| “ | For god's sake, you're BOXES with LEGS! It's- yeah, it's literally your only purpose! Walking onto buttons! How can you not do the one thing you were designed for?
— Wheatley
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” |
Frankenturrets (referred to as such in the developer's commentary, no official name is given, though they could possibly be called "box creatures", as they are called this in the game's sound files) are hybrids of Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cubes and two Sentry Turrets made by Wheatley during the course of Portal 2.
Overview
Wheatley designed the Frankenturrets to compensate for his lack of test subjects, having intended to design a cube which could walk on buttons themselves. However, they are shown to be utterly useless for that purpose, only wandering around aimlessly and falling over. After their introduction, they are used in place of normal cubes, with the only major difference between them and the standard cube being that the Frankenturrets will try to hop away if placed right-side up. This can be a nuisance in Wheatley's tests, but placing them so they land on their back negates the problem.
Trivia
- Instead of speaking like standard turrets, they make unusual chirping sounds, although they sound like sped up and gargled voice clips which can be roughly translated to "Let me think about this.", "What are you doing?", "Up!" and "Please put me down!"
- When picked up, they tuck their turret bodies and legs into the cube, like hermit crabs; the term "hermit" is used in the related animations. It is also interesting to note that their form of locomotion is very much reminiscent of hermit crabs.
- Their cube fixtures feature a modified version of the Enrichment Center logo, reading "Wheatley Laboratories" instead of "Aperture Laboratories". This change is also visible on the loading screens during the time in Wheatley's testing track.
- The turret heads on the cube are not consistently patterned. Occasionally they will be missing half or all of their plating.
- If placed right side up, they will hop around aimlessly, always in the direction they were facing when first put down.
- If they are moved against one of Wheatley's screens through an Excursion Funnel, they will smash it after a short amount of time.
- While they do not speak themselves, they do appear to understand speech, since a number were disabled by GLaDOS' paradoxical statement. Wheatley is unaffected by GLaDOS' paradox, which humorously suggests that the Frankenturrets are not only sentient, they are more intelligent than Wheatley.
- Wheatley did not get electrocuted for telling the Frankenturrets to get on the button, like when he tried to help Chell during one chamber. This could indicate that Frankenturrets don't qualify as test subjects.
- Whenever Chell picks one up, they tuck their turret legs in and shiver, looking visibly terrified. This may be because of something Wheatley had done to them before, after or during their creation. Also, as Wheatley is very frustrated with their lack of progress, he may have physically punished them.
- A Frankenturret can be found on one of the walkways shortly after Chapter 9 begins. However, before Chell can reach it, it is destroyed by a poorly aimed crusher which Wheatley intended for Chell.
- A Frankenturret can be seen crawling along near the back during the Turret Opera, and is occasionally mistaken for Rattmann.
- During the co-op credits, a Frankenturret can be seen hopping along in front of the conveyor belt. Another also appears on the belt to be scanned, as do most of the NPCs and objects in the game.
- Unlike normal turrets, the turret portion of a Frankenturret cannot be destroyed by lasers, possibly because Wheatley stripped them of their ammunitionary parts and thus made them non-explosive.
Behind the scenes
- The developer commentary notes their withdrawing into a cube was initially just to make them be cubical when picked up, but it was so cute they added shaking animations and wide-eyed reactions to the turret to make the player sympathize with their plight.