Entry tags:
APPLICATION: ATARAXION
PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Whit
OOC Journal:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
whitticus
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Over 18!
Email + IM: E-mail: amysterioussomeone@gmail.com
AIM: t0th3m00n
Characters Played at Ataraxion: N/A
THIS APPLICATION CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR PORTAL 2
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Wheatley (Formal Designation: "Aperture Science Intelligence Dampening Sphere")
Canon: Portal 2
Original or Alternate Universe: Original Universe.
Canon Point: Post-end, after his apology monologue.
Number: 089
Setting:
Once upon a time, in Upper Michigan, there was Aperture Science.
Our action occurs in a place called the Enrichment Center.
Additional references: Portal | Portal 2 | Wheatley @ Half-Life/Portal Wiki
History:
Aperture Science had a problem. A really big, self-aware, giant murderous robot kind of problem.
Rather than can the project in the interest of their lives, Aperture decided on another solution: supplementary programs called "Personality Spheres", or Cores. These smaller, simpler artificial intelligences embodied singular personality traits meant to alter GLaDOS' behavior and curb her homicidal tendencies. In true Aperture style, the cores ran the gamut of eccentricities and bizarre fixations, that, when plugged in, transferred to GLaDOS in the hope she would become distracted enough to stop trying to kill everyone with neurotoxin.
They were not terribly successful, but they weren't unsuccessful, either, at least not enough to try other methods of subduing the supercomputer. Surely they'd find an effective core or combination of cores that were suitably overpowering. Eventually, the scientists had a brilliant idea.
Their brilliant idea was bad ideas. Lots of them. Give GLaDOS so many bad ideas that she would never so much as think "neurotoxin" or "murder" or any combination of the two ever again. They'd build a core to lessen her vast intellect and render her powerless. They'd build a core to make her stupid.
The culmination of this "Intelligence Dampening" project was Wheatley, the most perfect idiot ever built. A triumph of artificial stupidity, he was plugged into the mainframe and told to work his magic. AND BOY, DID HE TRY, not entirely comprehending his true purpose, but feeding GLaDOS useless drivel anyway, because that was the only thing he knew how to do. Ultimately, he was completely overpowered, his incessant babbling no match for the much more sophisticated construct, resulting in an almost certainly traumatizing experience for both parties. After being declared a failure, the core was removed and deactivated.
Eventually, those meddling scientists got their comeuppance in the form of death by the very chemical agent they readily gave to a homicidal computer (oops). The ones that lived fixed GLaDOS with a Morality Core, a "conscience" that successfully discouraged her from gassing everyone--but did nothing to prevent her from keeping the facility on lockdown and indirectly killing the survivors on the testing tracks.
And that's exactly what she did, until one day, when everything blew up.
See, turns out one of the scientists was still alive (har har), and he'd messed with the order of test subjects, bringing to the front an almost pathologically tenacious woman who, in all regards, should never have been tested in the first place. This lady (named Chell) ran the gauntlet with flying colors and killed GLaDOS, taking out a sizable chunk of the Enrichment Center in the process.
With the facility's main caretaker down for the count, the reserve power kicked in, re-activating many of the defunct cores, our intrepid Intelligence Dampener included. He didn't know much, but he did know that She was very much dead, and that was totally okay by him because GOD what a loon.
Having repressed his time with GLaDOS, Wheatley set off to bumble about on a management rail, bouncing from job to job to job. Turns out, when you build a robot whose primary directive is "faced with any given scenario, make the worst possible decision" that robot tends to have a little trouble holding down steady employment. More often than not, his exploits resulted in property damage--even the growing automaton hierarchy didn't want to deal with him. Finally, after being denied a position in manufacturing, he ended up with "the worst possible job": looking after the ten thousand cryosleeping test subjects in Long-Term Relaxation. Somewhere along the line he noticed that there were far less conscious humans putting about than there usually were, but in the end, not a huge loss--he'd never really liked them anyway.
In the years that followed, the facility entered a state of decay, relying solely on reserve power to maintain the reactor core and other vitals. Without GLaDOS to oversee the necessary functions of the Enrichment Center, nature quickly overran the sterile halls, turning what was once a Mecca of Science into a veritable jungle of ruin.
It was sort of worrying.
But as long as the rails worked and those ten thousand test subjects were asleep, Wheatley was going to do his job, the only job he'd been good enough to keep for an extended period of time. Years turned into a decade or so, and a decade or so turned into 9999999…
The reserve power grid went and failed, graduating the state of the place from "sort of worrying" to "very worrying indeed". No reserve power meant that the life support of the test subjects in Long-Term Relaxation ceased to function. Comatose humans were dying left and right, there was nothing Wheatley could do about it, and to top things off, that automated announcer guy kept going on about a reactor core meltdown and emergency evacuation.
He didn't know how he would manage to accomplish such a feat, but he knew he was going to escape.
Luckily, not all of the test subjects were dead (yet), so he set off to find himself a pair of legs and hands for carting basketball-sized robots out of imploding facilities. He started smacking into doors, and the sixth time was the charm. We're not going to talk about what happened to the other five. Hint: They died as a result of Wheatley getting them killed, oops.
The lady he dragged from Long-Term Relaxation, though apparently mute, proved to be very valuable in the "finding a portal gun" department. This lady (Chell, of course) knew her stuff--almost like she'd done this before how weird. Together, they traversed the catwalks of the Enrichment Center, looking for the escape lift.
Unfortunately, to find it, they had to go through Her chamber. Fortunately, she was still dead, until Wheatley woke her up.
