The Black Mesa Essay

[Solarmech]

Well back again with another essay. This one started small and then grew like a monster. Black Mesa has so much going on at it it's hard to cover it all. This essay is LONG and I plan never to do one nearly this length again. I did spend a fair amount of time cleaning it up (unlike the last one). So put on your reading glasses and I hope you enjoy it. sm

Black Mesa Overview
The Black Mesa Research Facility is a high security complex of tremendous size in the state of New Mexico, United States of America. The main focus of the facility is research into theoretical and practical sciences with military applications in mind. The facility, in keeping with the name, is built on and inside a large mesa (which despite the name, is not black). While many underground areas in Black Mesa are obviously man made, others are natural and have been expanded on by man. Large parts of the facility extend above ground to the uneven top of the mesa.

While it may seem that the underground areas we see in Half Life are way to large to be created by man, there are many places in the word with extensive underground works. I would like to point to the now partially flooded Bonne Terre Mine in Missouri ( http://www.2dive.com/btm.htm ). This former mine has dozens of chambers as large as football fields and it goes down thousands of feet underground. Of course the Bonne Terre Mine took decades to construct, but it is very impressive. The US Government has a long history of building underground and is very good at it. There are large, now sealed, secrete installations buried under Gold Gate Park in San Francisco (as seen on Cities of the Underworld), Cheyenne Mountain (Former home of NORAD) is under something like 2,000 feet of solid granite, then there is the famous GreenBrier Bunker that was intended to keep Congress alive in case of Word War III. Area 51 is thought to have extensive underground works, though their existence cannot be proven. Other countries have build huge underground facilities, particularly the old Soviet Union. The Moscow subway (which can go as far as 100 meters underground) can act as huge bomb shelter for the public and there exists another subway system for the military that is supposed to be deeper than the public one (the public Metro has over 180 miles of tunnels). Even after the end of the Cold War, very little hard information about second subway system exists. The East Germans had the so called “Erich Honecker” bunker that was three stories tall and 65 meters wide ( http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/...001/index.html ) and was made to survive a near hit from a nuclear weapon. During World War II Germany built whole factories underground to protect them from being bombed. The most well know of these is probably the V2 plant near Nordhausen, but other ones produced jet engines and even complete Panther tanks. Going a little further back we get the Maginot Line which had its own underground narrow gage railway system.

These are just a few places that are publicly known and are of fairly recent construction. But there are hundreds more out there that are known to exist going beak hundreds, even thousands of years. The intriguing thing is that there are certainly large hidden facilities out there that we don’t know about. Either they are still in use (and still secret) or have been closed down and forgotten about, even by the countries and peoples that originally constructed them.

The capability of the US government of building a place like Black Mesa is really not in question, it could be done. All you would need was the money to do it. One thing making Black Mesa easier to build is that it’s existence is known to the public in the Half Life universe. Trying to build something like Black Mesa in secret would be very hard. But if you don’t have to hide it, a major hurdle is eliminated.

The Black Mesa Research facility was probably built on and inside Black Mesa (the mesa) for a number of different reasons. First of all is that the location is isolated. It would be rather difficult to have someone spy on the place since there is nothing else around it. Also the land Black Mesa sits on was almost certainly land owned by the US Federal Government, so you don’t have to buy land from anyone. (There is a reason that so many real world US military and research facilities are in the south west portion of the United States. Much of the land is government owned). There actually is a real world Black Mesa to the north east of Santa Fe, but it is not on government land and is near the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a historic site. There are a number of different Black Mesa’s in other states as well. While the real Black Mesa is near the center of the state of New Mexico, the map you see when entering Anomalous Materials seems to show that the Black Mesa facility could be near the Four Corners area (The area where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico meet) though this isn't definite.

The environment around Black Mesa is clearly a desert, but there is the Black Mesa River that runs through part of the facility. The Black Mesa River is also certainly another reason for the location of the facility. A large complex is going to need a lot of water and it’s much easier to take water from a nearby river than pipe it in from someplace else. The river also is used to provide power for Black Mesa after the Black Mesa dam is built. As I already stated, Black Mesa was partially constructed in a natural caverns inside the mesa. I find it probable that these caverns where originally carved by the Black Mesa River or a tributary of it. These natural caverns provide another reason to build in the mesa.


Historical Background
The Combine OverWiki entry for Black Mesa states that the first construction at Black Mesa was for missile silo's in the 1950's. There are several problems with this. The largest being that the first US Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile where not put into silo's until the early 1960's. (Seems someone Didn’t Do The Research as TV Tropes would say) The first ICBM's where only developed mid to end of the 1950's (1955 for the Redstone and 1957 for the Atlas). In real life there was a wing of Atlas F missiles in New Mexico (The 579th SMS, at Walker Air Force Base). All Atlas missiles was removed from service by the end of 1965 as solid full rocket motors had been developed (Liquid fuels missiles had a lot of problems. Like needing to be fueled right before launching and the chance that there could be a fire or explosion with all the highly volatile fuel around).

So it looks like Black Mesa was not an active missile base, but this does not mean that there would not have been any silo's built in the late 50's or early 60's. The area could have been host to the development of early missile silo's and the testing and development of missiles. This theory is bolstered by a large number of textures that start with the name “Fifties”. The textures named this way do seem to depict equipment and objects that look like they came from the 1950's. The computer textures depict large boxy computers with magnetic tape on large reels in them. An indication of the type rocket engine research being pursued is the "Blast Pit" rocket engine being a liquid fuel type. The computers in the Blast Pit control room look like they are from the late 1950 or early 60's as does much of the equipment related to the area. After solid fuel systems where developed for US ICBM's, there would still have been research being done on liquid fueled rockets for NASA. As a note, in the early days NASA doing research in a military facility was a standard operating procedure or at the very least the facilities had been military before being transferred over to NASA. The future site of Black Mesa being a early missile development and test area actually fits in well with it becoming a multi discipline research facility later on. You start in research, it's easier to expand to other areas of research (Las Alamos while it started to develop the first atomic bombs, does all sorts of research now). It can be presumed that sometime in the late 60's or 70's that Black Mesa started the move from missile development into these different areas.

