This location in Portal 2 is one of my favourites, and it's not hard to see why, I absolutely adore the aesthetic and the general vibe of it. Join My Discord! - discord.gg/BkppBd7
I wish we saw more about the 60's part of Apature's history. There is much that could have been explored. Also this means we don't get to see what gel was invented on the 60's each decade Cave Johnson was alive since the 50's there was a new gel representing each decade. In 50's we have the bouncy gel. In the 70's we have the fast gel and in the 80's we have the conversion gel.
Honestly, I'd love to play a game that consists of nothing but exploring Aperture. I don't care if it was just a walking simulator, I find the place so fascinating, I'd enjoy every second of it.
absolutely, aperture science urbex would be incredibly interesting. i always see the blocked off rooms of old aperture like the door leading to "test chambers 1-200" or the vitrified tests and want to explore every inch of the place, like an urbex itch i can never scratch
i never understood why people don't like Tartaros 09, i always found it very atmospheric, intriguing and a bit spooky. It coveys the dimensions of the facility quite well and serves as a good introduction to old aperture imo
the puzzles in the game took a bit of a backseat and the game turned into a bit of a "walk from a to b, find the one portal surface, rinse and repeat". while i do get this and i do think tartaros 09 is one of the lulls in p2 i think the downtime is warranted and gives the player the time to recuperate and get a sense for the scale and atmosphere of aperture. tldr mixed feelings
I always wonder how big Aperture is. Before you fight Wheatley, there's a vista of Aperture's vast amount of test chambers so big that the atmosphere looks like a sky
The underground sections have always been my favorite. The way you can see the layers of the company history, the supports and ruins. And all the while knowing and seeing a company that was human, not robotic.
this area continues to be my favorite just because of how much it reveals about the scale of the facility. considering this is just 1 of (at least) 9 huge underground areas. looking around in this area feels like i could walk in any direction and find some abandoned experiment. the aperture facility’s true size could be anything. i hope we get access to those beta levels, because i would love to see this area expanded upon. keep up the good work.
old aperture is one of my favorite parts of portal 2, and one that *really* stuck with me when i played through it back in 2013 as a kid--it's aesthetic throughout the entire chapters is uniquely striking to me, especially when you first go down into tartaros 09. surprised to see that apparently alot of people don't particularly care for it
2:56 symbol is for showing the anchor of the concrete structure I think. a 2d deception of the structure at 4:35, the symbol shows the shape and how deep the system go. Also I would like to point out the ' lack ' of water actually. Deep mines and caves are usually flooded very quickly (10-15 years) and the lack of water under aperture suggests functional water pumping systems (or the level designer just trying to show us the landscape and easy to navigate since you know, Chell can't swim lol)
maybe it is water pumping systems but then again, once you enter shaft 09 through the vault door you immediately enter an area flooded with dangerous chemicals.
@@UpsideDownCycle The water is probably below the level of the pump intake. Maybe the original designers of the facility decided that a sump was needed so no junk that fell into the water got into the pump, and that is what you walk into after the vault? Also, water makes a nice scenic relaxing view for employees and visitors
Maybe the water pumps still function because there are test chambers above still? Instead of building a new pump 50 metres up, why not just keep the old ones? How do they get down to service it? Maybe a small part of Tartaros, maybe a acre or so, is kept open for employee access right up until the GLaDOS takeover, so maintenance workers would still, right up until the glados takeover, have been going downstairs to service the pumps that are there. How about after the takeover? Well, who knows how ANYTHING is fixed in aperture without humans. Nanomachines, probably, like in that scene where an elevator shaft is being rebuilt by nanomachines and wheatley's helping out
Tartores 09 is a unique place that really helps sell that this is a very old and very destroyed place. I think for a puzzle game it’s good it was short but it would have been awesome if they had made us move through more small junkyards, to further enforce that this place is forgotten
old aperture has always been a very interesting area , i loved the world building they took advantage of in the initial area , and generally the art direction was lovely , i had no idea there was QUITE so much to be dissected , great vid !
Tartarus was actually where every singe dead person went in Ancient Greek mythology. It was separated in different sections for the good the ok and the bad
Not exactly, it depends on the sources. In some it is indeed just a synonym for the underworld, divided into different sections, but in others Tartarus is its own realm, located deep below the underworld, and where punished souls and enemies of the gods, most notably the Titans, are trapped
I'm sure many people will think that I'm boring, but I'm fairly sure that it wasn't ever anything. Old Aperture was built in a salt mine, meaning that there is a large amount of empty and unused space around the place. I would think that they were going to continue construction and development there, hence why the cranes are there, but the site was abandoned after the closure of the 1950s centre and the opening of the new Aperture Science just above it
I think it's also interesting that apparently the new aperture goes almost as far down as the old aperture, since it's directly above tartaros. So the old mine shafts are probably surrounded by the new facility.
Ngl it'd be cool to have a spin-off game that takes place a year or two before portal 2 where you explore tartaros as either ratman or maybe a android that fell down a shaft and has to wander around and search for parts to repair itself, maybe this would let you gain movement abilities over time to explore previously unreachable places in early areas and maybe even occasional combat where you have to fight large mutant rats or other androids would be cool
A portal metroidvania-like as an android is a really cool concept. And wacky upgrades make so much sense considering how much zany, pointless sciency shit must be lying around in the facilities. I feel like in both 2 and even 1 you don’t really get to appreciate how desolate the enrichment center would feel if you didn’t have constant voices making quips at you and constructing settings for you. Empty aperture must be a pretty eerie place.
I like to think that Tartaros 09 was a connective cavern formed by a large quarry before the salt mine was sold or even drilled during aperture's infancy that leads all the way to the surface or at least to the large horizontal cavern containing the enrichment center. I think that before the Enrichment Center was built after/during cave's death, tartaros was used to house aperture's delivery network, sending liquids, ventilation, power, and shipments of materials and personnel to the test shafts, as well as operating as a warehouse for parts and maintenance. It also likely served as a massive draining system to keep water out of the test shafts. When the Enrichment Center was constructed and extended downward from the tops of the enrichment shafts, the old pipes carrying fluids and materials were simply knocked down and left to rust, as aperture now had it's massive pneumatic tube network, beginning the area's use as aperture's scrapyard
I absolutely love this area in the game. It was used well in Mel if my memory is correct, (If its in the game anyway), and was fun area to explore during the adventure of Portal 2. I do wish we had a 1970's version, I think they skipped that in the games. Nice video and I can't wait to see more.
