#Aperture Industries

[fictional-megacorp-tournament]

Introducing the Fictional Megacorpotation Tournament!!

We've gathered ten of the greediest, most unethical, most vicious, and most Stupendium worthy companies in gaming!

I had a lot of intros written out but Tumblr decided it doesn't like fun and deleted all of them. So... Make your own! You have until 12:00 PM EST on the upcoming Friday to submit arguments for the megacorp you think should win through asks. (Reblogs welcome and encouraged)

[gonetodash19]

Thank you to all the wonderful corporations supporting Pride Month!

Remember: evil doesn’t discriminate

[xirosh]

Test

(Searching for a post on my blog)

Edit: if anyone can help me find the post containing fictional Evil Corpo logos in pride colours/going full rainbow capitalism I'd be forever thankful

[ourladyofomega]

Front 242 performing at Cold Waves X at Chicago’s Riviera Theater; September 2022.

📸: Anarchic Apertures (FB)

[mamomare]

Tiny Town Challenge: Annie Aperture

This character was significantly easier than Ziggy Yarn... thank god. She joined the freelance career as a photographer (because just taking a bajillion photos was not particularly fun). In many of her freelance jobs, Annie worked with the style influencer, Lien Sadya and they became close friends. Lien and Annie eventually fell in love and right at the end of the challenge, Lien moved in with Annie to share her tiny industrial home.

As a parting gift to the community, Annie spent the remainder of her money on beginning the build of the community centre.

[antlerpunk]

thoughts on atmosphere in the portal series

[roxas--munchkin]

I have learned that if your gonna play portal 2 solo mode, don't do it at night, the eerie ass noises are fantastic at making everything seem unsafe even though the OSHA laws are in full swing in the real world

[techdriveplay]

DJI Launches Lightweight Commercial Video Transmission with Advanced SDR Technology - DJI SDR

DJI, the world leader in creative camera technology, has unveiled a revolutionary video transmission system featuring advanced software-defined radio (SDR) technology. Aimed at small to medium-sized film crews, the DJI SDR Transmission system promises enhanced stability, superior interference resistance, and robust penetration capabilities. It also supports simultaneous Wi-Fi transmissions for…

[mi-researchreports]

Synthetic Aperture Radar Market is poised to grow at a CAGR of 11.6 % by 2027. key players driving the Synthetic Aperture Radar Market are Lockheed Martin Corporation, Airbus SE, Aselsan A.S..

[internetskiff]

While I personally prefer the industrial aesthetic of Portal 2, it's kinda hard to deny that Portal 1's BTS areas had a sort of vibe to them that is unlike Portal 2's take on it. The industrial areas from Portal 1 are basically a hell of nonsensical technology. It's hilarious, it seems like GLaDOS rebuilding the place from scratch after her awakening somehow made it arguably LESS of a nightmare. I mean, just look at this.

That's not so bad? OK. It gets worse. Why did Aperture have these devices.

What do these pistons even DO they're just here to crush people and smudge up the ceilings with MOLD. Did they put these here so the janitors would always have massive stains on the ceiling they would have to clean (or, more than likely, die trying)?????????

Some of these areas look like they wouldn't even be TRAVERSABLE unless they just handed portal guns out willy nilly.

You know you've fucked up when the homicidal robot is more generous with catwalk placement than whatever termite mound of construction workers that had to pile on top of eachother to build all of this. The only areas I'd argue look even remotely hospitable are the offices, which actually do look kinda cozy, but you'd probably end up getting squashed by a stray piston before you could even GET there.

Y'know Chell is pretty formidable but I think who we really need to fear is whoever the hell worked maintenance before the incident because if you can survive this building-sized tetanus-infested oven I'm pretty sure not even the fuckin Combine would be much of an issue for you. "Oh yeah I had to dodge like 10 pistons in order to get to Turret Manufacturing" like JESUS CHRIST.

