Portal 2 (solo-play spoilers)

[Bullgrit]

I loved the original Portal, so I knew I'd love Portal 2. And I so greatly do love it. I just finished the solo-play game this weekend.

If you haven't played through the solo-play experience, don't read this. If you have, please help me out here. I saw something that was so quick and weird that I don't know what to think of it.

During the part of the game where you have made your way back up from "The Fall", and you are back in the contemporary Aperture Laboratories complex -- where Wheatley is testing you and moving (breaking) the testing facility: I think I saw another test subject. Yes, that's right, I think I saw another human being.

I don't know the test number, or how to describe the particular test, (since they all have pretty similar "furniture"). I think Wheatley mentioned that this test didn't have an exit, so he "made" one by hauling in another room on the other side of the "chasm." That's when I think I saw a person, way off in the other room, run out the exit.

It was very brief. I'm not 100% sure I didn't just hallucinate the sighting.

I didn't have any portals up yet, so it wasn't a case of seeing myself through a portal. (Plus the portal would have had to be at the exit, pretty much solving the test very easily.)

Throughout the game, there is mention/hint of other people in AL and even the possibility of meeting yourself through time travel. But nothing ever comes of any of these mentions. Unless what I saw was some kind of glimpse into the mentions.

So, my basic question is, for anyone who's played through the game: Did you ever see anyone else in the facility? Even for just a quick moment, in the distance?

The next time I get an hour to play this, I'm going to try to find that test again and see if I spot that "ghost" again.

Bullgrit

 

[Bullgrit]

AHA! I had tried looking on Google for my answer, but I couldn't find anything. Then I did some more looking with different search phrases, and I found this:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCS3v9Cq1cY]YouTube - Portal 2: P-body in Single Player [Easter Egg][/ame]

This answers my question.

Bullgrit

 

[RangerWickett]

I saw it too, but by zooming in you can tell it's a robot.

I'm interested now in the theory that GLaDOS is Chell's mom.

 

[Bullgrit]

I'm interested now in the theory that GLaDOS is Chell's mom.

Where did this theory come from? This idea doesn't even make sense.

Bullgrit

 

[RangerWickett]

Oh, it's crackpot, but amusing.

Chell is adopted, as Glados says repeatedly. But apparently there were two people in Glados's records with the same last name.

In the "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day" room, go to the experiment with the giant potato that has grown up into the ceiling. Look at the posterboard display, and at the bottom middle-right-ish area, it says "By Chell." Which implies Chell is a) the daughter of someone at Aperture, and b) either young (or mentally handicapped?) enough to participate in a science fair for kids.

So the theory goes that Caroline married Cave Johnson at some point, and adopted Chell. Then some time in the 80s, Cave Johnson dies, the Aperture Science boys take his directive a bit too literally, and pop Caroline into a computer before she's ready. Glados goes nuts, and kills a lot of people, and Chell either gets away and comes back later, or she gets put in a stasis pod then, but continues to grow physically.

Weird, and somewhat creepy. Mostly it's just an effort to explain why there's a science fair project by Chell. Is it just an Easter Egg?

 

[Bullgrit]

Even if *Caroline* is Chell's mother, (which is a stretch itself)... Even with Caroline's brain saved on a file that is part of GLaDOS... GLaDOS (that name hard to type) deletes the Caroline file and still remains GLaDOS.

It's like saying that my computer is Microsoft Office because MS Office is a major file/program on my computer.

Or because all my family photos and data is on my computer, that my computer is my kids' father.

Or the Enterprise D's computer is Diana Troy's mother.

It's beyond crackpot. It doesn't even make sense.

* * *

On a separate but related note: I hate the idea that the characters in stories have to be somehow related. I liked the idea that, for example, Chell is just one of many, but she was the one to break out. I hate the idea of retroactively making her somehow more than that -- making her related in a convoluted way.

Bullgrit

 

[Relique du Madde]

I haven't finished the game, but I watched the leaked ending. So these are my thoughts based on that.

I personally think the ending is suspect and that there is a high probability that Chell is Caroline's daughter and that those files were not erased. After all, we know GLaDOS lies and that GLaDOS is a malicious AI. So why would didn't she just end the "Test" by filling Chelle's escape lift with deadly neurotoxin or make the parliament of turrets open fire on Chell just to make sure she doesn't return to the testing facility? The fact that GLaDOS didn't makes me think there is some hidden reason why she let Chell survive her escape (especially considering that she gave Chell her incinerated companion cube as a going away present).

 

[Bullgrit]

So why would didn't she just end the "Test" by filling Chelle's escape lift with deadly neurotoxin or make the parliament of turrets open fire on Chell just to make sure she doesn't return to the testing facility?

Well, GLaDOS tried multiple times to directly kill Chell, and Chell not only escaped death every time, she "killed" GLaDOS once and got her usurped once. Then Chell defeated the usurper. I can totally see GLaDOS saying, "OK, OK, just go already!"

As for why not just surround Chell with turrets and gun her down? Well, GLaDOS tried that one time, and it didn't work out. And if we need an in-game explanation for why the "parliament of turrets" didn't gun her down, maybe GLaDOS is incapable of making an impossible trap. It's her core programing to test, (even if to the death), not to just slaughter. Or maybe those turrets were supposed to just gun her down, but Wheatley had sufficiently screwed things up enough that they instead just "sang" to her.

If we don't need an in-game explanation, we can simply say, "The game was over at that point. The singing turrets were just part of the post-game entertainment."

Bullgrit

 

[MarkB]

Even if *Caroline* is Chell's mother, (which is a stretch itself)... Even with Caroline's brain saved on a file that is part of GLaDOS... GLaDOS (that name hard to type) deletes the Caroline file and still remains GLaDOS.

Except that in the end song she says that Caroline is still in there with her. So, either she's lying when she says she deletes Caroline, or she's lying in the end song, or she did delete Caroline but it didn't take.

My impression, purely from what's revealed in-game, is that Caroline's mind was the original personality for GLaDOS, but GLaDOS as she is now is Caroline plus all the programmed imperatives and inhibitions, plus the effects of all the subsidiary AI cores the scientists plugged on later to try and moderated GLaDOS's behaviour, plus the effects of living alone as a demented AI for an unknown amount of time. But the fundamental core of her personality is Caroline.

 

[Bullgrit]

Except that in the end song she says that Caroline is still in there with her.

Can the credits song really be taken as canon material for the game's story? I mean, at the end of Portal, GLaDOS sings that she is still alive. But as we see in Portal 2, she was not alive. (I know, I know, "alive" is an incorrect term to use for a robot/computer program.)

Bullgrit