Gordon Freeman's History
Dr. Gordon Freeman is the protagonist of the Half-Life series. Freeman is a theoretical physicist, forced to defend himself and the human race in a conflict against hostile aliens and other enemies after a failed experiment causes a worldwide alien invasion.
In the process, Freeman becomes an almost legendary resistance hero, eventually rising to be one of the key leaders in the war against an inter-dimensional empire.
A native of Seattle, Washington, Freeman harbors an early interest in theoretical physics, such as quantum mechanics and relativity. His earliest heroes are Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Feynman.
He has no dependents and is a graduate of MIT, having earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. His thesis was titled 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 (the behavior of large stuff {Supraquantum Structures} relative and related to each other {Entanglement} after a very short duration {Mode-Locked} "Extremely Long Wavelength Pulse" by an arrangement {Array} of crystals with an atomic number greater than 92 {Transuranic}, without coming into physical contact with the structures in question {Induction}) (essentially about the teleportation of matter through the use of extremely dense elements).
After graduating from MIT, Gordon travels to Austria and observes a series of teleportation experiments conducted by the Institute for Experimental Physics in Innsbruck. Eventually, he becomes disappointed with the slow pace of teleportation research in academia and begins to search 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.
At the start of Half-Life (on May 16, 200-), Gordon Freeman is 27 years old, who has been working for a while at the Black Mesa Research Facility under a "classified" administrative sponsor. He owns a Level 3 Research Associate position, is accommodated in the Level 3 Dormitories in the Black Mesa North Wing, alone in room 309.
He is assigned to the Anomalous Materials department doing nuclear, subatomic, and quantum research. Despite having obtained a Ph.D. from the prestigious MIT, the laboratory work that the player does as Freeman (pressing a button and pushing a cart) does not require any intellectual expertise at all (Though a possibility is all of his intellectual expenses happened before the events of the game).
Barney Calhoun pokes fun at this in the beginning portion of Half-Life 2 when Freeman performs similar "technical" assistance (pushing a switch and attaching a fallen plug back into a socket). Barney then goes on to joke that Gordon's MIT education "really pays for itself."
During their time at the facility, Freeman and Calhoun would compete with each other to be the first to retrieve Dr. Kleiner's keys whenever he locked them in his office in Black Mesa (apparently a fairly regular occurrence) without resorting to conventional means. This is where Freeman learned to make use of ventilation shafts to infiltrate rooms and buildings. Indeed, Freeman and Calhoun crawled through numerous ventilation shafts in Half-Life and Half-Life: Blue Shift, respectively.
Half-Life
The Resonance Cascade:
At only the age of 27, Gordon Freeman graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Ph.D. degree in Theoretical Physics. He is then employed at the Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico, where he works as a research associate in the Anomalous Materials laboratories in the year 200-. Gordon works as Dr. Isaac Kleiner's assistant in Sector C in Test Lab C-33/a.
One day, Gordon is assigned to an experiment involving the anti-mass spectrometer, which is a piece of equipment used to analyze foreign materials such as Xen crystals via electromagnetic fields and plasma. Those crystals derive from an alien borderworld called Xen, which was being researched by Black Mesa for a certain period of time already. Prior to this experiment, a special, uniquely pure crystal sample titled "GG-3883" was delivered by the mysterious G-Man. On May 16th, Gordon is meant to perform the experiment. Prior to his arrival at Sector C, he partakes in a HEV suit training. Later, he is about half a hour late for work. He rides the tram through Level 3 Dormitories, later quickly fitting into his HEV suit and heading off to the test chamber. Dr. Kleiner states G-3883 to be "the purest sample they've seen yet." Still unknown of the samples true properties or its origin, they are forced to power the spectrometer at a staggering 105%, a number many of the scientists don't feel safe about.
Gordon enters the chamber and receives the specimen placed in a special cart, delivered by Gina Cross. Gordon is then told to press a button and push the cart, after which the crystal reacts negatively, causing a Resonance Cascade, thereby opening a rift between Earth and the Xen dimension, releasing hostile aliens throughout the facility, and eventually the rest of New Mexico. The spectrometers explosion kills many of the scientists, far outside of the actual test chamber, however Gordons suit manages to protect him from the blast, leaving him to travel through the wrecked facility. He later discovers that Dr. Isaac Kleiner is alive.
