Stellaris Creating the Combine Empire From Half-Life

Species Appearance

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Starting off with the species appearance, this is as close as we can get to the Shu'ulathoi that we see in the Half-Life games.

It helps that the portrait in the game is also floating in mid-air.

Species Name

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This part is fairly straightforward.

When it comes to the plural and adjective form you can do whatever you think fits best.

For what we know now the Shu'ulathoi are genderless so this is a good option to tick.

Name Lists

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This one is up to your own interpretation as with some of the other options.

I went with Machine 1 as I do not think the Combine really care much about what they name things. From what we see in the games, there is one purpose for them and that is expansion and control over every dimension and universe, no aesthetic pleasure in sight.

Not only that it is suggested they communicate using telepathy, plus they act more utilitarian which will affect some of our decisions later.

Traits

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Here we are at an important step.

These are what I chose.

IntelligentI was torn between intelligent and one of the natural-research path traits. I went with intelligence as it seems the shu'ulathoi are highly intelligent and way more advanced than any creature we see. They are capable of telekinesis and telepathy.

WeakAs for the "weak" trait, they do have to use cybernetics and exoskeletons to be able to survive alien worlds. This does not suggest they are weak on their own natural habitat but one could argue they have evolved into a weaker form over time as most of their work is done by robots and slaves and physical resilience became less important as their empire grew stronger.

If you want, suggest some other traits in the comments but these are the biggest two that came to my mind.

Homeworld Name & Type

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There is not much information out there regarding the homeworld of the Combine, or the Shu'ulathoi. I only chose arid off of the glimpse we catch of the Combine overworld, which possesses a reddish sky. All we know is that it's not a nice place to be in the events during and after Half-Life 2.

"...let's see how it serves you on the far side of a Combine portal. ...Oh, it's hardly the worst. But you might find that hard to believe once you get there" -Dr. Breen

For the starting system I chose a single star.

In Epistle 3, (Mark Laidlaw's, Half-Life series writer's continuation of the Half-Life storyline after his departure from Valve), it reads "...riding into the heart of a Combine world. An immense light blazed. I caught a cosmic view of a brilliantly glittering Dyson sphere."

Going off this alone I'm assuming their system has only a single star.

City Appearance

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I chose the Necroid City option.

Stellaris Necroid City

As you can see in the images, Combine architecture has very pointy and aggressive angles. Combined with their dark metal exterior, the Necroid city option was a good one for this.

Origin

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When it came to origin it got me thinking a lot. But I decided to leave it at the default Prosperious Unification.

One could think hegemony start might be a good one. However you do not have direct control over the other two empires in your hegemony, contradicting the Combine's absolute power over their subjects.

Government & Ethics

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We are yet again at an important step.

Let's get the civics out of the way first. Chose slaver guilds and technocracy as our first two starting civics. I chose slaver guilds because it is well known that the Combine enslaves native populations and lets them do the hard work for them, before moving on to their next victims. We saw this happen with our own eyes with the vortiguants and humans in the Half-Life series.

Technocracy. I put this one up first thinking it's perhaps the beginning of their empire and their rise into a superpower. And as a good start they might focus onto very advanced technologies. A technocracy might allow them to do this faster with leaders that are technically skilled.

I was considering choosing functional architecture insead of technocracy since their architecture is made to, of course, be functional first and foremost. They use their own special metal everywhere possible and don't care about looks. And they build their own bridges and additions over already-existing native buildings to suit their needs.

You may swap technocracy with functional architecture if you'd like but you can get a 3rd civic down the road anyway.

And for government ethics I chose Authoriation and Fanatic Materialists.

Chose authoritarian for very obvious reasons. They have total say over their subjects. We don't know how the dynamics are within their own race and empire but there is no doubt they want more power and more control

The reason I went with fanatic materialist is their focus on acquiring advantegous scientific technologies (as we see with teleportation in Half-Life 2).

Fanatic materialist could also be brought down one level and also get militarist as a civic. But there is no sight of an actual Shu'ulathoi army, they only reuse already existing native population and through surgeries and memory wipes turn them into supersoldiers. Which is some heavy fanatic materialist, soulless task if I've ever heard of one.

And oligrachy is anyone's guess. We do not know what the political structure of the Combine empire is. Chose oligarchy since it seems Shu'ulathoi seem to be the very highly advanced, highly intelligent string-pullers and there could be a higher caste of masters so to speak.

Flag

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This is a tricky one as there are some symbols in the default flag creator that could resemble the Combine symbol (the one used on Earth at least.)

I recommend downloading this mod to have a proper emblem for the Combine empire.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=682638102

Ship Appearance

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The image you see in the middle, or even the bottom image are not proper space ships. We do not witness Combine space travel in Half-Life. However these designs give us a rough idea how they could look like in space. Going with imperial style is good but there are also a couple other options. I went for this one as it fits the color of the metal they use.

Keep in mind the last image you see a repurposed alien being being used as a ship, carrying a combine metal container.

Ruler

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And finally we are at the ruler. Which lets us choose which room we use as our background.

I chose the room you see in the image above. This was as close as I could get to a proper Combine feel and look, because other rooms all have stylized walls with patterns or curtains.

What you choose as the ruler title is up to you.

Conclusion

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And here we are at the end.

I did not bother to add my own race background that is up to the player, for them to interpret the empire's rise into power.

If you have any suggestions you can give them in the comments. Thank you for checking out this build.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2712533931

Creating the Combine Empire From Half-Life