White Forest
From Combine OverWiki, the English Half-Life Wikia
White Forest is a major Resistance base which lies in the forests outside of City 17.
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[edit] Location
A remote facility, White Forest is named so because of its placement in a pristine, beautiful forest, and possibly named after the White Forest Inn. Before the Seven Hour War, it was a Russian military missile silo. This keeps with the theme of using a color and a geographical feature in base names. A name of this type is also used for Black Mesa.
[edit] Base
Most of the base is underground in a gigantic missile storage facility. White Forest is powered by generators, and seems to be totally self sufficient. It contains two silos, the primary silo and the (mostly abandoned) secondary silo.
The silos have an alarm system which is triggered by movement. Annoyingly, false alarms for the secondary silo are triggered often by nesting crows.
While the silos are used for research, mostly into closing portals through use of missiles, the storage areas are used for more normal means. They are used to store supplies such as food and ammo, and used as barracks to rest and sleep in by Resistance personnel.
Certain areas of the base are above ground. These include one entrance, which has a garage for vehicles, a gate which can only be opened with a valve, and a watch tower. It is totally walled off aside from the gate. A radar station is also set up above ground in this area.
Another area is the back entrance. It includes another garage and is heavily guarded since it is easier to enter. There are three buildings in this area, the Sawmill, Cabin, and Lodge, which each carry important military supplies. In anticipation of Combine assault, several checkpoint buildings were set up, all carrying supplies. All buildings in this back entrance have delivery ports which teleport in Magnusson Devices from the main White Forest base.
[edit] Research
The research that took place at White Forest was led by Doctor Arne Magnusson, one of the surviving Black Mesa science team members. The Vortigaunt Uriah was his research assistant. The subjects researched by White Forest included portals and stopping them, superportals, and rocketry. White Forest's research was the key in stopping the Combine from overwhelming Earth with armies through a superportal, like they did during the Seven Hour War.
[edit] History
Arne Magnusson hid here after the Seven Hour War with a band of rebels which grew steadily but did not attract much Combine attention. After the meltdown of the Citadel, many refugees journeyed to White Forest, as it was a place of safety.
During the years before the City 17 uprising, White Forest made, in secret, many scientific strides that would cripple the Combine. This included the launch of a rocket through an old missile silo, which would halt the opening of a superportal. After arriving there, Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance helped with the research as well. Soon after the Citadel meltdown, the Combine grew aware of the threat posed by White Forest and attempted to stop them. They first tried to kill Alyx Vance and Gordon Freeman, who were bringing a data packet full of information on the Combine to the base, and they failed to stop them. Before reaching White Forest, a Strider, which was riding on a Dropship that was shot down, attempted to stop Gordon and Alyx. The Strider's attempts, however, were foiled by Dog, Alyx's pet robot, who, after a fight with the Strider, killed it.
The Combine tried to halt the advances of White Forest once more by attacking the secondary silo. While this set off the alarm, the staff at first thought it was merely crows nesting until the Combine attacked. The Combine forces included Hunters, Overwatch Elites, Overwatch Soldiers, and Manhacks. The battle was personally overseen by an Advisor. This attack was thwarted by Gordon Freeman.
For one last time, the Combine tried to stop White Forest again by overwhelming them with Striders and Hunters at the back entrance. Just one Strider could destroy their rocket. However, through use of delivery ports and the Magnusson Device, Freeman halted their efforts once more, and the rocket (which may have been carrying Isaac Kleiner's pet, Lamarr) was successfully launched.
Alyx and Gordon planned to use a working military transport helicopter found at White Forest to fly to the Borealis and rescue Judith Mossman, but a sudden Advisor attack killed Eli, and would have killed Alyx if not for Dog's intervention.
[edit] Personnel
In addition to Magnusson and Uriah, there were some other Resistance personnel of note stationed at White Forest. One is Mirt, a mechanical handyman for the Resistance, and another is Sweepy, the Vortigaunt janitor of the base.
