Welp, I guess I'd better ride this motivation for as long as I have it, because "Interloper" is a long chapter, and if I wanna get this done, I gotta do it while I still feel like writing it.

So, we'll start off here with...

A big glowey button! Are you sure pressing that is a good idea though, Freeman? I mean, you have no idea what it does-

Ah. It opens an elevator door. You're safe, Gordon. This time. But it's a really bad idea to just go around pressing buttons without knowing what they do.

A short elevator ride later, we approach a vortigaunt village! Which is another new addition to BM!

Through the fence, we can see a handful of vortigaunts walking into a teleporter, and a little farther on,

He steps into the orange light,

A bright green flash,

And he's gone!

And then this kind vortigaunt disables the forcefield and gives Gordon a "come on in" gesture, inviting you to explore their home! Which, again, I think is a really neat touch, establishing the vorts as nonhostile. Not to mention the story implications that they, with their vortal power or whatever, already recognize Freeman as an ally and someone they want to aid in his quest. They're already willing to risk their lives for him- to the extent of approaching and enabling him even before he necessarily recognizes them as allies, potentially putting themselves at risk of being killed by him.

But anyway, here are some shots around the village.

The village itself!

These two vorts having a conversation as a headcrab- presumably their dinner- roasts over a fire,

This guy standing by a cooking fire in a house,

And of course, when you're ready to move on, you do so by crawling through this air duct. Even on an alien planet, Freeman still maintains his reputation of crawling through the ventilation shafts!

Hm. Ammo, medkits, batteries... I think we all know what that means, and I think we can all make the same assumption that that big green button over there starts a pretty big battle.

And it does! An alarm sounds, and some of the big headed, flying controllers teleport in,

And you learn why they're called controllers, because they can apparently mind control the vortigaunts, causing them

To blow up the room Gordon is standing in!

Then commences a pretty epic fight where you have to jump around on the roofs of the village buildings, fighting the controllers and vortigaunts. Here's the thing, though, as soon as the specific controller that's controlling each vortigaunt is dead, the vorts stop attacking you! So you really only have to aim for the controllers, and you can spare the vorts!

Which, again, lore-wise, I like to think would only strengthen the vortigaunts' belief in Gordon as their savior.

And of course, once the controllers are all dead, the vorts just go back to hanging around.

In the fight, you don't have to kill any vortigaunts, but there is one scripted death when a control panel explodes, and just another little thing that gives the vorts more character,

A vort stands by the dead one, mourning with his face in his hands.

You can leave the vort village now by crawling through a hole in the wall where the control panel exploded, but if you turn left instead of going straight, you can find a little hidden room with another supply cache. But this one, instead of having ammo, medkits, or batteries in it...

Has soda cans and snack food! And I love the implications of this. I think I mentioned a while ago my thoughts about the supply caches, how there's likely a team of scientists somewhere doing all they can to teleport supplies into Xen for Gordon, all while Black Mesa falls apart around them. And then there's this, where they must've thought "hm, he's been in Xen for how long? Do you think he's found anything to eat? Do you think he's getting hungry? We should send him some food!" But then all they had in the lab was potato chips and the Black Mesa rip-off brand of Pepsi.

But then, when it's time to move on,

Once again, it's time to crawl through some air ducts.

Next up, one of the most intensely revamped sections of Black Mesa!