In his youth, Cave Johnson became a
successful business entrepreneur. In 1943 he founded Aperture Fixtures, a shower
curtain developer and manufacturer. Much of Johnson's early success came from
Aperture Fixtures and with the company developing high-tech shower curtains for
most branches of the United States Military as well as the public,
Johnson soon became a billionaire. Making use of his new wealth, in 1944, Johnson
purchased a huge salt mine in Upper Michigan,
whose tunnels extended over four kilometres below the surface. Here, the
main Aperture Fixtures facility was constructed in the underground caverns.
Following this, in 1947, Johnson decided to take a more broad scientific approach
to Aperture Fixtures and promptly renamed the company Aperture Science.
Johnson began to focus on experimental physics as a new direction for the
company and although Johnson was well known for
his unorthodox approach to science, Aperture Science received an award for best
new science company the same year. By the 1950s, Aperture Science was prospering.
Within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, Johnson took an active role in a
company's testing of products, making voice announcements and pre-recorded
messages to address the test subjects that consisted of specially selected
astronauts, olympians and war heroes. Johnson was aided by his assistant,
Carolyn during this time who remained loyal to him for decades to come.
By this time, Aperture was in the process of developing the quantum tunneling
device and various prototypes were utilized in the many test chambers
rapidly constructed in Test Shaft 09 and beyond. Everything seemed
to be working in his favour. However, in the 1960s, Aperture's financial
boom period had past and with countless products stuck in the testing phase as
well as many being pulled from the shelves for violating health and safety
regulations. Aperture was beginning to struggle. In 1961,
Johnson ordered the lower areas of Test Shaft 09 to be sealed off to
hide the highly unethical experiments Aperture had been conducting. In 1968,
Aperture Science was involved in U.S Senate hearings regarding astronauts
going missing following their participation in testing. Later the same
year, Aperture was declared bankrupt. As a result the company could no longer
afford esteemed members of society for testing, and instead, resorted to
collecting homeless people from the street. These subjects were offered
$60.00 for their services and offered an additional $60 if the subjects would
allow themselves to be disassembled and then reassembled in the name of science.
Johnson was quite bitter about Aperture's bankruptcy and did not attempt
to hide his dislike for the homeless people he was forced to hire. He blamed
Black Mesa for Aperture's financial troubles claiming that the rival company
was stealing their ideas but he could not come up with the support he needed for these accusations and while Black Mesa continued to flourish, Aperture declined.
By October 1976, Johnson had Apperture branch out in its selection of
"low-risk" test subjects to include child orphans, psychiatric patients, and the
elderly. He then laid out a three-tier plan for the future of the company. The
Heimlich Counter-Maneuver, the Take-A- Wish foundation, and most notably the
Portal project which gives birth to the development of the Aperture Science
handheld portal device also known as the ASHPD. Testing the portal project
called for the construction of the Enrichment Center, a large area of the
Aperture Laboratories underground, consisting of test chambers and offices
where the test subjects tested the ASHPD. By the 1980s, Aperture remained in
financial turmoil. Desperate for a successful new product, in 1981, Johnson
purchased approximately seventy million dollars worth of moon rocks for use in
further mobility gel development despite not having nearly enough to cover the
costs as he was told that he could barely afford $7 worth of
moon rocks, let alone 70 million. Upon discovering that the moon dust
served as a remarkable portal conductor, Johnson took an active role in its
implementation into conversion gel. However,
during the development of the conversion gel, johnson contracted a severe illness as
a result of his prolonged exposure to the moon dust, which slowly but severely
damaged his lungs and cause both of his kidneys to fail.
In response to Aperture's continued struggle for test subjects amidst financial
turmoil, Johnson made testing mandatory for all employees. He stated that this
dramatically raised the quality of test subjects but dramatically reduced
the employee retention. As a result, he finally moved to phase out human testing.