At first, the rocket/missile research was almost certainly started at Black Mesa by a branch of the US military. At the time Black Mesa would have been starting up, the Air Force, Navy and Army where all trying to get a piece of the nuclear budget pie and where all developing delivery systems for nuclear weapons. The rocket engine testing may have been put underground to not only to hide it from the Russians, but from other branches of the US Military. Yes, the competition at the time between the services was THAT bad. When researchers at Black Mesa started to do work for NASA it was likely that Black Mesa was removed from military control and placed in civilian hands (if this had not been done before this point). Now this does not mean that Black Mesa was sold to anyone. Looking at real world government research facilities, all the ones I have researched (and dealt with nuclear materials as Black Mesa does) have been owned by the US Federal Government, but run by civilian administrations. Some research into facilities such as Sandia National Laboratories and the Los Alamos National Laboratory shows these administrations are either controlled by State Universities, major defense contractors or in some cases a combination of both.

Black Mesa has been compared to Area 51 by some people. But I don't think this comparison fits very well. Area 51 is actually part of an Air Force Base and considering all the testing that is supposed to be going on, a large number of military personal would be needed to help run things, despite there being an estimated 2000 civilian contractor there. At Black Mesa we don't see any military personal until they invade the facility and attempt to kill most everyone (though there are a few around as we hear them being called for on the announcement system and there is a Sargent Harrison is listed as the Moral Officer on one of the (unused?) textures). The situation at Black Mesa is such that some people think that Black Mesa is a private company similar to Aperture Science. But I don't see any indication that Black Mesa is a privately owned. Another difference is the level of secrecy about the facilities. In the real world the existence of Area 51 is barely acknowledged by the US Government. On the opposite end of the scale not only is Black Mesa NOT a secret instillation, they have vehicles and even train cars with the Black Mesa logo plastered all over them. In many ways Black Mesa is more like a Science City* than anything else. Another difference between Area 51 and Black Mesa is that Black Mesa personal had their families with them, as shown by the Vance’s. While there are some indications that some people may be housed at Area 51, they certainly don't have families with them.


Construction
The Black Mesa Research facility is the product of decades of construction by a lot of different people with different purposes in mind with no apparent overall design plan in place. This means things are disorganized and don’t fit together very well. To make matters worse, it seems that large area’s of the facility are closed down or abandon. The rocket labs (Blast Pit) and the underground rail system (On a Rail) are examples of this. Other section are still left running, but have very few people in them. Waste Processing demonstrates this clearly. This all makes for a very chaotic set up.

The main building material in Black Mesa in unsurprisingly, concrete and you can find it nearly everywhere. Concrete is the only substance that provides the needed strength and durability, but some section have metal walls. Metal in older areas most often need to be painted and many sections are showing signs of heavy corrosion. Some sections such as Section D Administration have wood paneling and similar amenities, but area’s such as these are relatively rare and often seem to be older sections. Newer section that are not so decorated and tend to be “high tech spartan” in style. Some older section of Black Mesa have their walls lined with concrete block or brick. Walls of this type are often found fairly close to the surface and are probably not intended to be load bearing.

Figuring out how to manage the air conditioning systems at Black Mesa must be a real nightmare. You have duct work going every which way spread out over miles and going deep underground. In fact one reason the duct work might be so large and can support the weight of an human being is the fact that there may not be any other form of access other than from the inside. The huge volume of air that needs to be handled also might contribute to their large size. In real life air ducts are usually too small for a person to crawl around inside. A few ducts in Half Life are big enough for people to walk around in standing straight up.

Even worse than the air conditioning system is all the piping at Black Mesa. Not only are pipes going all over the place, some of these pipes carry toxic or radioactive materials. This is a likely reason there are so many pools of hazardous substances around. With many pipes running through sections that are shut down, no one is going to discover a leak. Fortunately when Black Mesa was constructed they took the time in many areas to properly seal against penetration by ground water. The barrier keeps the water out, and all the toxic slug in, preventing the local water table from being contaminated. Dr. Breen should be very glad that Black Mesa is a government owned facility that appears to be exempt for many safety and environmental regulations. If the EPA saw what was going on, the whole place would be shut down and declared a environmental disaster area.

The Black Mesa Research facility goes so deep underground that it hits and goes below the water table. That means that these deep sections of Black Mesa will have water leaking into them (despite being sealed when they where constructed) or may even be flooded. The Black Mesa dam likely adds to this problem as it collects a large amount of water and holds it in a small canyon. This would force a lot of water into the nearby rock allowing water to enter area’s that are well above the normal water table. Works to control this water and keep it way from sensitive locations would be needed in many places. This is why you find water at many different levels in the facility.
One oddity about Black Mesa is how far underground it goes in some sections. There are a number of places where there is a pit that goes down 100 feet into blackness (The first jumping puzzle were you cross a deep pit using large green crates suspend from the ceiling is a prime example). And there seems to be no rhyme or reason for these pits to exist. The only thing I can come up with is that there where some areas at Black Mesa where it was unstable or these pits already existed in some form or another. So to prevent future collapse, these area’s where dug out and then reinforced. Leaving these sections open made it easier to do something with them at a later point.

Construction at Black Mesa is certainly an ongoing endeavor. My personal guestimate that there is a dedicated work crew of over 100 people working on expanding Black Mesa. And if a big project is underway (Such as the Lambda Complex) the number could be many times that. The process of building underground at Black Mesa should not be all that different then you would find in most mines. You drill a series of holes, put carefully measured amounts of explosives in them and then ste off those explosives. Then machines are sent in to clear out the broken rock. After blasting is done crews some in and smooth out the walls some what and make sure everything is stable. Then construction grew come in, pour concrete, add the fittings such as pipes and electrical lines and all the other needed support systems. After that specialists come in where needed to add the computers and high tech equipment. We don’t see them in final verison of Half Life , but the Beta had a “construction” character that wore a yellow/orange jumpsuit and a yellow hard hat.

