Borealis

Aperture Labs Borealis, as seen in Episode 2

Photograph of the Borealis

Exterior of the pre-retail Borealis, early 2003

The Borealis is a large ice breaker vessel built by Aperture Laboratories, containing their version of the teleprotation technology, developed to rival the one developed by Black Mesa. The ice breaker has never commissioned and disappeared with all hands and parts of the dry dock from the shipyard, appearing in the ice locked northern seas. Judging by the state of the vessel Doctor Judith Mossman found her in, the crew was killed in the teleportation accident, as cargo crates remain unloaded, just as they were in the drydock prior to the teleportation mishap.

The ship has been designed by Aperture Science GLaDOS, as mentioned in the blueprints shown during Episode 2, and was redicovered by Doctor Judith Mossman during her mission to recover the Combine portal access codes.

Upon learning of it's discovery, Eli Vance is almost instantly convinced that destroying the ship is the best option, as the portal technology it contains is more unstable than the one developed by Black Mesa, and could result in a second resonance cascade disaster.

Development

The Borealis was originally intended for inclusion in Half-Life 2. The exact nature of the ship's appearance in the game varies and reflects the evolution of the Half-Life saga.

In Marc Laidlaw's earliest story drafts, it is said that the player was to arrive in City 17 aboard the Borealis instead of aboard a train. In Raising the Bar the Borealis is at one point described as 'an ice locked research ship', but in the infamous long story overview (p.177) the Borealis was intended as transport between the 'Air Conditioner' (Elsewhere known as the 'Air Exchange') and Kraken Base / Weather Control. The player would encounter an NPC called Owen or Odell aboard the ship. With these areas removed from Half-Life 2, the Borealis became defunct and never appeared in the retail version of the game.

The Borealis appeared in the earliest batch of Half-Life 2 previews pre-dating E3 2003, but was not shown at the exposition and was most likely in free-fall at around this time. Borealis maps were among the content leaked in the code theft of Autumn 2003. The levels can be found in their most playable form in Missing Information, an abandoned Third Party Modification that aimed to recreate one of the early draft forms of the Half-Life 2 storyline.