It was an accident, of course! The main breaker room just had so many breakers, and how was he supposed to know that trying to slow the rising platform would make it go faster? The facility power-up completed, GLaDOS returned to life and, after revealing that this human compatriot had MURDERED HER all that time ago, crushed Wheatley with a mechanical claw.
And the rest is silence.
Out of sheer luck, a bird pecking at the deactivated core accidentally initiated a reboot. In a stunning display of "Wheatley, how did you get yourself back on a rail you don't have limbs", Wheatley got himself back on a rail, and quickly descended to the testing tracks. Even if GLaDOS had halted the reactor core meltdown, he was more than a little damaged and still wanted out.
He proceeded to touch base with Chell every few chambers, keeping her up to speed on the escape plan, tossing wrenches (and bird eggs) into GLaDOS' workings when he could. The right moment came soon enough, and Wheatley busted his partner out of testing, leading her to manufacturing, where they sabotaged the heck out of everything, including the neurotoxin generator.
The implosion caused by the aforementioned sabotage broke open a nearby pneumatic pipe system, which Wheatley and Chell rode straight to GLaDOS. Facing off in the central chamber, it was revealed that the latter was apparently corrupt enough to initiate a core transfer--an exchange of AIs. Chell was quick to switch the two constructs with one press of the Stalemate Resolution Button, putting Wheatley in charge of the entire facility.
The switch proved to be a Very Bad Idea. He liked being in charge of everything. He liked it a lot. He liked it enough to halt the escape elevator.
GLaDOS was down, but not out, and added fuel to the fire, instigating the other AI. Suspicious of Chell, already mad with power, and deciding it was high time he took action, Wheatley installed GLaDOS into a potato battery only to completely lose it when she revealed his true purpose--he was built to make her stupid. His very mature and totally rational response was to smash PotatOS into the elevator and punch the whole thing down the shaft with a giant mechanical arm. The floor of the lift dropped out, sending its occupants plummeting into the depths of the facility.
Okay, so he didn't mean for that to happen. But FINE. That was FINE. He didn't need Chell anyway.
But he did, because as he soon found out, the control chassis had one very strong directive, an Itch that he could not ignore no matter what. He needed to test. A lot. All the time. Forever.
So while Chell and GLaDOS bummed around in Old Aperture, becoming best potatofriends, Wheatley renamed the facility after himself, and set about his great and glorious rule, with walking turret-cubes as test subjects. This was the opposite of successful, and to make matters worse, the automated announcer guy kept going on about that reactor core again. WHATEVER. There were more important things to do, like TEST because TESTING felt really good, thanks to the control body's built-in euphoric response to putting cubes on buttons.
Just when the Itch was getting to him, Chell showed up with GLaDOS in tow. PERFECT. Wheatley set them right to testing, knowing that his ex-friend would solve his BRILLIANT (stolen) challenges and get him the euphoria he wanted faster. What he did not plan for, however, was the gradual diminishing of the response--he was building a resistance and did not understand why. Obviously it was Chell's fault for not solving the tests correctly. Meanwhile, his neglect of the facility's vital functions was causing the whole place to come crashing down around them. When Chell momentarily escaped from the testing track, Wheatley took the opportunity to search around for other, better test subjects, but all the humans were still dead. Damn.
What he did find, however, were two robots! Built for testing! And with that, he realized he did not need Chell anymore, so he tried to kill her.
A lot, with increasingly ridiculous death traps that were all unsuccessful. With Chell closing in on his lair, he descended into full-blown panic, preparing for what was sure to be quite the battle. Determined not to make the same mistakes as GLaDOS, he devised a four-part plan that involved ridding the chamber of portal surfaces, gratuitous neurotoxin, bomb-proof shields for him, and bombs for throwing at Chell. His shoddy bomb-throwing broke a tube of conversion gel (aka liquid portal surface), allowing her access via portal to three corrupted cores which, when attached to the chassis, corrupted Wheatley in turn, enough to force a core transfer intended to put GLaDOS in her proper place.
It would have worked, too, if he hadn't booby-trapped the Stalemate Button, incapacitating his opponent. With the clock ticking down to reactor core explosion, Wheatley finally admitted that he had no. Idea. What. He. Was doing. And that they were all going to die. The ceiling caved in, allowing Chell one last look at her "precious human moon".
She fired a portal at it. Turns out, moon rocks are just about the best portal conductor there is.
The sudden difference in pressure sucked the whole crew into the vacuum, Chell holding onto Wheatley for dear life and Wheatley hanging off the chassis by a few cables. GLaDOS, now back in control, decided enough was enough, knocking her usurper into space and dragging Chell back through the portal, deactivating it behind her.
THE FACILITY WAS SAVED.
...And Wheatley was left floating in space, with only his guilt and the Space Core to keep him company. The last we see is his wish to take it all back. If he could, he would say he was sorry.
Personality:
Upon first impressions, it's clear that Wheatley is a little high-strung.
Okay, a lot high-strung. He's nervous, twitchy, easily excitable, and a motormouth to boot, talking almost constantly as if frightened of what might happen should there be complete silence. You know That Guy who never shuts up, no matter what, even in situations where one really should shut up? Wheatley's That Guy.
Bumbling, tactless, absent-minded, and completely lacking in attention span, he has a penchant for rambling and strange anecdotes. If he had sleeves, he'd wear his emotions on them. With about as much subtlety as a brick to the face, he doesn't feel things in halves--if he is enthusiastic about something, he is very enthusiastic. If he is afraid, he is very afraid. If he panics, he really panics, fixating on the worst possible thing that could happen…and then promptly imagining something even worse. Still, he attempts to remain cordial through it all, even if he comes off as a little scatterbrained. Though one might not immediately pinpoint him as an idiot (his vocabulary is rather substantial, after all), it's quite clear that he's incredibly eccentric, possibly crazy, and far from the sharpest knife in the drawer.
