Barney Calhoun
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| This article is about the standalone character. For the generic Black Mesa security guard, see Black Mesa Personnel. |
 | Warning! This article contains spoilers. Read at your own risk! |
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| Barney Calhoun | |
|---|---|
| Biographical information | |
| Homeworld | |
| Physical description | |
| Rank |
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| Species |
Human |
| Gender |
Male |
| Weapons |
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| Equipment |
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| Hair color |
Black |
| Eye color |
Brown |
| Chronological and political information | |
| Era(s) | |
| Affiliation | |
| Game information | |
| Voiced by | |
| Modeled over |
Scott Lynch (Chief Operating Officer for Valve) (HL2) |
| Entity |
npc_barney |
- "Now, about that beer I owed you. It's me Gordon! Barney, from Black Mesa!"
- ―Barney Calhoun[src]
Barney Calhoun[1][2] is a main character in the Half-Life games. He was a security guard at Black Mesa before becoming a key Resistance leader.
Although initially being the generic security guard from Half-Life, an entire class of throwaway characters on its own, he was retconned in Half-Life: Blue Shift and Half-Life 2 as a standalone character, playing increasingly prominent roles as the series has progressed. He is notable as one of only two playable characters in the series to be heard speaking and being a generic model with a generic first name turned into a standalone character and given a surname, the other being Gina Cross as the Hazard Course holographic assistant.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Background
Barney Calhoun, an undecided two-year major from Martinson College, was employed as a mid-level security officer at the Black Mesa Research Facility, with Level 3 security clearance.[1] He was friends with Gordon Freeman and Isaac Kleiner, who were also employees of Black Mesa, as long with other security guards.
[edit] Black Mesa
As a Black Mesa guard, he was tasked with duties including guarding assigned sections, performing general maintenance, and assisting the Science Team as and when he was required. His "Disaster Response Priority" was to protect the Black Mesa facility and its equipment in the event of an emergency, with secondary priority to safeguard members of the science team whilst his own personal safety was of relatively low importance.
[edit] Appearances
[edit] Half-Life
Although it was not established in the original Half-Life, Blue Shift retconned that Barney was in fact the guard knocking on the closed door, whom Dr. Freeman saw while riding on his train.
[edit] Half-Life: Blue Shift
Barney gained a starring role in the Half-Life expansion, Half-Life: Blue Shift. He was finally given a subname (Calhoun) along with an improved appearance. Unlike Gordon Freeman and Adrian Shephard, Barney lacked any form of power armor and was equipped only with a simple armored vest and helmet. Thus, instead of utilizing HEV recharging stations, Calhoun would restore his damaged armor by picking up "fresh" vests from fallen comrades along the way. It is notable that unlike Freeman and Shephard, he comes across only a few of living security guards after the cascade. Moreover, Barney can communicate with only one of them, who is seen towards the end of the game and only lives long enough to tell Calhoun about recharging the power cell and then immediately dies.
At the beginning of Blue Shift, the player may notice strange material in the character's locker: books titled The Truth About Aliens and Government Conspiracies that show that Barney may be paranoid, or at least something of a conspiracy theorist. This could also be foreshadowing, since the game centers on aliens and government conspiracies. Also seen in Calhoun's locker is a picture of a young woman, which suggests, along with the fact that the Blue Shift manual says "Buy flowers for Lauren," that Calhoun has a wife or girlfriend. A box in his locker reveals, when destroyed, a chumtoad creature as a small Easter egg.
In Blue Shift, Barney is never heard talking from the player's point of view, just as Gordon and Adrian aren't heard speaking. But it is seen that he is the only playable character who speaks, as when you first encounter Dr. Rosenberg, he asks Barney "How did you know my name?" Silence follows, and he continues to say "Oh, I see. Poor Harold." This implies that Barney speaks without the player's consent, a detail Valve liked to avoid to give the player a feeling of including his/her own thoughts and voice. Barney isn't considered to have spoken in Blue Shift before or after meeting Rosenberg, though.
After the resonance cascade occurs, Barney becomes determined to escape from the Black Mesa facility. He locates and frees Dr. Stanley Rosenberg, who had been captured by the HECU troops. Rosenberg reveals Barney his plan of escaping by using an old teleport model. Calhoun helps Rosenberg to prepare everything for successful teleportation. He first travels to the borderworld Xen, where he activates a device needed for teleport's correct work. Barney then locates, charges and delivers a spare power battery to Doctor Rosenberg. At the end of the game Barney, along with Rosenberg and his two colleagues, Simmons and Walter Bennett, manages to escape from the Black Mesa Research Facility, and he is described as being "Out of range" by the textual summary, as compared to Gordon Freeman, listed as "hired," (or "Observation Terminated," depending on the choice the player makes) and Adrian Shephard, listed as "detained".
[edit] Half-Life: Decay
In the ending sequence of Half-Life: Decay, the main protagonists, Gina Cross and Colette Green, are caught in a harmonic reflux. During it, they hear Dr.Rosenberg telling Calhoun that he "can't keep the portal much longer". In the next frame, what appears to be Barney is briefly seen jumping into the portal teleporting him from Xen, as witnessed in the chapter Focal Point.
[edit] Combine occupation
After the Portal Storms, the Seven Hour War and the subsequent Combine take over, Barney was presumably relocated to City 17 where he signed up for Civil Protection. This would have been valuable to gain inside information and distribute warnings about upcoming raids or provide misleading intelligence to the Combine though it was likely quite risky to his own safety. At some point before or after his relocation, he came back into contact with Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance who had also apparently been relocated to City 17 prior to Half-Life 2 and participated in their Resistance movement.
