Title: Dr. Freeman, The One Free Man, Anticitizen One
Gender: Male
Appearance: Gordon stands at a rather average 5’11” (1.82m). He is slim and athletic from his constant running and combat. His hair is chestnut brown, along with his neat goatee, and his green eyes are usually behind a pair of square black glasses.
Personality: Doctor Freeman is a man of few words. He speaks little, and his actions usually speak for him. As a theoretical physicist, he has high intellect, able to easily solve puzzles in a matter of minutes, sometimes even seconds. He also possess quick wit and combat reflexes in the heat of battle, commanding his troops to win firefights and engagements. He is a determinator, stopping at nothing until he accomplishes his goals at all costs.
Ideals: Freeing Earth and defeating the Combine Empire for good.
Biography: Gordon Freeman was born in Seattle, Washington, where he took a keen interest in theoretical physics, such as quantum mechanics and relativity. His earliest heroes are Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman. After graduating MIT with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, writing a thesis on
Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array, he travelled to Austria to further his studies. There, he observes a series of teleportation experiments conducted by the Institute for Experimental Physics in Innsbruck. However, he becomes bored with the slow pace of research and begins to look for a job outside the education sector.
By coincidence, Freeman's MIT mentor Dr. Isaac Kleiner has taken charge of a research project at a government-owned, integrated research facility known as the Black Mesa Research Facility and offers Freeman a job. He accepts, hoping that at least part of the immense funding would go towards civilian applications of astrophysics and quantum computing.
By the time of
Half-Life, Gordon is 27 years old and has been working, for a while, at the Black Mesa Research Facility under a "classified" administrative sponsor. There he owns a Level 3 Research Associate position. While he and his team are performing an experiment on sample GG-3883 in Sector C's Anti-Mass Spectrometer. The experiment goes wrong and triggers a Resonance Cascade. As a result, the space-time continuum is ruptured, allowing alien lifeforms to enter the Black Mesa facility. They immediately start killing any humans they can find.
Freeman finds himself hunted by two groups: the invading aliens and later the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a military clean-up team that has been sent to contain the situation, by silencing aliens and surviving personnel alike. Freeman manages to survive the chaos, impressing the few surviving scientists and security guards with his acts while quickly becoming the HECU's top priority target. Eventually, Gordon travels to Xen, the alien homeworld, where he manages to eliminate the alien "leader", the Nihilanth.
Upon recovering from his final encounter, Freeman is finally confronted by the mysterious G-Man, who has been observing Freeman from a distance throughout the entire game. The G-Man shows Freeman several locations throughout Earth and Xen, before finally offering him a choice: either agree to work for him and his mysterious "employers," or be left to die on Xen without any weapons and surrounded by hostile lifeforms. Half-Life 2 assumes that Freeman chooses to accept the G-Man's offer of employment. Gordon accepts and is put into statis for an extended period of time.
After roughly twenty years in stasis, Freeman wakes up on a train with two Citizens being 'relocated' to City 17, and as a Citizen himself (thus also wearing Citizen clothes). One Citizen remarks that he did not see Freeman get on the train, implying that he was brought onto the train in the middle of its journey. Freeman quickly learns that Earth has been conquered and occupied by the trans-dimensional Combine empire. He soon meets up with Barney Calhoun and Alyx Vance, and eventually joins the Resistance against the Combine.
Gordon battles the forces of the Combine in order to free humanity from its grasp. Already famous for his role in the Black Mesa Incident, Gordon quickly develops a legendary reputation among Earth's surviving human populace, who begin to refer to him by messianic titles such as 'The One Free Man'.
Shortly after his arrival, and having killed a significant number of Civil Protection troops whilst attempting to escape City 17, the Combine designated him Anticitizen One, a title that indicates the individual posing the greatest threat to their empire. After slaying scores of Combine soldiers and leading an assault against the Combine stronghold of Nova Prospekt, Gordon eventually sparks a full-scale rebellion against the Combine domination, in which he becomes a prominent combatant. Gordon infiltrates one of the Combine's footholds on Earth, the City 17 Citadel, and destroys its teleporter core by detonating the dark fusion reactor, rendering the Citadel inoperable.