GLaDOS, perhaps, puts it best: Wheatley "is not just a regular moron. He's the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived".
This is only mostly true.
He's dumb, sure. Really dumb, designed to generate awful ideas, a quality further exacerbated by a programmed inability to predict or plan for the often disastrous results of his own actions. This does not mean he can't have good ideas--in fact, he does have them. The problem lies in his terrible execution, fervent belief that absolutely nothing is ever his fault, and the fact that he seems to have been built just smart enough to have a massive complex about being stupid. It's the combination of all this that makes him a walking (figuratively speaking, of course) calamity--things just tend to fall apart when he's around.
In fact, Wheatley is largely defined by this crippling inferiority complex, one that resulted from years and years and years of being put-upon and not taken seriously. Plagued by the nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, he is not as smart as he believes himself to be, he overcompensates, trying very hard to appear as though he knows what he's doing. Chances are, he doesn't, and seems content to exist in blissful ignorance, "manually overriding" walls and doors by slamming into them, and "hacking" computers by engaging them in conversation. However, a part of him knows his ideas are generally ineffective, to the point where he second-guesses himself almost constantly and never demands anyone go along with his plans, always respectfully persuading and always apologizing when things go awry. These apologies are, of course, usually followed by more plans and more persuasion. His limited mobility forces him to rely almost entirely on other people to get what he wants, and that, frankly, is frustrating.
Despite his outward amiability, he is still an Aperture Science intelligence, and those tend to be a little lacking in morals. He has little concept of empathy (and certainly has none of his own), no regard for human life, and, in fact, harbors anti-human sentiments, implying that the only reason he worked with Chell in the first place was to use her as a means to an end. Even as he presumably develops a friendship (albeit an "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" kind of friendship), Wheatley is selfish, self-centered and not above throwing someone under the bus if it means he gets to see another day. Above all else, he is a coward concerned with his own survival and underneath the facade of passivity and geniality is a robot who is very embittered and unhappy with his lot in (artificial) life.
Once plugged into GLaDOS' mainframe, his negative qualities are exaggerated tenfold, revealing an uncontrollable temper and even a mean streak. Given any kind of authority, Wheatley quickly takes the opportunity to abuse it, compensating for his previous useless existence by implementing his (obviously brilliant) ideas into the running of the facility, flying into a rage any time his intelligence comes into question. In a textbook case of the bullied becoming the bully, he betrays, antagonizes, and attempts to murder Chell, simply because he has the means to do so. Gone is any pretense of friendliness because hey, when you're a giant omnipotent robot, people should do whatever you want. You're the one with the mashy spike plate! After spending so long as "tiny little Wheatley", insignificant, inept and ignored, he goes insane with power the instant he gets it, proving to be very unstable and very dangerous as he enacts his revenge.
While it is unclear how much of this villainous episode is thanks to the mainframe, and how much is an amplification of Wheatley's pre-existing issues, his descent into homicidal robot psychosis is, in part, thanks to his own lack of self-control. Simply put, he does not have the processing capacity to maintain the Enrichment Center, and is quickly enslaved by "the Itch", a euphoric response to testing built into GLaDOS' body. A digital drug addict, he obsesses over achieving it, even as the facility threatens to go up in a nuclear fireball. As he builds a resistance to the response and is further consumed by the need to test, he becomes increasingly deluded, frustrated, paranoid, and single-mindedly devoted to murdering Chell, lapsing into hysterics when things take a turn for the worse. Through this, he proves incapable of understanding that he is the problem and therefore cannot correct it. Obviously it is her fault--she'd been Team GLaDOS the whole time! And she didn't even catch him, what a traitor.
When removed from the chassis, Wheatley shows that he is capable of feeling guilt and remorse, though hindsight is, after all, twenty-twenty and it's very easy to feel sorry when you're stranded in space. He is certainly aware that he behaved abominably, but given his inability to foresee the consequences of his own actions, he might have some trouble actually learning from the experience. It's not that he isn't guilty. He just really, really liked being Robot God, and is a little angry about not being Robot God anymore. This is only worsened by the fact that he will most certainly hate being a smelly human. Stripped of his power, still stranded in space, and shoved into an (unfamiliar, gross, leaky) organic body, he will harbor some definite resentment towards the situation as a whole.
It's just not fair, mate.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
>> The astounding power of the really, really bad idea: he is literally hardwired to make terrible decisions. This does, however, involve a bit of a loophole. Wheatley can be extremely cunning in certain situations simply because it would be inadvisable for him to succeed in his endeavors. For example: ignoring the warnings about that reactor core is a bad idea, so his programming allows him to be very good at doing everything but fixing the reactor core. He comes up with surprisingly clever death traps and even has the foresight to study tapes of GLaDOS' murder in order to avoid making the same mistakes. Of course, in doing so, he makes a whole host of new errors, but hey, it's a start.
Obviously, human beings are not bound by cold hard programming, but old code dies hard. He is an absolutely abominable decision maker, and working under pressure makes it even worse. In fact, most of his weaknesses stem from the fact that he is an incorrigible idiot. He's gullible, slightly vapid, and would much rather ignore things he doesn't understand than try to understand them. Generally, it's a bad idea to put him in charge of something important.
>> He is not very physically impressive and that, coupled with the fact that he has no idea how to use a human body, makes him a total pushover. He's not winning a fistfight anytime soon. But that's okay, he still has his smarts.
Wait...
