Piecing together the story [SPOILERS]

Am I the only one thinking that Chell could be Alyx mom? Ofcourse, I haven''t burried myself in Alyx back-story and so I have no idea if what happened to her is explained anywhere.

Anyway, Chell kinda looks like alyx mom from the pictures.
Now, go ahead and wreck my theory and tell me to check my facts before I waste your time with stuff like this.
 
Well, for a start, Alyx' mom's name isn't Chell. She'd also be considerably older.
It's completely safe to assume she's the daughter of an employee, if not the daughter of Cave Johnson himself.
 
Like someone said, this is probably what happened:

1) Pre-combine.. business as usual at Aperture science, GLaDOS is constructed and slowly gains additional abilities, including sentience.

2) Sentient GLaDOS floods testing area with neurotoxin, the red phone does not work out, and people die. Morality core is installed to reduce the likelihood that GLaDOS will massacre any more humans.

3) Testing continues.

4) Combine invade earth, nobody gives a crap about GLaDOS or the Aperture science complex anymore. Everyone leaves in a hurry. This is consistent with the fact that the enrichment center seems to have been abandoned quickly (chairs knocked over, etc) and yet there are no corpses anywhere. GLaDOS didn't seem to have access to any kind of robots or other devices that could remove the corpses of people who had been gassed, or she would have used them to interfere more with Chell's attempts to escape.

5) GlaDOS continues to perform her primary task, overseeing the 'enrichment center' activities with subjects who had been put in stasis before the combine invaded.

6) Chell is next in line, and manages to escape.

The only thing that makes me think Chell might be someone's daughter from bring-your-daughter-to-work-day is that it would be a cool easter egg for the drawings in the observation room near the end to be scribbled there by Chell a few decades ago. :)
 
My timeline:

  • GLaDOS and portal technology developed, Enrichment Centre built
  • GLaDOS becomes sentient
  • After a while she floods the chamber with gas for fun
  • Morality core gets installed
  • Business as usual for a short while, but they are more careful about GLaDOS, but not careful enough
  • GLaDOS locks down the building and starts taking everyone for 'testing'
  • Resonance Cascade, etc happen
  • Chell wakes up in the Enrichment Centre
 
If GLaDOS' AI was so astounding, it doesn't take too much stretching of the imagination to say that the androids hinted at in Chamber 14 actually exist. I think it's likely that GLaDOS used these androids to dispose of bodies and to "spice up" the Enrichment Centre.

Hence, here is my timeline:

- Enrichment Centre is created to test new ASHPD device. It is however a relatively innocent obstacle course designed for fun.
- GLaDOS goes through several test runs and during one tries to flood the facility with gas.
- Morality core is then installed to replace the red phone system.
- The grand unveiling and proper switching-on ceremony happens on the BYOD To Work Day.
- It just so happens that this is on the same day as the RC. As the centre is abandoned, GLaDOS goes mad and takes control of AS' AI system, kidnapping daughters using the androids in an effort to make her creators stay.
- Alas, she is left alone so she puts her prisoners into stasis containers and begins commanding her androids to make various changes to the facility so that she may continue her research.
- Then, fearing rebellion (she's mad you know), GLaDOS marches all but one of her faithful drones into a furnace. She retains one to do the housework etc.
- Then, every time her research is furthered, she releases one of her test subjects. One is Chell.



Having just typed all that, I have a feeling we are missing a beat with THECAKEISALIE page on aperturescience.com. It doesn't quite fit with what we know, implying that they have been awake in the facility and unable to remember when they last left...
 
I would double check this if I had a copy of Portal on hand, but am I right in remembering that somewhere GLaDOS actually mentions that she designed the gun herself?

I may be crazy or just overly tired, but that started ringing in my head today.
 
here's my personal storyline, the one i believe to be true:

1. Aperture science was founded
2. johnson goes crazy and does "three tier"
3. goverment funds the "portal" technology research.
4. enrichment center is built, and is used as a prison. prisoners are sent to the enrichment center "relaxation vaults", where they are imprisoned. when aperture science creates new technology, they take the prisoners out of the vaults and make them test the new technology.
5. when aperture sci. hears of black mesa's reseach on portals, aperture science begings to build GLaDOS.
6. testing continues, and the prisoners are used to test the new tech.
7. GLaDOS is finished and is fired up for the first time on bring your daughter to work day.
8. GlaDOS goes insane and floods center w/ neurotoxin, tons of people die, and morality core is installed.
9. people come back to aperture labs and clean the place up of bodies after the "toxin" massacre.
10. testing as usual....
11. Black mesa's accident occurs and everyone flees aperture science, except for the criminals kept imprisoned in the relax. vaults. no one really cares about trying to save these horrible criminals, so they get left behind, still in the vaults.
12. With all the workers and personell out of the place, glados takes over the entire aperture facility and begins testing on her own, using the left-behind prisoners as lab rats.
 
