Half-Life & Portal series, general discussion (v3) - Games

It would have been nice if there were subtle hints that Aperture knew or suspected the existence of the combine, and built the borealis to combat it, though the story doesn't seem to be going there. They probably just built a teleporting warship for the hell of it, why not?

[QUOTE=hogofwar;39266071]It would have been nice if there were subtle hints that Aperture knew or suspected the existence of the combine, and built the borealis to combat it, though the story doesn't seem to be going there. They probably just built a teleporting warship for the hell of it, why not?[/QUOTE] I think they all died long before the combine. It has just been glados in the facility this entire time.

[QUOTE=hogofwar;39266071]It would have been nice if there were subtle hints that Aperture knew or suspected the existence of the combine, and built the borealis to combat it, though the story doesn't seem to be going there. They probably just built a teleporting warship for the hell of it, why not?[/QUOTE] Why is everyone calling it a warship? The schematics are for a battleship- the USS Newport News. The EP2 Borealis is based off the USCGC Healy which was docked in Seattle coincidentally at the time of development. The original Borealis was based off the USCGC Polar Sea/USCGC Polar Star. Which if you look at the schematics, [I]doesn't actually match.[/I]

Off topic, I know, but whatever happened to that mod Tales from the Galactopticon? Edit: Don't rate me late if you're not going to answer, jerk. Second edit: Listen, ye shperg lords /gets so mad

[QUOTE=Im Crimson;39260061]Imagine if they introduced enemies with portal guns... and the AI to use them both to displace themselves, but also against the player? They could wreck our shit in so many ways :v:[/QUOTE] I had a concept of that once, where the player would move through some sort of industrial complex, and an Officer (Elite?) following on the catwalks and roofs would use the portal device to open holes in the wall where Soldiers attack / rappel through.

[QUOTE=vexx21322;39266163]I think they all died long before the combine. It has just been glados in the facility this entire time.[/QUOTE] I didn't mean they were alive at the time of the attack, I meant they suspected/knew about the combine or a similar threat long before it actually happened. Of course, there is nothing backing this up at all, and I just said I would have liked a plot thread pointing like this, even if a bit pointless. Could be a little like a deus ex machina (or whatever it's called).

[QUOTE=hogofwar;39267865]I didn't mean they were alive at the time of the attack, I meant they suspected/knew about the combine or a similar threat long before it actually happened. Of course, there is nothing backing this up at all, and I just said I would have liked a plot thread pointing like this, even if a bit pointless. Could be a little like a deus ex machina (or whatever it's called).[/QUOTE] That's actually a really cool idea. Like. They're experimenting with interdimensional technology or something, and they accidentally get a peak at the Combine homeworld.

[QUOTE=Solomon;39267415]Off topic, I know, but whatever happened to that mod Tales from the Galactopticon? Edit: Don't rate me late if you're not going to answer, jerk. Second edit: Listen, ye shperg lords /gets so mad[/QUOTE] The mod is on hold, but this exists: [url]http://galactopticon.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/[/url] As for the Borealis, I thought Valve made it clear that they were trying to separate Portal and HL again?

[QUOTE=Uberslug;39268392]The mod is on hold, but this exists: [url]http://galactopticon.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/[/url] As for the Borealis, I thought Valve made it clear that they were trying to separate Portal and HL again?[/QUOTE] Thanks!

[QUOTE=Uberslug;39268392]The mod is on hold, but this exists: [url]http://galactopticon.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/[/url] As for the Borealis, I thought Valve made it clear that they were trying to separate Portal and HL again?[/QUOTE] Where has it been said they are trying to distance the two? Can someone explain to me what seperating the two would actually mean? They can't separate them completely as they are both in the same universe, and Portal is now relevant to the next Half-Life game. I thought they just wanted it so that characters and the ingame story from the one series wouldn't have a direct effect on the other.

[QUOTE=nightlord;39268517]Where has it been said they are trying to distance the two? Can someone explain to me what seperating the two would actually mean? They can't separate them completely as they are both in the same universe, and Portal is now relevant to the next Half-Life game. I thought they just wanted it so that characters and the ingame story from the one series wouldn't have a direct effect on the other.[/QUOTE] Portal is, Portal 2 is not. Portal 2 sort of went off on it's own track separated from Half-Life.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;39268766]Portal is, Portal 2 is not. Portal 2 sort of went off on it's own track separated from Half-Life.[/QUOTE] The things we find out about Aperture in Portal 2 are still going to be relevant to Half-Life. They are still in the same Universe.

[QUOTE=Uberslug;39268392]The mod is on hold, but this exists: [url]http://galactopticon.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/[/url][/QUOTE] This comic appears to also be on hold.

[QUOTE=Butthurter;39269497]do you not grasp the concept of a spinoff[/QUOTE] Portal isn't a spinoff, the whole Black Mesa stuff is just a nod to Half-Life no?