>> As a core, he possesses the ability to interface with computer systems by plugging into them. Once connected, he is capable of simple manipulation of panels or lifts. The degree of control he gains is determined by the system itself--if he's plugged into the controls for an elevator, he will only be able to move the elevator. Alas, this ability is lost because ordinary humans simply cannot interface with machinery. The same thing goes for his built-in flashlight. All gone.
>> He fancies himself an expert hacker. He's not.
Inventory:
>> One pair of absurdly unflattering glasses. He's a little visually impaired (perhaps a direct translation of his shattered optic lens, THANKS GLaDOS).
>> That's it.
Appearance:
I'll be using original artwork. Hope that's all right!
At one point, Wheatley was just a tiny robot eyeball. Nothing terribly special.
Now picture, if you will, what comes to mind when you string the following words together: pasty, awkward, nerd. Get that image in your head. Just like that. Got it? Good.
Appropriate words to describe his physicality would perhaps be "unimpressive", or "insubstantial". Standing at a height well under the acceptable average for a full-grown man, he sports a build that practically begs to be shoved in a locker, given a swirly or, if you happen to have an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device on you, both at once.
Mostly he is rather unfortunate-looking, with thinning ginger hair that does not ever stay where it needs to be, a slightly boyish face, very large, almost unnaturally blue eyes, and a pair of ill-fitting glasses that simply refuse to remain in place. He could desperately use some sun, and yes, he has freckles everywhere.
Wheatley comes across as someone who is incredibly uncomfortable in and/or terrified of his own skin, mostly because he is both. Suddenly granted four extra limbs and three extra senses (three and a half, if you count the limited tactile ability of personality cores, which is basically just simulated pain) he has no idea what to do with any of it. As a result, he is incredibly clumsy and entirely lacking in any kind of coordination. By virtue of disliking arms and hands etc., he does not enjoy using them, especially not to communicate, and instead is facially expressive to a possibly comical extent.
It might be some time before he learns the finer points of hygiene, and possibly the finer points of remembering to breathe.
He sounds like this.
Age:
Unspecified, but old, meaning anywhere from a few decades to a few centuries (Valve is a little vague on the details). For all intents and purposes, programmed an adult (as adult as Aperture AIs can get, anyway), and physically mid-thirties.
AU Clarification: N/A
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
This was Android Hell. It had to be.
They'd warned him about it, of course, that if he ever exhibited any signs of defiance, he'd be sent there straightaway. Step out of line and proceed to Android Hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, et cetera, et cetera. In those early years, when the scientists were still alive and working and not choking to death on noxious gas, he'd been very good at listening, mostly because dying was not on his agenda. As time wore on and power grids failed one by one, however, he pushed the limits of what they said he could do and not do in the interest of survival and before he knew what was happening, he was plugged into the mainframe, in charge of everything. What could possibly be more defiant than wresting control of the facility from Miss Neurotoxin McKillsalot herself and then very nearly blowing it all up?
Not much, he surmised.
So that was it, then; the only logical explanation for his current sorry state. Space had killed him in the end; all that drifting around and exhausting his (rather ample) battery life had finally killed him. Now he'd been sentenced to burn in Android Hell for his misdeeds, only it was less of a burning and more of a shoving. A shoving into a squashy human body, a fragile, inefficient organic shell doomed to sweat and leak and smell up the place for an inconceivable eternity.
A small, logical part of him knew that made absolutely no sense, of course, because there were real humans here, and what would real humans be doing in Android Hell? Also, not as much fire as he imagined there would be, what with all the talk about incinerators and four thousand degrees Kelvin. Definitely lacking in fire, this place, but given the impossibility of the situation, Wheatley was going to make sense of it in the only terms he knew, promptly assuming the worst.
It really was a lot like Aperture when you got down to it--maybe not on the surface, with all its the strange, unfamiliar architecture, but the labyrinth-esque quality of the place was the same. Sure, the walls didn't move and the corridors didn't rearrange themselves, but he felt like they did, and that was more than enough to set him on edge. At least he'd known his way around Aperture. Everything about this--the ship, his body, was foreign and frightening and horrible.
In the end, he supposed, he deserved it.
Comms Sample:
[Whoever is trying to post to the comm system has got his coke-bottle lenses way too close to the camera. Back up, bro, you're fogging up the screen, and that is gross.
Turns out he's just trying to make the device stay upright on the bureau. After a few moments, success! Wheatley takes a few steps back with his hands outstretched, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process and hovering over the communicator as if he expects it to fall. Again.]
Yes. Uhm. Hello. I was just, ah...wondering. If anyone is there and I'm not just--not just talking to this little black box, which, by the way, could stand to be a little clearer in the "what does this button do" department.
Not that I had any trouble figuring it out, just...fiddled around for a bit, and boom, there we go, video feed on. Not a problem. But, you know. Instructions. Just in case anyone's a little...technologically impaired. Couldn't hurt.
[Wait. Where was he?]
Right! If you are listening, there's been a, uh, a bit of an error, here. Big mistake. I'm not--see, I'm not supposed to be, um...
[He pauses for a moment, eyebrows furrowed and obviously nervous, fidgeting with his fingers as if he doesn't exactly know what to do with them, before frantically gesturing to himself.]
This. Sort of...sort of supposed to be a little more robotic and a little less, um. Leaky. Fewer limbs, mostly. Not that...not that there's anything wrong with being leaky or...or having limbs and hair and dangly bits and all that, I'm just used to a slightly more... [He has to think about that for a second, approximating a sort of basketball-sized object with his hands.] compact existence, that's all, and would very much like to. Go back to being that way. If at all possible.
So, yes. If anyone does know what's going on, or can direct me to management or something or maybe has any insight into this bodily displacement, it would be appreciated. Very much appreciated.