An oddity about Black Mesa is how it is laid out and I mean other than the insanely chaotic set up. Thing are farther apart then they have to be. You would expect for easy access they would try to keep things close together. Instead it looks as if Black Mesa has been deliberately spread out as far as it can. Are the construction crews being paid by the foot or something? It may be that things have to be spaced some distance apart. If too much rock is removed in a location it could lead to a weakness in the mesa the facility is built inside. Such a weakness could lead to stability problems and collapses in extreme cases.

[Solarmech]

Personnel
The Black Mesa Research Facility is a huge sprawling complex that easily covers several square miles above ground and descends hundreds of feet below ground. Compared to real life facilities it's not hard to believe that Black Mesa is staffed by something around three thousand people and it would not surprise me if there where a great many more. I guestimate we see well over 100 people (not including the attacking military personal of course) in the course of Half Life 1 and these people are either researchers or security guards (And a single instance of a worker driving fork lift. This occurs on the tram ride at the start of the game). The lack of variation in people and their occupations is a direct result of the limitations on technology of the time. So while we don't see them, we know through logic that there are a lot more people around and there are a lot of jobs that need to done to keep Black Mesa operational.

Let's start of with the support services. These are people that are not involved in Black Mesa's research and likely have don't have a clue to what's going on. This group is highly diversified and includes general maintenance, janitorial, food services (including the upkeep of all those vending machines!) electricians, carpenters, materials handlers, and vehicle mechanics. With much of Black Mesa underground and the appearance of ongoing heavy construction there have to be dedicated work crews that are able to do everything from mining out underground areas to the construction of buildings in these spaces. There will be explosives experts, riggers, construction workers, architects, mining engineers and other trades. Given that Black Mesa is powered by the Black Mesa Dam, there will be people who's job it is to keep the dam, turbines and related systems maintained.
Things need to be moved in and out of Black Mesa (just consider how much food would be consumed in a day) and most cargo likely is transported by train though some will come in by truck as well. So people are going to be needed to run the rail yard and move the cargo to (and from) the different warehouses around the facility despite the highly automated system Black Mesa has. With all the people at Black Mesa there is going to be a Post Office, though it's likely at/near to the residential housing areas then to the research sections. Being so far out in the desert it's highly likely that there is something similar to a Post Exchange (PX in military shorthand) in the residential area there as well.

Other people at Black Mesa are indirectly related to the research though they don't take part in it. The only members we see of this group that we see in Half Life 1 are the Black Mesa Security Guards commonly know as "Barneys" the world over (another guard called Otis is seen in Opposing Force and Blue Shift) . But there are other people as well. The complex equipment and machinery in the research sections at Black Mesa is way beyond the capacity of normal maintenance people to repair so there must be a dedicated group of engineers and even researchers for this. Computers play a huge part in the life of Black Mesa so there would be a fair number of dedicated technicians for them. Experts in computer security, coders, hardware experts and staff to care for the various servers that would all be needed. To keep track of everything going on at Black Mesa a fairly large administration staff would be needed. This would include secretaries, accountants, auditors, department heads and of course the overall administrator of Black Mesa, Doctor Wallace Breen.

Now the US Federal Government does not just sit back and let the administrators of the their facilities have absolute control over them. The Department of Defense will have inspectors at Black Mesa to see what is going on and to ensure quality control. Other government agencies will may have staff there or at the very least will have inspectors check up on the place, though their authority seems to be limited considering all the hazzards we see in the facility. "Uplink" the official demo for Half Life 1 deals with Gordon Freeman connecting a relay so that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can be called in. (As a note, the events of the Uplink demo cannot be considered 100% canon as they contradict things we learn in Half Life 2. But the general information is likely correct). In real life Los Alamos has something like 100 inspectors from different government agencies.

Lastly we have the main research staff and their assistants. These are the people that running the experiments and developing the theories. These are the people everyone else is here to support. This group of people includes Eli Vance, Aren Magnusson, Isaac Kleiner and of course Gordon Freeman. A number of other researchers are seen in Half Life: Opposing Force, Half Life: Blue Shift and Half Life: Decay.

Security at Black Mesa runs the gamut from nearly non-existent, to strict, to paranoid. There seem to be at least 8 levels of security at Black Mesa, Level 1 being the lowest. But just because you have a high enough security level for an area, it does not mean that have access to the area on your own. Someone inside that area or a guard outside of it may have to let you in. A good example of this is that Gordon Freeman has to go past several checkpoints on his way to his assignment in the Anomalous Materials labs and it's the security guards that use the retina scanner to allow Gordon in, but they almost certainly have a lower security clearance than Gordon does. What you do at Black Mesa has a big influence on what you have access to. People with low level Security may have access to some of the highest level area’s in Black Mesa, but they will not have a clue on what goes on in those locations. A good example of this when the Ichthyosaur is first encountered. One of the researchers states that he had been told it had come from the Challenger Deep (in the Western Pacific Ocean. It goes to a depth of five miles or more). But the creature clearly came from Xen (I DO wonder how they where able to capture it and bring it back). People at Black Mesa are restricted to what they need to do their jobs, nothing more and likely they are told less then they need to know.

