It's quite literally 1984, written by George Orwell. This is a real texture by the way: combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Categor… Something cool is that there are actually multiple references to 1984 in Half-Life 2, or things based on events in the book. The trailer for Half-Life 2 on OS X is a reference to Apple's 1984 Super Bowl commercial. youtube.com/watch?v=2zkLh_QMFdQ
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While not as extreme as it was in beta, city 17 and the combine's rule is very similar to the authoritarian state from 1984 and I think it's pretty cool that valve pays homage to their inspirations in the textures!