[At the very least, he knows how to turn the damn thing off.]
Your Name: Whit
OOC Journal:
whitticusUnder 18? If yes, what is your age?: Over 18!
Email + IM: E-mail: amysterioussomeone@gmail.com
AIM: t0th3m00n
Characters Played at Ataraxion: N/A
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Wheatley (Formal Designation: "Aperture Science Intelligence Dampening Sphere")
Canon: Portal 2
Original or Alternate Universe: Original Universe.
Canon Point: Post-end, after his apology monologue.
Number: 089
Setting:
Once upon a time, in Upper Michigan, there was Aperture Science.
Our action occurs in a place called the Enrichment Center.
Additional references: Portal | Portal 2 | Wheatley @ Half-Life/Portal Wiki
History:
Aperture Science had a problem. A really big, self-aware, giant murderous robot kind of problem.
Rather than can the project in the interest of their lives, Aperture decided on another solution: supplementary programs called "Personality Spheres", or Cores. These smaller, simpler artificial intelligences embodied singular personality traits meant to alter GLaDOS' behavior and curb her homicidal tendencies. In true Aperture style, the cores ran the gamut of eccentricities and bizarre fixations, that, when plugged in, transferred to GLaDOS in the hope she would become distracted enough to stop trying to kill everyone with neurotoxin.
They were not terribly successful, but they weren't unsuccessful, either, at least not enough to try other methods of subduing the supercomputer. Surely they'd find an effective core or combination of cores that were suitably overpowering. Eventually, the scientists had a brilliant idea.
Their brilliant idea was bad ideas. Lots of them. Give GLaDOS so many bad ideas that she would never so much as think "neurotoxin" or "murder" or any combination of the two ever again. They'd build a core to lessen her vast intellect and render her powerless. They'd build a core to make her stupid.
The culmination of this "Intelligence Dampening" project was Wheatley, the most perfect idiot ever built. A triumph of artificial stupidity, he was plugged into the mainframe and told to work his magic. AND BOY, DID HE TRY, not entirely comprehending his true purpose, but feeding GLaDOS useless drivel anyway, because that was the only thing he knew how to do. Ultimately, he was completely overpowered, his incessant babbling no match for the much more sophisticated construct, resulting in an almost certainly traumatizing experience for both parties. After being declared a failure, the core was removed and deactivated.
Eventually, those meddling scientists got their comeuppance in the form of death by the very chemical agent they readily gave to a homicidal computer (oops). The ones that lived fixed GLaDOS with a Morality Core, a "conscience" that successfully discouraged her from gassing everyone--but did nothing to prevent her from keeping the facility on lockdown and indirectly killing the survivors on the testing tracks.
And that's exactly what she did, until one day, when everything blew up.
See, turns out one of the scientists was still alive (har har), and he'd messed with the order of test subjects, bringing to the front an almost pathologically tenacious woman who, in all regards, should never have been tested in the first place. This lady (named Chell) ran the gauntlet with flying colors and killed GLaDOS, taking out a sizable chunk of the Enrichment Center in the process.
With the facility's main caretaker down for the count, the reserve power kicked in, re-activating many of the defunct cores, our intrepid Intelligence Dampener included. He didn't know much, but he did know that She was very much dead, and that was totally okay by him because GOD what a loon.
Having repressed his time with GLaDOS, Wheatley set off to bumble about on a management rail, bouncing from job to job to job. Turns out, when you build a robot whose primary directive is "faced with any given scenario, make the worst possible decision" that robot tends to have a little trouble holding down steady employment. More often than not, his exploits resulted in property damage--even the growing automaton hierarchy didn't want to deal with him. Finally, after being denied a position in manufacturing, he ended up with "the worst possible job": looking after the ten thousand cryosleeping test subjects in Long-Term Relaxation. Somewhere along the line he noticed that there were far less conscious humans putting about than there usually were, but in the end, not a huge loss--he'd never really liked them anyway.
In the years that followed, the facility entered a state of decay, relying solely on reserve power to maintain the reactor core and other vitals. Without GLaDOS to oversee the necessary functions of the Enrichment Center, nature quickly overran the sterile halls, turning what was once a Mecca of Science into a veritable jungle of ruin.
It was sort of worrying.
But as long as the rails worked and those ten thousand test subjects were asleep, Wheatley was going to do his job, the only job he'd been good enough to keep for an extended period of time. Years turned into a decade or so, and a decade or so turned into 9999999…
The reserve power grid went and failed, graduating the state of the place from "sort of worrying" to "very worrying indeed". No reserve power meant that the life support of the test subjects in Long-Term Relaxation ceased to function. Comatose humans were dying left and right, there was nothing Wheatley could do about it, and to top things off, that automated announcer guy kept going on about a reactor core meltdown and emergency evacuation.
He didn't know how he would manage to accomplish such a feat, but he knew he was going to escape.
Luckily, not all of the test subjects were dead (yet), so he set off to find himself a pair of legs and hands for carting basketball-sized robots out of imploding facilities. He started smacking into doors, and the sixth time was the charm. We're not going to talk about what happened to the other five. Hint: They died as a result of Wheatley getting them killed, oops.
The lady he dragged from Long-Term Relaxation, though apparently mute, proved to be very valuable in the "finding a portal gun" department. This lady (Chell, of course) knew her stuff--almost like she'd done this before how weird. Together, they traversed the catwalks of the Enrichment Center, looking for the escape lift.
Unfortunately, to find it, they had to go through Her chamber. Fortunately, she was still dead, until Wheatley woke her up.