Getting Topside:
Gordon travels through the wrecked facility, stumbling across piles of rubble and dead bodies, with dozens of aliens teleporting in by the second. Gordon reaches another colleague, Dr. Eli Vance who alerts him that all communication to the surface is lost and tasks Gordon to go to the surface and get help, knowing his suit will protect him. Gordon agrees to the task and makes his way through the facility with the help of other scientists and whatever weapons he can find to combat the oncoming Xen invaders. Although he had little gun experience, he quickly adapted to the weapons.
HECU:
When Gordon finally reaches access to the surface, he hears hope of the military coming to their aid, however his hope is short lived as the military's idea of help is covering up the entire catastrophe by killing the aliens as well as witnesses to the event, including the scientists and Gordon, the latter of whom they believe sabotaged the spectrometer and caused the cascade purposely.
Gordon must then fight through them as well, traveling through several sectors of the facility, finally launching a satellite deliver rocket that would close the rift successfully. Gordon manages to launch the rocket flawless but it doesn't close the rift, having learned about the Lambda Complex on the far side of the base who's scientists are alleged to know how to stop the cascade, Gordon makes his way there, facing more hoards of stronger aliens and military personnel, ultimately ending in the militarizes retreat from the facility. Gordon reaches the facility, where he is informed that the rocket managed to close the rift on their side, but it's still being held open on the other side by a powerful being who rules the Xen borderworld, the Nihilanth. Gordon must travel over to the alien world and kill it. Gordon travels to Xen where he confronts the Nihilanth and manages to defeat him, ultimately closing the rift.
After defeating the Nihilanth, Gordon meets an enigmatic humanoid entity, the aforementioned G-Man, who has been watching Gordon's progress all along. The G-Man praises Gordon and is impressed with his capability to adapt, survive, and fight, so much so that the G-Man's "employers" are willing to hire Gordon. If Gordon refuses, he is teleported to an area full of alien soldiers to be killed immediately. If Gordon accepts, the G-Man congratulates him and places him into stasis to await his next task.
Half-Life 2
Gordon is awakened from his stasis by G-Man over 20 years into the future. There, Gordon learns that the death of the Nihilanth caused numerous portals to strike across Earth in the form of a storm, allowing numerous Xen creatures to flood the planet. This event attracted the attention of the Universal Union, also known as the Combine, a multidimensional empire that managed to conquer Earth in only seven hours. They ultimately overpowered Earth's armed forces and enslaved the human race.
The only human with any freedom at all is Wallace Breen, the former Administrator of Black Mesa. Breen represents the Combine on Earth, acting as a sort of tyrant, though under the Combine's supervision. He seemingly negotiated with the Combine to give humanity at least somewhat more freedom once he became Earth's administrator. He resides in the Citadel, which is an enormous building constructed by the Combine, that is over 2 kilometers tall.
Upon enslaving humanity, the Combine began capturing the most reluctant humans and converting them into enhanced soldiers with heavily altered bodies and memories replaced with codenames and combat tactics. However, the most rebellious ones are forced to undergo an extremely painful process of being transformed into Stalkers, which are heavily emaciated humanoids who are missing their limbs, which were replaced by poor quality prosthetics meant to significantly limit movement. They are extremely gaunt, with very little to no muscle left, however they're kept alive via life-supporting devices implanted into their bodies. A large portion of their face was replaced by a plate with a built-in laser projector intended for repairing broken Combine equipment. Their vocal cords were most likely heavily damaged, as all they can emit is distorted screeching. Unlike other Combine units, Stalkers are never brainwashed - they are fully conscious through the entire process and the process of brainwashing is unnecessary due to the horrific mental damage sustained by them. Stalkers essentially serve as labor for the Combine, they also tend to be guarded by a single Combine Soldier, however they're also seen alone. They don't resist further as they know they will never escape nor return to normal lives. Combine have also performed similar processes with numerous other races, as shown by multiple modified creatures seen throughout the game, including (but not being limited to) Gunships, Dropships and Striders, all of which are still living beings, albeit heavily modified and brainwashed to obey the Combine.