The symbol reminds me a bit of a submarine's bridge, viewed from the front. Some sort of subterranean shipyard, possibly? That'd explain what the Borealis was doing down there.
Tartaros09 is important tematically, as you mentioned it. As you may know, Portal 1's philosophy was "a lot of people like cake", so it makes sense that P2 was purposely modelled after Greek tragedies. We made a video called "Portal 2 Is an Opera" in Ludofonia' channel where we delve deeper into this concept. It's in Spanish but there's English subtitles available.
Damn, knowing how much I love exploration, I probably would have loved that Portal "Open World" or rather Open Facility version of it! It probably would have been like some sort of Aperture Science liminal space exploration
Well, there is a story based map pack with this kind of exploration, it's named Into the Multiverse. It's actually a mix of styles, but the most used is the style of the end of chapter 7 though it's meant to be "modern lab"
For anyone who bothers to read this: Tartaros 09 could of been used as a hub for open areas you solved puzzles in to collect floppy drives and possibly CDs to open up more areas and thusly more puzzles and vast vistas. At some point collecting GLaDOS either mid way through or closer to the end. Would be interesting if GLaDOS had dialogue commenting on (possibly the fruitlessness of going back to) the open environments of previous areas. Would be interesting if there was a few old-new aperture chambers that got dropped in for various reasons, possibly even reusing some of the stuff used in Portal 1 such as pellets, the mono directional wall panels, unstationary scaffolds, the green pellet (maybe the thing that powers a Portal 1 style elevator to get out), and possibly even stuff like "prototype" faith plates and such, being entire panels with a Portal 1 style button on it that use a curved beam and joints. GLaDOS, of course, commenting on these test chambers with a bit of nostalgia.
I agree that the logo looks very nautical in nature especially with that circle at the top of the logo that resembles the ring of an anchor. I never realized that from the top the structure looks like canals. But overall it's hard for me to imagine it as anything more than an abandoned hub with entrances to many different shafts that's repurposed as a place to put bunch of support structure of the modern Aperture. Water could have easily come from above like many other junks and if they wanted a water reserve it's already present in the test shaft we see in the game. Also the nautical theme is present throughout the whole of old aperture with doors being heavy pressure doors and all. Good video overall though
About Repercussions...it actually isn't cancelled. It's just in reeeeally early development. Lemurr said that he's got more serious projects to do (I suppose It's job related). He just doesn't have time to work on this mod, but he also said that he's been reeeally slowly working on it for past few years.
He did say that he got his dream job which considerably slowed down if not halted progress on repercussions. dont get me wrong, id absolutely love to see that mod released, its one of the most promising mods ive seen but there hasnt been any updates in years so it may never happen :(
The reveal of Tataros was always one of my favorite parts of my first Portal 2 experience. It was an excellent reveal to the true scale of Aperture Science. I'll never forget the feeling of that realization. Of walking around this massive chamber, looking up to see not the modern faculty, but something I hadn't seen before, yet clearly Aperture all the same. That the entire faculty extended far deeper into the earth than any of us could have imagined. The modern facility was shown to be huge in the wake up sequence, and then later in the escape sequence, and that sense of scale had been amazing. But then Tataros and the older facility just blows all of that out of the water, and makes you realize that modern aperture is just one layer of this place. That cavern really made you FEEL how big Aperture was. Tataros made Aperture feel gargantuan. And then it annoys you with the game of 'find the portalable surface' lmao
this is also one of my favorite areas in portal 2! when i was a kid i used to think this place was filled with easter eggs i didnt find because i was way too scared to explore it
Old aperture was definitely my favorite part about portal 2, because the tests and puzzles are great, but it was great to learn a little lore about aperture in between
That area that you're in is so fascinating to just see what's left of what it looks like to be a nuclear power plant and those concrete towers that vents the steam
what i love about tartaros 09 is how it makes the layout of aperture so much more ambiguous, at the start its made out like old aperture is just under new aperture, but this awakens the possibility that new aperture stretches all the way down to these depths, and also the idea that old aperture goes on for ages as well. it seems like old aperture is completely separated from the upper levels by the large hatches seen at the end of chapter 7, but if new aperture goes down here, how far does old aperture go into new aperture? what were these huge empty caverns specifically for anyway? there are so many questions that are left to us which means that aperture could be interpreted in so many ways and i for one would love to see these ideas come to fruition. maybe im just over analysing a probable oversight from the portal 2 developers but its still damn awesome anyway.
The sheer scale of the facility, and the amount of wreckage in tartaros almost makes it feel like you're exploring "ancient" ruins, as if Aperture has existed for a very, VERY long time.
5:30 repercussions isn't *technically* canceled yet, Lemurr has stated he's just not actively working on it. In his own words: "Many of you keep asking about Repercussions, so here's the statement so you're in the know can stop spamming the comment section in each video I upload, regardless of content: Development is currently on hold, I'm focusing on my personal and professional life. The project is still on my mind, but an overall burnout from Source and its tools over the years is making it difficult for me to return to it right now. Lemurr" obviously it's probably going to be announced to be canceled in the future as all good mods are, but I want to hold out hope for this one. Because from what we've seen it has the best environments, custom models, story, and improved visuals from any portal 2 mod and it would be a huge shame for that to go to waste.
i would love an exploration based game set in old aperture with little nightmares type gameplay, i never even cared for the puzzles all that much in portal, my favorite parts were always the in between bits when you were escaping and running around through all the back areas of aperture
Heres my theory for what Tartaros 09 is. Tartaros 09 is one of many junctions and dividers between each shaft, as well as a dumping site for any trash, dead corpses, unused products and general acid wastes. It also has these gigantic pillars stretching off into the distance, which couldve been used to hold up some unsafe testing areas, as well as offices and other employee areas. (By unsafe, i mean test chambers in an extremely unstable and unsafe area, that could collapse at any moment.) Due to what seems to be canals, id also assume these sites would also be used if the shafts somehow began to flood (as rare as that seems, it could happen). In Portal Stories: Mel, we hear virgil talk about how AEGIS was flooding the lower depths of aperture, maybe some Tartaros areas were used to house lots of water that was polluted and became corrosive acid. Basically, i think the Tartaros areas were used as borders between test shafts, as well as to hold up unsafe tests, hold water, used as a dumping site and for structural integrity. And if you didnt get the hint, i also think there are more than Tartaros 09, meaning like Tartaros 01-09.
