alright so I've just found out how to prove that the gearbox games are all canon (thanks to Half-Life: Alyx) in HL:A, there are "50 free games!" floppy disks that can be found, which have "Prax Wars 2: Dante's Revenge" listed as one of the games, a game seen on an arcade machine at the start of Blue Shift if that's not enough, there's also a secret room in HL:A that has a "hideout" room with dismantled Combine Masks on a workbench and some conspiracy theory books near his "bed" Blue Shift by extension, references Opposing Force by name-dropping Shephard at the end of Duty Calls. Gina Cross is also seen dead in Opposing Force (confirmed to be her by Randy on Twitter) so if someone ever argues that the Geadbox games aren't canon well there you go (it also proves that the Barney in HL2 is Calhoun from Blue Shift)
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Anybody saying they're not canon are immediately wrong, at least in part, by Marc Laidlaw saying the nuking of the BMRF is canon. Race X, however, is pretty much as non-canon as it gets. Although i'm not sure how that secret room is any proof of this, we need something more concrete than 'conspiracy theory books'.
I mean it'd be a pretty big coincidence for there to be another conspiracy nut trying to go undercover for Civil Protection
Yeah, but 'conspiracy nut' could describe literally any number of people. Without anything to say 'this is this specific person' you could say it was any other person and you couldn't be proven wrong.
I'd have to go back in and check but I think some of the books are the same too? idk
went back in and one of the Books is a conspiracy book about Black Mesa, and a fuckton of Alcohol if a hideout with bits of Civil Protection masks with a Black Mesa conspiracy theory book and a ton of Alcohol doesn't scream Barney I don't know what does honestly