Apparently our mapper Crypt took the time to email Marc Laidlaw, aka the Word of God on all things to do with Half-Life canon. And he never told me about it! Shame on him! :P
I'm impressed with the results though. Here's what Mr. Laidlaw himself has said in response to the question of when exactly the Hazard Course takes place:
There you have it. We now have an official answer for when the Hazard Course takes place, which should resolve the debate forever. And so, in the immortal words of Crypt himself,
"Well before..."?
Surely 10 days at most. Freeman's acceptance letter was dated 5th of May and the disaster occurred on the 16th.
Maybe. I think they may have retconned the date for Half-Life 2. Seems like Gordon knew Eli/Barney (Alyx?) for much more than just a couple weeks.
They retconned the dates since Episode 1 or so. Gordon was employed at Black Mesa for quite a long time before the incident.
Yes, as far as we know the Hazard Course training took place on May 5th, and the disaster was on May 16th, but of what year? I always pictured Gordon as having just passed the 1 year employment mark.
In Opposing force there is a picture of Gordon with the caption "Employee of the month". but in Half Life Decay, when you and Dr. Cross step out of the tram, the Security guard talks about the "New guy, Dr. Freeman." So I don't know... Maybe Valve just didn't take their time when it came to dates?
Those are both Gearbox works, not Valve.
But I believe they are both considered cannon even though they were by gearbox. Maybe a miscommunication between both parties or a simple mistake?
There's no official statement on their whether they are canon, so we're sticking only to what we know officially from Valve.
Nothing made by Gearbox is considered canon unless Valve explicitly acknowledges it. This is in order for them to stay unconstrained by outside parties as much as possible.
To date, the only thing from Gearbox that they have acknowledged as canon is the nuke at the end of Opposing Force, since that's a convenient way to avoid setting any future Half-Life games at Black Mesa.
WHOA! That's just amazing i can't believe he replied!
Half life Wiki says Hazard course was on May 16, 07:30. you can find it here: Sectorw.wikia.com
The Half-Life Wiki is unreliable. This is directly from Marc Laidlaw, the WRITER. If anyone has any say on anything Half-Life it's this guy.
Thanks for that Info... I'm a noob, so I need all the help I can get!
*facepalm*
... I can't believe it.
Did you REALLY just try to dispute the WRITER of Half-Life by using an editable, FAN WIKI as a source?
Or did I just totally misinterpret your comment...?