During this time, Johnson continued to make pre-recorded messages over the
intercom system, however, few were on the subject of testing and instead addressed
employees about the future of the company,
many having Johnson raging over his imminent demise. Desperate to cheat
death, in 1982, Johnson ordered his engineers and technicians to begin
research and development on a computer system that could store his
consciousness, however should the system be completed after his death, Johnson
ordered that his ever loyal assistant, Carolyn, would succeed him as CEO of
Aperture and have her consciousness uploaded instead, regardless of any
protests that she might have. Later in 1982, Johnson died while the AI technology
was still in the research phase. In 1986, Aperture Science began to hear of a
similar portal technology being developed by Black Mesa. To counter this,
construction of the first Genetic Lifeform and Disk operating System also
known as GLaDOS began in Aperture Laboratories with the aim to accelerate
the portal project based off of the Artificial Intelligence research started
years before. 11 years later in 1997, the construction of GLaDOS
was near completion. As a fail-safe, the Aperture Science "red phone" plan was
implemented in the event that GLaDOS became sentient and dangerous. This required an
employee to sit by a red phone in the entrance hall of the central AI
chamber. Carolyn's memories are uploaded to the system shortly after this
following Cave Johnson's orders. It is presumed that she died while merging
with GLaDOS, although this is not documented. A year later in 1998, GLaDOS
was activated but her memories of being Carolyn were suppressed or locked away in
hidden files and as a result, she attempted to kill everyone within 1/16
of a picosecond after activation. She was rapidly turned
off again several times by Aperture technicians. despite this it didn't stop
them trying to activate her. Undaunted, the scientists began attempts to alter
GLaDOS' personality and curb her murderous tendencies by adding various
personality cores to her system. At a later point in GLaDos' construction, Doug
Rattmann, an Aperture Science employee went to see his colleague Henry while he
was designing a morality core for GLaDOS. Doug asked him what it was, to which Henry
answered that it was the latest AI inhibition technology, that it would act
on GLaDOS as her conscience. Rattman believe it was insufficient to stop
their murderous intentions arguing about you can always ignore your conscience.
Sometime later that year, GLaDOS was activated on Aperture Science's first
annual bring-your-daughter-to-work day which ended in an unspecified disaster.
Shortly after this disaster, GLaDOS was fitted with the morality core. Eventually,
GLaDOS claimed to have lost all interest in killing, now only craving science and
wanted to study an experiment with consciousness. She announced that she
wanted to perform an experiment on the company's bring-your-daughter-to-work
day using cats and boxes. She claimed that she would have all the necessary
materials; all she still needed was a lesson neurotoxin.
The scientists agreed reluctantly figuring it would be fine as long as it
was for science. In May, possibly of 2003, GLaDOS was activated as one of the
planned activities on Aperture's bring your daughter to work day. A young girl
called Chell took part in this as she was a daughter of one of the
employees there. GLaDOS became hostile once more and within two Pico seconds,
she had locked down the inside facility, trapping all inside and flooding the
facility with the neurotoxin she requested for her experiment. GLaDOS then began a
permanent testing cycle using the captive Aperture employees, aiming to beat
Black Mesa in the race for the Portal technology. She effectively lost this
race on May 16th to Black Mesa, although, their technology started an invasion of
the planet. Meanwhile, the number of Aperture employees dwindled through the
ensuring weeks of testing. The last surviving employee, Doug Rattmann,
managed to avoid captivity as a result of his paranoia and schizophrenia.
