In Half Life 2: Episode 1, why do/does the combine need to blow up the reactor to send a message? Or are these 2 events unrel

[deatheater500]

The entire question is pretty much in the title above. However I will try to elaborate.

In the game at the very beginning you are urged to get out of the city completely because the reactor is going to explode. However, you are told that you will not have time to exit the city with reactor so close to blowing. So you have to stabilize it then exit the city.

Later on you find out that the combine is actually trying to send a message back to their homework in another dimension. You discover this after you have stabilized the reactor.

The reactor is stabilized and the combine is still receiving power from it.

Here is what I don't understand:
If they were receiving power from the reactor, and they needed to send a message. Then why did they force the reactor to go critical? That's actually counter intuitive. Because then they would not continue to receive power to send the message. I did see that they were able to send the message right before it exploded. But... I'm still confused.

Were these two events connected or completely unrelated?

Connected such as: they could only receive the power to send the message as it was going critical?

Or unconnected such as: they needed to send the message, so they sent it, but they also wanted to kill people so they blew up the city.

Thanks in advance for any extra info!

 

[Frag Maniac]

Been a while since I played it, but wasn't that reactor used for more than just coms? From what I recall it was also used to teleport the aliens, and Freeman blew it up because of that, not the Combine.

You may be confusing the reactor for the Citadel though. Gordon and Alyx escape the reactor blast, but it causes the Citadel to initiate a self destruct sequence.

 

[Saberus]

IIRC, they needed the reactor to go prompt-critical to spike the power output enough to push a message through to the other dimension after Freeman's actions at the end of HL2 closed the portal. The fact that it would decimate City 17 and supposedly quell the uprising was just considered a bonus.

 

[jman005]

The combine needed to make the core critical once again as the only way they could send a message back to the overworld was to start a chain reaction that would destabilize a lot of combine cores around the world and create another combine portal on the earth. Destroying city 17 was a side effect but helped them as well.