Its interesting to me that Tartaros is a massive cavern, but that Test Shaft 09 runs ALONGSIDE it. Seems really odd to have it layed out like that. Usually in fan interpretations, the test shafts exist LITTERALLY under new aperature, but the existence of Tartaros means that the new Aperature facilities could actually be at the same level of old aperature (in some locations). My guess is it's just an oversight in the design of Portal 2, but I suppose you could also say that "regular" aperture (I.E. the factories and offices) exist in a massive cavern, and the sealed test shafts were ALWAYS protected by those big doors. They were designed to be largely sealed environments (that themselves contained the asbestos lined and sealed test spheres)
I mean the point of the fall was to tell you that it’s a really *really* long fall. I think it was like 1 and a half miles of falling if I remember correctly? But at some point during the fall you transition from the enrichment center to an older portion of the construction and continue to fall.
If they came out with a game that was exploring focused rather than puzzle focused, I'd be in heaven. I'd love to get to see a big sprawling depiction of Aperture that we only get a glimpse of in the other games. It doesn't matter if it's not a mainline entry. The idea of using the portal gun as a traversal mechanism and not a puzzling tool would be really fun to experience, too.
The thing I don't get about the "modern enrichment centre looming above us" is how the modern test chambers we see seem pretty close, in comparison to the whole shaft we fell down *and* the stuff we have to climb up. So either it's kinda wedge-shaped (bits of old aperture are next to bits of new aperture at some elevations?) OR those are test chambers that have fallen down themselves, or... idk something else? It's weird.
Would have loved the version of Portal 2 that took like an hour in game to stop down and let us just explore a super large area down there. It's the most memorable part of Portal 2 to me and I always love the climb back up out of Tartarus 09 because it gives Aperature so much more character and atmosphere. Really don't care/understand how players could get bored just looking for the next portalable surface when the environment is so different compared to the rest of the game up until that point. I may be in the minority, but a walking sim with a Portal gun sounds like fun to me
i feel like if valve ever makes a 3rd official entry into the portal series it would have to be a prequel, something that takes place during caves era of aperture but still after the creation of the portal gun, possibly using the more bulky style shown on one of the old posters you see while going through old aperture, as then they could elaborate on tartaros, possibly what the borealis was for, and maybe throw in some easter eggs like seeing a testing track for the old f-stop idea. who knows maybe if valve ever gets back to making games for their own franchises they could make a new orange box with an actual half life2 episode 2 sequal, this hypothetical prequal portal 3, and either a 3rd team fortress or left 4 dead
Tartaros 09 Theory: Tartaros 09 was originally a large test "shaft" that was actually just a massive area for smaller Enrichment "Cubes", which were the predecessor to the new aperture test chambers. This can be confirmed by the rubble surrounding where you first spawn. Also there are no transition seals in Tartaros, suggesting that Tartaros is above the seals or is the area where all the springs around Transition Seal 02 were present. Not to mention the entire New Aperture facility is above it, and the Pillars likely held the Cubes together. The cubes became unstable after the likely millions of years have passed when chell wakes up, and rot while she was still up there. If you could somehow read that word salad up here, you get what I mean
Not to mention, the entire area is likely not called Tartaros 09, it's called Tartaros. Tartaros 09 is just the part of Tartaros surrounding test shaft 09
Roblox’s QSERF has a “Tartarus Zone”, it just being the entrance to the facility with a large door kinda like the transition seal but on the ceiling. I swear there was a vault door in Portal just like that.
How do you know that portal repercussions is canceled? Is it just because he didn't make any video updates in a long time? From what i know, the creator just got a burnout from the source engine tools and put the project on hold
The creator of Repeecussions works as a professional game developer now, I know people who have asked him what the status of Repercussions is, and while he says its on “Indefinite Hiatus”, the reality of the situation is that it is cancelled, he only says its on indefinite hiatus in case of the absolute tiniest sliver of a miracle for him to go back to Repercussions, and considering his criticism of how him working with Source feels like a pain, I don’t think he’ll choose doing a non-profit mod over his actual real game dev job.
Thinking about it, I am inclined to trace a lot of the issues players have with Tartaros and similar large BTS areas in custom maps to primarily Portal 2's crosshair no longer indicating whether a surface is portalable, and secondarily the less limited range of materials. Even in the cluttered BTS areas in P1 and many of its more popular custom map packs, the vast majority of surfaces were portalable concrete/tile or portal-proof metal, so you didn't have to hunt as much for a portalable surface, and when you thought you might have found it, the crosshair would tell you, so there was a lot less spamming the mouse to check everything. Tartaros and a lot of the custom maps that try to mimic its aesthetic turn into “hunt down the portalable surface” in large part because there are a lot more ambiguous concrete-looking (and in some '70s maps, colored) surfaces. It seems small, but I noticed, even after all this time, I still enjoy P1 maps that go outside the Portal aesthetic (whether with HL2 textures or custom ones), but prefer P2 maps that stick to established conventions, in large part because the crosshair saves me from spamming portals everywhere.
The symbol on the structural support makes me think of an ankh, or maybe an ankh resting on top of a stump, styled to look like an industrial symbol. If so, then just like the name Tartaros, this is also a mythical reference to the underworld, literally focusing on the part under the sign of "life". Also a stump is both dead and a kind of foundation so it's fitting for a structural support under the then-inhabited parts of the facility. Or it could be just a permanent concrete anchor but then it's stylized nearly beyond recognition and without displaying any particularly useful information...
the weird industrial symbol thingy looks like something is anchored into the ground. maybe it visualizes how deep the pillars go below the surface because they wouldnt be able to provide enough stability otherwise?