Although caught in the reactor's explosion along with Alyx Vance, Gordon is rescued by the G-Man at the last second, who tells Freeman that he is impressed with his work and has "received several tempting offers for his 'services'." The G-Man finally informs Freeman that, rather than offering him "the illusion of free choice", the G-Man has taken the liberty of choosing for him, and deposits Freeman back in stasis until he is needed once again. Thus,
Half-Life 2 concludes just as cryptically as its predecessor did.
The G-Man appears to talk to Gordon once again, but this time, he is interrupted by the appearance of a group of chanting, purple-glowing Vortigaunts, who take Gordon and Alyx away while blocking the G-Man's path. The G-Man appears most displeased by this development, and responds by scowling and darkly stating "We'll see... about that!"
Gordon regains consciousness under a pile of rubble and is found by Alyx and Dog. It is quickly revealed that the only way to escape the Citadel's explosion, which would obliterate virtually all of City 17, is to contain the Citadel Core which would stall the structure's detonation long enough for an escape. Gordon and Alyx attempt to do so, discovering in the process that the local Combine forces were deliberately trying to overload the Citadel's reactor in order to send a distress message to the Combine Overworld since the teleport core had been destroyed in Half-Life 2.
The Combine apparently consider this an acceptable outcome, considering the damage the Citadel had already taken; the subsequent explosion would destroy all of City 17 and much of the surrounding countryside which has been all but lost to human Resistance forces. Gordon and Alyx avert the destruction for a few hours and manage to escape the Citadel with a copy of the distress message and meet up with Barney and other survivors.
The pair eventually escape City 17 via an evacuation train as the Citadel goes critical. Evidently, the Combine message is successfully transmitted while several Combine Advisor pods escape from the Citadel at great speed. The train carrying Freeman and Alyx is still close to the city and is hit by the shock wave as the Citadel is destroyed. Their subsequent fate is revealed in Episode Two.
Episode Two begins almost directly where the previous episode ended. The train Gordon and Alyx were escaping on was caught in the shock wave from the Citadel explosion and derailed. Gordon and Alyx crawl out and begin to make their way to White Forest, the Resistance base where Eli Vance, Dr. Kleiner, and Dr. Arne Magnusson are waiting for them, encountering many obstacles on route.
Early in the journey, Alyx is severely wounded by a Hunter and only survives through the aid of several Vortigaunt allies. Alyx is saved through the use of a miraculous larval extract that Gordon retrieves from the Antlion hive. The G-Man briefly reappears to Gordon revealing that Alyx was under his watch as well - that he had "appraised" her and "plucked her from Black Mesa". He requests that Gordon safely escort her to White Forest as repayment for his own survival without explaining the reasons. He then proceeds to whisper to the unconscious Alyx an instruction to relay the message "Prepare for unforeseen consequences" to her father (this refers to the Resonance Cascade in the original
Half-Life). Once Alyx recovers, they make their way to White Forest.
The journey is far from smooth, as Gordon is required to travel through a Headcrab-infested mining settlement that was used as a rebel outpost in order to retrieve a car to be used to make travel much faster. Then, on the road, the two encounter a radio tower and Alyx decides to send a warning about Combine forces they had witnessed heading in White Forest's direction. They linger for too long, however, and are ambushed by Hunters.
They later encounter a Combine Advisor in incubation who almost kills them when they destroy its life support but escape before being chased by a Hunter-Chopper into another rebel outpost. Gordon is then required to deal with a Combine Autogun while Alyx and the rebels repair their car. The Combine then set up a force shield ambush at the White Forest Inn where Gordon and Alyx are outnumbered and surrounded but manage to fight through.
