Theories//<&!/<<@#[discuss]<//??

[McCoy]

Hello all portal fans. I have not been in this thread yet but have been thoroughly fascinated in this section. Seeing that there are only a few threads that are new (I mainly mean the thread about the pic. That could've been a good thread had there been more speculation!!) I feel that I must break the ice in this section. No one has had a groundbreaking thread in here and that is due to the lack of information from valve. Seeing as though they want to keep everything hidden so we will buy the game and not magazines that house reviews, they have given us crumbs off Portal's multi tiered cake. But I am here not to discuss marketing issues with valve but what could happen with portal given the evidence we already had. Now it is time for me to speculate.

You have all seen the Episode 2 trailer where Mossman is in a facility in the snow where a Hunter leaps at her. I believe that is the Aperture Science Facility. I am sure many other people believe this too. But this might be before the Portal tests are started I think. I don't think that the Portal game is set in the past, I only believe that the Aperture Science company/organization was abandoned but was searched by another group and then reinitiated. The combine might be the ones we reinitiated this Portal facility and that is why there are Hunters guarding it. Mossman gets captured and is taken hostage, maybe even killed, where some citizen rebles that were with her were taken hostage. One of them is the Portal character. One of those random citizens might have been captured and then taken as a lab rat. One of them has been made special. But Gordon is off fighting to deliver the packet and noone knows about the facility yet (well, maybe). This facility in the snow seems odd to be the Aperture Science Facility, but nobody has seen the outside of it. The possibilities of this are just enough to make me notice this. I am sure you have all been thinking about htis for a long time.

As you may know, a previous thread has had a picture of the main Portal character. Where is she in the Portal facility? Is she on the last tier of the cake? Is she in the beginning of the story? That is for you to discuss in this thread. Now......Discuss!

 

[MorganFreeman911]

First of all, I think it was stated somewhere that the combine run Aperture Science. Don't ask me where but I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere. Second of all, i'm pretty sure that the project is not the portal gun. Portal has some to do with the story of HL, but I'm pretty sure it isn't the portal gun.

 

[losttheskyagain]

Mmmmm, cake.

The portal technology is pretty advanced to have been started by human scientists. When Gordon was in Black Mesa (the last time humanity was free to research and create), the portal technology was only able to get subjects to Xen and around Black Mesa. It was pretty sketchy. I doubt that information was ready to be put in the form we see in the Portal game.

The Combine, however, definitely have the capability to put portal-tossing power into a gun. They might be testing humans to see if they would be good candidates in "off-world" use of the gun (Striders can't use it, neither can many of their other synths, and the Vortigaunts are -- for the most part -- free, though in hiding).

I'm sure the Combine employ humans in the Aperture facility. The website supports this. Whether employment is voluntary or forced, I think it is too early to say.

...I think I stayed on topic.

 

[magiolle]

In my humble opinion, the Portal game takes place before the HL2 events, and now (in the present, EP2) it's an abandoned facility. There must be some goddamn important stuff around there, but I think it is not (only) the portal-gun.
I heard theories about the Portal character was Azian (Eli's wife, Alyx's mother) but I doubt it's true. But I think Gordon and she will meet or interact somehow. We will see... about that. (in OCTOBER!!!)

 

[Jintor]

Imho the Combine do not have any form of in-universe portal technology that does not require a Dark Energy reactor at this point in time.

 

[Stigmata]

Here's my hypothesis.

Portal takes place in the future. I think it's been stated by the developers that this is the case. It also likely takes place in a research facility located in or near a Combine-controlled city. Remember, City 17 is just one of possibly dozens of other large cities that have been taken over. For all we know, the HL2 episodes might only see Gordon and the other main characters destroying two cities, or even being sent off-world.

If Aperture Sciences is controlled by the Combine, then this supports the threatening and difficult nature of the application site, along with the sarcastic, not-quite-human female instructor's voice and the theme of "fighting back" that we'll see as we progress through Portal. It also supports the general super-high quality and size of the Aperture testing facility. It also supports the fact that this portal technology is easily compacted into a small hand-held device, and is presumably mass-produced.

If the test subjects are getting rebellious, then I'd say the Combine are selecting humans who are either disobedient by nature, or are ex-rebels from a failed rebellion against the Combine occupying whichever of the Cities the game takes place in. Either way, they are human, and they attempt to fight back against the test facility (according to a few interviews/previews).