[wellnoe]

This is aperture au: an AU made up by Will (@boo-cool-robot, who did most of the plot and writing) and me (visuals) where Magneto takes a teen Scott in before Xavier, and Scott’s subsequent radicalization causes him to undergo a schism with x-men leader/lover jean after he eventually joins the team. Because if you really love characters, you just want them to have an ideological divorce! 

The au is named after the code-name scott is given by magneto, which he returns to after the events of this comic (Aperture–like an opening for light to pass through, a focus in a lens.) 

[Image description: Full color comic. Whole comic has a layout where each page has 3 columns. Jean is in the left column, and scott is in the right.

Page 1

Panel 1: Scott and Jean explore a grim, industrial, apparently abandoned basement lab. Jean inspects a peeled back vent cover. Scott bends down to open a filing cabinet drawer. Jean: "This is too clean to have been opened by a crowbar. Almost looks like how I would have used my TK a few years ago."

2: Scott leans back, back of his fist to his mouth in shock. He says: "Marvel Girl, you need to see this. Use my eyes. Please."

3: Jean turns, using her telepathy to look at the file Scott has found. Her telepathic eyes see what he sees. There is a Polaroid of young Scott and Alex. Alex smiles at the camera, while Scott holds his brother and glances away. Alex's file describes him as 'Yearly tag and release'.

The other page in the file has a letterhead reading “Home for Foundlings” and a logo depicting an abstract parent and child, forming a red diamond shape. Cut-off text reads, “Summers, Scott/Seong-Mi/S-...Impaired expressive speech and sound sensitivity worsened after 3 days of social ostracism from peers…electroconvulsion. Energy generation potential unaffected. Continued social impairment, likely auti…”

Scott has already turned toward a door, frowning. 

4: Jean puts a comforting hand on Scott’s shoulder while he turns away from her. Scott (Telepathically): "I used to remember having a brother. He told me I was just confused, that I’d imagined him." Jean (Telepathically): "Who told you that?"  Scott reaches to open the door. Scott (Out loud): "I don’t know, it was all…"

5: Scott, quietly: "Sinister."

They have stepped through into the next room, where Mister Sinister’s silhouette looms in the foreground, breaking the barriers between the three columns. Jean puts her arm out in front of Scott to shield him. Scott has shrunk in on himself. 

Page 2:

Panel 1: Scott has his arms crossed. Jean, glowing with telepathy, puts a hand next to Mister Sinister’s head where he lies between scott and jean. Jean: "He can’t hear us. He’s in some kind of psionic trance. His body is here, but his mind is on the Astral Plane."

2: Scott: "So he’s vulnerable." Jean is startled: " What?" Scott: "We could end him here. Before he gets to-- anyone else. Before he gets to Alex again." 

3: Jean’s telepathy flares, she is confused, but stubborn. Jean: "We’re X-Men, we can’t just kill someone defenseless. We won’t get anything out of him if he’s dead." Scott faces her, angry and disbelieving. Scott: "You really think if you [Telepathically: implicate, integrate] ask him, he’ll say anything that those files out there don’t?"

A figure approaches through the open doorway, obscured by Jean and Scott’s world bubbles.

4: Jean’s telepathy flare is the strongest yet. She is hurt, beseeching. she says: "The Professor taught us to give people chances. He gave you a chance when you joined the team." Scott is quietly angry. Scott: "Maybe if he were smarter, he wouldn’t have. You wouldn’t–..." Jean:  "Are you saying you shouldn’t be here with me?" 

 The figure gets closer, raising a board to her shoulder. 

5: The figure is revealed to be madelyne pryor, wearing the marvel girl dress, as she swings a board at Sinister’s head. She hits him with a “KRAK”. Telepathy flares out from Sinister’s form and from the panel as he’s hit. Jean and Scott watch her, Jean’s mouth open in shock, her telepathic eyes watching from Scott's eyes as well, while Scott looks untethered.

Page 3: Mads is in the middle column.

