Seven Hour War



The Seven Hour War is a fictional conflict appearing in the backstory of the 2004 computer game Half-Life 2. Although never discussed directly in the game, but mentioned briefly by Eli Vance if the player stares at the newspaper clippings long enough, some details of the war can be gathered through newspaper clippings and conversations.

An alien empire known as the Combine was attracted to Earth by massive "portal storms" created in the wake of the resonance cascade in the original Half-Life. The Combine, through unknown means, defeated all of Earth's armed forces in only seven hours. Dr. Wallace Breen apparently negotiated a surrender on behalf of the entire planet, saving the survivors at the cost of their complete enslavement. Breen was appointed ruler of Earth, but remains under control of the Combine. (There is some indication that Breen, who was also the administrator of Black Mesa, mentioned but never seen in Half-Life, intentionally arranged the disastrous resonance cascade; this may explain why he was in a position to plead for mercy from the Combine on humanity's behalf.)

At the beginning of Half-Life 2, the G-Man makes a brief reference to the war, telling Gordon Freeman that "all the effort in the world would have gone to waste." This is generally understood to be a direct reference to the war, the establishment of Dr. Breen's terror state, and the reasons for Freeman's stasis. Despite Freeman's superhuman triumph at Black Mesa, there was nothing that he or the entire human race could have done to save Earth from the unimaginably superior forces of the Combine Empire.

Half-Life 2 begins an undisclosed number of years after this war, after the rule of the Combine has been firmly established. There is, however, some evidence from Raising the Bar indicating Half-Life 2 takes place ten years after the Black Mesa Incident.