he once was, a tool to be used, not unlike himself under his new employment.
A Final Word
The G-Man has taught Freeman all he knows, all Gordon can do now is go before their employers and impress upon them his value to their Employers. Something, however, isn’t right. The G-Man can sense it. There is no turning back, however, Gordon Freeman’s existence now rests in the hands of those even the G-Man dare not cross.
Seeing the End
The Employers are satisfied, but Freeman can’t ignore his doubts any longer. He needs to see how it ends. And so he goes, off the books, timeline after timeline. Win, lose, or stalemate, the end is always the same for him: Lying dead in a world that has long forgotten him. Something clicks, or maybe snaps, here.
All Forgiven Now
He stares down at the corpses of the ones who made him, and of the one who brought him into the Fold; their hope and confidence that he could be anything but what he was became their undoing, but he forgave them all the same. Alas, there was only one person he couldn't forgive, and Freeman will make sure he'll never make that mistake again. The Purge begins.
The Downfall
The G-Man is dead. Freeman has stolen the power he needs to make more than just nudges to his destiny. His newfound power is overwhelming, and changes far more than just his fate. He massacres entire timelines trying to make things right, and neither the Employers nor the Vortigaunts know how to stop him. His mind faltering, fragmenting, he imprisons Alyx, controlling her Vortal Bond, the final piece for his attainment of ultimate power. The Vortigaunts eventually find Gordon and invite him to talk in an attempt to dissuade him from this path. They tell him the power he’s accrued will eventually be the end of him, another prophesied death. He refuses. He is the Freeman Immortal.
Extinction
The Employers now try to bargain, Freeman refuses, and severs all links to their plane of existence. Seemingly out of options, the Vortigaunts wage war on the Freeman Immortal. His power growing, Gordon slaughters almost all of them. He begins to rebuild his universe anew, the man he once was now a distant thought. He shuts down timelines that might be a threat to him, ending countless lives. In a rare show of lucidity, he visits Alyx one last time, who manages to make him let his guard down just long enough for the Surviving Vortigaunts and an undead G-Man to find him. Freeman fends off G-Man but can’t stop the Vortigaunts from taking Alyx. Furious, the Freeman Immortal destroys it all, enveloping all of existence in a shattered white void. The Suriving Vortigaunts take advantage of this, trapping Freeman and reversing as much of the damage he’s done as they can. The Undead G-Man, the final act of the Employers, corners Freeman. The last thing he sees is Alyx turning her back on him. The last thing he feels is rage.
Epilogue
The Freeman isn’t dead, but he’ll never live again. Such is the contradiction of a man like him. His final resting place is somewhere far out of reach from his previous Employers, known only to Alyx and the Vortigaunts. There he will stay, forever in the darkness of the world he destroyed.
The Gods that Andross Built: A Star Fox Cosmic Horror
Chapter 1: When the Sky Burned Red
Trying my hand at something new, there're all those TikTok horror stories that I'm pretty sure are almost all AI generated, so I thought I'd do one for real.
So here's my take on the Analogue Horror genre with a Star Fox Cosmic Horror twist, made entirely with human-made assets.
Please enjoy chapter 1, I'm aiming for like 5 probably?
The Gods that Andross Built: A Star Fox Cosmic Horror
Chapter 1: When the Sky Burned Red
Trying my hand at something new, there're all those TikTok horror stories that I'm pretty sure are almost all AI generated, so I thought I'd do one for real.
So here's my take on the Analogue Horror genre with a Star Fox Cosmic Horror twist, made entirely with human-made assets.
Please enjoy chapter 1, I'm aiming for like 5 probably?
Started taking up vector art cuz I was following a creator that I thought was really cool until I found out he uses genAI for his work so anyway I'm making my own stuff out of spite cuz fuck that guy and fuck AI.
It's been a while since I watched the movie, but in the book it explains that the Chinese have this powerful rocket that was made for a probe they plan to send somewhere far off (Venus, I think?) and they end up choosing to let NASA use it for the supply mission to the Hermes. In return, they get an astronaut on one of the next Ares missions. Does the movie explain it differently?
Yeah that's about the gist of the whole two (2) scenes and one montage that the Chinese are in and is handled with all the grace that cramming all that in would net you lol
