Why is 'Salt Asbestos Curtain' the Aperture Science motto?

Question

I've been looking at some valve swag and noticed the company motto (?) on top of the Aperture Science logo. Why is "Salt Asbestos Curtain" the company motto?

Asked by John

Answer

Aperture Science was a shower curtain company producing deadly shower Curtains before they became better known for developing the portal gun.

Basically, you're reading the motto the wrong way. It's not "Salt Asbestos Curtain", it's "Salt", "Asbestos", and "Curtains". I'm not sure quite where the Salt comes in.

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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In the Portal games, what is the testing all about?

Question

What was Aperture science really going for, with those "test chambers"? Was it an experiment in human cognition, like a rat maze? Were they testing the portal device? GlaDOS's AI? Cubes and buttons? And what does it all have to do with shower curtains or Pentagon defense contracts?

Asked by Mihai

Answer

As far as I can tell from the dialogue in the games and the lore surrounding the games, is that the testing was fulfilling a multitude of purposes, most notably testing:

• the portal gun
• human reactions and behavior in certain situations
• GLaDOS
• the turrets
• the gels, repulsion, propulsion and portal conduction surface gel

The shower curtains come into play early in Cave Johnson's career as CEO of Aperture. Before Aperture Science, it was named Aperture Fixtures and had contracts with military organizations to make shower curtains.

The portal technology was originally used as a shower curtain (presumably because the water would enter one portal and exit another, inside the same shower, preventing the water from leaving the shower area.)

What the portal technology was later being repurposed for, in the form of a gun as their dispenser, is still unknown - presumably the purpose will be revealed in the next installation of Half Life, whether that be episode 3 or a full sequel as Half Life 3, in the form of the Aperture Science research vessel, the Borealis, which became a major plot point towards the end of Half Life 2 episode 2.

Answered by Jasarien

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Third Person Mode for Portal / Portal 2

Question

I picked up Portal and Portal 2 when they were on sale on Steam a few weeks back. I think these could be really good games, but I (for whatever reason) get vertigo when playing first person games.

Is there a way to switch to a third person view for these two games?

Answer

There are console commands, if cheats mode is enabled:

sv_cheats 1
thirdperson

This should work in both games. I believe you have to re-enter these every level, as you'll spawn in first person mode.

However, this will probably disable your ability to get Steam achievements for the games, so that's probably not the best idea. ModDB lists this mod for Portal 2, which should accomplish something similar. I haven't seen anything similar for the original Portal.

If you get vertigo, Portal games might not be for you - your perspective shifts frequently, and what's up is frequently down or sideways in rapid succession. The shift to third person might work OK in most other games, but you might find that Portal causes you more problems than other games.

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Is Cave Johnson Chell's Father?

Question

About around the time of the Portal 2 Announcement ARG, to the best of my knowledge it had become well established that Cave Johnson was Chell's father (with the latter being abducted by GLaDOS on Bring your Daughter to Work Day).

However, many months later, with the release of Portal 2, all such references seem to have disappeared, and I can no longer find any proof of (what I thought) was well-established fact. Can anyone provide any canonical evidence that Chell is Cave Johnson's Daughter?

Specifically, I am wondering if, during the course of the two pre-release ARGs for Portal 2 (one for the announcement, the other just before launch) Cave was officially credited anywhere with specifically being Chell's father.

P.S. Please do not bring discussions of Caroline into this question, as I am chiefly concerned with information from the ARGs, and not Portal 2.

Answer

Preface

This could be considered too localized. At this point, there's no official 'canon' answer.

Short Answer

As of Portal 2, speculation tends to lean in the direction of Cave being Chell's father.

Long Answer

From the Combine OverWiki article on Chell:

Players exploring the Aperture facility in Portal 2 can discover a presentation from the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day science fair signed with the name Chell. Several girls seem to have made potato batteries; none of them have rotted over the years, but Chell's potato has actually grown out of control, sprouting through the ceiling. One of the steps described in her experimental procedure is using a "special ingredient from Daddy's work." This strongly implies that Chell was the daughter of a male Aperture employee, was trapped in the facility during GLaDOS' takeover on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, and spent her entire adolescence as one of GLaDOS' prisoners.