[[ Random thought: If Mossman gets captured by the Combine, and we haven't seen the face of the test subject you play in Portal, perhaps that test subject is Mossman? ]]

The Combine are using humans to test the Portal technology for unknown reasons. Either they have yet to create or find beings of comparable intelligence and are using us as expendable subjects in case the portals fail, or they are testing the general intelligence, ability to conceptualize the idea of portals, and the problem-solving abilities of humans. Maybe both. Perhaps this Portal technology has been manufactured and sent to all Combine-controlled worlds, each with their own similar testing facilities, to see which world has a species capable of using the portal technology to its fullest potential.

In this case the Combine are probably seeing which species could best be put to use as a sort of shock trooper to help invade other worlds and suppress its inhabitants. I'd also wager that the Combine's current method of turning creatures into Synths (changing a human into a Combine Soldier or Elite, for example) either damages or destroys a large part of a creature's brain devoted to problem-solving and other things, which gets replaced by easily-controlled digital processors. So they could also be determining how to change their synthesization process in order for their future shock troopers to be able to use the Portal technology to its fullest potential.

That's all I've got now. And yes, I made it up as I typed

 

[Sloth]

For some reason the comment "using computers that are twenty years old" and that all the APSCI website looks like it would be on computers from 20 years ago...
Methinks that it is set closer to the HL1 time, maybe the 2nd Project that was funded - after BM was nuked the funding got sent to APSCI?

 

[Stigmata]

For some reason the comment "using computers that are twenty years old" and that all the APSCI website looks like it would be on computers from 20 years ago...
Methinks that it is set closer to the HL1 time, maybe the 2nd Project that was funded - after BM was nuked the funding got sent to APSCI?

Probably not. The Portal gun, to me at least, seems like a very logical evolution of the Gravity gun (I liked it better when it was called the Manipulator ), and in HL1 times the technology required to open a portal took up enormous rooms and required enormous amounts of power. Once HL2 rolled around, Kleiner had a much more compact, but still huge, teleportation device in his secret base, along with the Gravity gun.

Plus, there's no way any testing facility or company in HL1 times would have gotten enough money to build such a frigging enormous testing facility AND have a huge number of highly-advanced turrets and Portal guns. Not to mention the fact that the "energy orbs" from HL2, which only the Combine have used, seem to be very prominent.

As far as the old-looking computers, I'd say the Combine decided that the infrastructure for "applying" to Aperture Science already existed in the form of shitty 20-year-old text-only computers and maybe some LAN cables/DSL lines, so they didn't need to waste any resources creating a flashy, well-designed system of their own.

 

[Barnz]

The base was constructed in 1982, which means the game takes a place in 2002. Does anyone remember the coordinates?

 

[Aki]

I don't see why the portal gun's compact nature means it has to take place during HL2.

Especially when the whole "teleportation inside the same universe" concept is still a total mystery to the combine aside from the large, slow clunky teleporting machine in Nova Prospekt constructed from Eli's notes and such.

I think what it means is that Arpeture Science did it differently. Their teleportation device - a portal gun - is extremely short-range and exclusively in-universe. Hell, if sealed in a room with no windows, doors, etc. this thing would be worthless. This thing's no compaction of Kliener/Eli/Mossman's work by any means.

 

[soulslicer]

simple.

combine run the facility to test this gun for use in combat.
humans are used in this test forcefully as seen from horrible blood stains and graffiti on the well..read this part somewhere..

 

[Silarn]

Once again, the Combine had nothing even close to the portal gun. Their technology was reworked to even manage (and badly, seeing as how Alyx & Gordon were in a week-long stasis) what Kleiner's could pull off, and it took huge amounts of time and power to prep.

We're explicitly told in HL2 that the Combine only have one-shot, linear teleportation. (With the exception of the Nova-Prospekt teleporter Mossman re-worked.) They can only move from one universe to another, while the rebels use a slingshot technique (think Apollo 13 but with Xen and multiverses) to travel around the same planet.

The portal gun is a wild departure from both of these things. Not only is it compact enough to fit into a hand-held device, but it can be used on-the-fly with little to no recharge time creating simultaneous doorways within a single universe. About the only link to Combine that I have seen is that their huge portals do actually show the things on the other side of the 'door'. We caught a glimpse of a Combine world at the end of HL2.

