Core Hub Era



In the year of 2009, the Core Hub Era began as one of the first attempts to integrate a story and plotline into the mechanics established in the Experimental Era. This was the very first attempt in Portal 2's development period to create a proper sequel to the first Portal game. It began at a currently unknown date early in 2009, sometime after the Experimental Era, and lasted until some point after the TAG: The Power Of Paint developers were hired by Valve in Summer 2009 wherein the implementation of Paint acted as the final move that would cause Valve to consider scrapping the Core Hub structure, which they would do by the end of the year of 2009, this leads into the Multi-Core Era.

= Storyline = The Aperture Science Enrichment Center would be in ruins after the deactivation of GLaDOS in Portal 1, leaving the Cores to upkeep the facility. This ended up being a complete failure as Cores would claim parts of the Enrichment Center as their own, leading to many conflicts between them. Originally, the player would play as Mel in an attempt to not intrude on Chell's story, but this was later changed to Chell as Valve came to the conclusion that who the Protagonist was did not matter and due to backlash from playtesters. After waking up, Chell would move through the destroyed test chambers from the first game, later finding a deactivated Carcass GLaDOS. Upon entering Carcass GLaDOS's chamber, the player would be tricked by a pre-recorded meassage to use a terminal found in the room to turn Carcass GLaDOS back on.

Due to Damage sustained at the end of the game, Carcass GLaDOS would not remember most of the events from Portal 1, it is theorised that she would then instruct you to find 6 personality cores in their parts of the facility accessed via color-coded doors found on the edge of the Hub, and bring them back to her so she could be repaired. After finding a Core, you would need to bring it to a room connected to the Hub, where you would one by one install them in order to fully repair Carcass GLaDOS. Why the player would do this or the ending is unkown.

Finding the Cores
The Morgan Freeman Sphere (NPC) would be found in it's specific Core Room at the end of a currently undetermined Test Track, where it would be revealed that it had been stuck in its room for a very long amount of time. After taking it outside of its room, it experiences shock after seeing the outside world for the first time in some time, they will eventually befriend the player and guide them back to the Hub while telling the player random facts.

The Paranoid Sphere (NPC) was the predecessor to the Morgan Freeman Sphere in development, and would've be found holed up inside of it's room guarded on one side by multiple turrets, the player would then sneak up on him and catch him off guard. While carrying him back to Carcass GLaDOS he would threaten the player multiple times.

No other information is known about how and where the other Cores would be found.

Descriptions of the Cores

 * The Paranoid Sphere was cut very early on in this Era's development, it would serve as the inspiration for the creation of the Morgan Freeman Sphere. As the name implies it would suffer from heavy paranoia almost constantly. It would have a thick British accent and yellow eye color, it's design still resembled the Portal 1 Personality Cores.
 * The Morgan Freeman Sphere, due to spending such a long amount of time in isolation, developed traits such as being constant anger and defensiveness, along with severe Paranoia. They were described as knowing "every single crack in the floor tiles", as an example of just how wise they were about the small space they were stuck in.
 * The Aquarium Sphere (NPC) would be fixated on achieving a certain mission, be hyper-active, and would eventually evolve into the Space Core, it's eye color was green.
 * The Pendleton Sphere (NPC) would be a frantic and clumsy personality core with a British accent, and would later become Wheatley.
 * The Quint Sphere (NPC) was a proposed idea by Jay Pinkerton, the lead writer for Portal 2 for a chracter. It would be based off of the Jaws character of the same name, and would be obsessed with hunting down Carcass GLaDOS.

= Characters =


 * Mel
 * Carcass GLaDOS
 * Paranoid Sphere (NPC)
 * Morgan Freeman Sphere (NPC)
 * Aquarium Sphere (NPC)
 * Pendleton Sphere (NPC)
 * Quint Sphere (NPC)

= Gameplay = The Gameplay would consist of the player going through overgrown and decayed versions of the 13 original Portal 1 chambers, nicknamed the Prehub while being guided by GLaDOS via pre-recorded messages. After reaching the 13th Prehub Chamber, the player would escape through a destroyed part of the test chamber, reaching GLaDOS and turning her on. Upon reactivating GLaDOS, she would task player with finding Personality Cores to repair GLaDOS, these Cores would be found upon completing more chambers. = Gallery =

= Trivia = 

= References =