Books in the HL2 World

[DTBWolfie]

I have a character who is a big bookworm, something I haven't seen roleplayed too often. It leaves me with a bunch of questions, since books have not really been dug into in terms of what's left, what's around, etc. in the HL2 world; what is acceptable to read, what isn't, and other sorts of that nature. So here's the questions I wanted to bring up.

1. What's approved and what isn't? (I'm sure all books were outlawed except those that glorify the union)

2. What type of books would be found around the city if at all?

 

[Airsoft]

You would probably be able to find common bestsellers and such, like Red October, Charlotte's Web, all kinds of genres, just ones that sold really well. Ones that the Union didn't target.

 

[MemeTeamSupreme]

Books themselves promote interpretation and free thought. Finding actual literature would be a chore. Accessible books might slim down to being simple informative books like Financing 101, or The Human Anatomy. Of course, there's the off chance that a best seller found it's way onto a shelf somewhere somehow.

 

[Zippo Raid]

There's creative freedom given to people from a RP perspective to which books they'd like their character to possess (within the bounds of realism of course) but they'd probably be kept seriously low-key cause any CP could have a problem with a book if they see one, regardless of what it is. Most thought-provoking and metaphorical literature would have been long-since outlawed and "officially" disposed of, but I'm sure there'd be copies of shit floating around regardless.

 

[Symmetry]

I doubt that books would be expressly illegal, as Dr. Breen seems to like keeping up the pretense that his regime is intellectual, but the wrong type of material could easily be interpreted by a bullying CP as a reason to throw someone on the train. At large I think that over the years that the Combine regime has operated, lots of reading material has just been cast to the sidelines, either through deliberate destruction or just a recent abandonment of literary culture in favour of more pragmatic goals like surviving an alien invasion, a cataclysmic war, and then building an entirely new society/police state. Also, people don't have permanent residences anymore so collecting books would be difficult if not totally impossible in the long term.

If anything, an inability to accumulate any kind of extraneous personal property is what would be keeping people away from books. There doesn't even need to be a law to enforce it, it's just an effect of the way individuals are treated by the Combine with forced relocation, assigned living, etc...

ps. The Combine doesn't really operate with "laws" anyway. The society is self-regulated with computers (Overwatch) and total control over people's lives is maintained by confining them into an automatic system with no room to transgress. There's no "breaking the law" so much as just defying a general social order and being labelled as an unperson, or "anti-citizen" by the system. Civil Protection help to maintain this order by arbitrary intimidation and terror tactics, and the computer keeps track of how smoothly it's going. There's no actual code of law, and in a sense that's a much better system to keep citizens in line, as they never know if what they're doing will defy a computerized parameter that governs the society, or tempt arbitrary judgement by Civil Protection for being out of line. Would you risk owning books in a society like that?

 

[Fuzzy Wolfy]

I would actually argue that any specific piece which does not overtly encourage the reader to question their surroundings or engage in critical thinking would be at the mercy of the individual.

I'm positive that certain fictitious novels, like the later installments of the Hunger Games for example, would have been banned due to it pretty much outlining the rebellion as a force of good and the figure-head of the movement as the protagonist. I'm entirely okay with believe that kind of literature to not only be forbidden, but largely destroyed prior to the current year.

Symmetry pretty much nailed it on the head, I think;

There wouldn't be a list of books titles that the citizens of any given city can and can't read, I'm absolutely certain that if any action is taken against any written piece would be under the very ambiguous and easily abused standard of 'No Anti-Union Propaganda' which any book that even remotely questions any form of authority, either within itself or otherwise, could easily fall under.

I would actually really like to see certain units allow some books when confronted with them, whilst others just flat out deem everything meant for entertainment to be worth burning, due to an overbearing perspective or just because they want to be jerk and swing their dicks around - which is a totally justified IC reason.

 

[Wagoo]

I don't think the Hunger Games would even exist in this universe; no matter what date you say the Portal Storms started, they were definitely before their publication.

 

[AlbinoGlowStick]

Sym is spot on once again. Also take into account our settings location of eastern europe, so most reading material would be in a slavic language. I doubt the Combine would be reprinting many books in english or mass shipping books around the world.


I always had my character reading very simple books since he barely knew russian, or just looking at the pictures of comics/magazines. Though if your character does know the language then youre gold.

 

[Calhoun]

I've always thought that any religious books too would be removed and burned, and instead books describing transhumanism and such would be printed by the Administration. It would also vary city by city and the units there what books are allowed. Some CPs may not want you to read at all, whereas some really don't give two shits. Though I imagine there are books they've missed and magazines, garbage, etc from the old world that are still floating around especially in the canals and outlands or even in a dirty apartment.

 

[Fuzzy Wolfy]

As I recall, wasn't it a stated fact in our canon that all religious icons were destroyed to a certain degree?

 

[Calhoun]

I am sure it does somewhere but let's be honest there is a chance that some things went hidden or were overlooked, perhaps some units intentionally ignored it because of their own faith or something. It won't be easy to find it but there are still stuff out there.

 

[Fuzzy Wolfy]

I'm absolutely certain a few bibles are still in circulation, either due to one having been hidden in a shack somewhere in the middle of nowhere, or something... But I'm sure objects like that, unless overlooked by a specific unit's own good will or faith, would be treated like contraband.

 

[blooregardo]

I doubt that books would be expressly illegal, as Dr. Breen seems to like keeping up the pretense that his regime is intellectual, but the wrong type of material could easily be interpreted by a bullying CP as a reason to throw someone on the train.
ps. The Combine doesn't really operate with "laws" anyway. The society is self-regulated with computers (Overwatch) and total control over people's lives is maintained by confining them into an automatic system with no room to transgress. There's no "breaking the law" so much as just defying a general social order and being labelled as an unperson, or "anti-citizen" by the system. Civil Protection help to maintain this order by arbitrary intimidation and terror tactics, and the computer keeps track of how smoothly it's going. There's no actual code of law, and in a sense that's a much better system to keep citizens in line, as they never know if what they're doing will defy a computerized parameter that governs the society, or tempt arbitrary judgement by Civil Protection for being out of line. Would you risk owning books in a society like that?

This is always how I saw it; oppression by means of ambiguity. Plenty of books are out there, to be sure, but the ones you'll find are in a dozen different languages left behind by someone displaced by the Combine. Then, by the time your character finds a book in their native tongue, it's something completely random that only held meaning in that society that came before the Combine.

A cookbook specializing in Mediterranean cuisine. An outdated textbook on civil procedure or marine biology. A Star Wars tie-in book aimed at third-grade-level readers. A tattered owner's manual for a 1990 Toyota Cressida. A faded tourism brochure for Galveston, Texas, with little photos of the coastline and historical blurbs about the hurricane that ravaged the city more than a century before. Windows 98 for Dummies.

That sort of stuff can still be meaningful to most characters, as a reminder of happier times if nothing else, but if a character wants anything from literary classics to sleazy pulp science fiction, they'll have to go through the black market.

As I recall, wasn't it a stated fact in our canon that all religious icons were destroyed to a certain degree?

Possibly, but consider the logistics of pulling that off. Even the Combine would have a hell of a time hunting down and destroying all religious iconography.

 

[Tami]

I'm absolutely certain a few bibles are still in circulation, either due to one having been hidden in a shack somewhere in the middle of nowhere, or something... But I'm sure objects like that, unless overlooked by a specific unit's own good will or faith, would be treated like contraband.

I actually had some pretty fantastic roleplay on my first unit this iteration when she discovered a bible in an apartment she was searching with a squad.

Things like this can really spice up what would otherwise be tedious roleplay.