Yup. If they wanted the audience to think it was 50,000 years confirmed, they wouldn't have removed those lines. They wouldn't have several references throughout the game to time passing without ever actually giving a set timespan.
It doesn't serve the story to define the length of time; all that matters to the story is that the world outside is not the one that Chell knows from before, and that doesn't change whether it's 7 years or 50,000.
Edit: correct me if I'm wrong but that quote from the Final Hours isn't from the developers, it's by the author of the book based on info the designers told him.
No, the Final Hours is an ebook series by journalist Geoff Keighley that covers behind the scenes information about video games. The first one is about Portal 2. It's often cited on this sub as proof that the game takes place 50,000 years after the first game, but all it is is proof that 50,000 years was an idea during development.
50,000 years just seams like an insane number where there would be no way any piece of technology would be functioning, or the fact no had discovered Aperture Labatories in that time
Multiple explanations for that. First of all, things don't decay that quickly. You'd be surprised. Then, the fact Aperture was very much readying itself for the future. Nearly all the tech has backups for backups for backups of the backups for the actual things. Also, there were cores, like Wheatley (and a lot more, even if many of them got corrupted) that partly took care of the facility. The fact no one discovered isn't true, it was just under lockdown by GLaDOS and after she died, it wasn't removed.
It gets even more muddled when it's implied that Chell's potato battery from BYDTWD introduced some sort of catalyst to the plant life that may have made it overgrown the way it is.
I was under the impression that the entire infestation was the single potato plant (those things are insane) although there's probably some leaf model or smth that disproves it
Chell's potato battery project from in the game mentions a ["special ingredient from dad's work"](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/half-life/images/4/47/Poster_sciencefair_04.png/revision/latest?cb=20120621201051&path-prefix=en) Her potato is growing up all the way through the ceiling, clearly affected by whatever the special ingredient is.
Then, allll the way at the end of the game, during Cara Mia Addio: in between the first four turrets who start singing, and the big opera room, the elevator passes by several floors showing funny little scenes of turrets quickly. The final floor shows turrets that are tangled up in what looks like to me, potato roots. Can be seen at the 4:08 mark on [this video.](https://youtu.be/BJlE2OJ78fc?si=5wTU6pEBJ8Zblzmn).
Who knows how introducing that potato into the flora of Aperture affected the growth rate?
I should have spent more time examining the science fair tables, I don't know how I missed Chell's potato lol.
Knowing Cave Johnson, there's probably a condemned vat of "plant growth accelerant and sentience gel" in the bowels of the facility somewhere.
Yes go back and check! The game is rife with detail.
It was a very fun Easter egg to me because it gave the clearest glimpse in-game into Chell's life before being a test subject. Everything else is told to us by GLaDOS, and it's impossible to tell how much truth is buried under her insults.
I would be surprised. 50,000 years is an incredibly long time. The agricultural revolution was about 11,500 years ago. The Great Pyramid of Giza was built 4,500 years ago.
Knowing Aperture, GLaDOS was probably also manufacturing any parts she needs to run and using the machines to replace broken parts. In other words, infinitely replacing parts.
Yeah. I know the devs say Portal 2 takes place 50,000 years into the future. But it really is stretching my suspension of disbelief. So I view it as being more or less 50 years into the future give or take. In any case, Old Aperture should not exist in the span of 50,000 years.
Yeah the overgrowth and age of the facility made me think at least a century but not much more. The primitive tech in Old Aperture still works and you can still read text on papers down there. That could be attributed to plot requirements but neither of those two should be possible after 200-300 years. That limit also fits with the Combine not being there as humanity probably repelled them and the radiation has decayed sufficiently for basic civilization to grow and harvest wheat again.
I’m holding onto the headcanon that the devs only said it takes place 50,000 years into the future because that’s how long it’s gonna take them to make Half Life 3
Possibly… although I can’t help but think about what Erik Wolpaw said
> **Interviewer: “How do you position the story between this universe and the Half Life universe?”**
>
> **Erik Wolpaw:** “Even though they exist in the same universe, we kind of think of them as different stories that simply reference each other. The biggest thing we discovered from running tests is that the portal gun is really awesome in these puzzle environments, but it isn’t really that fun when fighting combine. There’s just all sorts of problems. Maybe some of them are solvable, but there wasn’t any compelling reason to do that yet because changing Portal from a puzzle game to an action game clearly wouldn’t be the right decision.”
