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Aperture Science
Aperture Science
Aperture Science logo
Type Scientific Research Corporation

Location Northern Michigan

Owner(s) Cave Johnson,
GLaDOS

Featured in Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Portal
Portal 2

We do what we must, because we can.
GLaDOS, and likely the Aperture slogan

Aperture Science, Inc. (aka Aperture Laboratories and Aperture Science Innovators) is a scientific research corporation that originally began its existence as a shower curtain manufacturer called Aperture Fixtures. It originates from the Portal and Half-Life series of video games by Valve, creators of Team Fortress 2.

Overview[]

History[]

Aperture Science was founded sometime in the 1900s, focusing on shower curtains. According to the founder of the company, Cave Johnson, the name Aperture Science, at the time known as Aperture Fixtures, was created to make the company sound "clean". Eventually, after breakthroughs in the science industry, Aperture Fixtures' purpose of shower curtains was reformed into science, therefore changing the name to Aperture Science. They worked on several science experiments, including the famous Portal Gun, Cores, Repulsion Gel, Propulsion Gel, and many other things. A project of theirs, Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS) was created along with all the other inventions.

Cave Johnson was a victim of moon rock poison during the 1970s. Cave eventually died from his illness, and his death wish was to put Caroline, his assistant and possible love interest/wife into GLaDOS so she could attain immortality, maintaining and operating the facility for the foreseeable future. However, when GLaDOS was activated she apparently lost contact with the part of her that was Caroline and turned to homicidal intentions.

GLaDOS killed nearly all of the scientists on Bring Your Daughter to Work Day with a deadly neurotoxin excluding only the stored test subjects, and the facility was near abandoned. A scientist named Doug Rattman survived due to his suspicion of GLaDOS and wandered the facility, creating multiple hide-outs throughout the labs that contain stashes of food as well as computers re-purposed as hotplates and served as hidden areas within Portal. Unfortunately, Rattman is afflicted with schizophrenia and often hallucinates, mostly auditory hallucinations involving a Companion Cube that he carries around, though he attempts to deal with his lack of medication by attempting therapeutic painting sessions, the effectiveness of which is debatable. In one of the additional comics produced by Valve, Rattman apparently has access to the employee locker areas, where he has stored a pill bottle containing the final pill of his medication, which he has labelled "For the End Times". How Rattman gets around the facility while avoiding detection and capture by GLaDOS is unknown, though he has been able to modify her code quite a bit, meaning that it is possible that he has reprogrammed her to perceive him as a blank spot or not at all.

To keep GLaDOS' malicious intentions in check, they installed a Morality Core, which was debatably successful, as it prevented her from outright killing Chell for the majority of Portal. To satisfy her devotion to experimentation, her overwhelming curiosity and her homicidal tendencies she intended to recruit test subjects from the large pool, but her selection was modified by Rattman, who placed the test subject with the highest tenacity score at the head of the list, a survivor named Chell. Afterwards, GLaDOS tests two robots named Atlas and P-BODY as an alternative to test subjects, and there are hints that while she kept them around, she instead drew from the many test subjects stored in a vault deep beneath the labs that was opened by Atlas and P-BODY.

Staff[]

Founder and First CEO[]

When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!
Cave Johnson, founder and CEO of Aperture Science
Founder and CEO of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson

Founder, CEO and shower curtain magnate of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson

Cave Johnson was the founder and original chief executive officer of Aperture Fixtures and later Aperture Science, originally beginning as a simple shower curtain manufacturer who eventually became a full blown billionaire after establishing contracts with all branches of the U.S. Military (except the Navy) to be their sole provider for shower curtains and shower curtain accessories, even winning the coveted "1943 Shower Curtain Salesman of the Year" award. With a vast fortune secured, Cave Johnson made his leap from shower curtains to scientific research and the advancement of experimental technologies which would push the limits of what was considered ethical or even sane.

Second CEO[]

Yes sir, Mister Johnson.
Caroline
Second CEO of Aperture Science, Caroline with Cave Johnson

Second CEO of Aperture Science, Caroline with an older Cave Johnson

Caroline was the second known CEO of Aperture Science and former assistant to Cave Johnson himself. She was well-regarded by her former superior who considered her to be the true backbone of Aperture Science and personally selected her to be his successors as his dying wish, showing that he had great confidence in her management skills.

Mr. Johnson valued Caroline's influence and importance to the company so greatly that he ultimately chose to artificially preserve a copy of her mind and use it as the basis for the artificial intelligence project, GLaDOS, thus her legacy would persist through the rogue AI who would continue to run the abandoned Aperture Enrichment Center indefinitely.

