MINERVA - read-only archives

(or is it a herd, or perhaps gaggle, of links?)

Inspired by that he has been collecting Minerva evidence on his computer, I'd have to admit to doing basically the same thing myself. I'd been copying down links to various interesting things, mainly interviews, since there always seems to be an interesting tidbit or two in each interview with Adam I've read. We also seem to discuss a lot of the same things over and over, so I thought it may be useful (and for my own benefit) to collect references to all things Minerva (well, mainly story related). This is going to amount to a huge amount of reading, and I certainly wouldn't expect budding theorizers to read all of it, but a lot of interesting things have been covered, various hints given, and lots of wacky ideas proposed. Since it seems that the future continuation of this storyline is a bit up in the air (any reassurances would be welcome!) we may as well get together what's been done to now.

so, I'll start off with some official pages:




, , , , .

Then onto interviews with Mr. Foster:


,





Forum threads here with story discussion:




in Death (login required):


(discussion of image.)

Blog posts with a lot of plot discussion, (and some hints) in comments:



There's been lots of plot discussion elsewhere on the blog as well, if anybody can remember anything significant or noteworthy, feel free to add it.

And of course the theorizers best friend, the titles.txt files from Someplace Else and Metastasis, in a location something like:
C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\SourceMods\metastasis\scripts\titles.txt
C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\*username*\half-life\someplace_else\titles.txt

I'll add anything else I think of, or of course anybody else can chime in with anything I missed..

Also, a carefully hidden piece of art. Presenting you the

I'll add these links then, and I'll call them the Apocryphal Archives, not because I doubt their status as 'canon', but because they remind me of something like the dead sea scrolls. And that makes me feel something like Indiana Jones for discovering them. (alright, rediscovering them.) And that makes me feel cool.

{These are old Ten Four forum posts from back when Minerva was apparently named Joyeuse}
There's to be had, though the main 3 I'll put here as





And also (thanks to Sortie), an

It's interesting stuff I think. If I may indulge myself with a bit of speculation, ahem, seems to support the theories that there's some kind of parallel universe (well, he actually seems to be suggesting a hidden sector of our own universe, but whatever) intersecting our own that Minerva was accidentally sucked into in the 1974 incident, and that there she found remains of some ancient civilization. (I'm guessing this is Lux Aeterna). While there, "tended by machines", she became whatever she is now, that is, enhanced from an ordinary human. The exact nature of this universe still baffles me, as well as how it relates to Xen and the combine. There's a lot of bits though that make me think it has some relation to our own, like a future Earth or (eh, mirror Earth), or something like that. Hopefully we'll learn some day?


**edit**
again, playing the role of Indiana Jones for this link is Sortie:

The post is about Someplace Else (though it's not named as such), though the backstory is mixed with an unrelated one for a different, unfinished mod, so it's hard to tell what applies to Minerva and what doesn't.
To theorize, this may well imply that the 'ancient' machine from SE was discovered buried in Earth, built by this ancient civilization referred to several times, and it transported itself to Xen in an accident that is likely the 1974 incident. It explains a lot, including what happened to Minerva (she got taken along with it), and how she found the ancient civilization whose technology she is using. But, that's just a theory.

Alright! Thanks for compiling this Ace. I can check out what pages I've missed in my searches.