The tartorus is very interesting to me, it shows how vast the facility is, and the decaying superstructure makes you wonder how much longer until the support collasps
i think that they should have kept the beta one but made it so you have to use the portal gun to move round the ruined junk yard where the old walkways have been destroyed and wires are sticking out and can hurt you so its like a massive 'accidental' puzzle
I'd have to agree that Tartaros 09 was some kind of artificial water source because in one section from the 1970's you can find a dried dock where The Borealis was during Half Life 2. I still wonder how they got it there in the first place though, even if there was water, considering how far down it is.
Noting the nature of atomic/nuclear testing during the 1950s-1960s, Aperture was actually quite ahead of the curve to conduct their scientific testing deep underground.
My personal head-cannon is Tartaros 09 could have been the early support structure for a larger old aperture-new aperture, that was scrapped mid construction (note that the Tartaros pillars don't look completed, especially along the top). Either because of Caves death, or they just plain ran out of money, for the modern Enrichment center, with it's panel style of construction
Im like 98% sure that the symbol has something to do with the borealis as it appears vaguely nautical in appearance almost like a ship's bell forming a nautical compass
Yo. Prometheus actual didn’t give knowledge but fire. Also he was banished by Zeus and was sent to Tartarus/hell pretty much and was pecked by a hawk eating his liver.
Original functions/uses of the area (when it comes to the lore) aside, maybe Tartaros 09 is (or at least is a part of) what GLaDOS refers to as Android Hell?
...No. As someone who's played Persona 3. No. Just no. In Persona 3, Tartarus is accessed only via the Dark Hour and is caused by an incident by the Kirijo Group in the place where Gekkoukan High would later be made. Tartarus goes above and above the surface, while Tartaros goes up and up BELOW. Not to mention everything else about Tartarus and Tartaros 09, like Monad in Tartarus, Shaft 09 being closed down because of testing for Tartaros and more.
I absolutely hate this area, so glad they shortened it to what it became. But it's still no doubt a very long-winded concrete-surface-search-fest. It being one of the menu backgrounds of P2 with PotatOS' Lament playing in the background creeped me out well enough. And now I discover this area actually has an ominous frickin' name, I hate it even more.
Portal: Still Alive Borealis scene kinda looks like it was in some sorta tartaros esk like area. also some of the stuff from Portal: Still Alive was carryed in to portal 2, like the crusher; so maybe there was thought by valve. idk lol
The commentary node here talks about what inspired the general aesthetic of Portal 2 as a whole, the Chinese Apartment Block inspiration can be seen more in the intro sequence with the container ride and an early Human Vault concept art, you can see that here: valvearchive.com/archive/Portal/Portal%202/Art/Environment%20Art/finale04.jpg Tartaros clearly has bits of it’s own style and is more inspired by the “junkyard filled with rocketry parts” that I mention in the video.
The reason why old aperture is destroyed its also affected by Black Mesa Tartaros 09 why there is an water around that place is because aperture started being built at 1932s and started at a salt mine than turned into a facility in 1950s the name changed into aperture science innovators in 1970s the name changed into aperture and once you got to the top go to the office and behind the servers you will see an easter egg which is the borealis location (Sixty dollars) and before you can portal to the offices you will hear cave johnson saying "Black mesa can eat my bankrupt!" If you need more stuffs from old aperture just tell me i know everything about old aperture
This location in Portal 2 is one of my favourites, and it's not hard to see why, I absolutely adore the aesthetic and the general vibe of it.
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I agree with you. OldAp is also my favourite style to work with and the general concept of a massive retro-styled facility is realy cool.
Same
I wish we saw more about the 60's part of Apature's history. There is much that could have been explored. Also this means we don't get to see what gel was invented on the 60's each decade Cave Johnson was alive since the 50's there was a new gel representing each decade. In 50's we have the bouncy gel. In the 70's we have the fast gel and in the 80's we have the conversion gel.
its also one of my favorites, I really wish there was more parts like this
The symbol is borealasis (sorry for my spelling)
Honestly, I'd love to play a game that consists of nothing but exploring Aperture. I don't care if it was just a walking simulator, I find the place so fascinating, I'd enjoy every second of it.
Stanley Parable but in Aperture and you're entirely alone and free to go wherever. I love that idea.
Me staring at everything up close in the Lab and Desk Job
absolutely, aperture science urbex would be incredibly interesting. i always see the blocked off rooms of old aperture like the door leading to "test chambers 1-200" or the vitrified tests and want to explore every inch of the place, like an urbex itch i can never scratch
An aperture BOTW type experience maybe?
Thats such a good idea i would play
i never understood why people don't like Tartaros 09, i always found it very atmospheric, intriguing and a bit spooky.
It coveys the dimensions of the facility quite well and serves as a good introduction to old aperture imo
I agree. It's actually my favorite part of the game.
I thought I was playing a regular title until that chapter. I only started paying attention then. Gave me the same chill as nova prospekt.
the puzzles in the game took a bit of a backseat and the game turned into a bit of a "walk from a to b, find the one portal surface, rinse and repeat". while i do get this and i do think tartaros 09 is one of the lulls in p2 i think the downtime is warranted and gives the player the time to recuperate and get a sense for the scale and atmosphere of aperture.
tldr mixed feelings
Portal 1 is more spooky
yes i like the looks not the tests
I always wonder how big Aperture is. Before you fight Wheatley, there's a vista of Aperture's vast amount of test chambers so big that the atmosphere looks like a sky
Aperture likely takes up the entirety of upper Michigan
The underground sections have always been my favorite. The way you can see the layers of the company history, the supports and ruins. And all the while knowing and seeing a company that was human, not robotic.
this area continues to be my favorite just because of how much it reveals about the scale of the facility. considering this is just 1 of (at least) 9 huge underground areas. looking around in this area feels like i could walk in any direction and find some abandoned experiment. the aperture facility’s true size could be anything. i hope we get access to those beta levels, because i would love to see this area expanded upon. keep up the good work.