Panel 1: Jean and Scott reach their hands out towards Mads. Mads has her hands up in front of her. They are all frozen in place. Scott [Telepathically]: "Who is she?"

Mads [TP]:  "I can hear them."

Jean [TP]: "She looks like me." Mads [TP]: "I was supposed to be her."

Scott [TP]: "She killed him. That could have been Jean." Jean [TP]: "Scott thinks it should have been me." 

2: Mads flees past Scott, who is still frozen. Jean turns as Mads runs, half reaching out toward her. Mads [TP]:  "I can’t be her. I can’t be here." The thoughts become disjointed, unattached from the people who are thinking them, hanging in the air of the room.

3: Scott runs after Mads. The unattached thoughts begin to fill the space between him and Jean: "I can’t be her, That could have been me, I can’t be here". Jean watches Scott, frozen in place, and starts to cry. Telepathic energy comes off her in waves. Scott [TP]: "That could have been Jean."

"I can't be here" repeats until it goes through the bottom of the panel and into the next panel. 

4: Jean is still frozen, crying. Her hands are pressed to her head as she is crowded by the telepathic thought bubbles surrounding her. She gets stuck on bubbles repeating over and over:

"I can’t be here, I can’t be here, I can’t be here."

Page 4:

Panel 1: Jean is still surrounded by thought bubbles. She reaches into the middle pane and tears a black rip through it, telepathically and with her hands. Her head and hands flare with telepathy. The edges of the rip burn like fire. She is still crying, angry. 

2: Thought bubbles disappear. Jean’s head is snapped back by the force of telepathic feedback. The black rip spreads wider, telepathic flame at edges, continuous with the previous panel.Scott, chasing Mads outside the lab, trips forward. Both Jean and Scott are losing control of their bodies, falling.

3: Jean and Scott both fall to the ground, unconscious, as the rip in the page spreads wider. 

4:  Black/end id]

[worst-fictional-places-to-work]

The contestants are set!

With 100 responses, i unfortunately could not include everything <//3. However, there will be 52 contestants as listed bellow, and 26 polls for the first round!

I will begin the polls shortly, may the worst place win!

PLACE: The Stanley parable company place MEDIA: the stanely parable

VS

PLACE: Papa's Pizzeria MEDIA: Papa's Pizzeria

PLACE: Hazbin hotel MEDIA:Hazbin hotel

VS

PLACE: VVV MEDIA: Hazbin hotel

PLACE: Altobuck Hospital MEDIA: Blackout Hospital

VS

PLACE: Aether West Academy MEDIA: Here For Sweet Hearts

PLACE: Jovial Playground MEDIA: Jovial Playground - Roblox

VS

PLACE: Glorp N Go MEDIA: Regretevator - Roblox

PLACE: The BAU (the behavioral analysis unit) MEDIA: criminal minds

VS

PLACE: Princeton plainsboro teaching hospital MEDIA: House m.d.

PLACE: Global Relief Effort (GRE) MEDIA: Dying Light/Dying Light 2

VS

PLACE: IMC (Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation) MEDIA: Titanfall 2

PLACE: JCJenson MEDIA: Murder Drones

VS

PLACE: The Company MEDIA: Lethal Company

PLACE: Rizzo’s MEDIA: Outer Worlds

VS

PLACE: The Halcyon Corporation MEDIA: Outer Worlds

PLACE: Arkham Asylum MEDIA: DCU

VS

PLACE: Lexcorp MEDIA: Superman comics/tv shows/movies

PLACE: StrexCorp MEDIA: Welcome to Night Vale

VS

PLACE: Night Vale Community Radio MEDIA: Welcome to Nightvale

PLACE: Gent corporation MEDIA: BATDR

VS

PLACE: Joey Drew Studios MEDIA: Bendy And The Ink Machine

PLACE: Archeological expedition funded by Whitmore Industries/Preston Whitmore MEDIA: Atlantis the Lost Empire

