GLaDOS



GLaDOS, known in full as the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, is the central core designed to control, guide, and oversee the Aperture Science computer-aided Enrichment Center. With the ability to shift and move facilities and various chambers, she is able to achieve a seamless and almost infinite testing design.

She is the antagonist of Portal and the first half of the single-player campaign in Portal 2. In the game's cooperative campaign, GLaDOS is the testing supervisor of Atlas and P-body.

Biography
After a decade's worth of hard work, GLaDOS was officially activated in 1998, as part of one of the many events during the company's "Bring Your Daughter to Work" day. Since she is able to take control of the entire building, GLaDOS began killing most of its inhabitants by flooding the Enrichment Center with neurotoxin. However, only few if not only one of the staff such as Doug Rattmann had survived her attacks.

Now beginning the events of Portal, GLaDOS continues to operate the company all while residing in the Central AI Chamber, and at some time-frame, awakens Chell for mandatory testing. After putting Chell through a number of tests with the Handheld Portal Device, Chell was able to escape her attempt to incinerate her at the conclusion of Test Chamber 19. From there, Chell makes her way throughout the Enrichment Center to escape, only to find that the only way she could was to confront GLaDOS in her chamber, a conflict which Chell won. During the conflict, GLaDOS was heavily damaged, and remained in a dormant status for an unspecified amount of time, during which the facility degraded.



Beginning the major events of Portal 2, she was eventually reactivated through the accidental efforts of Wheatley and Chell as they try to access an escape lift to the surface in the Central AI Chamber, as both of them were trapped in the building following GLaDOS' destruction.

GLaDOS then decides to return Chell to the facility's science experiments to further her cause of science, but often makes various taunts in hopes to crush her morale.

Abilities and Traits


As the overseer and operator of the facility, GLaDOS is seemingly omnipotent, able to reconfigure rooms and carry out actions at her will. She monitors the facility and its test chambers through cameras mounted on walls. GLaDOS had displayed little to no emotion within her voice tone in the first half of Portal, due to being bound by the consciousness of other personality cores attached onto her for the sole purpose of restricting her control. She then becomes increasingly more agitated and is portrayed as intimidating near the end of the game.

GLaDOS' consciousness had been controlled by personality cores throughout the events of Portal.

Development and Acting
GLaDOS is voiced by. During Anime Midwest 2011, Ellen revealed that the concept of GLaDOS had always been a robotic voice that would pretentiously guide someone and often intimidates them. At this time, the developers had used copyrighted voice samples as a placeholder (temporary placement). As Ellen McLain had voiced the robotic the dispatcher of Combine Overwatch radio transmissions throughout Half-Life, the developers had chosen her for the role of GLaDOS. During this time, developers had kept the project a secret and had left Ellen unaware what game it is that she is voicing for. Ellen was later made aware of her work and success when Portal was finally released.

In Portal, GLaDOS' initial designs prior to the game's release vary greatly. The earliest known design of GLaDOS was a large disc with a red eyeball in the center, with the disc surrounding it and welded onto the eyeball. This concept of GLaDOS appears to be the most favorable version towards several community members and was then recreated for use by a new character entirely for the community-made machinima series, The Underground. Later on in development, the design of the large eyeball was then scrapped into a robotic body hanging upsidedown from the ceiling, with four discs surrounding above it this time. This concept has since been kept for the release of Portal, with minor adjustments such as the addition of personality cores.

The earliest known concept of GLaDOS in Portal 2 demonstrates that her body's plating was completely torn and scrapped, leaving only her head the most intact - nearing the design of her spherical-cylinder shaped head in the game's release. She had also been given a red eye color in this concept rather than her trademark yellow that was given to her in Portal. Not much else is known of her design changes for the sequel, except that the developers established that the current design of GLaDOS in Portal 2 was to signify a more antagonistic appearance and shape.

In addition, a reskin of GLaDOS' design from Portal can be found in the game files of Portal 2, presenting rust stains and scratches possibly to be used for her components scattered around in her chamber.

Trivia

 * The acronym "GLaDOS" is a pun of the name "Gladdys" and the term DOS (Disc Operating System).


 * Ellen McLain, the actress that voices GLaDOS, also provides the voice for the Administrator in Team Fortress 2 and the Combine Overwatch in the Half-Life series. This makes Ellen McLain the only voice present in every game included in the The Orange Box.


 * The most favored character that Ellen McLain has voiced is none other than GLaDOS. She reveals that despite the hard effort in pulling off the voice of the Administrator from Team Fortress 2 and her unique way of ordering things, GLaDOS' character had a greater impact on her through her popular passive-aggressive behavior and subtle insults.


 * During the development of Portal 2, playtesters were uncomfortable with GLaDOS as she was far too vindictive in the single-player campaign, and the developers concluded that some of her dialogue was too extreme. Due to this, elements of her dialogue were reworked, which resulted in the creation of a more amicable, passive-aggressive personality for GLaDOS.


 * The acronym "GLaDOS" was never pronounced or spoken in full in the entire series. The only instances of her name are through in-game captions from both games and one of her disc generators from which the acronym was only present in Portal. In Portal 2 however, Wheatley would only refer to GLaDOS as "her" or "she".