Aperture Science

Aperture Science (also known as Aperture Labratories [sic]) was a research facility which developed weapons systems and teleportation technology in direct competition with the Black Mesa Research Facility.

Facilities

The Aperture Science Enrichment Centre

The Enrichment Centre was an Aperture Science facility which was used to test Aperture’s technologies and personnel. Although it was claimed that learning and enjoyment were the main purposes of the centre, test participants were often put through dangerous tests involving many hazardous materials and obstacles. The facility was, at the end of its life-span, unmanned and run by the GLaDOS AI, whose core was destroyed by test participant #234, Chell. The facility is believed to be no-longer operational.

The Borealis

The Borealis was an Aperture Science research vessel which contains what are believed to be the last remains of Aperture’s portal technology (Unless the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device still exists and is functioning) which has been located by Dr. Judith Mossman in and arctic environment some distance from City 17, possibly a large mountain seen in Episode 2. It had previously been thought to have been lost, having had previously disappeared mysteriously with all of the crew and part of the dock.

Technologies

Portals

One of Aperture’s main areas of research was into teleportation technology. The final product of this research was the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, or portal gun. With is compact device, a user is able to project two roughly man-sized, elliptical ‘portals’ onto any smooth surface. These two portals are in fact, the two ends of a tear or wormhole in space, allowing for an instant transition from one portal to the other. That is, when one goes through once portal, one immediately comes out the other, no matter the gap between the portals in normal space. Momentum and energy are also conserved when travelling through the portals.

The portals are easily maintained can be re-placed with little hassle. The portals have also proven to be completely safe, even if the device itself has not. There are limitations to the technology, though; an area must be initially accessible before a portal can be established there, portals must be placed on smooth surfaces and portals cannot be in motion relative to each other, or one or both of them will collapse. The use of portals can also be quite disorientating and accidents are prone to occurring if the user is not very careful.

Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System

The Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS) was an artificially intelligence developed by Aperture Science in order to speed up their research projects and help them compete with the Black Mesa Research Facility. GLaDOS was a huge succes able to handle data and devise solutions much more quickly and easily than any human could.

GLaDOS’s design and method of operation are largely unknown, other than that her main component within the Enrichment Centre consisted of a large central hub with several attached cores, each with their own unique function. For instance, once core was designed to augment her programming to prevent her from performing immoral acts, such as flooding the Enrichment Centre with a deadly neurotoxin, the act of which caused Aperture personnel to install the core in the first place. How the genetic lifeform component of GLaDOS functions, or even what it is, is entirely unknown.

Despite GLaDOS’s initial success, she became quite violent, and quite possibly crazy, and, as mentioned above, flooded the Enrichment Centre with neurotoxin. She also routinely attempted to have test participants killed, having them perform such tasks as run through a live-fire course designed for military androids. After the Aperture Science laboratories were abandoned, possibly for GLaDOS-related reasons, she continued to run the remaining test subjects through the Enrichment Centre. Her main hub in the Enrichment Centre was eventually destroyed by test participant #234, Chell. GLaDOS is wildly believed to be Still Alive, in some form or other.

Other technologies

• Military androids
• Dark energy-based weapons systems
• Neural back-ups

The History of Aperture Science

The following information has been found in the databanks of an early prototype of the disk operating system component of GLaDOS, and is of a highly questionable nature.

1953 – Aperture Science begins operations as a manufacturer of shower curtains. Early product line provides a very low-tech portal between the inside and outside of your shower. Very little science is actually involved. The name is chose to make the curtains appear more hygienic.

1956 – Eisenhower administration awards Aperture a contract to provide shower curtains to all branches of the military except the Navy.

1957-1975 – Mostly shower curtains.

1978 – Aperture Founder and CEO, Cave Johnson, is exposed to mercury while secretly developing a dangerous mercury-injected rubber sheeting from which he plans to manufacture seven deadly shower curtains to be given as gifts to each member of the House Naval Appropriations committee.

1979 – Both of Cave Johnson’s kidneys fail. Brain damaged, dying, and incapable of being convinced that time in not now flowing backwards, Johnson lays out a three tiered R&D program. The results, he says, will ‘guarantee the continued success of Aperture Science far into the fast-approaching distant past.’

Tier 1: The Heimlich Counter-Maneuver – A reliable technique for interrupting the life-saving Heimlich Maneuver.

Tier 2: The Take-A-Wish Foundation – A charitable organization that will purchase wishes from the parents of terminally ill children and redistribute them to wish-deprived but otherwise healthy adults.

Tier 3: ‘Some kind of rip in the fabric of space…That would…Well, it’d be like, I don’t know, something that would help with the shower curtains I guess. I haven’t worked this idea out as much as the wish-taking one.’

1981 – Diligent Aperture engineers complete the Heimlich Counter-Maneuver and Take-A-Wish Foundation initiatives. The company announced products related to the research in a lavish, televised ceremony. These products become immediately wildly unpopular. After a string of very public choking and despondent sick child disasters, senior company officials are summoned before a Senate investigative committee. During these proceedings, an engineer mentions that some progress has been made on Tier 3, the ‘man-sized ad hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain.’ The committee is quickly permanently recessed, and Aperture is granted an open-ended contract to secretly continue research on the ‘Portal’ and Heimlich Counter-Maneuver projects.

1981-1985 – Work progresses on the ‘Portal’ project. Several high ranking Fatah personnel choke to death on lamb chunks despite the intervention of their bodyguards.

1986 – Word reaches Aperture management that another defence contractor called Black Mesa is working on a similar portal technology. In response to the news, Aperture begins developing the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS), an artificially intelligent research assistant and disk operating system.
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…