But your not a prisoner. it is very implied that you are the daughter of Johnson or at least a "bring your daughter to work day" girl.
 
then someone please tell me, how did chell get into that little "relaxation vault" room if she was Johnson's daughter, of if she was a person from BYDTWD.
please elaborate on how she is a daughter of Johnson and not a criminal. cuz i still think she and all the other test participants were criminals.
 
Well, there is never any mention of criminals in the game to begin with.

Second, valve never puts something in the game unless it's related to you. And there are 2 comments on daughters and Aperture, so it has to do with you.

3rd, how would a prisoner know the login and password of the admin of Aperture? (the rat man chambers)

4th, why would the government allow prisoner usage for lethal tests. Isn't that, you know, illegal?

5th, the relaxation chambers are simply detention centers. No mention of prisoners. There is however, mention that the staff of Aperture have not left the building for a prolonged time period and then mention of relaxation chambers. Once again, why would valve put the two randomly different things in the same message unless they were related?
 
My timeline.

  • GLaDOS turned on. The whole "nerotoxin" thing.
    Mortality core installed.
    ASHPD invented. AS asks for volenters
    Chell, and others Volenteer.
    They are placed in relaxation chamber.
    Portal Storms.ASEC evacuated. Volenteers left behind
    GLaDOS resumes tests.
    Others do tests. And lose.
    Portal game
 
Some random thoughts:

First of all the whole thing going on in Portal kinda reminds me a bit of the movie Cube.

Then I was thinking why AS is decayed, but not ruined by the combine. I suppose the combine didn't think an abandoned lab/test parcour would be much of a threat, thus I'm assuming the facility was left before or during the invasion, so it was already cleared of active human life as the combine scanned it. And they didn't assume a potent AI such as GLaDDOS in it, since the computers they (AS personnel) used to access the AI were mostly outdated rubbish.

Then I thought that GLaDDOS is essential for the Portal. It does the necessary calculations for the portal device, which is one of many built tools to generate such portals. I could imagine the ASHPD could be rendered useless outside a test facility.

If GLaDDOS killed heaps of people all around the facility, it didn't even unnecessarily have to use androids for it. Remember the arm at the end going for the candle? I believe there could be more such arms built into the ceilings so the test chambers can be 'reset' after each test, i.e. clear it of cubes or later corpses.

And how could it get access to the neurotoxins? And why were there neurotoxins in the first place?
Well GlaDDOS could have... uh... HACKED her way into some sort of sub system not initially meant to be connected with it.
Though I couldn't conclude why a deadly neurotoxin was stored there, but there are still ideas.
1. GlaDDOS kinda developed it with the help of arms/androids/automated chemical equipment which was available in the lab.
2. It was a system for pest control, which GlaDDOS, as mentioned above, could have hacked.
3. It was some sedative weak neurotoxin which would be set out in case of some accident with the Portal what causes panic. Highly concentrated it'd be lethal, but that's a rather dumb idea of mine.

Even more twisted: You tried to sabotage AS and installed the neurotoxins and ****ed up GLaDDOS and in the end you became the victim of your own agenda. Also, could AS's test have had any effect on the outcome of the Black Mesa experiment in some bizarre way? Like creating a portal resonance anomaly which is kinda the like the wormhole version of a acoustic feedback thus causing a massive interdimensional overdrive and the combine access our world? :p
 
A note on the mechanical arms: They're used to transport turrets.
 
Well, thenn my point stays valid. They COULD HAVE gotten rid of potential corpses.
 
Great work Teta Bonita.

Now get back to work on Gmod10 :p
 
Headcrab Pie said:
Mortality core installed.
Click to expand...

You mean morality core, right? ;)

ASHPD invented. AS asks for volenters
Chell, and others Volenteer.
Click to expand...

I still like to think that Chell and all other test-subjects are clones with implanted memories. It adds to the detached feel of the game and gives some explanation for the fatal tests - I mean, it's pretty clear that GlaDOS didn't completely redesign the Center's architecture, so many of the tests must have been life-threatening from the start. I doubt that you'd use volunteers for that kind of thing, not when the authorities could come looking.

GlaDOS must have some sort of robotic help around in order to keep the testing chambers so spotlessly clean and the gun-turrets placed in areas that are beyond the reach of those mechanical arms, not to mention replacing the destroyed cameras (remember that hidden chamber with a whole pile of them?). Most likely they don't have any combat-abilities, though.

And how could it get access to the neurotoxins? And why were there neurotoxins in the first place?
Click to expand...

To kill everyone in case something went wrong? Aperture Science hasn't exactly demonstrated itself as an ethical employer. Maybe they were afraid of extradimensional intrusion? If Black Mesa had some neurotoxin everything would have gone fairly smoothly inside the facility, although Gordon Freeman would have died along with everyone else.
 