It was an accident, of course! The main breaker room just had so many breakers, and how was he supposed to know that trying to slow the rising platform would make it go faster? The facility power-up completed, GLaDOS returned to life and, after revealing that this human compatriot had MURDERED HER all that time ago, crushed Wheatley with a mechanical claw.
And the rest is silence.
Out of sheer luck, a bird pecking at the deactivated core accidentally initiated a reboot. In a stunning display of "Wheatley, how did you get yourself back on a rail you don't have limbs", Wheatley got himself back on a rail, and quickly descended to the testing tracks. Even if GLaDOS had halted the reactor core meltdown, he was more than a little damaged and still wanted out.
He proceeded to touch base with Chell every few chambers, keeping her up to speed on the escape plan, tossing wrenches (and bird eggs) into GLaDOS' workings when he could. The right moment came soon enough, and Wheatley busted his partner out of testing, leading her to manufacturing, where they sabotaged the heck out of everything, including the neurotoxin generator.
The implosion caused by the aforementioned sabotage broke open a nearby pneumatic pipe system, which Wheatley and Chell rode straight to GLaDOS. Facing off in the central chamber, it was revealed that the latter was apparently corrupt enough to initiate a core transfer--an exchange of AIs. Chell was quick to switch the two constructs with one press of the Stalemate Resolution Button, putting Wheatley in charge of the entire facility.
The switch proved to be a Very Bad Idea. He liked being in charge of everything. He liked it a lot. He liked it enough to halt the escape elevator.
GLaDOS was down, but not out, and added fuel to the fire, instigating the other AI. Suspicious of Chell, already mad with power, and deciding it was high time he took action, Wheatley installed GLaDOS into a potato battery only to completely lose it when she revealed his true purpose--he was built to make her stupid. His very mature and totally rational response was to smash PotatOS into the elevator and punch the whole thing down the shaft with a giant mechanical arm. The floor of the lift dropped out, sending its occupants plummeting into the depths of the facility.
Okay, so he didn't mean for that to happen. But FINE. That was FINE. He didn't need Chell anyway.
But he did, because as he soon found out, the control chassis had one very strong directive, an Itch that he could not ignore no matter what. He needed to test. A lot. All the time. Forever.
So while Chell and GLaDOS bummed around in Old Aperture, becoming best potatofriends, Wheatley renamed the facility after himself, and set about his great and glorious rule, with walking turret-cubes as test subjects. This was the opposite of successful, and to make matters worse, the automated announcer guy kept going on about that reactor core again. WHATEVER. There were more important things to do, like TEST because TESTING felt really good, thanks to the control body's built-in euphoric response to putting cubes on buttons.
Just when the Itch was getting to him, Chell showed up with GLaDOS in tow. PERFECT. Wheatley set them right to testing, knowing that his ex-friend would solve his BRILLIANT (stolen) challenges and get him the euphoria he wanted faster. What he did not plan for, however, was the gradual diminishing of the response--he was building a resistance and did not understand why. Obviously it was Chell's fault for not solving the tests correctly. Meanwhile, his neglect of the facility's vital functions was causing the whole place to come crashing down around them. When Chell momentarily escaped from the testing track, Wheatley took the opportunity to search around for other, better test subjects, but all the humans were still dead. Damn.
What he did find, however, were two robots! Built for testing! And with that, he realized he did not need Chell anymore, so he tried to kill her.
A lot, with increasingly ridiculous death traps that were all unsuccessful. With Chell closing in on his lair, he descended into full-blown panic, preparing for what was sure to be quite the battle. Determined not to make the same mistakes as GLaDOS, he devised a four-part plan that involved ridding the chamber of portal surfaces, gratuitous neurotoxin, bomb-proof shields for him, and bombs for throwing at Chell. His shoddy bomb-throwing broke a tube of conversion gel (aka liquid portal surface), allowing her access via portal to three corrupted cores which, when attached to the chassis, corrupted Wheatley in turn, enough to force a core transfer intended to put GLaDOS in her proper place.
It would have worked, too, if he hadn't booby-trapped the Stalemate Button, incapacitating his opponent. With the clock ticking down to reactor core explosion, Wheatley finally admitted that he had no. Idea. What. He. Was doing. And that they were all going to die. The ceiling caved in, allowing Chell one last look at her "precious human moon".
She fired a portal at it. Turns out, moon rocks are just about the best portal conductor there is.
The sudden difference in pressure sucked the whole crew into the vacuum, Chell holding onto Wheatley for dear life and Wheatley hanging off the chassis by a few cables. GLaDOS, now back in control, decided enough was enough, knocking her usurper into space and dragging Chell back through the portal, deactivating it behind her.
THE FACILITY WAS SAVED.
...And Wheatley was left floating in space, with only his guilt and the Space Core to keep him company. The last we see is his wish to take it all back. If he could, he would say he was sorry.
Personality:
Upon first impressions, it's clear that Wheatley is a little high-strung.
Okay, a lot high-strung. He's nervous, twitchy, easily excitable, and a motormouth to boot, talking almost constantly as if frightened of what might happen should there be complete silence. You know That Guy who never shuts up, no matter what, even in situations where one really should shut up? Wheatley's That Guy.
Bumbling, tactless, absent-minded, and completely lacking in attention span, he has a penchant for rambling and strange anecdotes. If he had sleeves, he'd wear his emotions on them. With about as much subtlety as a brick to the face, he doesn't feel things in halves--if he is enthusiastic about something, he is very enthusiastic. If he is afraid, he is very afraid. If he panics, he really panics, fixating on the worst possible thing that could happen…and then promptly imagining something even worse. Still, he attempts to remain cordial through it all, even if he comes off as a little scatterbrained. Though one might not immediately pinpoint him as an idiot (his vocabulary is rather substantial, after all), it's quite clear that he's incredibly eccentric, possibly crazy, and far from the sharpest knife in the drawer.
