Doug Rattmann

"The cake is a lie."

- Doug Rattmann

Doug Rattmann, also known as the Ratman, is a former Aperture Science employee who was apparently forced to navigate the Aperture Science Enrichment Center as a Test Subject. During his testing period, he lost access to his antipsychotic medication and was plagued by constant hallucinations as a result, leading him to write messages of help and warning on the walls.

Although unseen for the entirety of both games, his scribblings make him an established presence in Portal and Portal 2. According the events described in Portal 2: Lab Rat, it appears he died peacefully in his sleep, in the containment area where Chell first wakes up in Portal, from Sentry turret gun wounds, but not before activating a Cryo-generator to keep Chell alive, where she was taken by the Party Escort Bot, for the events of Portal 2. His full name, a play on "Ratman", was given during the Portal ARG.

Background
Doug Rattmann was an Aperture Science employee diagnosed with Schizophrenia charged with the maintenance of the Aperture Image Format, an interactive graphics format created in 1985. He had access to Aperture Science's BBS, with the login "drattmann" and the password "h0nee".

Prior to GLaDOS' activation, Rattmann worked with a fellow employee named Henry, who was working on GLaDOS. Henry believed it to be enjoyable to work on GLaDOS, and that they were lucky to be able to do so, considering her development to be a modern equivalent of the moon landing, while Rattmann was actually nervous on her intentions on killing them in one sixteenth of a picosecond after every attempted activation, forcing them to switch her off. At one point, Rattmann also worked with Henry to make GLaDOS' conscience, which Rattmann believed to be insufficient to stop her murderous intentions, however Henry dismissed these concerns.

When GLaDOS was activated in 200-, she became self-aware, locked down the facility, and flooded the Enrichment Center with deadly neurotoxins. Rattmann was one of the only survivors of this first attack, and GLaDOS turned onto taunting him about his schizophrenia. She attempted to convince him that his situation was a result of paranoia, but he ignored her, and continued to the Test Subject files. Here, he selected Chell as the first Test Subject, simply because of a hunch. He then continued to survive in undetermined periods of time in the test chambers and maintenance areas, slowly losing his sanity, and leaving behind scribblings in the chambers.

Portal
Although unseen for the entirety of Portal, Rattmann is made aware to Chell through his frantic scribblings / graffiti on the inner walls of several Test Chambers. These scribblings are first seen in Test Chamber 16, behind a broken wall held open by two Weighted Storage Cubes. It is here that the well-known statement "the cake is a lie" is written in black.

The scribblings in Test Chamber 17 reveal most of what is currently known about Rattmann.

Another "Ratman Den" area is seen in Test Chamber 18, where it appears that Rattmann managed to violently break open a whole section of reinforced wall. After Chell escapes incineration at the hands of GLaDOS in Test Chamber 19, she finds more and more of Rattmann's scribblings of help and warning, with arrows and hints guiding her through the hazardous innards of the facility. Rattmann's hints stop just before GLaDOS's massive Sentry Gun ambush, hinting that his journey stopped around there and that he was never able to get to GLaDOS, whatever was the purpose of his errancies.

Portal 2: Lab Rat
In Portal 2: Lab Rat, Rattmann is shown to be observing Chell, during her quest through the final stages of Portal. After she destroys GLaDOS, he follows her to the surface, but upon seeing her being dragged back inside by the Party Escort Bot, he decides to go back into the facility to rescue her, despite his conscience, in the form of a hallucinated Companion Cube, attempts to convince him to run away. Back in the facility, he discovers that Chell has been placed in a Cryo-Chamber. He soon discovers that GLaDOS' explosion blew the main grid, and that all the Cryo-Chambers are off-line. He attempts to reach Cryo-Control to rescue Chell, but without the advice of his Companion Cube, which is no longer talking due to the anti-psychotic pills he previoulsy took, he is incapable of selecting the right way, and is shot in the leg by a turret, and falls unconscious. Upon re-gaining consciousness, he is back into his psychosis, discovering that he can no longer rescue Chell. However, the Companion Cube tells him that he can save her by patching her Cryo-Chamber into the reserve grid, placing her in stasis for an unspecified ammount of time, but saving her from death. After doing so, he returns to Test Chamber 00's Relaxation Vault, and goes to sleep in it.

Portal 2


Rattmann is said to be still alive during the Portal events, and to have died some time after GLaDOS's partial destruction. Additional scribblings are slated to be seen in Portal 2, indicating he survived some time after GLaDOS's partial destruction. Furthermore, one of the leaked Portal 2 achievements, requires to find the hidden signal in one of Rattmann's dens, and the picture is similar to the "Transmission Received" achievement from Portal, suggesting that Rattmann's appearance in Portal 2 will be in so-called "Rattmann dens" as well, and one of them will contain an Aperture Science Radio.

In a March 2011 interview with Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek it was stated that there was an unseen character in Portal who scrawled on walls, and he's also in Portal 2 to tell the story of the first game in six panels. He was there watching the final battle, witnessing what you did in Portal. When the interviewer then asked whether they would "consider elaborating on this person in Portal 2", it was stated that they "can't really talk about that yet" and that "there's some ancillary stuff outside the game coming up that will answer that".

Appearance
As seen in Portal 2: Rat Lab, Rattmann appears to have heterochromia - A condition in which each eye has a different-colored iris.

Personality and skills
Prior to the activation of GLaDOS, Rattman was quite sane, and was nervous with the work on GLaDOS, believing that conscience was not enough to stop her, as opposed to the enthusiastic engineer Henry. However, as time passed when he was trapped in the facility, he grew increasingly insane, and began to see hallucinations of the Weighted Companion Cube, representing his conscience. He sees Chell as a liberator, and decides to abandon his escape from the facility on the surface, in order to rescue her when the Party Escort Bot arrives and picks her up. He is also depicted to take antipsychotic medicine.

The scribblings seen in Portal show that he is an educated man, quoting both Dickinson and Longfellow to express himself over the loss of his Weighted Companion Cube, as well as a small reference to Auden. Aside from his scribblings, Rattmann appears to have adept technical skills. Apparently using the login name and password he managed to procure, he was able to open up certain wall sections in Test Chambers, make Vital Apparatus Vents dispense more Weighted Storage Cubes, and take pictures of the Companion Cube (probably by using the cameras in the Test Chambers). He is also able to create makeshift stoves out of computer heat sinks.

Behind the scenes



 * The username "cjohnson" and password "tier3" can be used on ApertureScience.com to gain administrator access. It is possible the hacker who posted the message about the lockdown access with the command  is Rattmann himself.


 * A Portal: Still Alive Achievement named "Rat's Tale" requires to find all of the Ratman Dens. Its logo reuses a texture seen in-game.


 * When Portal 2 was officially announced on March 5, 2010, several alphanumerics were underlined in the text, as part of the Portal ARG. When reorganized together, these letters gave the words "drattmann" and "h0nee", which are a second set of usernames and passwords (belonging to Doug Rattmann) for the BBS number (425) 822-5251. Upon entering them, one has access to data that will eventually give access to a program to read Aperture Image Format files.

Graffiti list
What follows is a list of all his graffiti, scribblings and Aperture Science posters left by the Ratman in his dens. The texture files are used for better clarity.

List of appearances

 * Portal
 * Portal: Still Alive
 * Portal ARG
 * Portal 2: Lab Rat
 * Portal 2