Lightice said:
To kill everyone in case something went wrong? Aperture Science hasn't exactly demonstrated itself as an ethical employer. Maybe they were afraid of extradimensional intrusion? If Black Mesa had some neurotoxin everything would have gone fairly smoothly inside the facility, although Gordon Freeman would have died along with everyone else.
Click to expand...

You forget the Helmets for the Hazard suit :p
 
The "and even I am not sure what's going on outside" line seriously suggests a 7-hour war scenario, rite?.
 
Iron_cube said:
The "and even I am not sure what's going on outside" line seriously suggests a 7-hour war scenario, rite?.
Click to expand...

It may also mean the Portal Storms, but if the story is going to relate to that of Half-Life 2 Episode 3, then the 7-hour War sounds more likely.
 
I think your all taking what GLaDOS said way too literally, GLaDOS is a pathological liar and 99% of what he says turns out to be false or is highly suspect.

I remember in one part in the final level of the game GLaDOS says something to the effect of "Your adopted and have no friends." Lines such as these illustrate the lack of faith you can put in what he says.

That's why this line:
"You're not smart. You're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a fulltime employee. Where did your life go so wrong?"

Is higly suspect as most of what GLaDOS says and I don't think we believe anything he said unless supported by something more.

*it's a computer it doesn't have a gender so it can be he she or it don't matter.
 
...He?

Anyhow - I think we can take it as given that GLaDOS is a classic batshit-crazy AI. Not everything she says is true, but there's probably facts here and there.
 
If you read that line literally, it just means either of these two:
-GLaDOS was receiving data from outside the Aperture complex, now it's not.
-GLaDOS never received any data from outside the Aperture complex and it's just saying it out loud at that point.

Do not try to be smart with your theories, don't interpret things based on a few words and assumptions. Use what you literally have.
 
I like Stigmata's timeline. In particular, I do think the idea that the Aperture Science facility was abandoned by its staff, in a big hurry, because of the Seven Hour War, fits.

I don't remember if it was explicitly stated in Half-Life 2, but my impression was that most of humanity was wiped out in the Seven Hour War. From what we've seen of City 17, despite it being the effective world capital, there are very few people actually there, there aren't many other cities, and there's scarcely any economic activity going on at all. Presumably, Combine troops were recruited from the survivors, so there aren't many of them, either, and most of them are busy holding down the remaining cities or hunting down any resistance.

That would mean that the Combine wouldn't have the resources to investigate every abandoned office complex -- UNLESS something attracted its attention. The Aperture Science Enrichment Center probably has been pretty quiet from the outside.

This doesn't explain, though, why there aren't any antlions, headcrabs, or other opportunistic invaders in the Enrichment Center.
 
Personally I think that everyone decided to stay there. I believe the Portal storms started on the Bring the Daughter to work day. Seeing what was happening outside, everyone in Aperture decided to let GlaDOS 'look after them' in the recreation suites (after all there wouldnt have been enough food for everyone), after all she was a badsass AI, with AI turrets etc and she could protect them & would wake everyone up when the danger was past.
I then believe, with everyone in the Suites, GLaDOS's screwy morality kicked in, and she started people on these experiment 'to help mankind'. She didnt just kill everyone in the Suites, she had to have a MORAL reason for what she was doing-and I think it was 'I'm doing these tests for Science, for Mankind (which at the time was probably being wiped out/enslaved by the Combine) - what is one persons life when what Im researching can save millions of people?' .This sort of Moral Justification HAS occurred before in history to justify some horrific acts done by people in the name of Science.

The final song is a good indicator of this, 'We do what we must because we can, for all of us', 'And the Science gets done, and you make a neat gun for the people who are still alive'
 
There arn't any headcrabs or antlions because GLaDOS hit them with toxin. I also want to point out a line in still alive. "When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you" another in a long line of dialog that puts Portal after the Comibon invasion.
 
"Make a gun for those who are still alive".


What does that mean? Only a few people are left in the world?
 
Didnt GlaDOS say something about the outside world and how "I stopped them, well I use to" or is it just me coming up with stuff? It'd be pretty cool if GLaDOS was actually, as the G-Man is described, "The misunderstood servent of the people" OMG!!!!one!!1!!!six!! G-MAN IS GLaDOS
 
I wonder if there are other survivers hiding in the bowls of Aperture. Like a small group that left direction's in the way of graffiti on how to get to them. And chell just took a wrong turn and endend up finding GLaDOS. Or what might be GLaDOS.

I love this game. I just can't get over how good it is. It's been about two weeks since I had to take it back to the place I rented it form, but I'm still nerdgasiming. I can't wait for Portal 2.
 
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