VS

PLACE: Clovis Bray / Braytech MEDIA: Deatiny 2

PLACE: Engineering on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 MEDIA: Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS)

VS

PLACE: Discovery One MEDIA: 2001 A Space Odyssey

PLACE: Lobotomy Corporation MEDIA: Lobotomy Corporation (the game)

VS

PLACE: The Combine Overwatch MEDIA: Half Life

PLACE: Lumon MEDIA: Severance

VS

PLACE: I.R.I.S. MEDIA: Anomaly Found - Chase Brody by Jacksepticeye on Youtube

PLACE: hero association MEDIA: one punch man

VS

PLACE: Public Safety Devil Hunters MEDIA: Chainsaw Man

PLACE: Princess Peach's Royal Guard MEDIA: Super Mario Bros.

VS

PLACE: Mettatons restaurant MEDIA: Undertale

PLACE: Aether foundation MEDIA: Pokemon

VS

PLACE: The Fatui MEDIA: Genshin Impact

PLACE: Goddard Futuristics MEDIA: Wolf 359 (podcast)

VS

PLACE: The Magnus Institute MEDIA: The Magnus Archives

PLACE: D.D.D MEDIA: That’s not my neighbor

VS

PLACE: Grand Army of the Republic MEDIA: Star Wars (Attack of the Clones to Revenge of the Sith era)

PLACE: Coven Communications Research and Power (CCRP) MEDIA: The hatchetfield series (starkid)

VS

PLACE: ASU-NARO MEDIA: yttd (Your Turn to Die - Death Game by Majority)

PLACE: Fairy godmother's factory MEDIA: Shrek 2

VS

PLACE: COGs incorporated MEDIA: Disney’s Toontown

PLACE: Fazbender Entertainment MEDIA: The Dayshift At Freddy's series

VS

PLACE: Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex MEDIA: Five nights at freddy's

PLACE: UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) MEDIA: doom

VS

PLACE: Immediate Murder Professionals (IMP) MEDIA: Helluva Boss

PLACE: S.C.P. Foundation MEDIA: S.C.P. Foundation

VS

PLACE: Aperture science MEDIA: Portal

PLACE: GrizzCo MEDIA: Splatoon

VS

PLACE: Mystery Flesh Pit National Park MEDIA: Mystery Flesh Pit National Park

[fanonical]

As someone who has only played portal

Instead of lore from half life expanding on portal what portal lore expands half life's story?

ooh great question!

so first of all, Portal 1 establishes that Aperture Science is the industry rival to Black Mesa, the weapons/research company that the protagonist of Half-Life works for. we know this because some time after Chell breaks free from the test rooms, she comes across an office room with a projector that has a bunch of slides about how poorly they're performing against Black Mesa

so, Black Mesa isn't the only super-mega scifi technology company operating in the US right now -- and actually, one of the things Black Mesa was researching was teleportation and portal technology! their study into this, in fact, part of what caused the "Black Mesa Incident" which let a bunch of nasty extradimensional fauna & eventually an invading alien empire into our world through portals.

interestingly, it seems Aperture Science mastered safe portal technology far before the Black Mesa Incident (which happened in the late 90s/early 2000s), because the old Aperture section in Portal 2 (after "The Fall") shows their tests using portals all the way back to the 50s. so whilst Aperture was terribly managed & performed horribly against their lead competitor, some of the tech was actually really impressive and especially far ahead of their time.

secondly, Half-Life 2 Episode Two alludes to an Aperture Science project -- a mysterious research ship called The Borealis, supposedly carrying some kind of technology and/or super-weapon that could totally turn the tide in the revolution against the Combine occupation of Earth. The ship went missing suddenly years ago, maybe because this technology went wrong, and nobody knew what happened to it other than it fully disappeared taking part of the dry dock with it. It is seemingly found in Episode Two by the resistance -- in the middle of the fucking arctic.

