Gordon knows a thoughtful silence when he hears one; he's had plenty of them himself. He'll let this one go on a while.

Eventually, though, he notes, "When it's all over, and the Combine are gone, the human race is going to have to put itself together again. Not everything in the past is worth throwing out, just like not everything is worth keeping. But people have to understand where we've come from if we're ever going to be able to move forward again."