Security doors in Black Mesa come in a number of different types. Scattered about the facility are many heavy blast doors. These doors are clearly intended to seal off sections of Black Mesa from other sections or to isolate Black Mesa from the surface. Many of these doors can be opened and closed with a standard code typed into the key pad. Reinforced metal doors that can only be opened with a specific four digit code (or a special security override) are a very common security feature at Black Mesa. These doors usually control access to security stations, armories and most high security areas. There are some doors around the facility that seem to be opened from one side only. Meaning that someone on the inside of the door has to open it. The area’s with the highest level of security are equipped with retinal scanners. To open them, someone with the properly authenticated eyes must have his eye’s scanned. There is one instance where two retinal scanners must be used simultaneously to open a blast door (to the Anti-Mass Spectrometer near the start of the game). Often a Security guard’s retinal pattern is needed to allow access to an area, but to open some doors inside that particular area, the pattern of a researcher assigned to that location is needed. From Blue Shift, it would seem that Hand Scanners had been used at some point in the past, but have been replaced with Retinal Scanners in most, if not all area’s currently in use.

While you don’t see them, Black Mesa has a large number of sensors and cameras, though who watches these sensors is not all that clear at times. Security Guards should be monitoring them, but the Level Three Video Surveillance room in Blue Shift is unoccupied. A fair portion of the security at Black Mesa seems to be run by computer. People can be tracked as they move from section to section by the access codes they use to open doors. Doors open by Guards are certain to keep logs of who they let pass through. The HEV suit is stated as being full of tracking devices and that both the military and Lambda science team were tracking Gordon with them. This explains why the military was always one step ahead of Gordon. But this sensor network is far from all seeing and there are a number holes in it. The largest holes are stated as being in the old industrial area’s, such as Waste Processing and the old rocket labs (Blast Pit). This makes sense as these sections are either old or unused and the few sensors in such areas are probably at the very bottom of the repair list, if they even make the list. As a note, I would not be at all surprised is the Identification Tags everyone wears has a tracking device built into them.

The standard issue weapon for a security guard at Black Mesa is either a Glock-17 9mm pistol or a Berreta M9, but it seems that different pistols can be substituted with the approval of the administration (notably the .357 Magnum revolver or a Desert Eagle .357 ). It’s likely that a substitute weapon is paid for by the security guards themselves. Security guards also can be issued heavier weapons in times of crisis. Combat shotguns (A SPAS-12) can be found in a number of different guard stations around Black Mesa. A few locations are stocked with Mark 2 Hand Grenades (a so called pineapple grenade) as well. (This is a bit odd since the Mark 2 was a World War II weapon and has been out of service for decades. I guess VALVe chose the Mk2 because it is the iconic hand grenade and is instantly recognized by nearly everyone. The grenade used really should have been a Mark 3A2, which is a concussion grenade, not a more damaging (potentially to the user and certainly to the surrounds area) fragmentary grenade. (Something very similar to the Mk3A2 is used in Half Life 2). The fact that Black Mesa security has access to such heavy weapons seems to be an indication that there has been incidents where such heavy firepower has been needed. It is also a sign that Black Mesa is a US government facility. Civilians don’t get to play with hand grenades very often. There is one armory on the surface that is stocked with everything from pistols to rocket launchers. But these weapons seem to be intended for the HECU and not Black Mesa security, despite a guard being in the area.

Security staff at Black Mesa are equipped with a flashlight, a helmet and body armor (an armored vest). This body armor is of good quality and probably equal to standard issue military body armor. The helmet and body armor also have some systems not normally seen in body armor, such a defensive weapon selection system, Geiger Counter, a vital sign monitoring system, a ammunition level monitor and a Heads Up Display. The body armor does not have a vocal warning system as seen on the Hazardous Environmental Suit. Oddly enough there does not seem to be a radio. If there is one, I don’t recall seeing it used. Of course being underground would cause a huge amount of problems with radio reception.

Interestingly, not all of Black Mesa’s security seems to be under the control of Black Mesa Security forces. In a number of different locations around Black Mesa there are automated machine gun turrets. When activated, these three barreled gatling weapons weapons shoot at anything and everything that enters there line of fire. This includes Black Mesa personnel. These turrets are installed in natural choke points such as stairways and important access corridors such as the entrance to the Central Core. It looks as if these turrets are relatively new and may have been put in place after some sort of incident. It is unsure who actually controls these automated killers, but their instillation shows that someone was very worried about someone or something being able to move freely around Black Mesa in a crisis situation. In a later portion of Half Life 1 we do see an turret that has been shut down, or was never activated to begin with. This turret could be turned on and off from a nearby computer.


Black Mesa Medical
Large facilities in most advanced countries have there own medical services. This can run the gamut from having a few first aid kits around to a fully equipped infirmary staffed with nurses and doctors. Black Mesa has something better than first aid kits though, automated systems (Medical Kits) that pumps an injured person with something that replaces blood and heals their injury. The more that can be injected the more the person can be healed. It can be assumed that there are limits to what can be healed though. If you loose an arm it’s not going to grow back, no matter how many Medical Kits you use. Med Kits come in two forms. The large wall mounted unit, sometimes called a Health Charger, can heal a large injury or numerous smaller ones. Smaller Health Kits seem to be able to heal only minor injuries, but they are small enough to be carried around and don’t need to be mounted anywhere. It is unknown how the Medical Kits actually work. Weather it’s some form of nano technology or something copied from the “healing pools” found in Xen, we don’t know. But I find it likely that this technology is still classified and only deployed at Black Mesa and a few other high security locations.

Despite the Medical Kits around Black Mesa there must be something like a infirmary or small hospital at Black Mesa or rather two of them. Civilians likely would not be allowed to be openly treated with the Medical Kits and there are limits to the Med Kits abilities even when you can use them. This means there would be a public infirmary for the civilians and another one inside the facility itself for treating injuries acquired on the job. This second infirmity might be the one that Shepard wakes up in at the start of Opposing Force. Given the isolation of Black Mesa (and the hazardous nature of the work) I would expect that both of Black Mesa’s infirmaries to be able to perform all but the most difficult surgeries. A benefit of having the second infirary is that would have a much harder time finding out how many people are injured while working at Black Mesa. This information being made public could lead to question the Administrator might not like to have to answer.

