Aperture Science Personality Construct

"The Enrichment Center reminds you that although circumstances may appear bleak, you are not alone. All Aperture Science personality constructs will remain functional in apocalyptic, low power environments of as few as 1.1 volts."

- Announcer

The Aperture Science Personality Constructs, also known as Personality Cores or Personality Spheres, are independent spheres containing advanced personality software created by Aperture Science for use in their laboratories. They are the backbones of the facility.

Design
Personality Cores are typically stored within a case equipped with two handles, above and under, which fits around the Core itself, dotted with a large, single eye (supposedly a camera), with a color related to its function, a pupil varying in size, and a varying number of dots at each side of the eye. The Core can move in all directions independently from its case, allowing it to see in every direction not hidden by the case. In the back of the Core can typically found a three pin plug to connect it to the proper devices. Personality Cores also seem to be very solid and robust devices, as they do not seem to be affected by long falls. It appears that only an Emergency Intelligence Incinerator can destroy them. Wheatley even survives being partly crushed by one of GLaDOS' claws when she awakens and temporary goes off line, only to later come back online to help Chell after she is thrown into testing again.

In Portal 2, Wheatley states that a Personality Core is never to disengage itself from its ceiling rail, otherwise it will kill itself. It proves to be untrue when Wheatley still functions after his fall. When Chell detaches all of GLaDOS' Cores in Portal, they also continue functioning and actually do not display their proper personality before being detached. With the survival of Wheatley after being disengaged, that shows that a Personality Core can survive on its own. While it cannot move, it appears to have some sort of battery that lasts a long time. The Aperture Science Apocalypse announcements indicate that in the event of the collapse of society, Aperture Science Personality constructs are designed to function on power sources as low as 1.1 volts for protracted periods of time.

Still, when Chell detaches all of GLaDOS' Cores in Portal, the Cores are all sent in a different location, making it harder and harder for Chell to catch them. While being in these locations, they appear to be still linked to GLaDOS somehow with a greenish, semi-transparent beam/thread. It is only when grabbed by Chell and destroyed in the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator that their effect on GLaDOS stops (In Portal 2, the Personality Cores only affect Wheatley when attached to it). GLaDOS is also equipped with four discs and four servers installed in the entrance of her chamber. These may be related to her Personality Cores, but it is unknown to what extent. The The Orange Box Prima Guide states that these four discs "represent each aspect" of her Personality Cores, but it is unknown what that means exactly.

Cores are not foolproof and can become corrupted. Using these corrupt cores to control another will also corrupt that core in the process. Several of these corrupted cores were seen in Portal 2: the "Space Core," a yellow core with a rapidly dilating pupil who speaks enthusiastically and disjointedly about space; the "Adventure Core" (who also claims his name is "Rick"), a green core with a cat-like pupil and highly macho personality who attempts to flirt with Chell; and the "Fact Core," a pink core with a large round pupil who spews random (and often very inaccurate) trivia while also claiming to be superior to the other two corrupted cores. Wheatley himself had already becoming partly corrupted prior to his fight with Chell. The Space Core puts him on 50% corruption, the Adventure Core on 75% and the Fact Core on 100%, effectively preventing him from doing any further actions without shutting him down fully in the process.

Function


In Portal, the Personality Cores are mostly used on GLaDOS, who is dotted with four types: the Morality Core, a purple core with a rather dilated pupil and two dots installed into GLaDOS to stop her from flooding the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin; the Curiosity Core, an orange core with an average size pupil and four dots that is insatiably curious about everything around it (it even recognizes Chell as "the lady from the test"); the Knowledge Core (also known as "Crazy Core"), a blue core with a very dilated pupil and six dots that gives an interesting cake recipe, and the Emotion Core (also known as "Aggressive Core" or "Anger Sphere"), a red core with a rather small pupil and eight dots that emits angry growling sounds. According to GLaDOS in Portal 2, the cores restricted her by constantly talking to her putting thoughts into her mind. She stresses that after she regains her awareness of Caroline, that it was a very different feeling to hear her own voice expressing morals instead of the voices of others. She also mentions that once Wheatley was attached to her and he was one of the voices they once used to control her.

