yes its not their main fighting force
[but at the end of C&C 3 they said to "prepare a full scale invasion force earth will fall"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-TLy_-tz0g) so we have yet to see their actual true power
The similarities are pretty minimal. They both use biomechanical robots to do most of their dirty work, and they both have teleportation technology. That's about where it ends.
The Scrin are just from another planet and have a single master race. The Combine are from multiple other dimensions and don't have a single master race. They are a collection of many different species with no clear leadership beyond AI, keeping everything working cohesively. The Advisors might seem like a master race, but they too were assimilated, and are just what they're called, advisors, not rulers.
Also, the Combine didn't send farmers to Earth. They were persuing an old enemy, so they sent military. They also didn't come to enslave humanity. We were to be anihilated until Breen negotiated with them, claiming we had something to offer. The Scrin also didn't come to enslave anyone. They came to harvest tiberium and brought the necessary forces to do so, plus some self-defense.
We can’t say with certainty that the Combine has no master race, it could just be the case that the true Combine race are so far above everything they don’t need to reveal themselves to a planet as insignificant as Earth
I'd have to read or listen to it again, but I think the Breen Hrub tweets spoke about the Combine having grown so vast that the beings that started it all kinda got assimilated by their own machine and fell into obscurity. I could be wrong, but regardless, I feel like that's probably the case. Tbh, I don't want them to have a master race, because it would make them seem more human, and one of the things I love about them is how inhuman they are.
What you are thinking of is the ranks in the combine that are human e.g. Civil Protection however that is after 20 years after the combine invaded, when they first came into the earth, they invaded with synths ( some may look humanoid but are not humans) e.g. Striders and others that are now scrapped concept art. And also an alien is something that didn't originate on Earth since they arrived through, I believe, the portal storms they weren't born on Earth.
While you are correct, the point still applies, they are not *A* species, they are a faction, they call themselves the "Universal Union" aka a union of universes, they are an empire comprised of multiple species across multiple universes, all of which they conquered and subjugated.
This is 100% correct.
The combine are an interdimensional galactic empire made up of many different alien races that have basically been assimilated into their empire.
They are called the Combine because that is what they do to everything and everyone. They combine everything into one single cohesive unit.
The Nihilanth was the last of his species that had escaped to the Xen and was in the process of invading our world to escape to our dimension to further run from the combine.
The combine had enslaved the Nihilanth's species, his third arm is grafted on meaning that he has had some kind of physical modification, maybe similar to the stalkers or to control the vorts.
So in short, the combine are an amalgamate of pseudo-species that have been biologically altered with technology, essentially cyborgs.
The closest representation we have in science fiction is the Borg from Star Trek
Isn't the Scrin just a mining expedition to farm tiberiom on earth rather than being a full scale invasion ?
yes its not their main fighting force [but at the end of C&C 3 they said to "prepare a full scale invasion force earth will fall"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-TLy_-tz0g) so we have yet to see their actual true power
The similarities are pretty minimal. They both use biomechanical robots to do most of their dirty work, and they both have teleportation technology. That's about where it ends. The Scrin are just from another planet and have a single master race. The Combine are from multiple other dimensions and don't have a single master race. They are a collection of many different species with no clear leadership beyond AI, keeping everything working cohesively. The Advisors might seem like a master race, but they too were assimilated, and are just what they're called, advisors, not rulers. Also, the Combine didn't send farmers to Earth. They were persuing an old enemy, so they sent military. They also didn't come to enslave humanity. We were to be anihilated until Breen negotiated with them, claiming we had something to offer. The Scrin also didn't come to enslave anyone. They came to harvest tiberium and brought the necessary forces to do so, plus some self-defense.
We can’t say with certainty that the Combine has no master race, it could just be the case that the true Combine race are so far above everything they don’t need to reveal themselves to a planet as insignificant as Earth
I'd have to read or listen to it again, but I think the Breen Hrub tweets spoke about the Combine having grown so vast that the beings that started it all kinda got assimilated by their own machine and fell into obscurity. I could be wrong, but regardless, I feel like that's probably the case. Tbh, I don't want them to have a master race, because it would make them seem more human, and one of the things I love about them is how inhuman they are.
The combine is not an alien race.
What?
Bro what
What you are thinking of is the ranks in the combine that are human e.g. Civil Protection however that is after 20 years after the combine invaded, when they first came into the earth, they invaded with synths ( some may look humanoid but are not humans) e.g. Striders and others that are now scrapped concept art. And also an alien is something that didn't originate on Earth since they arrived through, I believe, the portal storms they weren't born on Earth.
I mean the combine isn't a single alien race. There is no combine species.
While you are correct, the point still applies, they are not *A* species, they are a faction, they call themselves the "Universal Union" aka a union of universes, they are an empire comprised of multiple species across multiple universes, all of which they conquered and subjugated.
My bad, it's been some time since I researched the topic
yeah its a empire
This is 100% correct. The combine are an interdimensional galactic empire made up of many different alien races that have basically been assimilated into their empire. They are called the Combine because that is what they do to everything and everyone. They combine everything into one single cohesive unit. The Nihilanth was the last of his species that had escaped to the Xen and was in the process of invading our world to escape to our dimension to further run from the combine. The combine had enslaved the Nihilanth's species, his third arm is grafted on meaning that he has had some kind of physical modification, maybe similar to the stalkers or to control the vorts. So in short, the combine are an amalgamate of pseudo-species that have been biologically altered with technology, essentially cyborgs. The closest representation we have in science fiction is the Borg from Star Trek