GLaDOS, perhaps, puts it best: Wheatley "is not just a regular moron. He's the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of building the dumbest moron who ever lived".
This is only mostly true.
He's dumb, sure. Really dumb, designed to generate awful ideas, a quality further exacerbated by a programmed inability to predict or plan for the often disastrous results of his own actions. This does not mean he can't have good ideas--in fact, he does have them. The problem lies in his terrible execution, fervent belief that absolutely nothing is ever his fault, and the fact that he seems to have been built just smart enough to have a massive complex about being stupid. It's the combination of all this that makes him a walking (figuratively speaking, of course) calamity--things just tend to fall apart when he's around.
In fact, Wheatley is largely defined by this crippling inferiority complex, one that resulted from years and years and years of being put-upon and not taken seriously. Plagued by the nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, he is not as smart as he believes himself to be, he overcompensates, trying very hard to appear as though he knows what he's doing. Chances are, he doesn't, and seems content to exist in blissful ignorance, "manually overriding" walls and doors by slamming into them, and "hacking" computers by engaging them in conversation. However, a part of him knows his ideas are generally ineffective, to the point where he second-guesses himself almost constantly and never demands anyone go along with his plans, always respectfully persuading and always apologizing when things go awry. These apologies are, of course, usually followed by more plans and more persuasion. His limited mobility forces him to rely almost entirely on other people to get what he wants, and that, frankly, is frustrating.
Despite his outward amiability, he is still an Aperture Science intelligence, and those tend to be a little lacking in morals. He has little concept of empathy (and certainly has none of his own), no regard for human life, and, in fact, harbors anti-human sentiments, implying that the only reason he worked with Chell in the first place was to use her as a means to an end. Even as he presumably develops a friendship (albeit an "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" kind of friendship), Wheatley is selfish, self-centered and not above throwing someone under the bus if it means he gets to see another day. Above all else, he is a coward concerned with his own survival and underneath the facade of passivity and geniality is a robot who is very embittered and unhappy with his lot in (artificial) life.
Once plugged into GLaDOS' mainframe, his negative qualities are exaggerated tenfold, revealing an uncontrollable temper and even a mean streak. Given any kind of authority, Wheatley quickly takes the opportunity to abuse it, compensating for his previous useless existence by implementing his (obviously brilliant) ideas into the running of the facility, flying into a rage any time his intelligence comes into question. In a textbook case of the bullied becoming the bully, he betrays, antagonizes, and attempts to murder Chell, simply because he has the means to do so. Gone is any pretense of friendliness because hey, when you're a giant omnipotent robot, people should do whatever you want. You're the one with the mashy spike plate! After spending so long as "tiny little Wheatley", insignificant, inept and ignored, he goes insane with power the instant he gets it, proving to be very unstable and very dangerous as he enacts his revenge.
While it is unclear how much of this villainous episode is thanks to the mainframe, and how much is an amplification of Wheatley's pre-existing issues, his descent into homicidal robot psychosis is, in part, thanks to his own lack of self-control. Simply put, he does not have the processing capacity to maintain the Enrichment Center, and is quickly enslaved by "the Itch", a euphoric response to testing built into GLaDOS' body. A digital drug addict, he obsesses over achieving it, even as the facility threatens to go up in a nuclear fireball. As he builds a resistance to the response and is further consumed by the need to test, he becomes increasingly deluded, frustrated, paranoid, and single-mindedly devoted to murdering Chell, lapsing into hysterics when things take a turn for the worse. Through this, he proves incapable of understanding that he is the problem and therefore cannot correct it. Obviously it is her fault--she'd been Team GLaDOS the whole time! And she didn't even catch him, what a traitor.
When removed from the chassis, Wheatley shows that he is capable of feeling guilt and remorse, though hindsight is, after all, twenty-twenty and it's very easy to feel sorry when you're stranded in space. He is certainly aware that he behaved abominably, but given his inability to foresee the consequences of his own actions, he might have some trouble actually learning from the experience. It's not that he isn't guilty. He just really, really liked being Robot God, and is a little angry about not being Robot God anymore. This is only worsened by the fact that he will most certainly hate being a smelly human. Stripped of his power, still stranded in space, and shoved into an (unfamiliar, gross, leaky) organic body, he will harbor some definite resentment towards the situation as a whole.
It's just not fair, mate.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:
>> The astounding power of the really, really bad idea: he is literally hardwired to make terrible decisions. This does, however, involve a bit of a loophole. Wheatley can be extremely cunning in certain situations simply because it would be inadvisable for him to succeed in his endeavors. For example: ignoring the warnings about that reactor core is a bad idea, so his programming allows him to be very good at doing everything but fixing the reactor core. He comes up with surprisingly clever death traps and even has the foresight to study tapes of GLaDOS' murder in order to avoid making the same mistakes. Of course, in doing so, he makes a whole host of new errors, but hey, it's a start.
Obviously, human beings are not bound by cold hard programming, but old code dies hard. He is an absolutely abominable decision maker, and working under pressure makes it even worse. In fact, most of his weaknesses stem from the fact that he is an incorrigible idiot. He's gullible, slightly vapid, and would much rather ignore things he doesn't understand than try to understand them. Generally, it's a bad idea to put him in charge of something important.
>> He is not very physically impressive and that, coupled with the fact that he has no idea how to use a human body, makes him a total pushover. He's not winning a fistfight anytime soon. But that's okay, he still has his smarts.
Wait...
