Aperture Science Aerial Faith Plate
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| Aerial Faith Plate | |
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| General information | |
| Faction | |
| Type |
Catapult plate |
| Usage | |
| Used by | |
The Aperture Science Aerial Faith Plate is a testing element used throughout the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, introduced in Portal 2.
Contents
Overview[edit]
Created by Aperture Science from at least 1998, this catapult plate is part of a larger trust experiment designed to help Aperture Science discover whether the capacity for trust or solving problems could be affected by being catapulted into space. It was discovered that these attributes were negatively affected.[1]
Upon contact, these platforms fling Test Subjects (and any objects, such as Weighted Storage Cubes, Sentry Turrets, or Personality Cores) into the air with a 50,000 pound-foot force, allowing them to bridge massive gaps or place portals in otherwise inaccessible areas.[1][2] When a Faith Plate fails to launch the user, it will emit a distress beacon, causing the blue lights on it to flash into orange repeatedly. In the single-player campaign, GLaDOS uses this feature in a different manner, instead, she purposely "breaks" the Faith Plate herself while Chell is currently using it. GLaDOS repeatedly does this as an attempt to mock the latter's weight, constantly disabling it after each use before she finally decides to lower the ceiling that Chell was trying to reach.
Another remarkable experience in the single-player campaign, found in the chapter The Part Where He Kills You, is that the Faith Plates have the ability to launch users sideways, rather than in the direction in which they are pointing. This is done when Chell was in Test Chamber 17 of Wheatley's testing course. It is used to eject Chell and GLaDOS to a completely different location far from the test chamber, where they are then reeled into a death trap.
Related Achievements[edit]
| Portal 2 | |
|---|---|
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Pturretdactyl (5G) |
| Use an Aerial Faith Plate to launch a turret. | |
Behind the scenes[edit]
- The Aerial Faith Plate was first introduced during the Portal ARG, in one of the ASCII art images given by the BBS, that later appeared to be a diagram depicting its functioning, as revealed by the April, 2010 issue of Game Informer.[1] An updated and moving diagram was revealed during E3 2010.[2]
- The original design of the Aerial Faith Plates were simply a non-layered Aperture Science Panel, in which a Panel is without any plating and is simply just a glass. This was changed as playtesters were struggling to tell the Faith Plate apart from the standard Panels. The overall design was changed to appear more as an actual device than just a standard Panel pushed by a robotic arm.
- The standard Panel versions are still used in certain parts of the facility, such as in the Central AI Chamber in the chapter The Escape, and as part of Wheatley's death trap in the chapter, The Part Where He Kills You.
- An instance (prefab) for the standard Panel catapults can be found in the Portal 2 Authoring Tools in the folder "gameplay" under the name "catapult_set_1300".
Trivia[edit]
So far it is unknown why while the Aerial Faith Plate was already in use in 1998, even though it is not seen in the first Portal, set several years later.[3] However, it is likely that Chell simply did not venture into testing tracks containing the Aerial Faith Plate during this time.
Gallery[edit]
Pre-release[edit]
The original diagram.
ASCII art version from the Portal ARG.
The updated diagram shown at E3 2010.
Ditto, showing a Test Subject flying off.
The standard Panel catapult as seen in the E3 demonstration footage.
Original model.
Retail[edit]
The Faith Plate's components when ejecting.
Ditto, in a darkly lit area.
Faith Plate as seen in the Hub.
Aperture Science Aerial Faith Plate icon in Perpetual Testing Initiative.
List of appearances[edit]
Main games[edit]
Other[edit]
- Portal ARG (First appearance)
- The Final Hours of Portal 2
- Portal Pinball (Non-canonical appearance)
- Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game (Non-canonical appearance)
- Lego Dimensions (Non-canonical appearance)
- Bridge Constructor Portal (Non-canonical appearance)
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 GameInformer's Portal 2 Hub on Game Informer (April 2010) (archived)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1
Aerial Faith Plate demonstration on YouTube
- ↑ Special Edition Podcast: Portal 2 on Game Informer (March 26, 2010) (archived)
