Talk:Citadel

	This is the talk page for Citadel. Click here to start a new topic.
	This page is reserved for discussion about the article itself, not for discussions about the subject. If you haven't yet, please read our Talk page policy for information and help on how to comment on talk pages.

Worldwide

Aren't there several "Citadels" all around the world? Is the term "Citadel" actually only specific to the one located in City 17? - Noahferfer 16:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

• Presumably there is one in every major city, plus Kliener mentions "linked Citadel reactors" in Episode 1, however, the City 17 one is the only one we've been inside.

It also is clearly visible that there are numerous other Citadels outside Earth, as seen through an off-world portal which Dr. Breen intends to enter during the final moments of Half-Life 2, and a citadel off the coast of a beach gordon sees when klieners teleporter goes wrong.

• Isn't the "off the coast" one just the City 17 Citadel? 60.240.3.70 07:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Past tense

I'm a bit divided on whether using past tense in articles like these is a good idea. Besides the fact that asserting throughout the article that it no longer exists is something of a spoiler, the wording is sort of awkward written this way.

"The Citadel was the Combine's headquarters on Earth, which also housed the office of Administrator Wallace Breen. It was located in City 17." Was located in City 17? It still is, it's just not in one piece.

I think we should stick with present tense unless we're specifically talking about events in the storyline. --MattyDienhoff 02:32, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Diggers

I was just peeking into the first citadel map with Hammer, and I noticed that those huge pistons pounding the ground around the citadel are referred to as "digger". IE, "Track_digger1_1". This seems to add some clarification to them. --Fireman V2 18:14, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

What map?... Klow 18:22, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Just the first citadel map, D3_citadel_01 I believe. It's the only one included in .VMF format with the SDK. --Fireman V2 19:26, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok. Klow 19:33, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Non-Cannon?

I was thinking that the quote was from a cut character, so you really couldn't use it for an artical that was part of the game. Its an intresting quote, but if we don't remove it, we should at least put another quote that was from in-game. --Darkdragon3456 18:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Background Screaming

I dont know if this is mentioned or not but if not heres the sound. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt9VT2wfN_E&feature=related SuperMario2 21:21, April 3, 2011 (UTC)

Dormant state, Alerted state?

Can we have a pic of this, like a before after type thing? I never noticed this. — Unsigned comment by 75.72.206.168

Please sign your comments, anon. Klow 08:59, April 11, 2011 (UTC)

Just look at the Citadel when Barney is talking to you about it and you can see it change. SuperMario2 11:29, April 11, 2011 (UTC)

Maxwell's quote

This was my topic, and I do not want to discuss it any more, so please, can you not to recover this topic again? Thank you. Brush.titizen 00:36, June 6, 2011 (UTC)

More than one Citadel on Earth?

Seeing the globe in Half-Life: Alyx made me rethink the "more than one Citadel" on earth idea. Kleiner mentions linked Citadel reactors failing in his speech in Episode One, but could this be off-world Citadels? That would explain why the combine overloaded City 17's citadel reactor, since otherwise the other off-world citadels could create portals to earth. Further more, Dr. Breen mentions at the train station that he established his administration in "the Citadel", not "a Citadel". This would also explain why the Combine decide to finally start moving the Vault, since the Citadel on earth is nearly complete, and they can easily create portals off-world with it. Just a thought, considering the globe in Half-Life: Alyx implies humanity may be smaller and more separate than was originally thought.

Ihonnyboy (talk) 06:50, 18 April 2020 (MSK)

I'm noting here sourced statements regarding the existence of multiple Citadels to aid further discussion:

• In Kleiner's BreenCast, his exact words are are in reference to "the entire network of linked Citadel reactors". Earlier, he mentioned the "destabilization of the City 17 reactor". Thus, we are unambiguously certain that there are multiple "Citadel reactors", and we know one of them is the "City 17 reactor", in accordance with the Citadel in City 17 as the games all revolve around. The rather forward implication here is that there is more than one Citadel reactor, and the others are not in City 17.