Rattmann's schizophrenia caused him to consider the companion cube as his
consciousness which allowed him to navigate through the facility safely,
avoiding the turrets that GLaDOS had placed for him. He got a hunch about a
test subject, Chell, who he thought might make a
difference. He made his way to the file room and looked at her file. It said that
she should never be tested, as she is abnormally stubborn and never gives up,
ever. Convinced that she was the one he needed to stop GLaDOS, keep put her name
to the top of the test subject list so that she would be the first to be picked
in the next test. Rattmann spent the next several months
surviving in the test chambers and maintenance areas of Aperture. Having
only two antipsychotic pills left, he kept them for the day
the GLaDOS would wake Chell. Consequently, he began to lose his sanity
as his schizophrenia completely took over. He spent hours scribbling on
walls, painting murals, graffiti, and arrows and hints for the day Chell would wake up
and try to escape. He became more obsessed with his companion cube, his
source of advice and logic. In 2010, Chell is awakened in her relaxation vault. Here,
the events of Portal take place. Chell is guided through the Aperture facility
by GLaDOS, utilising the completed Aperture Science handheld portal device.
Chell finds the facility showing clear signs of decay and neglect, with GLaDOS
showing signs of instability. Chell later comes across hidden alcoves in the
chamber walls, finding the desperate messages written previously by Doug
Rattmann. Rattmann observes from a distance taking his last two pills he was saving
for this day. At the conclusion of Chell's testing, instead of the cake she had been
promised, she is met with an incinerator from which she narrowly escapes. Here,
GLaDOS reveals her true murderous nature. Chell makes her way through the decaying
maintenance areas of the facility in an attempt to escape. After many ambushes by
GLaDOS and her sentry turrets, Chell finds herself in GLaDOS' main control centre.
After destroying GLaDOS' morality core, the robot, now free of her restraints
begins to once again flood the building with neurotoxins,
however, Chell manages to incinerate the AI's personality cores before being
consumed by the toxins. GLaDOS is seemingly destroyed while Chell is
thrown outside to the parking lot in the subsequent explosion. Doug follow Chell up to the surface where
he sees her being dragged back into the facility by the Party Escort bot.
Against his companion used objections, Doug goes back into the facility to save
Chell as he feels responsible for her predicament. Back in the facility, he
discovers that Chell has been placed in the cryo-chamber in the relaxation
centre. He discovers that GLaDOS' explosion blew the main power grid and
so all of the cryo-chambers are offline. He attempts to reach the cryo-control
to rescue Chell, but without the advice of his companion cube, which is no longer
talking to him due to the anti-psychotic pills he
previously took, he is incapable of selecting in the right way and is shot in the leg
by a turret and falls unconscious. Upon regaining consciousness,
he is back into his psychosis, discovering that he can no longer rescue
Chell. However, the companion cube tells him that he can save her by patching her
cryo-chamber into the Reserve Grid, placing her in stasis for an specified
amount of time, but saving her from death. After doing so, he goes to sleep in the
Relaxation Vault. GLaDOS' partial destruction is followed by a period of
inactivity within the Aperture Laboratories, during which time,
maintenance systems and personality cores maintain their functions. The
facility remains in disarray having become overgrown and dilapidated. An
unknown amount of time later, Chell is reawakened by a personality core called
Wheatley. He insists that he can secure an escape route out of Aperture Laboratories,
which instead, results an inadvertent reactivation of GLaDOS, and the testing
begins again. Wheatley rescues Chell from the testing
course and helps her to GLaDOS' control room, sabotaging GLaDOS' defences
along the way. After an extremely brief confrontation, Wheatley, with Chell's help, is placed in control of the Aperture Science facilities. He immediately
becomes mad with power and proceeds to integrate GLaDOS' core
with a potato battery. Chell makes her way back to Wheatley's
lair and after a relatively brief battle, puts GLaDOS back in charge. As a token of
appreciation, GLaDOS allows Chell to leave Aperture Science and sends her
back to the surface. Here she stands before an endless field of grain. Free,
unaware of what has happened to the Earth during her absence. Hi guys! Thanks for watching. This was
Portal: A History of Aperture. If you liked this, then hit that LIKE button,
and if you really liked this episode, then hit that SUBSCRIBE button. I'm gonna
aim to get at least one of these out a month, if not, maybe two. They do take a lot of
work. Anyway, enjoy your day! Bye.
