HLVRAI Spoiler Theory

So this pastebin assumes you watched the entirety of Half Life VR but the AI is Self Aware. It contains spoilers as a result.

The nature of Benrey/Benry is hidden from Gordon by the GMan and in my opinion is one of the series' greatest unexplained mysteries, however, I believe one can posit some information about him from various clues.

The biggest clue is Benry's mysterious transformations while in Xen. It implies some sort of connection to the dimension. It is likely his power is somehow connected to the dimension. While Benry does appear as big when Gordon Freeman goes back to Black Mesa to destroy his passport, I believe that this was only possible due to exposure to Xen.

Secondly, the science team didn't actually know Benry's name when he first stated it. They assumed it was Barney (a character from the normal Half-Life series), but he asserted his name was Benry. This implies that the science team did not actually know Benry prior to the events of HLVRAI.

The third big piece of evidence is the skeleton. It is obvious that there is some sort of connection between Benry and the skeleton, from the voice to the final battle on Xen. Many people noticed that at the end of Act 3 Part 3 that Benry seemingly woke up after skeleton went to sleep and acted much more cordial to Gordon. They theorized that the skeleton was somehow possessing Benry. However, in the final battle on Xen, there were multiple skeletons all protecting Benry.

I believe the skeleton possessing Benry theory is accurate, but it goes much further than that. I believe the skeletons are a race native to Xen. Benry is controlled by a special skeleton I will refer to as Skeleton-Prime and is the only one seen outside of Xen. Skeleton-Prime is able to both directly hop into bodies and control them that way and also control them indirectly through the Sweet Voice. While one may assert this is a stretch given evidence so far only suggested it was controlling Benry without the sweet voice, there is actually evidence that the sweet voice has the power to control others in Act 1 Part 2 when Gordon is forced to show Benry a "passport" after the green sweet voice was used on him.

Skeleton-Prime is able to regenerate a host or increase their durability inside or outside of Xen through the presence of passports (thus the final fight). Given enough exposure to Xen, it can also transform the host. Without a host, it is able to render itself invisible and even wipe memories of itself from people that have seen it, but any victims of sweet voice control will always able to see Skeleton-Prime and are immune to its selective mind wipe powers.

I believe Skeleton-Prime reached earth through an earlier expedition to Xen whereupon it possessed one of the explorers in order to reach our dimension. At some point it found who we refer to as "Benry" but this might not be the person's actual name, but a name created by Skeleton-Prime. Being alien, a lot of "Benry's" dialogue is strange and hard to comprehend. Due to how alien it is, Gordon, the human player, is directly oppressed by this speech, becoming aggravated and overwhelmed. The AI do not have as much problem with Skeleton-Prime's speech as they are programmed to attempt to understand language, even when said language might be alien in nature. As such they go along with whatever Skeleton-Prime says and are generally less hostile to it.

Skeleton-Prime is likely to have caused the Resonance Cascade through mere proximity to the test. Its insistence on following Gordon indicates this might have been part of a plan of sorts. The scientist at the lambda lab explained that an alien being kept portals between earth and xen open, this is likely Skeleton-Prime.

Skeleton-Prime seems to have a vested interest of sorts in ensuring Gordon does not go to Xen. It insists that Gordon should stop and lay down and die. It abuses the Black Mesa intercom system to try to trick Gordon into going to "Passport Inspection" or "Outside". It attempted to hand over Gordon to the military to eliminate him from the picture.

While one cannot determine with any certainty Skeleton-Prime's motivations, I believe them to be that of spreading chaos throughout the universe to make it more like Xen. Its manner of speech is that of sheer chaos, changing laws and rules to be nonsensical. Unleashing Xen's inhabitants ensures that physical chaos reigns on Earth.

Through the destruction of the passports, Skeleton-Prime's host was weakened enough to be able to be permanently destroyed. Skeleton-Prime survived as indicated in the ending but it was severely weakened to the point where it could not maintain portals between Xen and Earth.

In summary, I believe Benry to be the host of an alien Skeleton-Prime and the cause of the events of HLVRAI.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.