HOPE

HOPE

Welcome to Hope Labs. If you're reading this, you're our new man.

You definitely must have had questions on your way here. You might have picked up on some components of our operation through leaks on the intranet, if you're into that. Maybe you came here because you found one of our business cards, or maybe you just wandered into this through no fault of your own.

Make no mistake, however. Hope owns you now, just like they owned me. Their influence on you is expansive and omnipotent. You might have even been marked by them since the day you were born. They'll make you think the ideas you act upon are your own, but really, those ideas belong to them.

What am I talking about, exactly? I'm talking about fractal patterns, and the butterfly effect. Hope makes their descisions through fractal patterns.

They like their events to be predetermined since their conception. Sometimes, it involves subtle conditioning. Things you don't notice, environmental factors that have larger effects on you than you think they do (the Paradigm Codes). These factors manipulate you to the very center of your being, and you and the rest of the human population don't notice it. They're responsible for your bloated ego, your sexual frustrations, even your self-doubts and lethargy.

Other times, they'll be more direct in their influence over you. They might airdrop convinient drugs that offer that quick endocrine burst to subdue the population. They might lead you to believe getting closer to them in a physical sense is not just enthusiasm, but a moral imperative. If they have to get their hands dirty, they'll have Nomads or Mercenaries take care of their problems pre-emptively.

Despite what you may gather from the above, Hope Labs is the best and only chance that humanity has for survival. Why, you might ask? Why do they partake in such heinious moral crimes? The only answer I can give is to not think so much in the short-term. Their priorities have always been about the survival of humanity in the wake of the Black Mesa Incident. Some Hope Labs members ARE former researchers from firms such as Black Mesa and Aperture Science.

From here on out, the only thing you should do is listen to the directives issued to you by Hope elements. You may be wondering why you haven't met anyone, or if the people you have met don't know anything more than you do. This is because there is no such thing as an official member of Hope Labs. You will never meet face-to-face with an authority figure presiding over Hope Labs, as they simply do not exist in any observable capacity.

Hope Labs has an end goal for humanity. I already know they prioritize the survival of human civilization, but to what extent is something I don't know yet. They have tried to make large overhauls to human society before. A good example of this would be their Hope Mastercomputer Project (HMP), their attempt to convert the conciousness of every living human to a utopic simulated dreamland. This project was cancelled once Hope Labs realized it wasn't beneficial to them, and they ended up distributing the blueprints for the mastercomputer to the Combine Civil Authority, who in turn handed it off to the last remaining CMB assets that exist on Earth (yes, the CMB still has a skeleton crew on Earth, mostly consisting of brainwashed servitor 'humans' and an advisor who presides over them). I can only assume that the CMB forces on Earth intend to build on this technology, unintentionally providing data for Hope Labs.

That's about all the advice I can give you. I'm legitimately thinking of grabbing my bug-out bag and making a run for it, but I know there isn't escaping from the influence that Hope has over me. The only thing I can do now is try to explain what I already know to you.

Good luck out there.

Sincerely,
Yours Truly.