Citizens

""I don't know about you, but I'm ready to join Civil Protection just to get a decent meal.""

- - A citizen in the subway station during ration distribution A citizen is a civilian denizen of the post-Combine world following the Seven Hour War. Originally normal people from all walks of life (excluding, for the most part, armed services,) citizens now serve as little more than human shields against resistance movements and manual labor for jobs that aren't automated purely as an excuse to keep them around. Most citizens are brainwashed by propaganda and chemicals put in their rations and drinking water, though some harbor anti-Union sentiments, requiring a substantial Civil Protection force in each major city to keep them in line.

Info
After the Seven Hour War, the casualties were literally unknowable due to the collapse of most world governments. Those that survived were rearranged into citizens of the sole remaining global superstate, coordinated by the Combine, and most individual rights were restricted under the guise of security. Most, if not all, citizens are survivors of the Seven Hour War, as children were rounded up and either exterminated or put to forced labor; it is unknown which is the case.

Citizens are generally from civilian sectors of the pre-7HW society; most range from blue-collar professions such as farmers, mechanics and engineers to high-paying jobs such as accountants (though the latter tend to be Loyalists.) Few have experience in combat, and fewer remember it.

Refugees
Refugees are citizens that have managed to slip the Combine's grasp but have yet to join established Resistance groups or actively rebel. Most are found hiding out in less-travelled areas, canals, and sewers, though some operate the Underground Railroad, a route out of the city for enterprising anticitizens.

They tend to be unarmed, although a few have managed to scrounge up weapons and defend themselves when possible.

CWU Worker
The Civil Worker's Union (CWU) is a Union-affiliated organization which arranges important jobs for non-Loyalist civilians. These often take the forms of ordinary work we'd see before Combine occupation, such as restaurant workers, janitors, mechanics working on what few automobiles remain, delivery workers, and store operators. Though the jobs only pay in Union tokens, and these in small quantities, the work helps deliver solace for many, and that's good enough.

CWU workers are not, however, loyalists, and are perfectly capable of joining the Uprising should they choose to do so. They are, however, incentivized to remain steadfast in their affiliation with the Combine.

Opportunities
Citizens have a few career paths available.

In the Combine 's favor, citizens are able to gain loyalist tokens and rise up the post-war hierarchy, become Civil Protection units for better rations and the ability to bully others, apply for a position in the CWU and get a job, or simply continue to exist as-is.

For the Resistance, however, they gain the ability to actively rebel. Rebel 'jobs' tend to be more specializations in methods of guerilla warfare, however, and vary in loadout and tactical role. Some become standard soldiers, bearing the MP7 submachine gun, while others choose specialist positions and get the SPAS-12. Fewer still become combat medics.