If the portal gun was used in the way I described, it wouldn't be much of a puzzle element. Gordon would have difficulty participating in portal puzzles since he takes impact damage. It would be more of a way of tying the two stories together.

i think that at the end of the game when glades expoleds (sorry about spelling) thats the part when that ship that was mentioned in ep2 had 'dissapier' into the the north

firegasher wrote:
i think that at the end of the game when glades expoleds (sorry about spelling) thats the part when that ship that was mentioned in ep2 had 'dissapier' into the the north

For future reference, its GLaDOS

Why does everyone assume the big explosion and the dissapearence of the Borealis are linked??

The way I personally see it:
The portal gun (that Chell had) is NOT on the borealis - at the end you see land and are in the middle of a valley. there may or may not be similar technology on the Borealis though.
The dissapearence of the Borealis probably coincided with GLaDOS taking over Aperture. Possibly the last few scientists hid it from her to keep the most dangerous stuff away from her(perhaps?) or she discarded it becasue she saw no use in it.
Chell is dead - she was in a massive explosion!, leg springs or not, she's dead
The portal gun will probably remain a player controlled gun - thats even if it makes an apearence in episode 3+, which I'm sceptical about because it isn't even on the Borealis
The Borealis levels are gunna probably make me wet myself - I absolutely hate large ships and when I played through the "missing information" mod I hated being on the deck.
If the portal gun survived the explosion then it probably is damaged which will mean repairs, perhaps it is on the Borealis and you get it, only to take it to the arctic base to be repaired before use in Half life 4 (in many, many years time(episodes 1,2+3 are half life 3))

I don't believe there is any evidence Chell is dead. If anything, the final song is very indicative that she's not dead yet. Even the "dying" and "dead" lines are in future tense.

Also, I recall reading an interview or something where someone from Valve mentioned the likelihood of meeting the Portal main character in Episode 3. No, it wasn't a definitive, but I doubt they'd even mention something like that if their intention was for Chell to die at the end of the game.

Dictionary.com wrote:
Static Character: a literary character who remains basically unchanged throughout a work

The main character of Portal was GLaDOS. Chell, despite being the "narrator", was a flat character who underwent next to no character development. To assign her a personality, voice, and allegiance in the HL2 post-Combine world would be a baseless fabrication to shoe-horn her in.

I think having Aperture Science be a competitor to Black Mesa who shows up in the game is a very cool idea. It makes the world seem a little bigger. But Chell would probably best appear in passing, instead of an active and interactive character.

By that logic Gordon Freeman could be defined as a static character. I think you are missing the fact that the player experience is what defines the development of the player's character. The player's questions are the character's questions. The player's choices are the character's choices. The player's revelations are the character's revelations. Because the player goes from obedient test subject to curious and troubled test subject to rebellious loose cannon, Chell also undergoes the same development.

Yes, Gordon Freeman is a static character.

Hmm... how to explain this. Wikipedia, GO!

Wikipedia wrote:
Silent protagonists allow the player to create their own interpretation of a game character. By not being prompted by scripted character dialog, the nature of that character (and sometimes even his/her gender) and what they say is left up to the imagination of the player. The character forms a tabula rasa, which can more easily and fully be inhabited by the player, immersing them as fully as possible into the game.

In some cases, such as the Myst series, the player character is given no name or defining characteristics at all, meaning that the player themselves is effectively the protagonist of the game. This is in contrast to games such as Duke Nukem 3D, where the protagonist frequently interjects comments into play, and leaves the player in little doubt as to the nature of that character, and with the impression that they are simply puppeteering a distinct and separate character, rather than inhabiting the adventure themselves.

The best way I can liken it to something is like when they make a movie out of your favorite book. And nothing is quite like you imagined it. And somehow it's not as cool as it was in your head. It would be like that. No matter how awesome Gabe Newell's vision of Gordon Freeman/Chell is, it wouldn't be as awesome to me as my personal mental conception is. Ditto, I would imagine, for you.

The Portal story has been told. It left questions and loose ends, sure, but there won't be another game that takes place inside Aperture Science labs from the point of view of a test subject. There was certainly quite a bit of implied finality on that account. Because as a player I know I'm never going to step into Chell's shoes again, I can accept a continuation of the character as long as it makes some sense in light of the events of Portal.

During the one time that I heard the portal character say something, I could have sworn it was alyx, so I would agree that it is her mom...

Me, on Page 1 wrote:
Wikipedia wrote:

Alyx is the daughter of Dr. Eli Vance. Her mother, Azian[citation needed], can be seen in a family photograph in Black Mesa East with the face of Alyx's voice actor, Merle Dandridge. Azian lived in the facility's dormitories with Alyx, but died during the Black Mesa incident.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alyx_Vance

And I can only assume that when you "heard the portal character", or Chell as she is known, you were hallucinating. Never happened.

This just in: Azian Vance at HLWiki

There was talk about the timeline earlier, but I didn't see anyone talk about the information on the Apature science website when you type in thecakeisalie after login. Its a note and a camera feed from an employee complaining about having to work with 20 year old machines.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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