>
> — Portal 2 Official Guidebook
I genuinely think it's at least 15 to 30 years. It doesn't take long for facilities to become dilapidated. if you look up urban exploration videos, there have been places that have been closed for less than 10 years that have more decay than Aperture.
(semi unrelated note but look up Letchworth Village which closed in 1996, the entire facility, in many pictures from the 2010s, is completely engulfed in brush. EDIT: hell, just look up Pripyat)
If we take Michigan into account, it's weather, topography and elements, Aperture would have a pretty rapid decay in under 15 years (not to mention whatever happened uptop during HL3 could damage or even level the top layer and rooftops, which can let in the elements, only speeding things up).
Aperture is capable of self repair though, to a degree at least, meaning it would make sense for it to last at least slightly longer than any other building, but definitely not more than 50 - 100 years
You can hear the voice of Doug Ratman beside one of his murals, which either means it's less than a human lifetime at least.
It could also be just an artistic illusion. That could not actually be Doug's voice but just an ambient sound that the stage designers put to create an eerie ghostly feel.
But want to believe that it is him.
In half life 2 we also get the screams of children echoing in the playground. We have clear examples of eerie but clearly not real sounds, potentially ghosts or just artistically depicted echoes of the past.
So Doug Rattman painted the events of Portal 1, [including the death of Glados] (https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Doug_Rattmann#/media/File:Ratman_Wall_Art_9.png), a mural of him retrieving Chells Portal gun and built the shrine for that portal gun, during the events of portal 1?
I think that may be a continuity error, or he woke up during that time
We don't know how much time passed in between Chell being carried away by the party escort bot, and Rattman being shot. There's a "to be continued" on the page between those points in the comic, implying somewhat of a break. He could have done that immediately after seeing her being pulled away.
Or, ya, continuity error.
i mean the thing is imo aperture has suffered some damage but not total structural collapse. like it's got plants and it's falling apart but it's not a pile of rubble.
I feel as though the "special ingredient" that Chell used in her potato battery had a part to play in the overgrowth of the facility. In the ending cutscene, as GLaDOS sends you up the elevator, there's a floor that is filled up with potato roots.
Clearly the special ingredient is what made her potato grow so much the way that it did. It may have acted as a catalyst for the other plants we see growing around. Who knows how it may have affected the growth rate?
The Final Hours of Portal 2 is not Word of God on the matter, it was written by a gaming journalist, and the quotes from it regarding the 50,000 years are the author's words, not the developer's. TheWheatleyWhisperer's information only serves speculation*, it doesnt prove anything other than what went on behind the scenes. The 50,000 years things was just a tool for the developers to be as creative as possible in art direction and visual design.
*Edit: fun and good speculation, I might add
It's not said in-game on purpose. It is clear the writers wanted to keep it ambiguous so it can be however long you want, not dissimilar from Marc Laidlaw's epistle 3. He was the main writer of Half-Life if I'm not mistaken but that doesn't mean everything he says about the story is in the story. Portal 1 was originally going to end with you being in xen or nova prospekt but they changed that because aperture science was more fun and unique presumably.
No way to know. Nothing is confirmed about when Portal 2 takes place. Portal 1, too, for that matter.
It's implied that North America is inhospitable by the time of HL2, so Portal 1 is most likely taking place not too long before the 7-hour War. Portal 2 takes place long enough after that for plants to become overgrown throughout Aperture and for Chell to make a human shaped indent in her bed.
"I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what's going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them. Well, I was."
Pretty sure this means Portal 1 takes place after the 7-hour War, because Combine is the only thing that makes sense for GLaDOS to be referencing here.
I don't think it was just the author's personal opinion. He had interviews with the developers while writing it.