old aperture is one of my favorite parts of portal 2, and one that *really* stuck with me when i played through it back in 2013 as a kid--it's aesthetic throughout the entire chapters is uniquely striking to me, especially when you first go down into tartaros 09. surprised to see that apparently alot of people don't particularly care for it
When I was a kid, I saw the 3rd menu and I got terrified of such a big fire and that sad music
as a kid, the old aperture was pretty much the only thing i cared about (aside from action parts)
2:56 symbol is for showing the anchor of the concrete structure I think. a 2d deception of the structure at 4:35, the symbol shows the shape and how deep the system go. Also I would like to point out the ' lack ' of water actually. Deep mines and caves are usually flooded very quickly (10-15 years) and the lack of water under aperture suggests functional water pumping systems (or the level designer just trying to show us the landscape and easy to navigate since you know, Chell can't swim lol)
maybe it is water pumping systems but then again, once you enter shaft 09 through the vault door you immediately enter an area flooded with dangerous chemicals.
@@UpsideDownCycle yeah likely a game balance thing then. The game needs to be playable in the end
@@UpsideDownCycle The water is probably below the level of the pump intake. Maybe the original designers of the facility decided that a sump was needed so no junk that fell into the water got into the pump, and that is what you walk into after the vault?
Also, water makes a nice scenic relaxing view for employees and visitors
Maybe the water pumps still function because there are test chambers above still? Instead of building a new pump 50 metres up, why not just keep the old ones?
How do they get down to service it? Maybe a small part of Tartaros, maybe a acre or so, is kept open for employee access right up until the GLaDOS takeover, so maintenance workers would still, right up until the glados takeover, have been going downstairs to service the pumps that are there. How about after the takeover? Well, who knows how ANYTHING is fixed in aperture without humans. Nanomachines, probably, like in that scene where an elevator shaft is being rebuilt by nanomachines and wheatley's helping out
@@briannem.6787 Which part is the elevator shaft is being rebuilt by nanomachines ? I do not remember it
Tartores 09 is a unique place that really helps sell that this is a very old and very destroyed place. I think for a puzzle game it’s good it was short but it would have been awesome if they had made us move through more small junkyards, to further enforce that this place is forgotten
old aperture has always been a very interesting area , i loved the world building they took advantage of in the initial area , and generally the art direction was lovely , i had no idea there was QUITE so much to be dissected , great vid !
Tartarus was actually where every singe dead person went in Ancient Greek mythology. It was separated in different sections for the good the ok and the bad
Not exactly, it depends on the sources. In some it is indeed just a synonym for the underworld, divided into different sections, but in others Tartarus is its own realm, located deep below the underworld, and where punished souls and enemies of the gods, most notably the Titans, are trapped
Epic like a boss
Fancy seeing you here
I'm sure many people will think that I'm boring, but I'm fairly sure that it wasn't ever anything. Old Aperture was built in a salt mine, meaning that there is a large amount of empty and unused space around the place. I would think that they were going to continue construction and development there, hence why the cranes are there, but the site was abandoned after the closure of the 1950s centre and the opening of the new Aperture Science just above it
I think it's also interesting that apparently the new aperture goes almost as far down as the old aperture, since it's directly above tartaros. So the old mine shafts are probably surrounded by the new facility.
Ngl it'd be cool to have a spin-off game that takes place a year or two before portal 2 where you explore tartaros as either ratman or maybe a android that fell down a shaft and has to wander around and search for parts to repair itself, maybe this would let you gain movement abilities over time to explore previously unreachable places in early areas and maybe even occasional combat where you have to fight large mutant rats or other androids would be cool
A portal metroidvania-like as an android is a really cool concept. And wacky upgrades make so much sense considering how much zany, pointless sciency shit must be lying around in the facilities. I feel like in both 2 and even 1 you don’t really get to appreciate how desolate the enrichment center would feel if you didn’t have constant voices making quips at you and constructing settings for you. Empty aperture must be a pretty eerie place.
I like to think that Tartaros 09 was a connective cavern formed by a large quarry before the salt mine was sold or even drilled during aperture's infancy that leads all the way to the surface or at least to the large horizontal cavern containing the enrichment center. I think that before the Enrichment Center was built after/during cave's death, tartaros was used to house aperture's delivery network, sending liquids, ventilation, power, and shipments of materials and personnel to the test shafts, as well as operating as a warehouse for parts and maintenance. It also likely served as a massive draining system to keep water out of the test shafts. When the Enrichment Center was constructed and extended downward from the tops of the enrichment shafts, the old pipes carrying fluids and materials were simply knocked down and left to rust, as aperture now had it's massive pneumatic tube network, beginning the area's use as aperture's scrapyard
I absolutely love this area in the game. It was used well in Mel if my memory is correct, (If its in the game anyway), and was fun area to explore during the adventure of Portal 2. I do wish we had a 1970's version, I think they skipped that in the games. Nice video and I can't wait to see more.
It doesn't appear in Mel, only the Modern Aperture junkyards do
@@OssyFlawol Oh. That makes sense thinking about it.
What do you mean a 1970's version? That and The 80's version both show up in the Reunion.
@@arthurpietrogarcia1057 He means a 1970s version of a Tartaros structure, the zones between testing tracks.
@@DoggosGames why would There be one?
The symbol reminds me a bit of a submarine's bridge, viewed from the front. Some sort of subterranean shipyard, possibly? That'd explain what the Borealis was doing down there.
Tartaros09 is important tematically, as you mentioned it. As you may know, Portal 1's philosophy was "a lot of people like cake", so it makes sense that P2 was purposely modelled after Greek tragedies.
We made a video called "Portal 2 Is an Opera" in Ludofonia' channel where we delve deeper into this concept. It's in Spanish but there's English subtitles available.
Damn, knowing how much I love exploration, I probably would have loved that Portal "Open World" or rather Open Facility version of it! It probably would have been like some sort of Aperture Science liminal space exploration
Well, there is a story based map pack with this kind of exploration, it's named Into the Multiverse. It's actually a mix of styles, but the most used is the style of the end of chapter 7 though it's meant to be "modern lab"
@@KirikkSiSq Oooo, sounds neat :D
Interesting video, I normally don't think much about this area but you are right, it's an interesting transitional space
This section of Portal 2 is hella atmospheric. Probably THE MOST atmospheric place in Portal 2, atleast in my opinion.