Virtually no other reliable direct evidence about Chell's background appears in the games, although players have speculated based on vague hints. In the Lab Rat comic, Chell's surname is redacted on the list of test subjects, while no other information is missing; this may indicate some sort of secret concerning her family background. However, the possibility that there is no in-story explanation for the missing name and Valve simply did not want to give Chell a canonical surname yet cannot be dismissed.

GLaDOS often drops hints about Chell's background, but since her comments are obviously intended to manipulate Chell or damage her self-esteem, they may not have any basis in fact. In the first game, GLaDOS said that she possessed a backup of Chell's brain, which she later claimed to have deleted in a fit of rage. Although the comment may have been a complete fabrication, some players speculated that Chell might be a clone (although the game's writers have now confirmed that this theory was not intended) or an android. GLaDOS also asserts once in the first game and repeatedly in the second that Chell was abandoned by her birth parents and subsequently adopted. In context, GLaDOS' intent is clearly for Chell to find this information upsetting - even when fighting on Chell's side, she not only repeats the allegation but adds, "and that's horrible."

If we ignore the Caroline-based evidence, we must rely on the following:

• Chell got help from "daddy" with her science project on "Take Your Daughter To Work Day" at Aperture Science.
• Cave Johnson not only worked for Aperture Science, but owned it.

Outside of the above, most of the speculation on Chell's father comes from this series of connections (which, despite your initial request, require us to mention Caroline):

• The song the turrets sing at the end of Portal 2 implies a familial connection between GLaDOS and Chell.
• Portal 2 establishes very clearly that GLaDOS, at a minimum, has Caroline as part of her personality/intelligence.
• Several voice-overs and a hidden portrait imply a familial connection between Caroline and Cave.

Adding all of these items together and you get the basis of the speculation about Chell's father.

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Is Chell an android?

Question

I have played through Portal and found several references that somewhat point to the fact that Chell may be an android.

• GlaDOS says "Well done android..."

• and "Android Hell is a real place where you will be sent..."

• Chell does not say anything like Atlas and P-Body. (this may be excused by her brain damage due to suspension)

• Chell is an "orphan" and there by has no record of parents or family.

• Cave Johnson says that the repulsion gel does not interact well with the human skeleton, but Chell gets covered in it and appears to be fine.

• The Moon Rock gel is supposed to be extremely toxic since it appears to be killing Cave Johnson. Again Chell is covered in it and is fine.

So, is Chell an android?

Answer

No, I doubt it. Regarding the first two, in the training chamber you go through, Glados states that the normal Chamber 16 is down for maintenance, so Chell instead is put through a training course for military androids (which is why there are so many turrets in there.) Those lines are simply her trying to manipulate the androids that normally navigate said chambers.

As far as the last couple go, the Moon Rock gel probably didn't kill Cave johnson in a single day. It's more likely prolonged exposure that gave him said poisoning. The repulsion gel is a bit less clear, but perhaps it was a prototype version that "does not like the human skeleton", or maybe Chell's somehow immune to it. For example, IIRC we know Chell's the only one out of however many humans put into stasis to actually survive, she's not exactly an ordinary test subject. It's not completely explained, but there's various possibilities.

Finally, there's plenty of things Glados says that point to Chell being human. For example, she was put into stasis like a human, and certain comments (like the ones about her being fat or Glados mocking her about being an orphan) just wouldn't make sense if she was an android. Not to mention, I believe that in the one room with the various potato batteries children made in Portal 2, one of them is marked as Chell's, which would undoubtably prove she's just a normal human. So, long story short, there's no real reason to believe Chell's an android, and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

And one more point that I almost forgot.

What kind of android can eat cake?

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What do GLaDOS mean with “One day they woke me up”?

Question

A few days back I completed Portal and Portal 2. I had a lot of questions about this awesome game, like who Caroline is, why there's no personnel and other things that I didn't understand.

I am interested in the start of story. There was a line in the ending song Want You Gone:

One day they woke me up

What does this mean? Who woke her up or does this line have another meaning?

Answer

They mean the day she was initialized. During the game Cave Johnson mentions that he wants his team to take the personality of Caroline and put her in a computer.

Since GLaDOS exists, we must assume that his team succeeded in doing this. So they started building her and putting Caroline's personality into GLaDOS. Then, one day they woke her up so she could live forever and feel bad for Chell because it'll never happen to her.