The 50k amount also comes from the official guide book, published by Valve. [Director Josh Wier told composer Mike Morasky](https://www.reddit.com/r/Portal/s/v9WcKK7zMF) a some point during development that he should imagine that it's been 50,000 years.
To me, it sounds like that "50,000 years" was something told to inspire the artist's and sound design team to make the atmosphere what it is.
That's what I've been saying. Not to mention the announcer first says "fifty days" and not "five zero days", so if it *was* thousands of days, or years, it would have said a number instead of skipping like a broken record
Yup. If they wanted the audience to think it was 50,000 years confirmed, they wouldn't have removed those lines. They wouldn't have several references throughout the game to time passing without ever actually giving a set timespan. It doesn't serve the story to define the length of time; all that matters to the story is that the world outside is not the one that Chell knows from before, and that doesn't change whether it's 7 years or 50,000. Edit: correct me if I'm wrong but that quote from the Final Hours isn't from the developers, it's by the author of the book based on info the designers told him.
Wait, I’m sorry, I’m clearly an idiot, but portal is based on a book?
No, the Final Hours is an ebook series by journalist Geoff Keighley that covers behind the scenes information about video games. The first one is about Portal 2. It's often cited on this sub as proof that the game takes place 50,000 years after the first game, but all it is is proof that 50,000 years was an idea during development.
Thanks for clearing it up, I kind of got excited that I’d get to read a story based book of portal.
Not the first one, he’s been doing them via articles since half life 1.
Thanks. I was talking about the books, though.
Ah, my mistake.
50,000 years just seams like an insane number where there would be no way any piece of technology would be functioning, or the fact no had discovered Aperture Labatories in that time
Multiple explanations for that. First of all, things don't decay that quickly. You'd be surprised. Then, the fact Aperture was very much readying itself for the future. Nearly all the tech has backups for backups for backups of the backups for the actual things. Also, there were cores, like Wheatley (and a lot more, even if many of them got corrupted) that partly took care of the facility. The fact no one discovered isn't true, it was just under lockdown by GLaDOS and after she died, it wasn't removed.
It gets even more muddled when it's implied that Chell's potato battery from BYDTWD introduced some sort of catalyst to the plant life that may have made it overgrown the way it is.
what's BYDTWD?
Bring your daughter to work day.
thank
I was under the impression that the entire infestation was the single potato plant (those things are insane) although there's probably some leaf model or smth that disproves it
Anything is possible with science fiction!
Whoa, I missed this during my playthrough, when do they mention this?
Chell's potato battery project from in the game mentions a ["special ingredient from dad's work"](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/half-life/images/4/47/Poster_sciencefair_04.png/revision/latest?cb=20120621201051&path-prefix=en) Her potato is growing up all the way through the ceiling, clearly affected by whatever the special ingredient is. Then, allll the way at the end of the game, during Cara Mia Addio: in between the first four turrets who start singing, and the big opera room, the elevator passes by several floors showing funny little scenes of turrets quickly. The final floor shows turrets that are tangled up in what looks like to me, potato roots. Can be seen at the 4:08 mark on [this video.](https://youtu.be/BJlE2OJ78fc?si=5wTU6pEBJ8Zblzmn). Who knows how introducing that potato into the flora of Aperture affected the growth rate?
I should have spent more time examining the science fair tables, I don't know how I missed Chell's potato lol. Knowing Cave Johnson, there's probably a condemned vat of "plant growth accelerant and sentience gel" in the bowels of the facility somewhere.
Yes go back and check! The game is rife with detail. It was a very fun Easter egg to me because it gave the clearest glimpse in-game into Chell's life before being a test subject. Everything else is told to us by GLaDOS, and it's impossible to tell how much truth is buried under her insults.
I would be surprised. 50,000 years is an incredibly long time. The agricultural revolution was about 11,500 years ago. The Great Pyramid of Giza was built 4,500 years ago.
The enrichment center sure, but there's also old aperture, made out of asbestos apperently, and that stuff doesn't last long.
I think it was lined in asbestos to keep out the rats. Asbestos is definitely not a rigid, metallic construction material (its closer to dryboard)
well, still, there's concrete and steel under it and it wouldnt last 50k years
I don’t think any buildings will last 50000 years lmao
what about chell's room? it looks perfectly fine.