Back to the main topic, Gordon was originally meant to take the train to Nova Prospekt - a former top-security prison taken over by the Combine, essentially remade into a Combine Soldier factory. However, a metropolice (unmodified humans serving the Combine) unit interrupted this, taking Gordon to interrogation. The unit later turned out to be Barney Calhoun in disguise. Prior to disabling cameras in the interrogation room, Barney reintroduces Gordon to Dr. Kleiner via a transmission. After a short conversation between Barney and Isaac, missing camera surveillance raises suspicion. Other metropolice attempt to get to the interrogation room. Barney quickly helps Gordon escape, which later attracts the attention of multiple metropolice units. He is eventually ambushed, although saved by Alyx Vance, who is the daughter of Eli Vance, who's now the main Resistance leader. Alyx leads Gordon to Dr. Kleiner's lab where they converse for a while. Barney arrives shortly after as well. Gordon is about to receive another HEV suit, modified by Dr. Kleiner. A Headcrab (small, crab-like alien parasite) appears, however it turns out to be Dr. Kleiner's pet Lamarr, which was debeaked and tamed. Lamarr scurries off and crawls into a vent. Gordon then fits into the modified HEV suit and is introduced by Dr. Kleiner to his teleporting device. Alyx is successfully teleported to Black Mesa East, which is one of the main resistance bases supervised by Eli Vance. When an attempt in teleporting Gordon occurs, Lamarr suddenly reappears and jumps on the device, causing it to malfunction. Gordon is teleported to numerous places such as a wasteland (where Lamarr simply walks away), Dr. Breen's office, an unknown underwater area, in Dr. Breen's office once more and eventually right outside Dr. Kleiner's lab. He receives a crowbar from Barney and has to make his way to Black Mesa East manually.
Gordon makes his way to Black Mesa East, which is suddenly raided by the Combine. Gordon is separated from Alyx and is forced to evacuate through Ravenholm, a town flooded with Headcrabs and infested with zombies, which the Combine indirectly caused. Gordon eventually makes his way through, while being accompanied by Father Grigori, presumably one of the last survivors in Ravenholm.
Half-Life 2: Episode One
The explosion buries Gordon under a pile of rubble, but he is dug up and saved by Dog, who helps him and Alyx reach the still-standing-but-ready-to-explode Citadel, where they must find a secret code that the Combine intend to use to open a portal to their world. They find the code, as well as the results of their previous actions, which have led to the zombification of multiple Combine squads. They manage to evacuate the remaining City 17 civilians and escape outside of town as the Citadel finally explodes.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
They make their way to the rebel base to use the code to program Kleiner's rocket to destroy the Combine portal which is now active. Along the way, they encounter the smaller counterpart to the Strider, the Hunter, multiple squads and traps, and come face to face the Advisors, the devolved leaders of the Combine Empire. At the base, they learn of a mysterious vessel known as the Borealis, which Eli insists in finding, located in Antarctica. The group destroys the portal and heads for Antarctica, but not before two Advisors arrive and kill Eli, before Dog drives them off. The scene ends with Alyx weeping over her father's corpse.
Half-Life: Alyx
Gordon is shown to Alyx by the G-Man at the end of Half-Life: Alyx. The G-Man had grown displeased with the lack of progress Gordon had apparently made as well as his refusal to obey orders, and Alyx would be a suitable replacement for him. His HEV Suit has been visibly battle damaged from the events of Half-Life 2 and its episodes.
In the post-credits scene, after Eli's resurrection, the player briefly controls Gordon as Eli swears revenge on the G-Man for taking his daughter away from him. Dog then shows up carrying Gordon's signature crowbar. Eli takes the crowbar from Dog and hands it to Gordon, saying, "C'mon, Gordon. We've got work to do."