so we know a couple things from this: one, the Combine even with their vastly superior power & technology are afraid of whatever is on this ship getting into the hands of the resistance, and two, that they ALSO want the technology for themselves, and it could turn the war in THEIR favour too -- from this we can deduce it's some kind of long range portal/teleportation technology, possibly between dimensions, which would enable a full force scale attack from the Combine (who, so far, have invaded opportunistically through the Black Mesa Incident's portal storm).

i know all of this is from Half-Life and you asked the reverse, bear with me, it links back around here: you can VISIT this dry dock that supposedly held the Borealis, in Portal 2! like it's a hidden room in one of the old Aperture levels, look!

the ship is gone, but a lifering reading BOREALIS remains to let us know what was going on here.

another thing is that in the boss battle in Portal 1, if you listen carefully to all of GLaDOS' bonus dialogue, she actually makes a couple of references to what's going on in the world outside Aperture:

transcript:

Are you trying to escape? [manic electronic giggle] Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out there will make you wish you were back in here. 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. Unless you have a plan for building some supercomputer parts in a big hurry, this place isn't going to be safe much longer.

transcript end.

this is interesting, because whilst she could be lying, we do know there's a lot of truth to some of the things she's describing. there HAS been a lot of change, there IS a terribly terrifying force out there, and they ARE interested in Aperture Science, so, she's actually probably telling the truth here. we never see any headcrab zombies or fascist militia in Portal or Portal 2, so it seems like GLaDOS is doing a damn good job keeping them out. that being said, it seems that by Half-Life 2 (which is probably set between Portal 1 and 2) there might not be many people in America left, seemingly they were all moved from there to repurposed eastern european cities after some kind of cataclysm in the seven hour war. so maybe the Combine don't have much of a presence in america by Portal 2, because they no longer have any people (that they know of) to control in north america. but Half-Life Alyx implies there might not even be an America left so??? who knows.

the other things we learn are mostly that, for a while, Aperture Science was performing second best after Black Mesa but that dropped off closer and closer to the 80s & 90s as Cave Johnson lost control of his goddamn shitty company. he also has an incredibly low opinion of them, probably because they are much better respected than him.

interestingly, in the Portal 2 DLC (the community-made levels one, not the art therapy one) we get to see a bunch of alternate universe versions of Aperture Science (the premise is Aperture is stealing test chambers from alternate versions of themselves, and thus you hear narration from alternate Cave Johnsons who didn't die and kept running Aperture for many years. it's very fun). one of these alternate Caves mentions buying out Black Mesa, merging it with Aperture Science, and immediately ending their testing into exotic materials because he thinks it's just begging to cause a resonance cascade. and he's right! that's exactly what does happen in Half-Life 1, so interestingly, he actually is the sole person to prevent the Combine invasion in that universe.

that's basically all i got! that's all the ways Portal and Portal 2 makes commentary & reference to Half-Life i think???

[fundeadasylum]

Relatively Spoiler-Free Things That Delight Me About the Side Order DLC

- The sound design!! The soft clicks and snaps of navigating the menus and the way the ink actually sounds like wet sand

- The palette changing your colors

- The majority of the enemies being named after musical directions

- The level design, the slightly to the left industrial feel that leaves it on the edge of uncanny valley, the liminality, the weirdness, the Aperture Science vibes

- Obviously the music, especially for the bosses

[beatrice-babe]

choose your fighter

in one corner, we have Cave Johnson.

Cave Johnson. the man. the myth. the moondust-infested legend. the man who brought a scientific company to the peak of industry (on the back of others' accomplishments?), then managed to fuck it up by reaching too high and delving too deeply and then he was getting sued, and then he was feeding his employee to the mantis men and probably also a woodchipper for science, and then he ate moon rocks and caught the cancer about it and as his last known act as head of Aperture Science, he had his secretary's consciousness shoved into a robot so she could never die and run Aperture forever

parallels to our boy Moc Weepe include: some business man bullshit, reaching too far and delving too deep, truly doomed by his own nature. willing to feed whoever he has to to whatever he has to in order to get ahead and stay ahead. downfall at the hands of hubris. if you've got more, go off in the comments, join me in my brain rot

perpendiculars to our boy Moc Weep: doesn't want to die. would like to live forever in a computer, and Moc Weepe, ah, did not like the mica sarcophagus. no vengeance quest for Portal boy.