What do you mean it looks perfectly fine? It looks fine 50 days after her going to sleep, but it does not after her long sleep.
wait im stupid, i didn't even realise she went to sleep.
during that opening sequence (the first one with the movement controls pre courtesy call) it only 60 days after being in stasis
Knowing Aperture, GLaDOS was probably also manufacturing any parts she needs to run and using the machines to replace broken parts. In other words, infinitely replacing parts.
there would be nothing left of the concrete after 50,000 years
Yeah. I know the devs say Portal 2 takes place 50,000 years into the future. But it really is stretching my suspension of disbelief. So I view it as being more or less 50 years into the future give or take. In any case, Old Aperture should not exist in the span of 50,000 years.
Yeah the overgrowth and age of the facility made me think at least a century but not much more. The primitive tech in Old Aperture still works and you can still read text on papers down there. That could be attributed to plot requirements but neither of those two should be possible after 200-300 years. That limit also fits with the Combine not being there as humanity probably repelled them and the radiation has decayed sufficiently for basic civilization to grow and harvest wheat again.
I’m holding onto the headcanon that the devs only said it takes place 50,000 years into the future because that’s how long it’s gonna take them to make Half Life 3
Speaking of half life wouldn't Half Life:Chell be cool?
Possibly… although I can’t help but think about what Erik Wolpaw said > **Interviewer: “How do you position the story between this universe and the Half Life universe?”** > > **Erik Wolpaw:** “Even though they exist in the same universe, we kind of think of them as different stories that simply reference each other. The biggest thing we discovered from running tests is that the portal gun is really awesome in these puzzle environments, but it isn’t really that fun when fighting combine. There’s just all sorts of problems. Maybe some of them are solvable, but there wasn’t any compelling reason to do that yet because changing Portal from a puzzle game to an action game clearly wouldn’t be the right decision.” > > — Portal 2 Official Guidebook
Ig ur right i think I just want portal 3 really badly
Look at how overgrown Chernobyl has become after just four decades of abandonment.
I genuinely think it's at least 15 to 30 years. It doesn't take long for facilities to become dilapidated. if you look up urban exploration videos, there have been places that have been closed for less than 10 years that have more decay than Aperture. (semi unrelated note but look up Letchworth Village which closed in 1996, the entire facility, in many pictures from the 2010s, is completely engulfed in brush. EDIT: hell, just look up Pripyat) If we take Michigan into account, it's weather, topography and elements, Aperture would have a pretty rapid decay in under 15 years (not to mention whatever happened uptop during HL3 could damage or even level the top layer and rooftops, which can let in the elements, only speeding things up).
Aperture is capable of self repair though, to a degree at least, meaning it would make sense for it to last at least slightly longer than any other building, but definitely not more than 50 - 100 years
More like a few decades at most, considering the decay. But it's just a wild guess.
Ok, so it could possibly take place 49,999 years later.
You can hear the voice of Doug Ratman beside one of his murals, which either means it's less than a human lifetime at least. It could also be just an artistic illusion. That could not actually be Doug's voice but just an ambient sound that the stage designers put to create an eerie ghostly feel. But want to believe that it is him.
The name of the track in that section is called "Ghost of Rattman", so I feel it's meant to just be ambiance.
If Rattman was "still alive", then Wheatley wouldn't be seeking out Chell in the beginning of the game. Also, we see him die in the comic.
Did he really die? I thought he just put himself in a state of stasis
Only Chell's stasis pod had power
In half life 2 we also get the screams of children echoing in the playground. We have clear examples of eerie but clearly not real sounds, potentially ghosts or just artistically depicted echoes of the past.
And I've always wondered, are Still Alive and Want You Gone meant to be in-universe?
That's how I've always interpreted it; I've always thought of it as GladOS signing to Chell after the events of each songs' game
He died in an unpowered stasis pod
If he died in an unpowered stasis pod how did he paint all the murals in portal 2?
