GLaDOS



GLaDOS (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, GLaDOS is able to achieve a seamless and almost infinite testing design whilst residing in the Central AI Chamber.

In possession of a feminine programming, she is the antagonist of Portal and Portal 2. In the game's cooperative campaign, GLaDOS is the testing supervisor of Atlas and P-body.

GLaDOS is voiced by opera singer and voice actress.

Background
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 was able to take control of half of the facility's features, 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 along with the series' main protagonist, Chell. The destruction of the company also coincided with an invasion of Earth, which had occurred two days after at Aperture's rival company, Black Mesa. This ultimately led to the negligence of the outside world from realizing Aperture's fate, as all attention had been diverted to Black Mesa and the aforementioned invasion.

Since the attack, she has managed the company to her limits.

Portal


Prior to the events of Portal, one of Aperture's technicians, Doug Rattmann, successfully evaded GLaDOS' attempts to flood the Enrichment Center with neurotoxin. He then took refuge in several departments throughout the facility and began tampering with the initial test subject roster, rearranging Chell to the top of the list as Test Subject #1 instead. Since GLaDOS initiated a lockdown, Rattmann was forced to live his whole life hiding between the backstages of Test Chambers in the Enrichment Center. He then left various warnings of GLaDOS through graffiti that could only be found behind several corrupted wall panels in Test Chambers, in hopes that Chell would later stumble upon them. GLaDOS was able to operate the company all while residing in her Central AI Chamber, despite lacking full control over the facility.

She then awakens Chell for her mandatory testing of the Handheld Portal Device, which began the events of Portal. During these time periods, she had constantly intimidated Chell during her performances and given bitter yet innocent sarcastic notions by simply acting out like conveniently placed pre-recorded messages.

After Chell completed the final test chamber,

Reawakening era


Beginning the major events of Portal 2, GLaDOS is reactivated through the accidental efforts of both Wheatley and Chell having tried to access an escape lift to the surface in the Central AI Chamber, as both of them were previously 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.







From then on, she conducts tests on the two robot test subjects; Atlas and P-body.

Cooperative testing era
GLaDOS has been primarily focusing on her two new android test subjects Atlas and P-body, as part of the Cooperative Testing Initiative. Typical to her nature, she would constantly find a way to crush their spirits via sarcasm and expressing herself to be having little hope for them.







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 true thoughts. She then becomes increasingly more agitated and is portrayed as a narcissist during Chell's escape attempts.

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

GLaDOS' status as the central core allows her to have various controls over the Enrichment Center. Apart from being able to build, reconstruct or deface test chambers, GLaDOS is able to provide the pneumatic pressures serving as the vacuum inside the tube networks across the facility - a power which the Announcer could only handle the elevator tube shafts in the chamberlocks. In Portal, GLaDOS was able to steer away the vacuum directions inside the tubes and managed to pull Chell back into Test Chamber 09 after the latter attempted to travel inside a burst tube.

Development and acting


During Anime Midwest 2011, voice actress revealed that the premise of GLaDOS had always been a robotic voice that would guide the protagonist and often intimidates them. Early on development, Valve had used copyrighted voice samples as a for GLaDOS. As Ellen McLain previously voiced the radio communications dispatcher of the Combine Overwatch throughout the Half-Life 2 saga, the developers had chosen her for the role of GLaDOS. During this time, developers had kept the development quiet, leaving Ellen unaware what game it is that she is doing voice work for. Ellen was later made aware of her work and success when Portal was finally released.

In Portal 2, GLaDOS' dialogue shortly after her awakening were originally much more insulting. As playtesters grew uncomfortable with her insults, it was then decided that GLaDOS continues her passive-aggressive behavior which she began from the Portal credits song, Still Alive.

Appearance-wise in Portal, GLaDOS' initial designs prior to the game's release varied 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 on a 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.

In the game's commentary mode, Jeremy Bennett (art director) describes GLaDOS's design: "[...] we settled on a huge mechanical device with a delicate robotic figure dangling out of it, which successfully conveys both [her] raw power and her femininity." Originally, according to Bennett, she resembled an upside-down version of Botticelli's "Rise of Venus".

The earliest known concept art of GLaDOS' design for Portal 2 was through one of the many concept box arts; demonstrating 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 during 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, an unused 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.


 * In the single-player campaign of Portal 2, Wheatley would only refer to GLaDOS as "her" or "she".




 * On the 2011 Video Game Awards, Portal 2 had won the award for "Best Performance by a Human Female" for Ellen McLain's role as GLaDOS.


 * Fan-Art of GLaDOS' model from "Portal" depicts her having a resemblance to a woman hanging upside-down from the ceiling.

List of appearances

 * Portal
 * Portal: Still Alive
 * Portal: The First Slice
 * Portal 2: Lab Rat
 * Portal 2
 * Randolph the Red-Nosed Turret