For anyone who bothers to read this: Tartaros 09 could of been used as a hub for open areas you solved puzzles in to collect floppy drives and possibly CDs to open up more areas and thusly more puzzles and vast vistas. At some point collecting GLaDOS either mid way through or closer to the end. Would be interesting if GLaDOS had dialogue commenting on (possibly the fruitlessness of going back to) the open environments of previous areas. Would be interesting if there was a few old-new aperture chambers that got dropped in for various reasons, possibly even reusing some of the stuff used in Portal 1 such as pellets, the mono directional wall panels, unstationary scaffolds, the green pellet (maybe the thing that powers a Portal 1 style elevator to get out), and possibly even stuff like "prototype" faith plates and such, being entire panels with a Portal 1 style button on it that use a curved beam and joints. GLaDOS, of course, commenting on these test chambers with a bit of nostalgia.
I agree that the logo looks very nautical in nature especially with that circle at the top of the logo that resembles the ring of an anchor. I never realized that from the top the structure looks like canals. But overall it's hard for me to imagine it as anything more than an abandoned hub with entrances to many different shafts that's repurposed as a place to put bunch of support structure of the modern Aperture. Water could have easily come from above like many other junks and if they wanted a water reserve it's already present in the test shaft we see in the game. Also the nautical theme is present throughout the whole of old aperture with doors being heavy pressure doors and all. Good video overall though
what an intersting video. didnt know that this place offers much more than i expected! looking forward to the core sub video!
About Repercussions...it actually isn't cancelled. It's just in reeeeally early development. Lemurr said that he's got more serious projects to do (I suppose It's job related). He just doesn't have time to work on this mod, but he also said that he's been reeeally slowly working on it for past few years.
I certainly hope so. That mod was one of the best looking and most promising I’ve ever seen. I hope one day it’s finished, because it looked amazing.
He did say that he got his dream job which considerably slowed down if not halted progress on repercussions. dont get me wrong, id absolutely love to see that mod released, its one of the most promising mods ive seen but there hasnt been any updates in years so it may never happen :(
The reveal of Tataros was always one of my favorite parts of my first Portal 2 experience. It was an excellent reveal to the true scale of Aperture Science. I'll never forget the feeling of that realization. Of walking around this massive chamber, looking up to see not the modern faculty, but something I hadn't seen before, yet clearly Aperture all the same. That the entire faculty extended far deeper into the earth than any of us could have imagined.
The modern facility was shown to be huge in the wake up sequence, and then later in the escape sequence, and that sense of scale had been amazing. But then Tataros and the older facility just blows all of that out of the water, and makes you realize that modern aperture is just one layer of this place. That cavern really made you FEEL how big Aperture was.
Tataros made Aperture feel gargantuan.
And then it annoys you with the game of 'find the portalable surface' lmao
this is also one of my favorite areas in portal 2!
when i was a kid i used to think this place was filled with easter eggs i didnt find because i was way too scared to explore it
Tartarus 09 is connected to Test Shaft 09 And it was Started buildings Since 1943 And Done Since 1952
Old aperture was definitely my favorite part about portal 2, because the tests and puzzles are great, but it was great to learn a little lore about aperture in between
That area that you're in is so fascinating to just see what's left of what it looks like to be a nuclear power plant and those concrete towers that vents the steam
what i love about tartaros 09 is how it makes the layout of aperture so much more ambiguous, at the start its made out like old aperture is just under new aperture, but this awakens the possibility that new aperture stretches all the way down to these depths, and also the idea that old aperture goes on for ages as well. it seems like old aperture is completely separated from the upper levels by the large hatches seen at the end of chapter 7, but if new aperture goes down here, how far does old aperture go into new aperture? what were these huge empty caverns specifically for anyway? there are so many questions that are left to us which means that aperture could be interpreted in so many ways and i for one would love to see these ideas come to fruition. maybe im just over analysing a probable oversight from the portal 2 developers but its still damn awesome anyway.
The sheer scale of the facility, and the amount of wreckage in tartaros almost makes it feel like you're exploring "ancient" ruins, as if Aperture has existed for a very, VERY long time.
5:30 repercussions isn't *technically* canceled yet, Lemurr has stated he's just not actively working on it. In his own words:
"Many of you keep asking about Repercussions, so here's the statement so you're in the know can stop spamming the comment section in each video I upload, regardless of content:
Development is currently on hold, I'm focusing on my personal and professional life.
The project is still on my mind, but an overall burnout from Source and its tools over the years is making it difficult for me to return to it right now.
Lemurr"
obviously it's probably going to be announced to be canceled in the future as all good mods are, but I want to hold out hope for this one. Because from what we've seen it has the best environments, custom models, story, and improved visuals from any portal 2 mod and it would be a huge shame for that to go to waste.
ive literally talked to people who know the guy, and even the guy himself once, its dead dude lmao
so what i'm basically saying is yr'oue wrong
@@lazulazu2467 please tell me you didn't spell "you're" like that unironically 💀
@@UpsideDownCycle what is irony
i would love an exploration based game set in old aperture with little nightmares type gameplay, i never even cared for the puzzles all that much in portal, my favorite parts were always the in between bits when you were escaping and running around through all the back areas of aperture
Heres my theory for what Tartaros 09 is.
Tartaros 09 is one of many junctions and dividers between each shaft, as well as a dumping site for any trash, dead corpses, unused products and general acid wastes. It also has these gigantic pillars stretching off into the distance, which couldve been used to hold up some unsafe testing areas, as well as offices and other employee areas. (By unsafe, i mean test chambers in an extremely unstable and unsafe area, that could collapse at any moment.) Due to what seems to be canals, id also assume these sites would also be used if the shafts somehow began to flood (as rare as that seems, it could happen). In Portal Stories: Mel, we hear virgil talk about how AEGIS was flooding the lower depths of aperture, maybe some Tartaros areas were used to house lots of water that was polluted and became corrosive acid.