Overseer/Central Core[]

Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person...I'm serious, that's what it says: "A horrible person." We weren't even testing for that. Don't let that horrible-person thing discourage you. It's just a data point...If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother's decision to abandon you on a doorstep.
GLaDOS to Chell
Aperture Science overseer, GLaDOS

Aperture Science overseer, GLaDOS

GLaDOS was the artificially intelligent central core of the Aperture Enrichment Center, serving as its main overseer and sole authority after personally killing many of the facility's staff using a potent neurotoxin. GLaDOS was a cold and unfeeling being whose only goal was to carry on her tests and experiments unimpeded and by any means necessary. The GLaDOS project was originally conceived by Cave Johnson as a means of cheating death by implanting his own mind within GLaDOS and live indefinitely as the Aperture Science's main computer, but as his death rapidly approached, he realized he would not be able to accomplish his goal, and so he instead opted to have his scientists use the mind of his trusted companion Caroline as the basis for GLaDOS' AI, trusting Caroline to run the facility and GLaDOS just as he would have.

Regrettably, once GLaDOS was actually activated she was far from the ideal overseer, becoming a hostile and deadly force who immediately killed much of the center's staff just to run her experiments and test protocols unimpeded for many years to come. This would eventually lead to GLaDOS forming a very hostile affiliation with one of her test subjects Chell, who not only managed to best GLaDOS, but who also aided her during a coup caused by a rogue personality core, an event which allowed GLaDOS to recall Caroline's life and seemingly made her change for the better. Woefully, this change would not last and GLaDOS quickly deleted her memories of Caroline, but she would honor a promise she had made to Chell and promptly gave the test subject her freedom while GLaDOS continued her experiments in an unending cycle.

Personnel[]

  • Doug Rattmann (The Ratman) - Aperture's most noteworthy programmer and technician and one of the few survivors of GLaDOS' purge.
  • Henry - Technician.
  • Jerry - A nanobot overseeing the company's nanobot work crew who briefly hired Wheatley before firing him for his incompetence.
  • Wheatley - Intelligence Dampening Sphere and temporary Central Core.

Test Subjects[]

  • Test Subject #1: S.J. Nye
  • Test Subject #2: Lazarus Grey
  • Test Subject #3: Leve Rage
  • Test Subject #4: Robert C. Knoll
  • Test Subject #042 - A simple chicken.
  • Test Subject #234 - Unidentified individual.
  • Test Subject #1489: Charles Cardoze
  • Test Subject #1490: Phil Konig
  • Test Subject #1491: Christopher M. Pham
  • Test Subject #1492: Arsenio Navarro
  • Test Subject #1493: William D. Kent
  • Test Subject #1494: Al Anderson
  • Test Subject #1495: Emily Naransky
  • Test Subject #1496: David C. Self
  • Test Subject #1497: Doug Hopper
  • Test Subject #1498: Chell - The most famous among Aperture's many test subjects who mastered the use of the company's Portal Gun and bested its Central Core GLaDOS. Later redubbed as Test Subject #1.
  • Test Subject #1499: Marc Meaux
  • Test Subject #1500: Brenda Bogenschutz
  • Test Subject #1501: James Murray
  • ATLAS and P-body - Two androids designed by GLaDOS to mimic human behavior and serve as substitutes for human test subjects in the Cooperative Testing Initiative program.

Properties & Assets[]

Aperture Science Enrichment Center[]

The Aperture Science Enrichment Center was the company's main research facility and where many of their portal-based experiments and research into robotics took place. Unfortunately, the company's most advanced AI, an advanced core named GLaDOS was completed in 1998 and officially brought online for the first time during the company's annual "bring-your-daughter-to-work-day", an event which would prove disastrous for the company as GLaDOS proved to have a very twisted sense of logical and innate hostility for all those around her which culminated in the rogue AI flooding the entire facility with a deadly neurotoxin, killing most of its staff and forcing Aperture Science to permanently shut down the research facility. The building had since remained abandoned save for GLaDOS, her machines and her preserved test subjects, and GLaDOS would continue to use the site for her twisted and unending test cycles involving test subjects going through ridiculously elaborate obstacles and challenges by means of using the company's experimental portal-based technology.

It is unknown what the center looks like from the outside, but the test chambers are usually similar to padded cells, but with a few dangers thrown in. The facility's interior is vast and maze-like, with many areas either in a sterilized state or in ruins. Many robots and weapons also dot certain areas of the facility.

Borealis[]

The Borealis was a Healy-class icebreaker used as a research vessel by Aperture Science for teleportation experiments just prior to the Seven Hour War which had mysteriously disappeared under unknown circumstances which may have been caused due to the teleportation experiments mostly due to Aperture's rush to beat their competitors at Black Mesa, a decision which made them forego necessary safety measures. The Borealis would later be re-discovered by Judith Mossman of the Resistance who found the derelict vessel deep in the Arctic, but unfortunately the alien forces of the Combine also seemed to have an even stronger interest in the lost ship.

Trivia[]

  • It is unknown what happened to Aperture Science after the events of Portal 2, other than the fact that the facility was stabilized and GLaDOS continues testing despite the absence of Chell, thanks to a huge vault of test subjects beneath the labs.
  • Aperture Science is rivals with Black Mesa, another science company in the Valve universe, which includes Aperture, Black Mesa and a number of other competing companies, though their names are never defined.
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