When not connected to another A.I. system, they are confined to ceiling rails dubbed as Management Rails, allowing traveling around the facility. They can be linked to computer terminals to open doors, hack into mainframes, or to activate breaker-room elevators. While some Personality Cores have very basic functions, some are capable of being sentient independently, are able to learn from their experiences and display human-like traits. Indeed, Wheatley expresses feelings such as enthusiasm, fear, or anger, in an advanced way. The cores also are able to simulate the feeling of pain and will react to surges of electricity running through their circuits as displayed by Wheatley. One of GLaDOS' taunts in Portal also mentions that the difference between her and Chell in Portal was she could feel pain.

Other purposes
After the events of Portal 2, ATLAS and P-body, two robots made out of scraps are used in couples in Test Chambers. One of them, apparently with masculine personality (ATLAS), was built from a modified Personality Core. Although, the other with feminine personality (P-body), upon blueprints seen during game loading times implies that its eye is very much similar to a Personality Core.



The Rocket Sentry, the fifth known type of Core, also appears to be a personality core mounted on a moving arm and equipped with a rocket launcher and containing very basic software. Instead of talking, it emits beeps before shooting its rockets. It also has three colors instead of only one, related to its different modes (green: idle, yellow: locked on target; red: firing). The size of its pupil is similar to that of the Anger Core.

Storage and Disposal
At the end of Portal, numerous Personality Cores stored around the promised cake and a Companion Cube can be seen waking up. During the time that elapsed between Portal and Portal 2, these Personality Cores carved out sections of the neglected Enrichment Center as their own, while traveling around the facility via the laboratory ceiling rails they are confined to.

At the conclusion of Portal 2, a large bin of corrupted cores is discovered before the final encounter with Wheatley, three of which are used as a means of corrupting him and forcing a core replacement.

GLaDOS's "Head" (AKA PotatOS)
A yellow-eyed core, it is notably different in shape from other Personality Constructs, being of a "half-cylinder" shape and without any coating. It most notably holds GLaDOS's memories as Caroline and during the early development, which would be cast away if GLaDOS's head was attached to her body.

When Wheatley takes control of Aperture Laboratories, he opts for installing this core into a potato battery. From there, until the end of the game, it is referred to as "PotatOS".

""Yes sir, Mr. Johnson..." Why did I just-Who is that? What the HELL is going on he?"

- PotatOS

Morality Core
This purple-eyed core was installed into GLaDOS when she began flooding the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin to stop her from doing so. It neither speaks nor moves around, even when held. However, GLaDOS comments in Portal 2 about hearing the voices of others giving her morals. This means the Morality Core was still able to tell her what was to be done. In Portal 2: Lab Rat, Doug Rattmann notes that, even with a moral awareness, a human being can still ignore its own morals and doubted that the Morality Core was enough to keep GLaDOS under control. His doubts in the core were well-founded.

Curiosity Core
An orange-eyed core with a very inquisitive mind. It constantly looks around, repeatedly questions about things it sees, people it meets and pretty much everything else in a high-pitched, child-like voice. According to GLaDOS, she only kept Chell alive out of curiosity until the Curiosity Core was destroyed.

"Who are you? What is that? Oh, what's that? What's that? What is THAT?"

- The Curiosity Core

Knowledge Core (AKA Cake Core)
This core's eye is light blue and has a heavily dilated pupil. When held, it lazily rolls around and around in its shell, reciting a long cake recipe containing dozens of unusual and often inedible ingredients.

Anger Core
A red-eyed sphere with a shrunken pupil that twitches and shakes around madly, growling and snarling incoherently like a wild animal all the while. This core may be the source, or at least part of the source, of GLaDOS' fury.

Intelligence Dampening Core (AKA "Wheatley")
A blue eyed core that is a main character of Portal 2. Wheatley helps Chell escape the facility for the entire first half of the game. According to GLaDOS, he was one of the cores put onto her to see how she would react. It worked by putting foolish thoughts into her head, preventing intelligent thoughts. She stressed how moronic this core was, having been created to be the biggest moron known to mankind and described his stupidity as like a tumor. Oddly, despite his lack of intelligence, he is quite logical on occasions, but often is quite blunt on his resolutions and doesn't think things through thoroughly.

Space Core
A yellow-eyed core who lets off sparks as it twitches. It speaks rapidly and endlessly about space and space-related activities. At the end of Portal 2, when it is floating in space with Wheatley, it repeats "I'm in space! So much space! We're in space!" It does not however seem to know much about space, despite being obsessed with it.

"Dad! I'm in space! [low-pitched 'space' voice] I'm proud of you, son. [normal voice] Dad, are you space? [low-pitched 'space' voice] Yes. Now we are a family again."

