MINERVA - read-only archives

While playing through Portal I happened upon several 'hidden' rooms...if you played through you couldn't have missed the first one, it was stuck open with crates. The Second was marginally harder to get into, and seemed to be just like the first and rather unremarkable, but behind some of the stuff on the wall the following info was gleamed:

Login: CJOHNSON
pass: TIER3

I spent the rest of the game trying to find a terminal to put that into, then I remembered that Portal had a site up where you could login and fill out an application. http://www.aperturescience.com/ when you login with that name and pass you have access to several more commands than normal, I haven't figured any of them out, but I thought you folks would like to know about it, as you do enjoy a good puzzle :) good luck

[edit: title]

typing "login" gives you a login prompt.

typing "help" gives you a list of commands

I think "notes" is the only command wot does anything. gives you a bit of history on the Portal project. and some information about shower curtains.

Someone figure out the name of an employee,

Then type "INTERROGATE employee"

and see what happens.

Also we should begin looking for other login names and passwords, see if that might unlock some of the write-protected stuff?

I was trying to figure out a way to get one of the UINs in a picture or something. I wish I had thought of a simple screen shot. It took me a few minutes of thinking I was nuts till I realised it was changing. Did anyone complete the application, with the UIN?

[edit: spelling/grammar]

I was trying to remember the numbers on the clipboards through the game. I think maybe interrogate #43 might do something. anyone got any ideas?

interrogate cjohnson didn't work so I imagine it's looking for a number.

also, don't forget the command 'THECAKEISALIE' - opens up an internal letter talking about how the staff aren't allowed to leave the building and some footage of the relaxation chamber.

A bit of Googling discovered a thread with the decompiled Flash Actionscript for the INTERROGATE command - it would appear it doesn't do anything but give an error.

And I think test subject #042 was a chicken, judging by the skeleton...

May have had difficulty operating the portal gun? I'd have loved to have seen the poultry-based playtesting at Valve.

Noticed the government funding slides in the last level of portal?
Combine that with Eli mentioning Aperture Science competing with Black Mesa for government funding in Ep2 and the "lockdown" on the Aperture site, and we can conclude that Aperture Science was shut down, probably due to budget problems and most likely before Unforeseen Consequences happened.

Our character in Portal is maybe an unlucky test person who began the testing in the critical lockdown period.

We know that portal is syncing with HL2 it is quite likely that EP3 will feature a trip to Borealis and maybe the ASHPD will be to Gordon's hands.

It might also be the reason Eli is against going to Borealis, poor experiences with portals.

[edit: typos]

Hmm. I read somewhere that the main character's name is Chell Johnson. The founder is named Cave Johnson. The last notes.exe entry concerns "Bring-your-daughter-to-work-day". GLaDOS mentions "Bring your daughter to work day is the perfect time to have her tested."

Hmmmm ...

And didn't GLaDOS say "subject hometown = here" or did I hear it wrong?

you heard wrong. or at least misinterpreted.

it was "subject hometown here" as in [inster subject hometown here].

Is it just me, or is it everytime we come across an intelligent AI, they've gone rampant and usually crazy too. I'm not just talking video games either. A few examples:

Durandal - from Marathon
SHODAN - from System Shock, System Shock 2
HAL - from 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010
GLaDOS - Portal

Anyone think of exceptions to this trend, or more that belong on the list?

All these A.I. stories (Asimov called them "robots as menace") work on the same fears of reason without emotions, of intelligence without the weakness of flesh. It's our dream-turned-nightmare of perfect technological children pulling a fast one on their the slow, biological, irrational parents.

The other type of stories is "robots as pathos", where "poor l'll wobots" toil under the uncaring human masters and dream of being recognised and granted legal rights as sentient creatures. These stories don't require quite as many special effects and gun battles.

Beyond the theme, A.I. (especially of the disseminated kind) is a brilliant plot device. The system A.I. can deliver the exposition, because they are already designed to record pretty much anything, go crazy because that's what the buggy machines do and... voiceover/terminal output is the cheapest game or movie SFX available.

I hope that if humanity ever does progress that far with technology, that they will be smart enough to account for such things like that

That's usually the point of these types of stories...take HAL 9000. The HAL 9000 series was said to be perfect and NEVER make a mistake. Well give HAL two countermanding orders and *poof*! You've just created a computerized lunatic. So despite all the "perfection" put into creating HAL 9000, he still screwed up.

Kudos to locworks for that summary. You sir are indeed a sci-fi master!

(the only thing you've left out though is the hot girl robot phenomena )