Basically, i think the Tartaros areas were used as borders between test shafts, as well as to hold up unsafe tests, hold water, used as a dumping site and for structural integrity. And if you didnt get the hint, i also think there are more than Tartaros 09, meaning like Tartaros 01-09.
Its interesting to me that Tartaros is a massive cavern, but that Test Shaft 09 runs ALONGSIDE it. Seems really odd to have it layed out like that. Usually in fan interpretations, the test shafts exist LITTERALLY under new aperature, but the existence of Tartaros means that the new Aperature facilities could actually be at the same level of old aperature (in some locations).
My guess is it's just an oversight in the design of Portal 2, but I suppose you could also say that "regular" aperture (I.E. the factories and offices) exist in a massive cavern, and the sealed test shafts were ALWAYS protected by those big doors. They were designed to be largely sealed environments (that themselves contained the asbestos lined and sealed test spheres)
I mean the point of the fall was to tell you that it’s a really *really* long fall. I think it was like 1 and a half miles of falling if I remember correctly? But at some point during the fall you transition from the enrichment center to an older portion of the construction and continue to fall.
Well, I guess that's what my next community chamber will be about.
If they came out with a game that was exploring focused rather than puzzle focused, I'd be in heaven. I'd love to get to see a big sprawling depiction of Aperture that we only get a glimpse of in the other games. It doesn't matter if it's not a mainline entry. The idea of using the portal gun as a traversal mechanism and not a puzzling tool would be really fun to experience, too.
The thing I don't get about the "modern enrichment centre looming above us" is how the modern test chambers we see seem pretty close, in comparison to the whole shaft we fell down *and* the stuff we have to climb up. So either it's kinda wedge-shaped (bits of old aperture are next to bits of new aperture at some elevations?) OR those are test chambers that have fallen down themselves, or... idk something else? It's weird.
Would have loved the version of Portal 2 that took like an hour in game to stop down and let us just explore a super large area down there. It's the most memorable part of Portal 2 to me and I always love the climb back up out of Tartarus 09 because it gives Aperature so much more character and atmosphere. Really don't care/understand how players could get bored just looking for the next portalable surface when the environment is so different compared to the rest of the game up until that point. I may be in the minority, but a walking sim with a Portal gun sounds like fun to me
i feel like if valve ever makes a 3rd official entry into the portal series it would have to be a prequel, something that takes place during caves era of aperture but still after the creation of the portal gun, possibly using the more bulky style shown on one of the old posters you see while going through old aperture, as then they could elaborate on tartaros, possibly what the borealis was for, and maybe throw in some easter eggs like seeing a testing track for the old f-stop idea.
who knows maybe if valve ever gets back to making games for their own franchises they could make a new orange box with an actual half life2 episode 2 sequal, this hypothetical prequal portal 3, and either a 3rd team fortress or left 4 dead
Tartaros 09 Theory: Tartaros 09 was originally a large test "shaft" that was actually just a massive area for smaller Enrichment "Cubes", which were the predecessor to the new aperture test chambers. This can be confirmed by the rubble surrounding where you first spawn. Also there are no transition seals in Tartaros, suggesting that Tartaros is above the seals or is the area where all the springs around Transition Seal 02 were present. Not to mention the entire New Aperture facility is above it, and the Pillars likely held the Cubes together. The cubes became unstable after the likely millions of years have passed when chell wakes up, and rot while she was still up there.
If you could somehow read that word salad up here, you get what I mean
Not to mention, the entire area is likely not called Tartaros 09, it's called Tartaros. Tartaros 09 is just the part of Tartaros surrounding test shaft 09
Roblox’s QSERF has a “Tartarus Zone”, it just being the entrance to the facility with a large door kinda like the transition seal but on the ceiling. I swear there was a vault door in Portal just like that.
How do you know that portal repercussions is canceled? Is it just because he didn't make any video updates in a long time? From what i know, the creator just got a burnout from the source engine tools and put the project on hold
The creator of Repeecussions works as a professional game developer now, I know people who have asked him what the status of Repercussions is, and while he says its on “Indefinite Hiatus”, the reality of the situation is that it is cancelled, he only says its on indefinite hiatus in case of the absolute tiniest sliver of a miracle for him to go back to Repercussions, and considering his criticism of how him working with Source feels like a pain, I don’t think he’ll choose doing a non-profit mod over his actual real game dev job.
@@OssyFlawol let us believe, god damnit
Thinking about it, I am inclined to trace a lot of the issues players have with Tartaros and similar large BTS areas in custom maps to primarily Portal 2's crosshair no longer indicating whether a surface is portalable, and secondarily the less limited range of materials. Even in the cluttered BTS areas in P1 and many of its more popular custom map packs, the vast majority of surfaces were portalable concrete/tile or portal-proof metal, so you didn't have to hunt as much for a portalable surface, and when you thought you might have found it, the crosshair would tell you, so there was a lot less spamming the mouse to check everything. Tartaros and a lot of the custom maps that try to mimic its aesthetic turn into “hunt down the portalable surface” in large part because there are a lot more ambiguous concrete-looking (and in some '70s maps, colored) surfaces.
It seems small, but I noticed, even after all this time, I still enjoy P1 maps that go outside the Portal aesthetic (whether with HL2 textures or custom ones), but prefer P2 maps that stick to established conventions, in large part because the crosshair saves me from spamming portals everywhere.
The symbol on the structural support makes me think of an ankh, or maybe an ankh resting on top of a stump, styled to look like an industrial symbol. If so, then just like the name Tartaros, this is also a mythical reference to the underworld, literally focusing on the part under the sign of "life". Also a stump is both dead and a kind of foundation so it's fitting for a structural support under the then-inhabited parts of the facility. Or it could be just a permanent concrete anchor but then it's stylized nearly beyond recognition and without displaying any particularly useful information...
the weird industrial symbol thingy looks like something is anchored into the ground. maybe it visualizes how deep the pillars go below the surface because they wouldnt be able to provide enough stability otherwise?