Transportation To And From Black Mesa.
With Black Mesa being deep in the desert, there is no easy access to it. I suspect that the area around the facility for forty or fifty miles in all directions is government owned land and is a No Trespassing Zone filled with automated sensors and patrolled by dedicated Black Mesa security teams (It’s possible that perimeter security is handled by a civilian contractor or the HECU and not Black Mesa personnel). Being located in the desert there are very few people around. It probably takes an hour or two of driving to get to any towns of any size. So it’s clear that most people will not be commuting to Black Mesa on a daily basis. For both civilians and staff I would imagine that there would be bus trips lasting the weekend to a (relatively) nearby large town or city from time to time.

I doubt that officials and others just visiting Black Mesa for a few days would want to waste a lot of time driving to Black Mesa. But being officials they would not have to drive, they can fly to Black Mesa by helicopter. (As a note in real life Area 51 has it’s own airline which uses Boeing 737's and other aircraft to ferry people to and from the facility.) There seem to be a number of helicopter landing pads at Black Mesa (A sign in Surface Tension is labeled as Hanger 16.). Some landing pads would be controlled by the HECU forces on top of Black Mesa and others by the Black Mesa administration. The G-Man might have arrive at Black Mesa by the helicopter you see during the tram ride at the start of Half Life. (This chopper is a AH-64 Apache, which does not have a capability of carrying passengers. VALVe likely didn’t want to waste resources on a prop that would only be used once.)

Aside from roads and helicopters there is another way you get to Black Mesa, by rail. It’s clear from Half Life 1 that trains do run to the facility and I would be surprised if the rail line to Black Mesa is dedicated to serving the facility. The vast majority of equipment and supplies would almost have to be brought in by train, though a few thing might be trucked in. It’s possible that there are accommodations for passengers on these trains. And if a large group of people need to be transported to or from Black Mesa a passenger car could be rented from a train line.


Transportation Inside Black Mesa
There are many ways to get around in Black Mesa. The most obvious one is the tram system that Gordon starts out on at the start of Half Life. It is clear that the tram system is the fastest and is used by all of the Black Mesa staff. Much of the staff does not leave there assigned work areas after they arrive which prevents the system from being overloaded. Black Mesa tram cars do have a designated area for wheelchairs, though few other areas seem to be wheelchair accessible.
After using the tram cars to enter Black Mesa and go to a work area the only way most people travel is to walk. This is not a big problem though as most people don’t really have to walk all that far. Besides the tram system there are maintenance and service corridors all over the place. So if a tram is not working, you can often walk to where you need to go, if you know the way.
Black Mesa at one time was supplied by a underground rail system. This system was equipped with several types of engines. A smaller engine was used to move personnel around and haul small loads of cargo (this is the first car Gordon uses) and a second much larger unit that is clearly a dedicated heavy freight hauler. While we see the engines, we don’t see the cars they should be pulling. Over time portions of the system fell out of use and large sections where eventually abandoned. Well, abandon by Black Mesa personnel. After the Black Mesa staff moved out it’s clear that the HECU moved in, setting up defensive positions and gun emplacements. Some section of this rail line where still in use at the time of the Resonance Cascade. We can see an example of a working section near Launch Control where Gordon launches the rocket carrying the satellite.

There are a great many elevators and lifts at Black Mesa. Some of these are the size of a normal elevator, but others are much larger and seem to be intended to carry cargo. There are also non standard elevators like the corkscrew elevator in the Sector C test labs. Besides the elevators there are a large number of platforms. These platforms differ from the elevators in that they are not enclosed and many times don't have even the most basic of safety equipment present. There are just platforms that go up and down. Some of there platforms are quite large and are intended to move heavy cargo. Of special note are several large incline lifts. These huge lifts are capable of hauling massive loads and should be associated with the larger warehouse or locations where large pieces of equipment need to be moved often, such as the Lambda Complex.

Black Mesa is large enough that getting around by car is practical and the facility has a fleet of white SUV's with the Black Mesa logo on their side. It's a logical assumption that the large underground parking garage Shepard fights through near the end of Opposing Force is for these vehicles as is the smaller parking ramp that Gordon has to run through to escape a rampaging Gargantuan, so there are clearly a large number of vehicles.

[Solarmech]

Storage
Storage at Black Mesa seems to fall into two categories. The highly automated systems that run the warehouses and the other which seems to be "let's just toss it anyplace we can find space". Many of the areas that don't have a lot of traffic have boxes, crates, barrels (many with explosive contents) boxes of explosives, pressurized gas containers and metal storage containers strewn all of the place. I very much doubt that all this stuff is properly labeled and it's location noted in a database. Worse is that it seems no small amounts of material from the military side of things is mixed in with Black Mesa's. This has to be a security risk. The haphazard storage system is almost certainly leads to a huge waste of time, material and government funds. If Dr. Breen didn't allow the storage system to get in such bad shape, he certainly has done little to try and fix the situation.

One storage area of special note is the Ordinance Storage Facility. This is clearly in an area the HECU controlled before the Resonance Cascade and has a minefield projecting it. Inside this building is a large amount of explosives, ammo and several large partially decommissioned missiles hanging from the roof. These theater class missiles lack a warhead (they where clearly supposed to deliver a nuclear weapon) but the solid fuel that makes up their motors is able to go boom very nicely if rigged properly. These missiles show that the Black Mesa is involved in the removal and disassembly of old nuclear warheads. The nuke detonated at the end of Opposing Force clearly was a warhead scheduled for decommissioning after it was removed from the missile on which is was mounted.


