Portal 2 Spoilers Thread

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Since the Portal 2 Catch All thread was becoming a wall of white (great for portal surfaces, not so great to read) here is a thread to discuss spoilers separately. Don't venture within unless you have completed the game at least!

Let the rampant speculation begin!

Tagging for later use, as one of the most egregious offenders in the other thread.

I saved science! (in coop)

So I'm going through for the commentary and then glados says

I was going through the list of test subjects in cryogenic storage, and two of them have your last name, a man and a woman. So that's interesting.

So that's interesting.

Ooh, good call. I posted these others, but they got buried in spoilers and links are hard (if not impossible) to find in spoiler text. Here are the entire voice files for the three corrupt cores:

Oh, and for those of you who are attempting to keep track of the Chell/Caroline/GLaDOS relationship, the broken turret had some interesting things to say. I listened to all of them in-game, but didn't get any of them until finishing the Old Aperture area, for obvious reasons. References to lemonade, Caroline and Prometheus (Cave?) abound.

Scratched wrote:

So I'm going through for the commentary and then glados says

I was going through the list of test subjects in cryogenic storage, and two of them have your last name, a man and a woman. So that's interesting.

So that's interesting.

I think that's just a set-up for her surprise later. She keeps dropping hints about Chell's parents before the big let-down.

Also, Space Core is my favourite personality core.

Scratched wrote:

So I'm going through for the commentary and then glados says

I was going through the list of test subjects in cryogenic storage, and two of them have your last name, a man and a woman. So that's interesting.

So that's interesting.

I just took that as GLaOS f*cking with Chell. According to the comic, Chell's last name in her Aperture file is [Redacted].

Scratched wrote:

So I'm going through for the commentary and then glados says

I was going through the list of test subjects in cryogenic storage, and two of them have your last name, a man and a woman. So that's interesting.

So that's interesting.

I'm pretty sure that's an outright lie. Remember, her name is redacted in the tables shown in the comic (presumably the same ones GLaDOS uses), and GLaDOS really does seem to think Chell is adopted later on when she's part of PotatOS and has difficulty lying due to lack of voltage.

Speaking of voltage, has anyone gone back through for the commentary and noticed that the backup announcer mentions that "in the case of catastrophe, systems in Aperture can function on as little as 1.1 volts"...the same amount as you can pull from a potato.

EDIT: bah, Tannhauser'd in Tannhauser's own thread.

Minarchist wrote:

Speaking of voltage, has anyone gone back through for the commentary and noticed that the backup announcer mentions that "in the case of catastrophe, systems in Aperture can function on as little as 1.1 volts"...the same amount as you can pull from a potato. :)

Yeah, I noticed that the first time through. I love all the little details they sneak in like that.

And GLaDOS was capable of lying when she said Chell was adopted - she'd just finished lying to Wheatley before she said that, and she also lied to him about how to solve that one test. Still, she sounded pretty sincere when she said it so who knows.

Minarchist wrote:

Oh, and for those of you who are attempting to keep track of the Chell/Caroline/GLaDOS relationship, the broken turret had some interesting things to say. I listened to all of them in-game, but didn't get any of them until finishing the Old Aperture area, for obvious reasons. References to lemonade, Caroline and Prometheus (Cave?) abound.

I think the Prometheus part is just a reference to GLaDOS. Mainly the part about being cast into the bowels of the Earth and being pecked by birds.

Huh... I wonder what could be at http://spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccee.com/?

Ok, I know a lot of you like the Adventure Sphere but the Fact Sphere is the best sphere. "The past tense of Surgeons General is Surgeonsed General." That's just informative right there.

I think all this is Valve's doing to get people to talk about it, and it's working perfectly according to plan

"The square root of rope is string." Love it.

Tannhauser wrote:

Huh... I wonder what could be at http://spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccee.com/?

So, uh...what is reager.org? It is a very strange place. New ARG?

Tannhauser wrote:

Huh... I wonder what could be at http://spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccee.com/?

awesome

Minarchist wrote:

So, uh...what is reager.org? It is a very strange place. New ARG?

There's a link to a TF2 server ban list with a picture of a naked anime fox-girl thing. Something tells me it's not an official Valve thing.

Ah yes, good call.

My feelings about the surface story (i.e. the part that doesn't require any spotting of Chell's name on artwork or talking to hard to find turrets to figure out):

I think that the central story this time is not the story of Chell, or GLaDOS, or even of Cave and Caroline (although you could argue that all of those characters are directly related).

It's the story of Aperture Science—of a company devoted from the very beginning to mad science. Of the man who founded the company, the woman who stood by his side. The people who worked. The people who volunteered. The early days, filled with excitement and enthusiasm... and the steady progression of things as the people involved with the company grew ever more jaded. (Presumably as their inventions are ignored, discarded, or stolen.) And finally, as it loses its humanity and is transformed into something... other.

I don't know if there's really any coherent theme to it, but that's the feeling I got out of things: That Aperture had (and has!) as *history*. The whole experience of being dropped into the bowels of the Earth to walk through places lost in time changed the sensation of "okay, so there's this lab", and created a world where it was an enterprise full of bright, hopeful people.

I mean: The size of the place--the *old* parts of the place, from before serious use of computerization and particularly robotic automation. It's HUGE. Imagine how many people must have been working there in Aperture's heyday.