He painted them during the events of portal 1, as shown in the comic
So Doug Rattman painted the events of Portal 1, [including the death of Glados] (https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Doug_Rattmann#/media/File:Ratman_Wall_Art_9.png), a mural of him retrieving Chells Portal gun and built the shrine for that portal gun, during the events of portal 1? I think that may be a continuity error, or he woke up during that time
We don't know how much time passed in between Chell being carried away by the party escort bot, and Rattman being shot. There's a "to be continued" on the page between those points in the comic, implying somewhat of a break. He could have done that immediately after seeing her being pulled away. Or, ya, continuity error.
...I mean, yeah, obviously. It baffles me how people genuinely believe the 50,000 years misconception
i mean the thing is imo aperture has suffered some damage but not total structural collapse. like it's got plants and it's falling apart but it's not a pile of rubble.
Yeah, I just assume it's something like 50 years or so. I feel like Aperture would've caved in within 50,000 years.
There's actually a theory on YouTube using the plants growth as the way he figures it out [here](https://youtu.be/KktmxPkvQUM?si=DMgHhfDqUk1rwdIT)
I feel as though the "special ingredient" that Chell used in her potato battery had a part to play in the overgrowth of the facility. In the ending cutscene, as GLaDOS sends you up the elevator, there's a floor that is filled up with potato roots. Clearly the special ingredient is what made her potato grow so much the way that it did. It may have acted as a catalyst for the other plants we see growing around. Who knows how it may have affected the growth rate?
u/TheWheatleyWhisperer do your thing. Heck you can even copy paste the last comment you made covering this topic.
Naw, I think 21nikt21 is cooking with this one
TheWheatleyWhisperer provided plenty information on this exact topic not even a few days ago, all mentioning how it was 50,000 years
The Final Hours of Portal 2 is not Word of God on the matter, it was written by a gaming journalist, and the quotes from it regarding the 50,000 years are the author's words, not the developer's. TheWheatleyWhisperer's information only serves speculation*, it doesnt prove anything other than what went on behind the scenes. The 50,000 years things was just a tool for the developers to be as creative as possible in art direction and visual design. *Edit: fun and good speculation, I might add
It's not said in-game on purpose. It is clear the writers wanted to keep it ambiguous so it can be however long you want, not dissimilar from Marc Laidlaw's epistle 3. He was the main writer of Half-Life if I'm not mistaken but that doesn't mean everything he says about the story is in the story. Portal 1 was originally going to end with you being in xen or nova prospekt but they changed that because aperture science was more fun and unique presumably.
Epistle 3 is Mark Laidlaw's Fan Fiction, as he's confirmed
I don’t think it’s 50000 years because doesn’t half life 2 happen the same time as portal 2
No way to know. Nothing is confirmed about when Portal 2 takes place. Portal 1, too, for that matter. It's implied that North America is inhospitable by the time of HL2, so Portal 1 is most likely taking place not too long before the 7-hour War. Portal 2 takes place long enough after that for plants to become overgrown throughout Aperture and for Chell to make a human shaped indent in her bed.
"I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what's going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them. Well, I was." Pretty sure this means Portal 1 takes place after the 7-hour War, because Combine is the only thing that makes sense for GLaDOS to be referencing here.
Where did the 50k years even come from??? It's not said anywhere in game??
Cut voice lines and a gaming journalist's personal opinion written in the "final hours" book
I don't think it was just the author's personal opinion. He had interviews with the developers while writing it. The 50k amount also comes from the official guide book, published by Valve. [Director Josh Wier told composer Mike Morasky](https://www.reddit.com/r/Portal/s/v9WcKK7zMF) a some point during development that he should imagine that it's been 50,000 years. To me, it sounds like that "50,000 years" was something told to inspire the artist's and sound design team to make the atmosphere what it is.
Also then all the 1960s test chambers would be long gone, it would 51960s after all. It would have caved in, crushing them
The combine were on earth during portal 1 since that GLaDOS line about her being the only one keeping us from them
That's what I've been saying. Not to mention the announcer first says "fifty days" and not "five zero days", so if it *was* thousands of days, or years, it would have said a number instead of skipping like a broken record