Water
You would think that being built in a desert environment that water would not be a major concern for Black Mesa. In fact water is a huge concern. Water is needed by the staff to drink, bathe in, cook with and use for cooling. Many chemical process need water to work or have the residue carried off by water. Fortunately there is a ready source of water from the Black Mesa River which cuts through a portion of the mesa. Black Mesa also has subterranean water, in fact there are sections that flood with water if pumps are not kept running (the Power Room for the underground rail system in Power Up is a good example). In other areas there are small canals that are used to control the flow of water.


Waste Disposal
With all the toxic, poisonous and radioactive materials Black Mesa uses and produces you would think that waste disposal would be a top priority at the facility. It’s not. All the waste disposal and purification systems at Black Mesa are many years old and most section are not well maintained. The systems are clearly overworked as well and hazardous waste is improperly stored or just dumped into an abandoned section (such as the Blast Pit). Another example of the drive for quick results at the cost of safety and security.


Power Production
The main source of power for Black Mesa would seem to be the Black Mesa dam and it probably does supply a lot of the power, but I don’t think that it would be able to supply all of it. Black Mesa clearly has a lot of power intensive equipment and it would not be a surprise if the facility used more power than then some small cites. And there is no way the small Black Mesa dam can generate that kind of juice. So that means other sources of power must be called upon. The most obvious source of power would be the local power grid, if there was a local power grid. But being so far from civilization there is not one. Also I suspect that tapping into outside power would be considered a security concern. So that leaves interior sources. Unlike most facilities, there does not seem to be a single power distribution grid, but a number of small ones. Many of these smaller power grids seem to dedicated systems that provide power for a single system or area. A good example is the generator system from “Power Up” that must be reactivate to so the rail system can be used. Besides the “Power Up” generators we see a huge rusted hulk of a generator in the “holding” tank for the first Ichthyosaur that we see. Up a level or two are three newer and still functional generators. But even these are shut down and have clearly not been running for some time. Blue Shift has the player activate two massive auxiliary generators buried deep under the teleporter prototype labs (you must be around 200 feet underground at this point). What is amazing is that these generators have been shut down and abandon as well. (I have no idea why Black Mesa just goes and leaves so much still working equipment laying around. Even if these equipment was not worth anything, tearing it out and reusing the space would still be a good idea. Of course considering how Black Mesa operates, cleaning all the toxic and radioactive material up may be more expensive than tunneling out more of the mesa and building new.) With all these generators off line power must be coming from someplace and this brings up to Half Life: Uplink which has Gordon Freeman calling in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to look at Black Mesa (a nuclear power plant?).


Condition Of Black Mesa
Being an older facility Black Mesa has everything from brand new equipment to stuff that is 40 years old. Maintenance, or rather the lack or it at Black Mesa seems to be an ongoing problem. Many older sections are in very poor shape. There is peeling paint and rust all over the place. There are walkways that have collapsed, equipment that does not work, only barely works or is extremely dangerous to be around while it's running. Air circulation fans are not always working or are missing blades. There are numerous pipes that are leaking toxic fluids or have super hot steam erupting from them. And the problem is just not with older equipment either. New computer systems keep on crashing, security codes will not open doors they should open, the tram system shuts down without warning and equipment is being pushed beyond it's specifications and catching fire. Frankly, Black Mesa is a disaster just waiting to happen.

Who's is at fault for all this? A large portion falls squarely on the shoulders of the Black Mesa Administrator, Dr. Wallace Breen. Breen has clearly been making cuts in the maintenance budget and shifted the funds to other things. New equipment is bought, but it is clear a lot of money was wasted on a fleet of fancy white SUV's for the motor pool. To make matters worse Breen is very demanding and trying to get results as fast as he can and is willing to push the equipment, new and old, to the limit and beyond. And if the equipment isn't being pushed, the people are and this inevitable leads to mistakes with the result being expensive equipment damaged and destroyed. I guess the only reason Breen keeps his job is that he is producing results.


Areas Of Research
Since only a portion of Black Mesa has been seen there are area's of research that we don't know about. But we can make a good guess. Nearly every branch of physics will be involved in one way to another including a branch or two that has not been invented yet in the real world. The branches of physics include nuclear physics, condensed matter physics, particle physics, optical physics, quantum physics, materials sciences (both the study of ones discovered in Xen and the creation of new man made materials called metamaterials), electronics, robotics, biology, genetics, biochemistry, botany, anatomy (study of life forms from Xen), geology, mineralogy, organic chemistry, rocketry, computer science, engineering, mathematics (practical and theoretical), radiology and thermodynamics. I probably missed a few in there.

The main focus of Black Mesas efforts is the development and understanding of teleportation/portal technology. Associated with portal technology is the exploration and study of Xen. The study of Xen covers the varied life forms found there and new materials. Of particular interest to Black Mesa researchers are large glowing yellow crystals sometimes referred to as Power Crystals.

There is also research into advanced weapons systems which resulted in the Tau Cannon, Displacer and Gluon Gun. Weapons Research was also studying different life forms from Xen to either learn their weaknesses or to learn how to duplicate their abilities for use as a weapon. A few life forms such as the Snark may have been considered bing turned into a biological weapon. Research into advanced materials is an important part in the development of the H.E.V. suits and advanced systems such as the Lambda Core.


Black Mesa Products
While Black Mesa is not a production facility, they do make things, in fact they make a lot of things. Most of these products unique or prototypes, but other clearly are being produced in small numbers with a few things in large numbers.

Anti-Mass Spectrometer: A room sized device that was developed to study other worldly materials brought back from Xen. The system uses a great amount of power and may use some of the same technologies used in Black Mesa’s teleporter (If you look at the Anti-Mass Spectrometer and Lambda Teleporter, they look very similar). This unique system was in Section C/33-a of Black Mesa’s Anomalous Materials Lab.

Cargo Loader Robot: A large robot that is part of the automated storage system at Black Mesa. This robot’s job is to pick up crates and move them to new locations. This Artificial Intelligence on this robot is very primitive and calling it stupid is not an understatement. One advantage of this robot is that it can safely enter contaminated areas. The Combine Overwiki list this robot at the MTM 8.