• In the November 2005 issue of PC Zone, in an interview with Marc Laidlaw and Doug Lombardi, Doug makes this remark:

"[The Combine] were all too glad to seize the opportunity to continue on to Earth with suppression through the citadels."

Obviously, Doug used plurality here. Also note that, while Doug is only speaking as Valve's marketing director and not the writer, Marc himself confirmed that this exact statement made by Doug in this magazine was "restating something [he'd] told him." Source.

• While not strictly pertinent to the final storyline, Raising the Bar alludes to multiple Citadels existing a few times throughout the book: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3. These instances are merely to establish the fact that the notion of more than one Citadel existing on Earth was very much a reality during certain stages of the game's development. Marphy (talk) 21:56, 19 June 2020 (MSK)

My issue is most of the evidence seems to be out of game sources. Just because there may of been more than one citadel planned does not make multiple citadels canon anymore than the AR2 is the OICW. Also, the Wikipedia in general should only tell information that is SOLIDLY canon; that is, not making speculation without solid evidence to back it up. And in Half Life we only really see one citadel, its referred to as THE citadel, and is a central portion of the plot. The only line in-game backing up multiple citadels is the Dr. Kleiner line in Episode 1 which could refer to numerous things, perhaps reactors that are linked to the citadel but not citadels themselves. Sort of like power stations. Either way it is still speculation without an in-game source to back up the fact that there is, yes, multiple citadels. It does not feel right to have this wiki say that there are, for sure, multiple citadels in the text, when it is such a debated topic. It should default to the status quo of no, there is only one confirmed citadel, until we get solid canon in-universe confirmation there are multiples.

--Heliotrope (talk) 21:38, 21 June 2020 (MSK)

We have a verifiable contemporary source coming from an official Valve representative outright stating there is more than one Citadel, and this statement is further independently backed at the time by the writer of the series as well. This statement was later indirectly supported by dialog coming from the games themselves, a game which actually released well after the initial remark in question. The purpose of pointing out multiple Citadels being mentioned more than once in Raising the Bar was to illustrate that this notion was always a possibility during the series' development. It is not an unthinkable prospect since the creators themselves introduced and established its potentiality to us.

The only debate here is the interpretation of Kleiner's dialog. That multiple Citadels existed during the game's development is a fact, and we have a cited source from a Valve employee plainly declaring such in regards to the final game. If Doug misspoke and Marc was incorrect in supporting his remarks, the burden here lies in disproving the statement with a valid and concrete source. That the Citadel in the game is simply called "the" Citadel does not provide a contradiction here, and having already looked into this matter deeply, I can say with certainty that there's essentially nothing in the games or any of the related media that actually challenges the notion of multiple Citadels existing.

Doug's statement is a clear and demonstrable source. That is the status quo. Questioning the validity of his statement is what actually entails speculation in this scenario. You will have to present a strong citation to counter it.

While double checking my own materials, I remembered that there is one additional email from Marc regarding this matter. You can find it here, which I'll also copy:

"There were Citadels in other cities, I'm pretty sure we've said that before, but every city would have its own story--there's no way to answer that question briefly...City 17 just happens to be the one Breen is in at this time. That might be why Gordon goes to that one. I don't think the others would be destroyed, but their connection to wherever they came from would be cut off. I think that's what we were thinking."

Again, pretty hard evidence to argue against. Marphy (talk) 22:30, 21 June 2020 (MSK)

After reading all the evidence you've convinced me. I can't help but admit I was being a bit stubborn, I've just believed for so long it was the only one. I was also confused over the fact that the Combine could use other Citadels to open a superportal, not realizing Dr. Kleiner said that they cannot because their reactors got disabled... oops!

Thanks for all the evidence + discussion, appreciate it.

--Heliotrope (talk) 23:42, 21 June 2020 (MSK)

Evidence from HL: Alyx supporting only one citadel

Well, I thought I was convinced there were multiple Citadels, but recent discoveries changed my mind. In HL: Alyx they are tracking the progress of Citadel construction. Notable are several things, including the fact that, again, they only refer to it as the Citadel. Another fact is they have a blueprint / sketch of new reactors. Notably, the reactors in the sketch refer to getting power beamed from the Citadel. This means the reactors seen in Half-Life are linked to the Citadel, and draw at least some of their power from it. Thus, this new line explains the Kleiner line of "...linked citadel reactors...."