The tartorus is very interesting to me, it shows how vast the facility is, and the decaying superstructure makes you wonder how much longer until the support collasps
i think that they should have kept the beta one but made it so you have to use the portal gun to move round the ruined junk yard where the old walkways have been destroyed and wires are sticking out and can hurt you so its like a massive 'accidental' puzzle
I just want to know how so much light is getting down there
I'd have to agree that Tartaros 09 was some kind of artificial water source because in one section from the 1970's you can find a dried dock where The Borealis was during Half Life 2.
I still wonder how they got it there in the first place though, even if there was water, considering how far down it is.
The borealis has teleportation abilities.
The answer is that Marc Laidlaw was never consulted about the Portal 2 Borealis easter egg, he intended to show the drydock in Ep3 in a logical place
@@chocofrolik834 Cool, thanks.
1 problem, Valve can't count to 3
I really wish there were actual captions here. I can't understand half the words.
Noting the nature of atomic/nuclear testing during the 1950s-1960s, Aperture was actually quite ahead of the curve to conduct their scientific testing deep underground.
My personal head-cannon is Tartaros 09 could have been the early support structure for a larger old aperture-new aperture, that was scrapped mid construction (note that the Tartaros pillars don't look completed, especially along the top). Either because of Caves death, or they just plain ran out of money, for the modern Enrichment center, with it's panel style of construction
correction. "tartarus" is the latinized version of the spelling, making "tartaros" closer to the actual greek spelling.
Tartarus: is that a GD reference!?
Didn't even knew that place was called Tartarus 09, I thought this was about a mod lol
REPERCUSSIONS WAS FREAKING CANCELLED??!! IVE BEEN WAITING FOR YEARS FOR IT TO BE RELEASED!!! hmph. It’s not his fault. It mine, for not researching.
This is literally my favourite part of the game!
the "strange industrial symbol" always looked like a anchor to me it may also be a diving bell as it looks more like a cone.
I swear I dreamed things similar to Tartaros 09's pillars.
Portal Repercussions isn't cancelled! Lamarr even said so on his channel. It's simply paused.
ive literally talked to people who know the guy, its dead fam
@@OssyFlawol awwwwww man my false hope was in vain
Im like 98% sure that the symbol has something to do with the borealis as it appears vaguely nautical in appearance almost like a ship's bell forming a nautical compass
Yo. Prometheus actual didn’t give knowledge but fire. Also he was banished by Zeus and was sent to Tartarus/hell pretty much and was pecked by a hawk eating his liver.
Maybe Tartaros 09 was the "robot hell" referenced by GLaDOS.
think this is where they condensed the portal device from the Philadelphia experiment into the back pack to the gun.
Tartaros 09 is my home.
Shame repercussions mod got cancelled that mod seemed really cool
Portal Stories Mel had a pretty memorable Tartaros section imo
Original functions/uses of the area (when it comes to the lore) aside, maybe Tartaros 09 is (or at least is a part of) what GLaDOS refers to as Android Hell?
tartaros 09 actualy is the thing from persona 3 and really that's all of aperture
No
...No.
As someone who's played Persona 3. No. Just no.
In Persona 3, Tartarus is accessed only via the Dark Hour and is caused by an incident by the Kirijo Group in the place where Gekkoukan High would later be made. Tartarus goes above and above the surface, while Tartaros goes up and up BELOW. Not to mention everything else about Tartarus and Tartaros 09, like Monad in Tartarus, Shaft 09 being closed down because of testing for Tartaros and more.
I always thought it was a nuclear reactor
I absolutely hate this area, so glad they shortened it to what it became. But it's still no doubt a very long-winded concrete-surface-search-fest. It being one of the menu backgrounds of P2 with PotatOS' Lament playing in the background creeped me out well enough. And now I discover this area actually has an ominous frickin' name, I hate it even more.
This was a triumph
Portal: Still Alive Borealis scene kinda looks like it was in some sorta tartaros esk like area.
also some of the stuff from Portal: Still Alive was carryed in to portal 2, like the crusher; so maybe there was thought by valve.
idk lol
Tartarus is Portal's version of the bottom of Khazad-Dum, minus nameless things and Durin's Bane
Hmmm. I might play around with tataros 09 a bit for some maps now
I like to think that weird yellow symbol was the logo of the original salt miners
Mabey Tartaros 09 was a test room with the cancelled purple gell
Tartaros 09 is such a good mod idea...
I think that the strange sign (With the R) is something to do with the Borialis
(Incase nobody knew) tartaros shows similarities to Chinese apartment blocks.. mainly because that's what inspired them
The commentary node here talks about what inspired the general aesthetic of Portal 2 as a whole, the Chinese Apartment Block inspiration can be seen more in the intro sequence with the container ride and an early Human Vault concept art, you can see that here: valvearchive.com/archive/Portal/Portal%202/Art/Environment%20Art/finale04.jpg
Tartaros clearly has bits of it’s own style and is more inspired by the “junkyard filled with rocketry parts” that I mention in the video.
hell yeah
now 12 years later players wish there was more lore
Love your portal-themed sona :3
drgbase, vj base, cpt base redux, simfphys, scars, nextbots mantling + wallrunning, ultrakill dash & ground slam ability, darken217 sci fi weapon pack, tfa / arccw, dismembment mod, simple weapons base, enhanced pm editor + c_hands, navmesh editor / nodegraph editor
@@Likemea Huh?
@@wah8493 hi
Youspeakwaytoofastpleaseslowdown
Wasn’t Tartaros 09 in portal stories mel?
The reason why old aperture is destroyed its also affected by Black Mesa Tartaros 09 why there is an water around that place is because aperture started being built at 1932s and started at a salt mine than turned into a facility in 1950s the name changed into aperture science innovators in 1970s the name changed into aperture and once you got to the top go to the office and behind the servers you will see an easter egg which is the borealis location
(Sixty dollars) and before you can portal to the offices you will hear cave johnson saying
"Black mesa can eat my bankrupt!"
If you need more stuffs from old aperture just tell me i know everything about old aperture
haha qserf go brrrrrrrrrrr
ehh i dont get it lol
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be my fiance
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AWAAAAAAAAAA qwq
😐
Dude you talk FAST