The content of this article has been cut.The subject matter of this article was removed from the final version of an official / canonical source.
This article is about the early character. For his successor, see Wallace Breen.
- "They call him the Consul now. It worked fine for him. He speaks for the Combine; he shares in their power. As for the rest of us..."
- ―Eli Maxwell[src]
The Consul[1][2] is a character cut from Half-Life 2. He is the predecessor to Wallace Breen.[1]
Overview
The transformed Consul.
- In the early stages of the game's production, Breen was not known as the "Administrator", but rather as the "Consul", who was a slightly different character,[1][3] more in the vein of Big Brother from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
- During the course of the game, the Consul was to become immortal through Combine artificial life-support technology, and the player would not discover this fact before the end of the game, seeing only Breen's face on the monitors, while his body was more and more transformed.[1] The concept might have merely delayed, as theories made after Half-Life 2: Episode One support the fact that Breen's "mind" was moved into a Combine Advisor body or any other Combine vessel.
- The Consul was to be seen in Eli Maxwell's slideshow, at the foot of a radio tower, wearing a headset, hands raised high to Dropships as he proclaimed Earth's surrender.[1]
- Consul posters were to be seen in the train during the original opening sequence, with words such as "The Consul says... relax" and "The Consul says... report". On these posters he is described as having an owl-eyed solemn face, watching over the passengers.[1]
- In the playable Half-Life 2 Beta files, the only Consul models to be found are a giant statue and a Breencast bust, which appear to be Wallace Breen. Sound clips for the early Breencasts can also be found in the files (in the folder /sound/C17/), all starting with "The true Citizen...". Sound clips for the final Citadel confrontation can also be found in the folder "/temp/alyx/". In these sounds Alyx Vance lectures the Consul about him being "just another cog in the Combine machinery" and not part of the humanity anymore, but the sound clips from the other characters are missing.[2]
- In the WC mappack can be found a prototype of his Citadel's office also found on concept art by Viktor Antonov, where screens were to be seen turning around his chair.[3]
- The Consul statue might be inspired by that of Lenin that was to stand above the never completed supertall skyscraper Palace of Soviets in Moscow. The Skyscraper is also inspired by Stalinist architecture, being based on the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw.
- The Consul may be a reference to the consul title used in the Roman Republic and Empire.
Gallery
Consul
The Consul calling for reinforcements.
The Consul statue.
The Consul bust.
"It's great to be part of the greater good" - Consul / Metropolice propaganda poster, partially based on the black and white concept art bust portrait.
Early Breencast
Early Breencast device with cluster-like compound eyes.
Early Breencast.
Screen image for the early Breencast, based on the black and white concept art bust portrait and used in the previous concept art.
Ditto.
Ditto.
Consul's office
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Playable Half-Life 2 Beta files
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 WC mappack