- The Space Core

Judging from the available voice samples and subtitles, it appears the Space Core becomes fearful of space after a while. Once that happens, it decides that it wants to go back to Earth.

"Earth. Wanna go to earth. Wanna go to earth wanna go to earth wanna go to earth wanna go to earth. Wanna go to earth. Wanna go home. Wanna go home wanna go home wanna go home wanna go home. Earth earth earth. Don't like space. Don't like space. It's too big. Too big. Wanna go home. Wanna go to earth."

However, the lines were cut from the final game and to not appear outside of the game files.

Adventure Core (AKA "Rick")
A green-eyed core whose iris appears pixellated, rather than a solid light like the other cores. Its pupil is rectangular in shape. Besides having a proud and boastful male voice, it claims its name is "Rick," and that it enjoys thrills and danger, and even attempts to flirt with Chell during the final battle. When "Rick" is first seen, it is hanging and swinging on a wire, in a manner not unlike that which would be expected from an archetypal adventurer coming to the rescue. At the conclusion of the battle, "Rick" is the first core to be sucked into Space, though he is not seen with Wheatley and the Space Core after the credits.

"I'll tell ya, it's times like this I wish I had a waist so I could wear all my black belts. Yeah, I'm a black belt. In pretty much everything. Karate. Larate. Jiu Jitsu. Kick punching. Belt making. Taekwondo... Bedroom."

- Rick

Fact Core
A pink-eyed core who rapidly rattles off multiple erroneous historical and scientific facts, some true, some false, and some just plain illogical. It also boasts about its own intellect and appearance while dismissing the other two cores. It describes itself as "the most intelligent and handsome sphere," while it insults the Space Core, the Adventure Core, and even Chell.

"In 1948, at the request of a dying boy, baseball legend Babe Ruth ate seventy-five hot dogs, then died of hot dog poisoning."

- The Fact Core

Core transfers
"To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in the receptacle."

- Aperture Science Announcement System

When the cores become damaged, they usually develop problems. Some include a feedback loop, which causes them to have the same thoughts or processes over and over again, or multiple personalities, where a core will constantly switch between the personality of someone else and its own, or try and make sense of random data. When a core experiences these symptoms, the Aperture Science main computer (usually GLaDOS or Wheatley) cannot function properly; Therefore, a core transfer is needed. If an alternate core is present in the main computer chamber, the Aperture Science Announcement System will detect it and note that a core transfer may be needed and ask that an associate plug the replacement core into the Aperture Science Core Transfer Receptacle. It will then ask the cores if they would like to proceed with a core transfer. If both cores agree or disagree then the transfer will either continue or stop; However, if one core disagrees with the other, then a stalemate occurs and it is up to a qualified Stalemate Associate to decide if the core transfer procedure should continue or stop. To continue the transfer, the Stalemate Associate needs to press the Stalemate Resolution Button in a room just off the main computer chamber. Once pressed, the core transfer will proceed and the new core will be installed onto the main computer system. However, in one instance, the button did blow up when Wheatley tried to kill Chell. Defective cores are then taken to a storage space, most likely awaiting incineration or destruction.

Behind the scenes



 * The Personality Core went through several design iterations. At some point during development, the Cores were simple grey spheres attached to a large ring with an undetermined blue glowing matter, with GLaDOS being a large sphere above the ring. Later in development, they were glowing light blue spheres, hanging to a "Birth of Venus"-like GLaDOS, until they were given their more detailed design with the different colors, reminiscent of a webcam design.


 * Personality Cores play a more important role in Portal 2, as they appear to have rebuilt and transformed to Aperture Laboratories themselves. A Personality Core even fills the role of Chell's sidekick during the first part of the game, in the role of Wheatley.


 * The Personality Core model is much more advanced in Portal 2, an example being the animation of Wheatley's model. While the Core itself is still independent from its case, the "face" has more unique plates that turn on themselves when the Core is achieving a task or has a particular emotion, and the eye is dotted with mock eyelids.


 * The Final Hours of Portal 2 states that the inspiration for the Space Core came from a commercial for Oregon Coast Aquarium. Its striking similarities can be seen in the YouTube Video Oregon Coast Aquarium commercial.

List of appearances

 * Portal
 * Portal: Still Alive
 * Portal ARG
 * PotatoFoolsDay ARG
 * Portal 2: Lab Rat
 * Portal 2
 * The Final Hours of Portal 2