On one memorable occasion, Barney was assisting with Kleiner's teleport experiments where Kleiner attempted to transport a cat as a test experiment and something traumatizing happened to it. Barney claims to have persistent nightmares about the cat and even mistakes a distant Strider roar as a meow late in Half-Life 2.
When entering Dr. Kleiner's lab the first time, there is a small teleport to the left with a small cactus-like plant on it. If the player teleport the plant a few times the teleport breaks down, making the plant disintegrate. A lot of players see this as an explanation to what happened to the cat.
[edit] Half-Life 2
By a twist of fate, probably orchestrated by the G-Man, Gordon Freeman was released from stasis into the City 17 trainstation where Barney happened to be having his shift of Civil Protection duty. A security camera rejected Gordon's identity and Barney was able to 'take him away for questioning'. He then contacted Isaac Kleiner, they had a brief chat about how Gordon could get to his lab safely, then Barney let Gordon escape through a back way.
They then met up at Kleiner's lab. After another teleporter mishap that teleported Gordon to several different locations, Barney met Gordon outside the lab and provided him with a crowbar, and directions to escape on foot via the Underground Railroad. Barney then travels back to Kleiner's lab.
Later on, Gordon and Alyx arrived Kleiner's lab, and got a video transmission from Barney, who needed help to push the Combine away from the streets of City 17.
During the rebellion in City 17, Barney came to be the impromptu "field commander" of the Resistance forces and led the push towards the Citadel in order to rescue Eli Vance. He was pinned down by snipers when he met up with Gordon again and together they led a team of citizens into the Overwatch Nexus to disable the Suppression Device. Barney used his Civil Protection status to unlock several barriers Gordon would normally not be able to pass. After Gordon set off towards the Citadel again, Barney continued to oversee the later stages of the assault on the Overwatch Nexus. Until encountering Dog and following him to Gordon's location. Barney was last seen at the foot of the Citadel telling Gordon that "if [he] see[s] Doctor Breen, tell him I said "Fu-- you"! The actual swear can be heard on the audio file and is not muted, but rather softened for the additional sound effect.
[edit] Half-Life 2: Episode One
Barney is encountered late in the story; he was organizing a resistance push on a train station to escape City 17 before the Citadel self destructed. He, again, provides Gordon with a crowbar before setting off to round up survivors in that sector of the city. He, Gordon and Alyx later escorted several groups of citizens through significant Combine resistance into the train station; he was last seen leaving on a train saying, "I'll see ya when I see ya," as Gordon and Alyx decided to take the next one to give him and the citizens time to escape. Barney has been helping citizens as they escape the Combine, which has taken its toll on him as he appears to not have shaved in some time.
[edit] Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Barney does not appear, nor is even referred to, during the course of Episode Two. Given his place as a returning character of note in the series, and that he escaped City 17 ahead of Dr. Freeman, he is presumed to still be alive. However, when Gordon Freeman and other Resistance members return to the silo after defeating a large group of Striders the group of people in the base cheer for him, one of whom has Barney's voice and subtitle color. This suggests that Barney was indeed at White Forest, but wasn't seen or mentioned. It is also possible that he simply was somewhere else, as the destination of the train he boarded at the end of Episode One was unspecified. It is not known if Barney will make an appearance in Half-Life 2: Episode Three.
[edit] Relationships
[edit] Gordon
Barney had been friends with Gordon since Black Mesa. Both would race to Dr. Kleiners office when he would lock himself out. Barney would save Gordon from a miserable fate at Nova Prospeckt, and send him on his way to the secret lab. The two would later fight side by side in the fierce street fighting in City 17, and escorting people out of the city. Barney respects Gordons relationship with Alyx, calling Gordon a, "Lucky dog". Still owes Gordon that beer.
[edit] Alyx
Alyx was just an infant at Black Mesa, and it is unknown if he met her during his tenure as a security guard. Nevertheless, Barney and Alyx would work together in the human resistance on the combine occupied Earth. Barney did not, as far as we know, try to pursue a physical relationship with Alyx, and respects the bond that Gordon and Alyx have created.
[edit] Issac Kleiner
Barney is essentially Issac's body guard in a sense, keeping the metro police away from the area of the secret lab. Before this, he probably knew Dr. Kleiner at Black Mesa, but probably nothing more than just another scientist.
[edit] Eli Vance
[edit] Judith Mossman
[edit] Behind the scenes
- It should be noted that the Barney Calhoun from Blue Shift never actually meets Gordon Freeman in the course of the game itself, although Gordon's tram passes by Barney at the start of Blue Shift as he is trapped outside a locked door, in a humorous nod to an identical scene from Gordon's perspective during the tram ride in Half-Life. Gordon can also be spotted through a security camera heading to the test chamber he was tasked to work in. After these encounters, Gordon can be seen for the last time at the end of the game as two Marines are dragging Freeman away. If in the original Half-Life the player, as Gordon, attempts to talk to a security guard before the resonance cascade, one of the responses possible is, "Hey, catch me later, I'll buy you a beer." In Half-Life 2, Barney jokes to Gordon, "Now, about that beer I owed ya!".
- In an early trailer for Half-Life 2, (featuring gameplay that was heavily edited in the final version of the game - Barney is not in the scene in the release) Barney says to Gordon, "Remember when we thought Black Mesa was as bad as it could get?" This may be a reference to the Uplink demo, featuring a level that did not appear in the full game, at the end of which a 'Barney' security guard makes the soon to be proved totally incorrect exclamation "It can't get any worse than this!"
[edit] List of appearances
- Half-Life: Day One (First appearance) (Retcon)
- Half-Life (Retcon)
- Half-Life: Blue Shift (First identified as Barney Calhoun)
- Half-Life: Decay
- Half-Life 2
- Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
- Half-Life 2: Episode One
[edit] Notes and references
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Half-Life: Blue Shift
- ↑ Half-Life 2 end credits
