Aperture Science

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1. #11940s

   Keys: 1940s, Old days

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   Aperture Fixtures was founded in the early 1940s by Cave Johnson as a shower curtain manufacturer—the name "Aperture Fixtures" was chosen "to make the curtains appear more hygienic"[7]—and by 1943, Cave's company was routinely earning the annual Shower Curtain Salesman award. Using his newly accumulated funds, Cave invested in real estate and purchased a vast, decommissioned salt mine in Michigan in January 1944. Aperture Science Innovators was incorporated in 1947, receiving the Best New Science Company Award that same year, granted by the Science and Business Institute of America. Its long rivalry with Black Mesa started at the same time: Aperture was #2 on the Top 100 Applied Science Companies ranking for 1949, starting a pattern that would never be broken.

2. #21950s

   Keys: 1950s

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   The salt mine served as the foundation for the future Aperture Science facility, from 1952 onwards.[11] Rather than delve into it and build downwards, Johnson elected for an unorthodox approach and began building from the floor up, starting at four kilometers of depth and moving upwards. Nine test shafts were designed, with asbestos enrichment spheres serving as self-contained testing environments. As Aperture was riding high, no expense was spared, with waiting rooms furnished with genuine wooden paneling, wrought iron fittings, with attendants catering to every whim of the test subjects shuttled to the Michigan facility with limousines.[12] Johnson attracted the cream of the crop to Aperture, including astronauts, war heroes, and Olympic athletes,[13] As a prestigious scientific organization at the time, test subjects waived their fees and they were instead donated to charitable organizations.[14] Each subject's background determined the kind of assignment they received and in which test shaft they'd perform the tests.[15]

   The first enrichment sphere in Test Shaft 09 was completed in 1953[16] and tests focused on the repulsion gel.[17] Aperture's peculiar approach to testing existed since the beginning, as the control group for the repulsion gel only received blue paint, leading to fatal injuries among the test subjects.[18] The gel also contained untested elements and compounds, which did not agree with the skeleton system (violently so),[19] and submersion in the gel could have catastrophic consequences for health.[20] Johnson was also a wild card, routinely recording messages for test subjects that also violated scientific protocol.[21]

   Sometime in 1953, the first portal technology was discovered by Aperture Science Innovators, acting as a portal between the two sides of the shower curtain, which apparently they were still selling.[22]

   Other tests performed in the fifties included genetic modification (combining human and praying mantis DNA),[23] which were eventually postponed indefinitely and replaced with combat tests against an army of mantis men,[24] reducing human water content from sixty to thirty and even twenty percent by exposure to jet engines (which would already kill them),[25] using lasers to turn test subject blood into gasoline,[26] coffee dosed with fluorescent calcium to monitor neuronal activity (at the risk of vitrifying the frontal lobe of the subject),[27] and more. The asbestos enrichment spheres turned out to be the least dangerous element of testing at Aperture Science.[28][29]

   Despite the horrific nature of Johnson's experiments, Aperture somehow remained popular. In 1956, the Eisenhower administration signed a contract with Aperture to manufacture shower curtains to all branches of the US Military, except the Navy (?).[7] Aperture also landed numerous defense contracts with the Department of Defense, earning the runner up prizes for Contractor of Defense for 1952, 1953, and 1954, always coming up second behind Black Mesa. It has also earned the Spirit of Idaho award for 1955, awarded by the National Potato Board for promoting "potato science".[10]

   The funding allowed Aperture to complete three enrichment spheres in Test Shaft 09 by 1958[30] and a Repulsion Gel pumping station. At its peak, over a thousand tests were performed per day,[31] although it remained a hostile work place to both test subjects and employees. Cave once fired a disabled employee on the spot to save on making access ramps.[32]

3. #31960s

   Keys: 1960s

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   Eventually, the notorious nature of testing caught up with Aperture. The bottom section was sealed off on June 15, 1961, officially due to "cosmic ray spallation elements", and many more test chambers were sealed and vitrified. However, the greatest blow to Aperture Science came with the 1968 Senate Hearings on missing astronauts, resulting in bankruptcy. Johnson also blamed industrial espionage by Black Mesa for his misfortune.[33]