[QUOTE=TectoImprov;39269784]Portal isn't a spinoff, the whole Black Mesa stuff is just a nod to Half-Life no?[/QUOTE] No. Aperture Science was competing with Black Mesa for government grants. Black Mesa cared about safety but Aperture Science took more risks, hence the Borealis disappearing. (Obviously this must have disappeared pre-resonance cascade otherwise nobody would have noticed it.) Portal 1 is canon and fits into the HL2 Universe. Portal 2 branches off of the HL2 universe and incorporates much more unrealistic things and generally added silliness because players of Portal 1 liked those things about Aperture Science. The Borealis drydock seen in Portal 2 is mainly an easter egg.

[QUOTE=Ereunity;39270010]No. Aperture Science was competing with Black Mesa for government grants. Black Mesa cared about safety but Aperture Science took more risks, hence the Borealis disappearing. (Obviously this must have disappeared pre-resonance cascade otherwise nobody would have noticed it.) Portal 1 is canon and fits into the HL2 Universe. Portal 2 branches off of the HL2 universe and incorporates much more unrealistic things and generally added silliness because players of Portal 1 liked those things about Aperture Science. The Borealis drydock seen in Portal 2 is mainly an easter egg.[/QUOTE] source?

[QUOTE=Ereunity;39270010]No. Aperture Science was competing with Black Mesa for government grants. Black Mesa cared about safety but Aperture Science took more risks, hence the Borealis disappearing. (Obviously this must have disappeared pre-resonance cascade otherwise nobody would have noticed it.) Portal 1 is canon and fits into the HL2 Universe. Portal 2 branches off of the HL2 universe and incorporates much more unrealistic things and generally added silliness because players of Portal 1 liked those things about Aperture Science. The Borealis drydock seen in Portal 2 is mainly an easter egg.[/QUOTE] What? Valve has never said this. Portal 2 is still in the Half life universe and is canon. The closest thing they've said about it was this: [quote] [B]GR: From the design standpoint of Portal 2, were you are thinking in your mind, “if we were going to make a Half-Life 3, how would Portal 2 tie into that main story line?”[/B] EW: Yes, to a certain extent, you don’t want to do something that is going to screw up Half-Life 3. So I can tell you that Chell is not going to blow up the Earth by the end of Portal 2. You want to leave something there. But having said that, we do the linkage and do some references but we kind of considered, at least Portal writers do, [that] if you think of it as the X-Files, Half-Life is the ongoing serious story with the characters of X-Files. Then X-Files would have these absurd one-off episodes. Portal is a self-contained thing and that’s the Aperture Funhouse of Science, you know?[/quote] This does not mean that Portal 2 is non-canon. It just means things such as the characters and the overall story from Portal 2 will not be able to effect Half-life, or the other way around. Everything in portal 2 is canon and the things such as the BackStory of Aperture are relevant to Half-Life. I don't see how Portal 2 was much more silly than Portal 1 either when Portal 1 had things like testing a chicken, an AI obsessed with Cake, vaporization counted as a disability, safety devices were turned off for the participants safety etc. Portal 1 was mostly dark humour but so are several things in Portal 2 when you actually think about them. We also don't know exactly how the things Aperture created worked and they are the sort of company that would oversimplify their explanations for things. The Borealis drydock being an Easter egg does not mean that it is not canon either. Valve specifically chose to have it's drydock underground, if they didn't intend that to be how it actually is they would of chose something else.

[QUOTE=nightlord;39270289]I don't see how Portal 2 was much more silly[/QUOTE] In Portal 2 GLaDOS spent the first half of the game making fat jokes and then turned into a potato that spouted one-liners.

Portal 2 was definitely sillier. And easier. And all around more for kids. Kids who can't even appreciate what the game was.

[QUOTE=EarlCdwards;39270377]In Portal 2 GLaDOS spent the first half of the game making fat jokes and then turned into a potato that spouted one-liners.[/QUOTE] She is an AI that is based on a real person and she hates Chell for what she did in Portal 1. I see nothing wrong with her saying bad things about her because of that.

Portal 1 and 2 takes place in the same universe as Half-Life, but it seems pretty clear to me that they added the massive time difference (how many hundreds of years was it?) to clearly distance the events in Portal 2 from Half-Life. So that leaves us knowing that Earth as we know doesn't end with HL/Episode 3 (since Chell, Aperture and (some) land above ground is intact by the time of Portal 2), but not much more than that.

[QUOTE=nightlord;39270523]She is an AI that is based on a real person and she hates Chell for what she did in Portal 1. I see nothing wrong with her saying bad things about her because of that.[/QUOTE] That's not the point though, it's about the differences in delivery between Portal and Portal 2. The original game was honestly hilarious in places but was presented in an entirely serious and often unsettling manner; the humour was implied rather than forced upon the player like in Portal 2. Compare these two quotes. Both are very similar in their sentiment, but the emotion and atmosphere are vastly different. Portal: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcy1NPZVT3w&t=71m25s[/url] Portal 2: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy3dIicSI_0[/url]

[QUOTE=Im Crimson;39270565]Portal 1 and 2 takes place in the same universe as Half-Life, but it seems pretty clear to me that they added the massive time difference (how many hundreds of years was it?) to clearly distance the events in Portal 2 from Half-Life. So that leaves us knowing that Earth as we know doesn't end with HL/Episode 3 (since Chell, Aperture and (some) land above ground is intact by the time of Portal 2), but not much more than that.[/QUOTE] At some point between Portal 1 and Portal 2 the Combine attempt to get into Aperture Science.