If anything, I would guess that the G-Man has something to do with Aperture Science. We are learning more about him in Ep2, no? And we also know we're supposed to hear something about Aperture Science.

 

[McCoy]

Now that you have all awakened me to this thread that I made I have a new theory. Aperture Science is a team of scientists hired by the Combine/captured by the combine to make this new Portal system. This is where they put the character through a series of tests to see how she withstands. That could be right, right??

 

[MJ12]

theories shmeories

 

[MJ12]

Oh I'll give you a theory alright.


It's called Baby Geniuses 3: The Escape from BabeTopia

The babies are back and badder then ever.

They have created a science lab, testing adults to see if they can outsmart the babies' clever portal puzzels.

Whether or not this adult test subject survives, will determine the fate of anyone over the age of 12.

 

[McCoy]

um i highly doubt that babies play an integral part in the storyline at all. I think that kittens mite though!

 

[Avoidist]

Kittens? Bah! It's clearly the puppies, they are using the portals to find ways to always land on their feet, thus defeating the kittens once and for all!

On a more serious note, the Aperture Science website kinda feels a bit too pre-combine, especially with that secret person's message with "the cake is a lie" entered. Sister 'Labratory' to Black Mesa seems far more likely, and would give background for Magnusson's story. After all, he knows that the data you have is the packet Mossman has which is the packet the combine are after, that seems like a logical reason.

 

[Jintor]

I keep telling you people, the Combine at this point in time absolutely positively do not have hand-held portable teleportation technology. And I sincerely doubt they are running Aperture Science.

Avoidist's theory is one I run with.

 

[MJ12]

Yeah, I don't think its the combine. It's just not their visual style IMO. Combine have very industrial looking things, very grungy, and unwelcoming. The Aperture Science Center is cold, but clean looking. Looks like something more likely to be built by humans.

 

[Polaris]

Well, lot of things in Aperture Science Enrichment Center are based on Combine technology, energy pellets, pulse turrets...and also ASHPD using gravity gun (Science Team technology). Everything seems to be reverse engineered by Aperture Science. My money on G-man's involvement.

Another mystery is aperturescience.com, I guess some parts of this test are real questions for future employees and another, extraordinary questions are part of some sort of psychological experiment.

 

[scotland1]

I keep telling you people, the Combine at this point in time absolutely positively do not have hand-held portable teleportation technology. And I sincerely doubt they are running Aperture Science.

Avoidist's theory is one I run with.

I'm saving this in my sig until you are proven wrong.

 

[W4d5Y]

First of all, I think it was stated somewhere that the combine run Aperture Science. Don't ask me where but I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere. Second of all, i'm pretty sure that the project is not the portal gun. Portal has some to do with the story of HL, but I'm pretty sure it isn't the portal gun.

Well, the combine aren' neither. They also are reduced to being able to teleport from one galaxy to another, which is by far less than what the Scientists at the Black Mesa research facility managed to aquire, concider the combine "have to rely on local transportation", "once they're in."
while at Black Mesa, they DID have the local transporation.

Well, as for Portal, I think it's playing in the past, and is definately run by a third party, not human, not combine, maybe a faction being equal to the gman himself...

Now, I think "the project" is the portal gun, or rather its technology, because that's something the combine are in utter need of right now, while the humans and the vorts have to prevent them from getting exactely that.

Now, I think it'S aperture's more advanced technology they're all after because if I was Laidlaw and wanted to create a connection between Half-life and Portal, Aperture probably would do the job.

 

[Narvi]

It makes sense if it was a sister lab to Black Mesa, and Magnusson was working there. It would explain how the gravity gun came to be, for instance.

 

[Tuskin]

Maybe we will find out in EP2. According to a interview a few months back we will learn more about Aperture Science in Episode 2 then in Portal

 

[DigDug88]

Everyone talks about the video feed, but no one talks about the screen that appears when you press enter.
they (you?) are buying flour ($100), thumbtacks ($1.50), and a intub-xlg(?)
whatever an extra large Intub is, it costs almost a million dollars
probably has something to do with baking a cake with $1,000 worth of flour
something you'll find in-game? (probably nothing, but i though it was worth mentioning)

 

[Tuskin]

Yeah the rices seem to be something about cake.

 

[DigDug88]

Wait, wait, wait, what was Dr. Mossman looking for in the arctic?
could the "project" be the portal gun or aperture science laboratories???