Displacer: This is both a weapon and a device to create a dimensional portal to Xen (and back to Earth again). When fired at an enemy this device either teleports them someplace else (likely Xen) or rips them apart (maybe both). The alternate fire mode creates portal to Xen that lasts just a split second teleports the used to Xen. The Displacer is one of those things that Gearbox added to the Half Life and is something that I think clashes with the original story. This device is simply way to advanced. The normal system which allowed people to travel to Xen required a lot of power and took up a huge amount of space. There is the possibility that the Displacer was not intended to go to Xen at all and only does so because of the Resonance Cascades weakening of dimensional barriers. It’s fun to play with, but it doesn’t fit the rest of the story very well to me. This device uses a radioactive material for power.

Gluon Gun: An energy weapon developed at Black Mesa that had gone beyond prototype stage and was being used in combat by the teams being sent to Xen (one of these is in the “armory room” just before you go to Xen). This weapon fires a continual beam of energy that is able to cause a great deal of damage and can rip apart a Alien Grunt apart in just a few seconds. An alternate name for this weapon is the Egon Gun because it resembles the back pack weapons used in the movie Ghostbusters. This weapon uses the same radioactive substance for power as the Displacer and Tau Cannon.

HEV Suit: The Hazardous Environmental Suit is certainly a creation of Black Mesa and something that was in fairly widespread use in the facility. The current version the Mark IV, with the Mark V clearly being in the under development. The HEV is able to protect a person from some forms of radiation (but not direct contact with highly radioactive materials), protects against injury from weapons fire, proves a clean source of air and an integrated flashlight. The suit is also equipped with a radiation detector, defensive weapon selection system, a vital sign monitoring system, a Heads Up Display, a ammunition level monitor, tracking devices and can inject the wearer with morphine to allow them to function despite injury. The HEV suit should be equipped with a radio, but we never see it used in Half Life.

The wearer of a HEV is protected from weapons fire by something called Impact Armor. When the suit is stuck by something, the suit hardens to absorb and spread out the energy of the impact. This technology is not as impossible as it may seem. There are materials being developed right now that harden when struck. In the case of the HEV suit the impact armor can only harden to provide protection if it is charged with electricity. The more damage the suit absorbs, the more power it uses. If there is no power, the impact armor is unable to harden to provide protection.

HEV suits can be charged with batteries, or at the many HEV Chargers scattered throughout the facility. The fact there are so many chargers around Black Mesa is the evidence for the HEV’s widespread use. Playing though Half Life we see only storage locations for only six of these suites. Three locations in the Anomalous Material Lad and thee more in the Lambda Complex. But in Xen there are a large number of dead bodies found that are wearing the suits. This might explain why there are so few HEV suits seen in Black Mesa, many of them had been lost in Xen and production was being changed over to the more advanced Mark V version (a prototype Mark V is supposedly tested by Gina Cross from Half Life: Decay).

The HEV suit is clearly for multiple purposes. Originally I expect it was created as an advance form of Bio-Hazard suit. But as Xen was opened up and the teams being sent there can into violent contact with the natives, the suits capabilities where expanded and enhanced. Systems to monitor and control weapons where added and the Long Jump Module that enables the wearer to jump great distances was created as an add on to facilitate movement in Xen. It is almost a certainty the same technology used for the HEV suit was used to develop the Powered Combat Vest used by the Hazardous Combat Unit and some years down the line, the body armor used by Combine soldiers.

Medical Kits: We don’t know these are being produced at Black Mesa, but it’s fairly certain that the technology for them was created at Black Mesa.

Teleporter(s): Black Mesa seems to have a number of different teleporters on site. The largest and best know one is the massive one found in the Lambda Complex that Gordon Freeman uses to go to Xen. Oddly enough this makes this teleporter a dimensional portal, not a “true” teleporter at all. (Since you go to Xen, instead of going to a location in the same dimension.) For true teleporters, there a number of small very short range systems in the Lambda Core, particularly in Section B. Considering these had been left running after the Resonance Cascade, they does not seem to draw very much power.

Blue Shift gives us an older teleporter system that also is a dimensional portal system, but with proper equipment in Xen, it can act as a teleporter and target locations on Earth. This older portal system does not actually clash with the original Half Life story. I find it logical that there would have been earlier versions of the portal system around. What I find strange is that the whole section is being sealed up. One would think the equipment would either be reused or scrapped and the space reused. These old teleporters are in the A-17 Prototype Labs (oddly enough this section is under/near the main(?) loading docks for Black Mesa).

Tau Cannon: A energy weapon that had just reached the prototype stage when the Resonance Cascade happened. It has two firing modes. The first is rapid fire and can kick out a lot of damage quickly do to the high rate of fire. The other allows a large charge to build up in the weapon that can cause a great deal of damage when released. This weapon is unstable though. If to great a charge is built up the weapon will explode, likely killing the person using it. This weapon uses a radioactive substance for power.

Toxic Waste: Black Mesa produces a mind boggling amount of toxic waste. This stuff is either poisonous, corrosive or radioactive. Sometimes it’s all three.

[Solarmech]

Closed Sections
There are three known closed sections of Black Mesa, but I suspect there are a number of other sections that have been abandon and there are small areas in still active sections that have been sealed away. There is problem is telling a abandoned section from a still active section since maintenance is so bad. Abandon areas still may be in working order and have power running to them. This means that the lights still work, elevators still function and air is still being circulated. But they have not been maintained at all and things can fail without warning.