Finally upon arrival at White Forest, Alyx gives Dr. Kleiner the data packet she retrieved from the City 17 Citadel before its destruction and Gordon is enlisted to help defend the base from an unexpected Combine infiltration. The data reveals the existence of the Borealis, an Aperture Science vessel thought to have been lost and containing some sort of advanced portal technology that Dr. Kleiner insists should be used against the Combine while Eli, haunted by the Black Mesa Incident, insists upon its destruction.
After Gordon destroys a Hunter and Strider assault force in order to protect Dr. Magnusson's rocket launch, Dr. Magnusson is able to use the data in his satellite which, using the old Black Mesa Array, is able to shut-down the Combine Superportal before it could open fully, which would have allowed a second Combine invasion.
As Gordon and Alyx prepare to depart for the Borealis, two Combine Advisors rip through the base and kill Eli. Fortunately Dog reappears in time to rescue Alyx and Gordon from the same fate. The episode ends with Gordon looking over Alyx weeping over her father's body, with the possibility that the Combine have now learned everything about the Resistance, the Borealis, and, debatably the G-Man, through Eli.
(Taken from the
Half-Life wiki.)
Powers: Gordon lacks any form of powers as he is human in every way.
Weapons:
- Crowbar: Gordon’s iconic melee weapon. It is a simple tool that has been shown to be effective in bashing in the heads of zombies, and breaking open wooden crates to receive the items inside.
- Pistol: A USP Match that fires 9mm rounds. It is a reliable and accurate weapon. Combine that with a high fire rate and low recoil, it becomes a deadly and versatile weapon.
- SMG: A compact and fully automatic firearm. It is a H&K MP7 with an inbuilt grenade launcher. It has two fire modes: a fully automatic primary fire with high rate of fire but poor accuracy, and a secondary which fires a contact grenade that explodes on impact.
- Grenade: The Combine MK3A2 Grenade is a thrown weapon that explodes after a few seconds. It comes with a blinking red light and beeping timer.
- Shotgun: A powerful close-range weapon. It is a modified SPAS-12 pump-action shotgun with two barrels. It can fire both barrels at the same, doubling its already devastating power.
- Revolver: A .357 Colt Python revolver. It is incredibly powerful and accurate, but low ammo capacity and low fire rate.
- RPG: The RPG is one of the most powerful handheld weapons used by the Resistance. It fires laser-guided rockets steered by the weapon's wielder, and is devastating at any range.
- Pulse Rifle: The Overwatch Standard Issue Pulse Rifle is a weapon powered by Dark Energy. It is a fully automatic assault rifle that fires pulse projectiles that deal high damage, and can fire Dark Energy Balls that disintegrates anything it touches.
- Gravity Gun: The Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, also known as the Gravity Gun, is a tractor beam-type device originally designed to handle hazardous materials, but now has been repurposed to be a weapon. The Gravity Gun has two fire modes: a primary that releases a bolt of energy that launches the target with tremendous force. Its secondary fire allows it to pick up nearby objects. From this, the objects can be launched with incredible force. Combining these two make it a powerful weapon. It is considered to be one of Gordon’s trademark weapons.
Equipment: Gordon wears his signature orange and grey Hazardous EnVironment (HEV) suit that protects him from radiation, blunt-force trauma, energy discharges. It comes with a built-in flashlight, Geiger counter, morphine administrator. It also comes with a radio, tracking device, and a Heads-up Display (HUD) which tracks health status and ammunition, along with suit power. It is protected by an electrically hardened armour/shield system that protects Gordon from damage, but needs to be charged. When fully charged, Freeman can survive a few dozen bullets from small arms fire, continuous fire, or even a direct hit from an RPG round. His Mk IV suit he wore during the Resonance Cascade was upgraded by Dr. Isaac Kleiner, and now comes with a zooming system, enhanced running capability, and antidote for neurotoxins.
Universe of Origin: Half-Life