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What are the connections between Portal series plot and Half-Life series plot?

Question

I heard a lot of rumors about Portal series and Half-Life series plots relation but I didn't found any link.

Can you describe which relations exists between this two stories?

Answer

Aperture Science (which is the firm that developed the Portal gun) is in direct competition with Black Mesa (which is the firm for which Gordon Freeman worked) for military contracts

See the section Other facts on this link

Aperture Science and Black Mesa were bitter rivals. As seen in the Portal maps "testchmb_a_15" and "escape_02", Aperture Science employees were briefed on Black Mesa through slideshow presentations, such as one titled "Dollar$ and Sense: Competing with Black Mesa for DoD and Government-wide Acquisition Contracts"

EDIT: Here's an excellent guide on Half Life: http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/
Check out the timeline for an awesome detail of all events in the Half Life saga, and in the bottom a little speculation to its relation to Portal:

The date that the events of Portal take place aren't certain. We do know that GLaDOS says to Chell: "Are you trying to escape? [chuckle] Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out will make you wish you were back in here. I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what is going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them. Well, I was. Unless you have a plan for building some supercomputer parts in a big hurry, this place isn't going to be safe much longer." This implies that the game takes place during the Portal Storms or afterwards.

This site is not official but it's a great analysis IMO.

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Do I have 'health'?

Question

In Portal (and Portal 2), I can get hurt by lasers, bullets, etc. Do I have a finite amount of health that is depleted every time I get singed, or is it a case of sustaining damage for a continuous amount of time resulting in death?

Answer

You do have 100 health, only the exact number isn't shown on the HUD.

Continuous damage will kill you, but your health regenerates very quickly when you aren't damaged for a bit.

You can observe this in Portal 1 by giving yourself the HEV suit (console command impulse 101, needs sv_cheats to be enabled), which causes your health to be visible.

In Portal 2, issuing ent_dump player after being shot at by a turrent displayed the following, so it's pretty safe to assume that it works the exact same way as in 1:

] ent_dump player
  [...]
  max_health: 100
  health: 10
  [...]

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What is GLaDOS's name an acronym for?

Question

I remember reading somewhere that the name "GLaDOS" is short for something but it didn't say what. Does anyone know what "GLaDOS" is short for?

Answer

GLaDOS is short for: Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System

Source

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What is GLaDOS' name an acronym for?

Question

I remember reading somewhere that the name "GLaDOS" is short for something but it didn't say what. Does anyone know what "GLaDOS" is short for?

Answer

GLaDOS is short for: Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System

Source

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History of Half-Life Science

Question

Are there any stories that go deeper into these the histories and purposes of locations like Black Mesa and Aperture?

Answer

The Combine Overwiki has full articles on Aperture Science and Black Mesa. These articles cover all that is canonically known about these organizations. A quick summary:

Aperture Science

• Location: Upper Michigan
• Purpose: Originally created as a shower curtain manufacturer by a successful shower curtain salesman, the company eventually evolved "into an experimental physics research institution and a bitter rival of Black Mesa" after the owner became deathly ill and brain-damaged.

Black Mesa

• Location: A city called "Black Mesa" in New Mexico
• Purpose: Helmed by the U.S. Government, Black Mesa conducts research in various theoretical and applied science fields.

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How much in-game time has passed between Portal 1 and 2?

Question

At the start of Portal 2, it's clear that time has passed. You've been woken up every few months for physical and mental fitness tests, until something goes wrong and you're left in stasis for much longer. How long is Chell, your character, in stasis? How much time has passed between the end of Portal and the start of Portal 2?

Answer

Assuming the announcer was reciting the number of days you had been in stasis, as with your earlier 50-day wake up call, "it has been 9 9 9 9 9..9 9...[static]", it has been at least 273 years, or 27,300 assuming the pause wasn't a broken-record effect.

In "The Final Hours of Portal 2" e-book, Keighley mentions that:

One way to further differentiate Portal and Half-Life was to set the game far in the future—at least 50,000 years.

It doesn't explicitly say that Portal 2 was set in 52,000 AD, but the general point was that the events between the two series are so distant from one another as to not interfere.

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