5punk

I do believe this was even offered a few days ago, you could already have been finding out for youself about Borealis!

Baliame wrote:
Definently not, if you tried the aperture science online stuff, it says three things important things about the timeline. First is that if you login as cjohnson, type NOTES, then you will discover he died in 1979. Development of Portal Gun began in this year. Also it says that development of GLaDoS began in 1986. The third thing would be if you type THECAKEISALIE it will tell you that they're working with twenty year old equipment. This means Portal takes place in a range of 1996 (Portal Gun + 20 - 3) to 2010 (GLaDoS + 20 + 3) with a difference of +/- 3.

Some good points there. The fact that Johnson died in 1979 isn't really relevant; all he did was seed the idea of the portal gun (along with some other ideas sparked by his mercury poisoning induced insanity). I don't think Chell is Johnson's daughter. I don't think the escapee is anyone we've met yet.

The 20 year old technology might piss on my chips a bit though. Portal must be at least 1996, as the Aperture Science terminal puts the next entry - the GLaDOS experiment - as 'later'. That's fine, as GLaDOS development started in 1986 meaning the time if the notes being written was probably around 2006. However, funding was given in 1981, which could mean that the technology begins there.

The main thing from this is that it's obviously an employee who wrote the 'thecakeisalie' bit, and that there are other employees there at that time. Could be from 2000 and the lockdown is a result of Black Mesa, which would be 19 years after research started. That seems a bit wrong to me though. I'll have to revise my theory I think.

I'm still confused about the orange letters on the keyboard, which I put in spoiler text on the last page.

I reckon that's a red herring. I can't see any way to associate Shepherd with Aperture Science - he went into stasis like Freeman didn't he? As far as I can tell (and hope), Aperture Science is completely independent of the HL plotline aside from it running concurrently. I'm thinking they'll merge maybe in Ep3, and maybe Shepherd will make a reappearance there, but I can't think of any logical reason why his name would be spelled out on the keyboards. I think they put it in there to fuel conspiracy theories, while making the keyboards look like 80s technology.

Of course I could be wrong, as I often see far more eloquent storylines and end up completely disappointed.

Well, we'll all find out in a couple of years.

Hopefully.

If they don't put more stuff into HL3.

Dog Pants wrote:Aperture Science is completely independent of the HL plotline

Best to have a play of Ep 2.

Non-spoilerifically, AS is known of by former BM employees - in a similar way to how BM is referenced in Portal. Outside of the story, Portal's success is likely to contribute to future plot developments, even if direct reference to the events in Portal is unlikely and probably undesirable.

FatherJack wrote: Best to have a play of Ep 2.

That'll have to wait I'm afraid. I left it updating last night and it did about 10% in eight hours.

TezzRexx wrote:
Would it not be quicker for one of us to burn you a DVD with all the steam content files on and post it to you?

Dog Pants wrote:The main thing from this is that it's obviously an employee who wrote the 'thecakeisalie' bit, and that there are other employees there at that time.

It was definitely an employee of another branch of Aperture Science who wrote that - perhaps the research facility which developed the Portal gun...

...OR Borealis. Now there's a theory - the Borealis ate up craploads of funding (hence the part somehow they can afford to build an 'enrichment center') and was developed for a very long time.

The Aperture Science website mentions that they were contracted to supply shower curtains to the military, but not the navy. Later, Johnson was trying to poison the navy chiefs of staff when he was poisoned himself. There's a long standing link between Aperture Science and ships, but I can't quite see what it is yet.

Baliame wrote:
It was definitely an employee of another branch of Aperture Science who wrote that - perhaps the research facility which developed the Portal gun...

...OR Borealis. Now there's a theory - the Borealis ate up craploads of funding (hence the part somehow they can afford to build an 'enrichment center') and was developed for a very long time.

Or, they built the enrichment center first, constructed GlaDOS, which can manage the facility on it's own, had the accident with GlaDOS, installed the morality core and continued the the facilty, but with a black mark against them.

Borealis incident is the final nail in the coffin and they lose all funding, and therefore staff. Would explain why the facility is empty and there is no new equipment (Not needed if GlaDos is managing the whole shebang).

Doesn't explain how Chell got there though.

I'm convinced Chell is there as a result of the first bring-your-daughter-to-work-day. Who knows how long ago that could have been though.

Dog Pants wrote:I'm convinced Chell is there as a result of the first bring-your-daughter-to-work-day. Who knows how long ago that could have been though.

yup I think that too

Why only daughters though? Seems odd. Could be there's a reason for only wanting female test subjects, or it could back up my theory that there only ended up being one employee there who created an opportunity for his own daughter to come in.

TezzRexx wrote:Would it not be quicker for one of us to burn you a DVD with all the steam content files on and post it to you?

You're still not getting through, try typing is louder.

Would that work? How would I install it?

I installed the game from the DVDs in the Orange Box. Now it's just updating over Steam. 58% now.

Dog Pants wrote:Would that work? How would I install it?

I installed the game from the DVDs in the Orange Box. Now it's just updating over Steam. 58% now.

I backed up and restored TF2 when I reinstalled XP last week. It dumps all the data into CD or DVD sized directories, for easy burning, and it includes an installer .exe file for easy restoring. So that if anyone who has an up-to-date copy of whatever game did the backup it will contain all the up-to-date data and you wont need to download it.

Hmmm, that might be handy. Any volunteers?

Dog Pants wrote:Why only daughters though?

They wanted to test the equipment on dumber test subjects than men?

Dog Pants wrote:Hmmm, that might be handy. Any volunteers?

Earliest I could do it would be tmrw night, so you wouldn't get it till thurs at the best. If no-one else offers before that I can do it, so let me know by tmrw evening.

5punk

Portal spoilerz/discussion