4. #41970s

   Keys: , 1970s

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   Johnson somehow managed to keep his company intact and the Michigan facility expanded further in the seventies, with new enrichment spheres installed and a new access level completed by 1971.[34] The financial peril that Aperture landed itself in also resulted in large cutbacks, with the elegant wooden paneling, marble, and carpeting replaced by cheap plastic, linoleum, and imitation wood in the newly erected 70s offices. Tests focused on the Propulsion Gel, newly created by Aperture's experimental units.[35], more genetic modification by using nano machines to pump experimental genes and RNA molecules into test subject tumors (complimentary tumors were provided using machines disguised as folding chairs in the lobby; anything short of lead underpants resulted in irradiation).[36] Despite the hardship, Aperture completed its greatest achievement yet in 1971, building a complete dry dock 3.975 km below the surface in its Michigan facility, constructing the infamous Borealis icebreaker that would represent the greatest achievement of Aperture's portal technology. Its disappearance with parts of the dry dock would become legendary among experts in the field.[37]

   Deprived of access to elite test subjects, Aperture started scraping the bottom of the social barrel to put people into the testing machine: $60 were offered to vagrants and homeless people in return for participation. The unethical enticement served to provide a steady supply of disposable test subjects and as a distraction from the mountain of legal paperwork they had to sign.[38] Johnson's messages reinforced the financial motivation,[39] with barely concealed contempt added into the mix.[40][41][42] [43][44] Survivors were immediately removed from the facility,[45] and constantly monitored in case they could soil the facility's interior,[46] provided with a compensation voucher.[47] By 1976,[48] victims of Johnson's predatory practices could earn another $60 for volunteering to be vivisected, fitted with undisclosed "science stuff", and then reassembled. Notably, tumors would be removed at no extra charge.[49][50][51]

   Aperture was well aware of the multitude of laws it was breaking and focused on maintaining secrecy. Employees were mandated to alert supervisors if they spotted a journalist or government official, including inspectors for Public Works, OSHA, and the Department of Energy, Government Accountability Office accountants, FEMA coordinators, Nuclear Regulatory Commission representatives, police officers (plainclothes and uniformed), MSHA mine inspectors, and officers from the ATF, FBI, or US Marshals.[52]

   In an unknown time in the late 70's, Aperture somehow discovered a feasible time travel method, and began utilizing it in their test shafts and enrichment spheres to conduct tests on homeless people, even if the dangers included the end of the universe.[53]

   For an unspecified reason, Cave's kidneys both fail spontaneously. Dying and in his advanced age, he concocts 2 really stupid ideas, the Reverse-Heimlich Maneuver, made to prolong choking, and the Take-A-Wish foundation, taking wishes away from terminal patients (How did this get approval, again?).[54]

5. #51980s

   Keys: 1980s

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   Testing using vulnerable people snatched up from the street wrapped up around 1978,[55] with Aperture switching to a different approach in 1981: automation.[56] Human supervisors were replaced with tireless androids, with the remainder of Aperture's human staff instructed to participate in testing. Participation was mandatory, leading to a sharp increase in test subject quality, but an equally sharp drop off in terms of employee retention.[57] Employees were expected to volunteer for testing, with only exceptions granted for those who had allergies to lunar rocks, starch, fulfilled their monthly quota, or had faith in their work performance. In the Portal comic, GLaDOS hints at the fact that employees that did not comply with testing would be subjected to neurotoxin. Ever-present corporate propaganda reminded employees that they were expendable and that androids could perform their work far better, all to nudge them towards volunteering for testing. The quality of Aperture robots was uneven: Exceptional processing power was married to absolutely no safeguards, with employees instructed to deal with rogue AIs using paradoxes.[58]

   In 1981, the 2 ideas mentioned before, the Reverse-Heimlich Maneuver, and the Take-A-Wish foundation, were developed and released to the public in an extravagant ceremony. To the surprise of absolutely no one, these products get extremely unpopular and are discontinued. The government gets involved, but Valve was vague with the specifics (Why is Aperture not shutdown already?).[59]