Cave Johnson's story is intertwined through everything, of course: It has to be, because Aperture was clearly his baby. He poured his life into the company... and in the end, it was his end. But when he died, he died... and the story kept going. And the place kept getting stranger, day by day.

I wonder if we'll ever come back to this world. I wonder what more can be said about it without altering it irretrievably. How could we return to face GLaDOS as Chell (with or without the belief that Chell is Caroline's daughter)... how could the world not fall apart if we remove the mad scientist (or rogue AI) from the center of everything?

GLaDOS is Chell's Mother!

Edit: I should mention that I am completely joking. I have no idea how the relationships between all of the characters work.

I think it's a little weird that it's implied that Cave Johnson died because of the moon rock dust but he was supposed to have died because he accidentally injected himself with mercury while trying to make deadly shower curtains. CONTINUITY ERROR!!!

Hypatian wrote:

I wonder if we'll ever come back to this world. I wonder what more can be said about it without altering it irretrievably. How could we return to face GLaDOS as Chell (with or without the belief that Chell is Caroline's daughter)... how could the world not fall apart if we remove the mad scientist (or rogue AI) from the center of everything?

There's always retcons.

And http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/File... http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/File...

iaintgotnopants wrote:

I think it's a little weird that it's implied that Cave Johnson died because of the moon rock dust but he was supposed to have died because he accidentally injected himself with mercury while trying to make deadly shower curtains. CONTINUITY ERROR!!!

The mercury story might have been a cover-up for the moon rock thing, or he could have just been suffering from mercury poisoning and imagining the whole moon rock thing - he was also ranting about incendiary lemons, after all.

Or it's just a retcon.

I need to go back and find all the little things I missed in my first play-through (the singing turret room, rat man's lairs, achievements, etc). Also, just to replay it.

Speaking of which...where IS the rat man's lair??

I think it's a little weird that it's implied that Cave Johnson died because of the moon rock dust but he was supposed to have died because he accidentally injected himself with mercury while trying to make deadly shower curtains. CONTINUITY ERROR!!!

Who says he didn't do both?

Also was I the only one here that noticed the paper clipping that indicated that Apature Science was located in an old salt mine in the upper peninsula of Michigan?

Nope. Saw that. A *biiiig* freaking salt mine, apparently.

Norfair wrote:

Also was I the only one here that noticed the paper clipping that indicated that Apature Science was located in an old salt mine in the upper peninsula of Michigan?

I noticed it! Though it said "upper Michigan" so it's not necessarily the UP. Maybe it's near me!

kexx wrote:

Speaking of which...where IS the rat man's lair??

Which one?

The first one I found was very early on, in first room that uses two lasers. One has to be portal'd to work, the other you have to jump from a ledge onto a platform and set a box correctly. The room is in the lower-right corner. *NOTE* this one has another original song playing through the radio, that correlates to the drawings. Pretty cool.

The second I found was in the room with all the aerial faith plates in a sequence. Once you make it all the way to the other side to press the junk/cube button, you'll see it high on the wall where the two angled portal walls are (the ones you have to use to make it across the lake). If you keep your entry portal on the first angled portal, put your exit high on the wall opposite the secret room, and hit the first few faith plates again, you'll be shot into the room. *NOTE* I found out afterward there's an achievement for dragging the radio that comes along with the junk in here. It plays a secret code that I think translates to a visual piece or something.

The third I found was in one of the last rooms before you confront GLaDOS with Wheatley (so Chapter...4?) Where you have the light bridge up high that you have to double with a portal, set a box in the right place, go stand on a plate on the other side of the room, then move the portal so that the cube falls down onto the pressure plate. If you look way high up on the left when you enter this room, you'll see a little alcove. There's another Rat Man room up there.

There are other easter eggs, but those are the only "rat man" rooms that I found. There are probably more that I missed.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

GLaDOS is Chell's Mother!

Edit: I should mention that I am completely joking. I have no idea how the relationships between all of the characters work.

While joking, this is actually far more likely than a lot of folks realize. GLaDOS is actually Caroline, Cave Johnson's assistant and heir to Aperture Labs. In addition, all the vinery running wild through the Enrichment Center came from a potato battery run wild built by none other than Chell when she came to bring your daughter to work day, which went horribly wrong. The implied result? She died and was cloned by GLaDOS, her mother. Who now teases her endlessly about her weight and being adopted, in the perfect portrait of a disfunctional single parent family.

AnimeJ wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

GLaDOS is Chell's Mother!

Edit: I should mention that I am completely joking. I have no idea how the relationships between all of the characters work.

While joking, this is actually far more likely than a lot of folks realize. GLaDOS is actually Caroline, Cave Johnson's assistant and heir to Aperture Labs. In addition, all the vinery running wild through the Enrichment Center came from a potato battery run wild built by none other than Chell when she came to bring your daughter to work day, which went horribly wrong. The implied result? She died and was cloned by GLaDOS, her mother. Who now teases her endlessly about her weight and being adopted, in the perfect portrait of a disfunctional single parent family.

It's definitely an interesting thought and seems very possible. While I was aware of the possibility, I was just attempting to make a "Darth Vader is Luke's Father" joke, but forgot that there is a possibility that Carolyn is actually the mother of Chell. Then I threw in the edit because I didn't want to make it seem like I was 100% on it.

I think, in the end, that I just ended up confusing myself and everyone else.

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