[QUOTE=nightlord;39270289]I don't see how Portal 2 was much more silly than Portal 1 either when Portal 1 had things like testing a chicken, an AI obsessed with Cake, vaporization counted as a disability, safety devices were turned off for the participants safety etc. Portal 1 was mostly dark humour but so are several things in Portal 2 when you actually think about them. We also don't know exactly how the things Aperture created worked and they are the sort of company that would oversimplify their explanations for things.[/QUOTE] Because Portal 2 had a lab that killed off a generation of war heroes and Olympians, created mantis men before we were even sure what DNA did, had a Portal Device in 1950 (decades before Black Mesa was founded, but somehow still lost the teleportation contract?), a core strong enough to power miles of infrastructure being powered by a potato, etc. Portal's humour was dark and kinda silly but Portal 2's is completely non-serious. Portal was originally a tie-in to Half-Life, the game was an experiment and this was part of the campaign to help sell it. Portal 2's universe has branched off of Half-Life's and has become it's own thing.

Portal was like a lean piece of poultry. Not much could be spared; it had to fit in the last little bit of space left in the Orange Box, so there's nothing that doesn't need to be there. Portal 2 was like a slab of marbled beef. It got its own package and could weigh as much as it wanted, and the butcher kept putting in bits of spice and onion for little reason.

And I enjoyed Portal 2 more for what it was.

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;39270715]Because Portal 2 had a lab that killed off a generation of war heroes and Olympians, created mantis men before we were even sure what DNA did, had a Portal Device in 1950 (decades before Black Mesa was founded, but somehow still lost the teleportation contract?), a core strong enough to power miles of infrastructure being powered by a potato, etc. Portal's humour was dark and kinda silly but Portal 2's is completely non-serious. Portal was originally a tie-in to Half-Life, the game was an experiment and this was part of the campaign to help sell it. Portal 2's universe has branched off of Half-Life's and has become it's own thing.[/QUOTE] I don't remember it ever being said when Black Mesa was founded. Besides, that's what Retcons are for. It wasn't said if any of the War Heroes and Olympians died, was it? They didn't have to know what DNA did to be able to inject people with it and hope it did something (and it obviously worked), Aperture didn't really care too much about safety which is also the most likely reason they lost the teleportation contract and always came 2nd. GLaDOS wasn't powering miles of infrastructure, that was separate reactors. Aperture also had Nanobots, which were even smaller than the Potato and seemed to be just as much an AI as she was - it was only her personality that was powered by the Potato. Is there any proof about them being separate universes other than speculation because it's sillier?

[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;39270715] a core strong enough to power miles of infrastructure being powered by a potato[/QUOTE] That's not really an issue. She doesn't power everything (she referred to reactors and fuel cells powering the facility during Portal 2), she just controls it all. Being able to run off of 1.1 V is more confusing, but it's part of the same suspension of disbelief that allows for both her and the portal gun to exist in the first place.

Say the next Half-Life ends with everyone on Earth dying. That means Aperture is humanity's last hope.

I always though the potato thing to be more believable. It was stated that she was vastly stripped down to basic thinking processes by Wheatly. Which would probably be how she found Caroline. Her AI is designed to watch over and analyze the center, being unhooked from it she probably started monitoring herself and dedicating more to personality. As for powering miles of infrastructure, I doubt Glados supplied the power herself. She was really just a more advanced personality core judging by the "core replacement" shit. Seems more likely that she was just like an SD card. In fact, it is at multiple times stated that there are reactors powering the facilty. I don't know how much attention you paid but the reactors being rebooted and running hot because Wheatley is stupid was a [B]major part of the plot.[/B] The portal devices of 1950 were probably extremely dangerous and inefficient. The portals that an ASHPD creates modern day are small, they were probably smaller and more unstable back. The government would be looking for teleportation of weapons and resources. Tanks for example. The wormholes of aperture simply aren't big enough to put military hardware through. Plus their reckless behaviour and unsafe testing compared to black mesa's fully thought out safety routines and highly educated staff. Aperature did a lot of undisclosed and confidential testing. The mantis men were probably covered up afterwards and any DNA experimentation papers etc. destroyed to rid proof and liability. The borealis was probably built underground as a way of proving to the government that aperture could teleport large vessels reliably and a way to steal the contract back from Black Mesa. It's fairly obvious that the test failed and the vessel was teleported to an unknown location. Even the theory of the combine invading aperture is possible, and might explain why the facility is in such bad shape despite being out of the way of any dangers.