Quote from iamafractal on November 26, 2007, 7:41 am

and what about that whole slide show in the conference room near glados? it implies much more recent events....

Quote from Korjagun on November 26, 2007, 8:23 am

The slideshow just indicates that Aperture competed with Black Mesa for grants at some point, but we have no real way of knowing when in the Half-Life continuity other than obviously having to be some time before Black Mesa was blown to bits. Remember, it's likely that several years have passed since GLaDOS became sentient and released the first batch of neurotoxin. For all we know the Enrichment Center has been abandoned for decades.

The theory I'm going for personally is the one heavily implied by the final point in the timeline found on the Aperture homepage:

Quote:

1996 - After a decade spent bringing the disk operating parts of GLaDOS to a state of more or less basic functionality, work begins on the Genetic Lifeform component.

Several Years Later - The untested AI is activated for the first time as one of the planned activities on Aperture's first annual bring-your-daughter-to-work day. In many ways, the initial test goes well...

The implication is that Chell is one of these daughters, and that GLaDOS immediately becomes sentient and tries to flood the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin. The morality core is hastily installed to stop her from flooding the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin, and is evidently successful... but for some reason the Enrichment Center is abandoned shortly thereafter anyway (see below). GLaDOS keeps Chell (and very likely other test subjects as well--those scribblings on the walls had to come from somewhere) there for several years until the point where Portal begins.

Now, the Seven Hour War took place in 2004, and Half-Life 2 takes place in 2020. Unless this theory is entirely bogus, Portal would have to take place at roughly the same time as Half-Life 2, barring things like accelerated growth or Chell being older than expected to begin with.

This provides a likely explanation for why the Enrichment Center was abandoned despite the apparently successful installation of GLaDOS's morality core; the Seven Hour War happened. It also fits with GLaDOS's mentions of the world outside being a lot different than it used to be. In any case, GLaDOS continues research on the portal gun and the testing protocols she had undoubtedly been programmed with before going haywire. Finally she gets to the testing phase of the project, and begins using the girls from the bring-your-daughter-to-work day -- now adults -- to carry them out.

Quote from Hober on November 26, 2007, 9:32 am

Korjagun wrote:

Now, the Seven Hour War took place in 2004, and Half-Life 2 takes place in 2020.

[Citation needed]

I can find no mention of dates at either PHLWiki or Wikipedia.

Maybe you're basing this on the Half Life Timeline, but that clearly states:

Quote:

The HL1 manual indicates that the Black Mesa incident occurred on May 5, 200-, implying by the "-" that the incident could take place during any year this decade. For simplicity's sake, I assumed it happened in the year 2000 and went from there.

Quote from Korjagun on November 26, 2007, 9:36 am

Granted, but I don't see it causing any massive problems with the theory. If anything, it gives Chell more time to grow into an adult woman, and more time for Aperture to finish GLaDOS after 1996. The latest the Black Mesa incident could take place would be in 2009, offsetting operations by only about 9 years at most.

Quote from Hober on November 26, 2007, 10:03 am

The problem is that the Seven Hour War happening at HL1 + 4 years, and HL2 happening 16 years after that are complete guesses. Valve was purposely vague on the exact dates.

You may notice that they were also vague on dating Portal (see: "Several years later..."). I agree with the point of what you're saying, with the implication of Chell being a daughter of an Aperture Science employee and all of that. I'm just nitpicking this attempt to date events that aren't firmly grounded in a timeline we know.

Quote from Korjagun on November 26, 2007, 10:19 am

Hober wrote:

The problem is that the Seven Hour War happening at HL1 + 4 years, and HL2 happening 16 years after that are complete guesses. Valve was purposely vague on the exact dates.

Not complete guesses; we know for sure that Half-Life 2 is taking place no more than 20 years after the Black Mesa incident. From this very official page: "Gordon emerges from the darkness, nearly two decades removed from his last conscious thought." Of course, the exact time of the Seven Hour War is not specified, but it would take considerable time to erect structures as massive as the Citadel, even with the Combine's advanced tech, so we're probably talking at least a decade in between the two, if not more.

Quote from iamafractal on November 26, 2007, 1:48 pm

Korjagun wrote:

but it would take considerable time to erect structures as massive as the Citadel, even with the Combine's advanced tech, so we're probably talking at least a decade in between the two, if not more.

well with proper nanotech, you can grow a skyscraper in a couple weeks, which is slow enough to keep it from melting. i seem to remember a calculation of like 15w/kg/min dissipation... but i could be off. by a lot heh.

Quote from Hober on November 26, 2007, 2:32 pm

Combine are specialists in genetic modification. Not sure where you're getting the whole nano-tech thing from. Unless you're trying use the Planetside excuse that any fantastically unreal occurance is cause by "the nanites."

Quote from MrTwoVideoCards on December 1, 2007, 11:47 am

Yeah, the combine race doesn't use nanotech whatsoever. Most of it is just cold, industrial metal, blue cold, industrial metal at that.