The Black Mesa Series

rift in dimensions

Something went terribly wrong.

The Black Mesa Research Facility was a private research and defence contractor comprised of a massive complex built within Phillip Bay just off the coast of Melbourne. Built deep into the bottom of the ocean, Black Mesa has been a site for broad scientific research relating to theoretical, quantum, and particle physics, applied mathematics, robotics, genetics, biotechnology, trans-dimensional travel, teleporting, and other classified subjects. The Facility has been part of Melbourne for a long time. A lot of people worked in this place and despite the fact that most of the research was classified the communities got used to the big BM. Everyone who was involved in science or engineering knew at least somebody who earned his money "under the bay". Unfortunately these good times are over.

A catastrophic failure of the lambda-experiment destroyed most parts of Black Mesa a few days ago. How could that even happen? The lambda-experiment was international military program funded by the DARPA and Australian authorities. In fact it was the main reason why the facility has been build in the first place. By the time the decision was made to do the research on Australian soil a few decades ago, it was considered to be a great success by the Australian politicians to have such an important experiment in the own country. However the rumors that the United States never intended to have Black Mesa within their own borders due to the dangerous nature of the experiment never ceased.

The goal of lambda was to create a stable rift to another dimension. The basic idea was to move object to this dimension, move within the alien dimenson and find another way back home. Similar to a worm-hole these objects would have travelled less and would appear to turn up out of thin air. The problem wasn't to create the rift to the so-called Xen-dimension. The problem was that Xen was not empty and far more horrifiying than the weirdest scientest could imagine in their darkest dreams. New technologies had to be invented in order to sneak through Xen without the original inhabitants noticing. Preliminary test looked promising so the lambda-experiment didn't exactly have any funding issues. But decades of research didn't pass unnoticed the xen inhabitants. They adapted to the new intruders and a few dangerous incidents were the consequence. The research continued and for some unknown reasons something went terribly wrong.

Today we do know that all these rumors must be true.

Now it is critical to contain the situation however there are a lot of factors which seem to make this task very difficult. The only person with the complete skillset to handle it, is you. We can provide you with back-up (local law enforcements and the SASR) but in the end our fate lies in your hands.

Containment is one thing. Finding the root cause is another one. As you progress we will task you with new challenges in order to get a clearer picture of the mess. To our advantage most of the off-site infrastructure is still intact. The most helpful proofed to be the lambda-satellite system which can trace interdimensional objects and rifts.



The Cache Series

This series consists of thirteen caches in the greater Melbourne area. Each one of them can be found individual. There is no additional information in the cache boxes. The storyline is chronological but if you want to find the caches in a different sequence that is absolutely possible:

• The Black Mesa Incident (archived)
• TX1 - Training Mission (archived)
• The Black Mesa Aftermath
• The Black Mesa Experimental Station (archived)
• The Black Mesa Object
• The Black Mesa Menace (GCA)
• The Black Mesa Airdrop
• The Black Mesa Invasion
• The Black Mesa Wormhole
• Beyond Black Mesa - White Forest
• Beyond Black Mesa - The Mitre Tear
• Beyong Black Mesa - The Tear Conveyance
• Beyond Black Mesa - The Resonator
• Beyond Black Mesa - Battle Scars

Please note that not all caches are available anymore.

Cheers
Philipp