While there was definitely plans for multiple Citadel's during development, it was obviously cut. The idea of there being multiple citadels is no more canon than Marc Laidlaw's Epistle 3. We need to rely on in game sources heavily implying the existence of only one Citadel and stop making assumptions of the contrary.

--Heliotrope (talk) 23:31, 26 June 2020 (MSK)

The fact that it's referred to as "The Citadel" by the inhabitants of City 17 is absolutely not evidence of it being the only such structure on Earth. It's the only citadel that is of any relevance to City 17, its citizens, its Combine personnel, and the rebels operating there. That would be like saying that only one city hall exists on Earth because the locals refer to it as "The City Hall"; if there's no specification they're obviously referring to the only one that is nearby and relevant. The entire argument on this regard relies on a very shaky interpretation of calling something "the", and making assumptions to support your conclusion.

Regarding Half-Life: Alyx info: The name of these devices is "mini reactor" as stated both on the whiteboard and by Eli himself when he mentions that the one they acquired was from a shipment of 4000, so if we're going by your strictly literal way to interpret names then that kinda throws this idea out the window. You're also taking Kleiner's dialogue out of context; he's only mentioning these linked Citadel reactors because they power the Combine's portal and communications network on Earth which we've seen only one example of in City 17's Citadel itself. And the thing powering the Combine's teleporter there was, according to Alyx:

"Oh my God. This is the Citadel's dark fusion reactor. It powers their tunneling entanglement device."

Which Kleiner also specifies is what he's referring to, multiple times:

"While there was certainly a great benefit in destroying the Citadel's teleport core, we have detected one rather unfortunate side effect."

"On a lighter note, if you are already in one of our designated safe zones, I feel obliged to point out that a more fortunate side-effect of the reactor's destruction is the complete removal of the Combine's reproductive suppression field."

Worth noting that this couldn't be referring to any other reactor nor the Citadel core as it was still active at the time, not to mention that it is the one that was destroyed at the end of Half-Life 2. It makes more sense considering the full context of the quote:

"The destabilization of the City 17 reactor has had repercussions that were not entirely unexpected, although we hardly dared speak this hope ahead of time. The destructive pulse forced a damper on the entire network of linked Citadel reactors. Thus, for the time being, I believe that all Combine portals have failed completely, as well as all communication systems based on that technology."

Taking this into consideration all evidence suggests that Kleiner is referring to other dark fusion reactors in other Citadels, as this portion of his speech is only relevant within the context of powering the Combine's portals to other worlds. The rest is up to interpretation; maybe all Citadels are needed intact to power Combine portals or maybe the City 17 dark fusion reactor was the center of the network and its destruction rendered the network inoperable. Alepheon (talk) 03:32, 27 June 2020 (MSK)

---

The wiki does not operate on a "only the games count" M.O. We refer to and report on information that's been clearly cited from all appropriate official and verifiable sources. One of the first new things we learned about the Citadel in Half-Life: Alyx came from Valve's Reddit AMA. With that in mind, we have more than one verified source direct from Valve members stating that multiple Citadels exist. The games offer nothing to contradict this, and that makes sense given one of the sources of the aforementioned statement was the lead writer of the series. These are not assumptions. These are plain, outright, straightforward declarations of "Citadels" existing.

Insinuating that the games' dialog provides conclusive evidence that these verified citations are actually false is speculation, and this is precisely what the wiki does not promote. That does not mean errors cannot occur or that things cannot retroactively change over time, as is evident and has been documented in other cases, but it is not the wiki's job to come up with speculative arguments. The aim is and always will be to report the facts. If an official source in the future poses a clear and present contradiction to the cited statements currently in the article, then the contradiction will be aptly noted. Until such an event occurs, though, the facts are accurately presented and supported as they are. Marphy (talk) 11:14, 27 June 2020 (MSK)