AND IN OUR OTHER CORNER

Caroline. my goodest bestest most favorite girl who has done no wrong every, yes i do subscribe to the idea that she was the brains behind Aperture why do you ask. and her counterpart, GLaDOS. robot of my heart, condemner of the companion cube. lives solely for revenge and to Test. scientists took a woman screaming and put her in a (metaphorical) box and in revenge she released the neurotoxin, and probably more neurotoxin, frankly it sounds like she got a couple cracks at it every time they put on a new core (rip to the morality core, you did your best and it would never be enough), she just got better and smarter and they got dead faster.

parallels to our boy Moc Weepe include: revenge. the baddest bitch in Stationery Hill (Lark lives in the desert, she doesn't count) or Aperture Labs, as your media source may go. boxed! sarcophagus of mica or consciousness in a computer, pick your neurotoxin poison, same shit different day.

perpendiculars to our boy Moc Weepe: GLaDOS did what Weepe could not. she let go. Chell got out, but Weepe was begged by the one true person he cared about in this life, on her deathbed (his deathbed, they were both dying) to let it go, and he absolutely did not do that thing

BUT WHAT'S THIS? JONAH MAGNUS WITH A STEEL CHAIR??

look. they're both just a little guy, seeking to do great evil because it furthers their goals, but in their day to day, they do paperwork. they love the paperwork. they love being this fuck-off scary dude sitting in an office and signing off on someone's PTO. of course, Jonah Magnus is out there fucking shit up in the name of Not Dying, and Moc Weepe is out here fucking shit up in the name of Should Have Died, Did Not Want to Come Back, Making That Everyone Else's Problem, but hey, we all go out parallels and our perpendiculars

okay fight.

[jeanjauthor]

A great rift appears in the skies far above, linking our universe to a demonic one. Hundreds of thousands of miniature rifts bigger than a school bus stood on end appear across the face of the Earth. Monsters pour out of these apertures, ready and willing to do battle, to commit murder and mayhem, to slaughter the weakling humans with their pathetic lack of magic. They laugh in the face of bullets, they giggle when struck by tasers (they tickle), and they--

--are not prepared for the fact that they brought magic into this magicless world. A lot of magic.

They thought these puny Earthlings would not know how to wield it...but we do.

Every martial arts practitioner who has ever focused chi. Every yoga instructor, too. Every geek who ever imagined what it must feel like to cast Magic Missles and Fireballs...oh, so many Fireballs and Eldritch Blasts. Every actor who believed, even for a moment, that they were their superhero characters...and every single child who ever read a comic book or a manga, and believed, even if for a single moment, that they had superpowers, too.

...The demons surrendered within a week. Desperately, they tried to close their portals, great and small.

But it was too late.

Humans finally got to bring their wildest daydreams to life.

The only things the demons could do was to regulate that power, so that only those who were their opposites--kind instead of cruel, helpful instead of harmful--could have access to all that magic. It turned out to be a boon for the demonic realms, too, since that stuff was the equivalent of toxic industrial waste to them. Don't just dump it in a hole or try to "bury it at sea;" send it to the humans, who could use Positive Magical Energies to finally, finally fix our own technologically produced pollution.

Of course, you knew in later years when a superhero turned bad. When a cultivator corrupted their dantian points through foul deeds. When a gamer nerd druid lost their ability to speak with animals, or to command vines to rise and bind, or hornets to swarm and sting, all because they had shifted their alignments too far toward Evil.

They lost their powers.

But you...? What sort of things do you believe in? And what will you do with the magics spilling in from other realms? How will you wield such powers? ...Or even can you?

Bullies Not Allowed.