The first abandon section encounters is Silo D at the very start of the Blast Pit section. The only thing that separates it from the adjoining section is a large heavy blast door with “Silo D” written on it. A little further on a crude barrier is blocking the corridor, but it can easily be destroyed. (This is a habit with Black Mesa. To close off things they get some boards and nail them over the entry way. No moth balling of equipment or proper shutdown and striping of useful parts/materials is done. ) Then there is a large platform that takes Gordon deeper under ground to what looks like a wide path for a heavy transport crawler and a pool of toxins at the far end. I don’t see a missile silo anywhere. I think that there was supposed to be a missile silo here and it is no longer accessible. Plans changed and access was cut off by new construction that itself was never completed.

The Blast Pit, the next abandon area is certainly not a missile silo but rather an area for the testing of liquid fueled rocket engines and was intended to do this from the start. This area is being used for the dumping of toxic and radioactive materials and had been used for that purpose for a long time. While the area had been abandon, there are Black Mesa staff inside of it. My guess these people retreated into this area to escape the HECU and it worked. But then they ran into lifeforms from Xen.

The underground rail system that Gordon activates in “Power Up” and then uses in “On a Rail” is another abandon area, though the HECU has troops stationed all over these sections.

A section that had been abandon, but has been re-purposed is the tank the Ichthyosaur is being held in. While much of the equipment is very old, heavily rusted and falling apart in some cases, there is a bank of brand new computers in place. It looks like this area was in set up ahead of time to hold the Ichthyosaur then the creature brought in. This area had actually been a power station at one time with an area next door that very similar to the Blast Pit engine test area. You might not notice this as when Gordon crashes into the area (on a heavy duty rail car) as it has a large wall dividing it and is partially filled with water. This area could have been a missile launching test area when it was originally constructed. The roof looks like it was added some time after the main area was constructed. At this point of time Gordon was very close to the surface.
Another large area that was abandon and left to rot is the A-17 Prototype Teleportation Labs (also called the Displacement Field Lab). This area had been shut down for a very long time as its successor, the Lambda Complex is actually much older than you might think (If you look at the signs and walls you will notice that the paint is coming off, which takes a while in locations protected from the elements. My personal estimate is that the Lambda Complex is at least ten years old and probably closer to fifteen or twenty). Buried deep below the prototype lab is a massive Auxiliary Generator system. This area was so closely associated with the lab above it that it must have bene shut down about the same time. Despite being closed down for so long it still works to some extent. It must be noted that there is an example of the improvements in technology at Black Mesa. The coolant used by these old generators is highly toxic, but the coolant used in Lambda is harmless when touched (You can swim in it). I find that the generators powering up and lowering into the pool of coolant to be one of the most impressive scenes in the Half Life series.

It is very important to note that there certainly are more abandon/shut down areas at Black Mesa. Only a portion of the facility has been seen in game and it’s highly likely that we have walked right past entrances to abandon areas without even knowing it. The A-17 Prototype Labs from Blue Shift were in the process of being sealed behind a wall when Calhoun finds them. I find it likely that other section where walled off in the same way when their usefulness was over, the area was to heavily contaminated or there was something that could prove highly embarrassing (if not evidence of a crime) to someone in authority.

In the end the Black Mesa Research Facility proved to be a disaster for all of humanity. Left to it’s own devices it certainly was an accident waiting to happen. But do to the highest levels of authority being impatience for results and the machinations for the so called G-Man, it opened a doorway that threatened the very existence of the human species and the death of many other species from Earth.
But Black Mesa is also a source of hope. The bravery of people from Black Mesa and the knowledge gained there has proved pivotal in the defeat of both Nihilanth and the Combine. So like all things that men do, there is good and evil in Black Mesa and it’s final legacy has yet to be determined.

*Science City: This is city where researcher, scientists, theorists all types are gathered together, usually at the behest of the government. The USSR had a Science City called Akademgorodok.

[mimaz98]

Right, firstly, props for effort. That's a tremendous amount of writing, and I'll be sure to look over it comprehensively at which time I deem myself devoid of essential Literature revision. Having said that, I think it may be wise on your part to abolish the attribution of the term 'essay' to work as extensive as this. I think 'study' feels more appropriate, no?

I have skimmed over it briefly and in general it's a fine piece of work. Having said that, I did notice quite a few glaring spelling/grammatical errors, and your expression, though not necessarily incorrect, sounds quite awkward at times. I'm not so sure, then, that you did spend 'a fair amount of time cleaning it up'. I apologies if I am coming off as impetuous and needlessly picky - I naturally tend to point out faults rather than offer praise where it's due. Regardless, in terms of substance, it's good stuff! +rep

[dreamfall]

TLDNR


... plus the fact that it's all made up in your head, and not by Valve doesn't make it that exciting to read !

[mimaz98]

Originally Posted by dreamfall

TLDNR


... plus the fact that it's all made up in your head, and not by Valve doesn't make it that exciting to read !

We appreciate you polluting threads with such repugnant garbage. What terrible logic.

[dreamfall]

Why the hell should I care about a fan-made Half-Life related story, which proves in the end to not be canon to that respective universe ?!

[mimaz98]

It's a story?

[dreamfall]

Originally Posted by mimaz98

It's a story?

uhmmm since when do stories get split up into categories like he did "Water, BM products, personnel... bla"

looks more like a "Welcome to Black Mesa" what-to-do and things-to-know list for employees rather than a lyrical piece.

[mimaz98]

And, yet, that is exactly the distinction you applied to it.

Originally Posted by dreamfall

Why the hell should I care about a fan-made Half-Life related STORY

[dreamfall]

Originally Posted by mimaz98

And, yet, that is exactly the distinction you applied to it.

I thought it may have been a story at first, but then I actually read more into it and I was even more disappointed !

[Mr. Someguy]

Dreamfall, how about you just leave.

[Masterclown]

Let's face it, the audience on SPUF is built for more easily digested posts.

Perhaps you might show it on that one huge wiki site that some other fan put together after HL2 was released (I think Laidlaw even said it was a very good representation). Can't remember the link right now though.

[relaxeder]

Wow, you guys need your Episode 3 fix stat don't you.