Half Life
Summary
Following the Black Mesa Incident of 2000, Earth fell to the Combine in the Seven Hour War. The alien empire established fortress cities across the globe to control the dwindling human population, with City 17 becoming their primary industrial and transit hub.
City 17 is divided into numbered "inhabitations" which function as segregated zones where humans are contained and monitored. These areas serve a dual purpose: controlling the populace while maintaining maximum supply-chain efficiency. The Combine's ultimate goal is to exploit human labor to its fullest potential, running humanity to extinction through relentless workforce demands. Humanity struggles for survival within these inhabitations.
Loyalty to the Combine means survival, but at the heavy cost of humanity itself. Remnants of the human resistance eke out a living in the shadows, desperately clinging for life while trying to expand their liveable territories and recruit additional members for their cause. In this urban hellscape, evaluating workforce competency is just a small piece of the larger puzzle representing the systematic exploitation of what remains of human civilization.