   By 1982, the company finalized work on the third and final type of gel, Conversion Gel. Created using ground-up Moon rocks purchased by Johnson at a price of seventy million dollars. Valued at $235 million in 2025 dollars, the purchase was made despite his accountants stating that the company couldn't afford seven bucks worth of rocks. Johnson did what Johnson did best,[60] and was exposed to ground-up moon rocks in the process. Fatally ill,[61] Johnson noted the new gel was an excellent portal conductor and tested whether passing through portals could leech the poison out of his bloodstream.[62] Never particularly coherent in the first place, Johnson's condition suffered due to constant, crippling pain and reliance on painkillers.[63] Before his death that same year, Johnson ordered his engineers to perfect a process of brain mapping and transferring his consciousness into a computer, indirectly starting the development of GLaDOS.[64] Remorseful that he didn't order such research in the fifties and aware of his impending death, he instructed Aperture staff to use Caroline in his stead and have her run Aperture Science.[65]

   Hell-bent on achieving his goals, he instructed Aperture scientists to make her take the company over and be transferred to a computer.[66][67] Caroline did, in fact, take over management of the company after Johnson died of moon rock poisoning in ~1988, continuing its scientific mission. The old mine shafts and enrichment spheres were sealed off using massive transition seals and used as foundation for a completely new facility, the Enrichment Center, constructed on top of them. Gel research was abandoned in favor of a focus on portals and development of proprietary technologies to make Aperture independent of third party technologies. One such example is the Aperture Image Format created in 1985,[5] and maintained by Doug Rattmann.[5]

   Upon realizing that Black Mesa began work on similar teleportation technology, Aperture Science pursued the development of GLaDOS in 1986, intended to supercharge their portal program.[7] Although the name was in use since 1982, development of GLaDOS did not start until 1986.[68]

6. #61990s

   Keys: 1990s

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   After a decade spent bringing the Disk Operating System parts of GLaDOS to a state of more or less basic functionality, work begins on the Genetic Lifeform component in 1996.[7] During that time, the Aperture Science Red Phone plan is implemented in case GLaDOS appears to become sentient and godlike, requiring an employee to sit by a red phone on a desk in the GLaDOS chamber's entrance hall.[69] The DOS part of GLaDOS is activated as a test, and worked as intended.

   In 1997, GLaDOS' version is 3.11.[5]

   In 1998, Aperture releases other testing elements, such as the Excursion Funnel, a tractor beam-like funnel made of liquid asbestos; the Thermal Discouragement Beam, a laser to activate buttons and destroy Sentry Guns; the Aerial Faith Plate, a catapult plate for flinging into the air Test Subjects or any other object upon contact; and the Pneumatic Diversity Vent, a variant of the Vital Apparatus Vent used for distributing objects to Test Chambers.[70][71]

   Sometime in 1998, Caroline is forcefully put into GLaDOS for the first time. GLaDOS is switched on for a test as a planned activity for bring-your-daughter-to-work day, which ends catastrophically when GLaDOS, within mere picoseconds, attempts to take control using neurotoxin. Luckily this fails and leads to Aperture developing Aperture Science Personality Constructs to attempt to inhibit GLaDOS from trying to kill everyone.[72]

7. #72000s

   Keys: 2000s

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   Some time after 2000, GLaDOS tricks the Aperture Researchers on the company's first annual bring-your-cat-to-work day, requesting access to neurotoxin and various facility systems for an 'Experiment.' For some reason, they believe her and grant these requests. Immediately she takes control of the facility, locks everyone inside, floods the Enrichment Center with deadly neurotoxin, and kills everyone who refuses to opt into her new testing initiative. This begins a permanent cycle of testing, aimed at beating Black Mesa in the race to develop functioning portal technology, even though Aperture has had this technology for decades.[7][73]A while after this, the Black Mesa Incident occurs at the Black Mesa Research Facility in which aliens teleport from Xen to Earth, eventually leading to the Combine invasion and ending GLaDOS' race against Black Mesa.[73] Some Aperture staff survive, including one Doug Rattmann.

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