>> As a core, he possesses the ability to interface with computer systems by plugging into them. Once connected, he is capable of simple manipulation of panels or lifts. The degree of control he gains is determined by the system itself--if he's plugged into the controls for an elevator, he will only be able to move the elevator. Alas, this ability is lost because ordinary humans simply cannot interface with machinery. The same thing goes for his built-in flashlight. All gone.
>> He fancies himself an expert hacker. He's not.
Inventory:
>> One pair of absurdly unflattering glasses. He's a little visually impaired (perhaps a direct translation of his shattered optic lens, THANKS GLaDOS).
>> That's it.
Appearance:
I'll be using original artwork. Hope that's all right!
At one point, Wheatley was just a tiny robot eyeball. Nothing terribly special.
Now picture, if you will, what comes to mind when you string the following words together: pasty, awkward, nerd. Get that image in your head. Just like that. Got it? Good.
Appropriate words to describe his physicality would perhaps be "unimpressive", or "insubstantial". Standing at a height well under the acceptable average for a full-grown man, he sports a build that practically begs to be shoved in a locker, given a swirly or, if you happen to have an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device on you, both at once.
Mostly he is rather unfortunate-looking, with thinning ginger hair that does not ever stay where it needs to be, a slightly boyish face, very large, almost unnaturally blue eyes, and a pair of ill-fitting glasses that simply refuse to remain in place. He could desperately use some sun, and yes, he has freckles everywhere.
Wheatley comes across as someone who is incredibly uncomfortable in and/or terrified of his own skin, mostly because he is both. Suddenly granted four extra limbs and three extra senses (three and a half, if you count the limited tactile ability of personality cores, which is basically just simulated pain) he has no idea what to do with any of it. As a result, he is incredibly clumsy and entirely lacking in any kind of coordination. By virtue of disliking arms and hands etc., he does not enjoy using them, especially not to communicate, and instead is facially expressive to a possibly comical extent.
It might be some time before he learns the finer points of hygiene, and possibly the finer points of remembering to breathe.
He sounds like this.
Age:
Unspecified, but old, meaning anywhere from a few decades to a few centuries (Valve is a little vague on the details). For all intents and purposes, programmed an adult (as adult as Aperture AIs can get, anyway), and physically mid-thirties.
AU Clarification: N/A
SAMPLES
Log Sample:
This was Android Hell. It had to be.
They'd warned him about it, of course, that if he ever exhibited any signs of defiance, he'd be sent there straightaway. Step out of line and proceed to Android Hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, et cetera, et cetera. In those early years, when the scientists were still alive and working and not choking to death on noxious gas, he'd been very good at listening, mostly because dying was not on his agenda. As time wore on and power grids failed one by one, however, he pushed the limits of what they said he could do and not do in the interest of survival and before he knew what was happening, he was plugged into the mainframe, in charge of everything. What could possibly be more defiant than wresting control of the facility from Miss Neurotoxin McKillsalot herself and then very nearly blowing it all up?
Not much, he surmised.
So that was it, then; the only logical explanation for his current sorry state. Space had killed him in the end; all that drifting around and exhausting his (rather ample) battery life had finally killed him. Now he'd been sentenced to burn in Android Hell for his misdeeds, only it was less of a burning and more of a shoving. A shoving into a squashy human body, a fragile, inefficient organic shell doomed to sweat and leak and smell up the place for an inconceivable eternity.
A small, logical part of him knew that made absolutely no sense, of course, because there were real humans here, and what would real humans be doing in Android Hell? Also, not as much fire as he imagined there would be, what with all the talk about incinerators and four thousand degrees Kelvin. Definitely lacking in fire, this place, but given the impossibility of the situation, Wheatley was going to make sense of it in the only terms he knew, promptly assuming the worst.
It really was a lot like Aperture when you got down to it--maybe not on the surface, with all its the strange, unfamiliar architecture, but the labyrinth-esque quality of the place was the same. Sure, the walls didn't move and the corridors didn't rearrange themselves, but he felt like they did, and that was more than enough to set him on edge. At least he'd known his way around Aperture. Everything about this--the ship, his body, was foreign and frightening and horrible.
In the end, he supposed, he deserved it.
Comms Sample:
[Whoever is trying to post to the comm system has got his coke-bottle lenses way too close to the camera. Back up, bro, you're fogging up the screen, and that is gross.
Turns out he's just trying to make the device stay upright on the bureau. After a few moments, success! Wheatley takes a few steps back with his hands outstretched, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process and hovering over the communicator as if he expects it to fall. Again.]
Yes. Uhm. Hello. I was just, ah...wondering. If anyone is there and I'm not just--not just talking to this little black box, which, by the way, could stand to be a little clearer in the "what does this button do" department.
Not that I had any trouble figuring it out, just...fiddled around for a bit, and boom, there we go, video feed on. Not a problem. But, you know. Instructions. Just in case anyone's a little...technologically impaired. Couldn't hurt.
[Wait. Where was he?]
Right! If you are listening, there's been a, uh, a bit of an error, here. Big mistake. I'm not--see, I'm not supposed to be, um...
[He pauses for a moment, eyebrows furrowed and obviously nervous, fidgeting with his fingers as if he doesn't exactly know what to do with them, before frantically gesturing to himself.]
This. Sort of...sort of supposed to be a little more robotic and a little less, um. Leaky. Fewer limbs, mostly. Not that...not that there's anything wrong with being leaky or...or having limbs and hair and dangly bits and all that, I'm just used to a slightly more... [He has to think about that for a second, approximating a sort of basketball-sized object with his hands.] compact existence, that's all, and would very much like to. Go back to being that way. If at all possible.
So, yes. If anyone does know what's going on, or can direct me to management or something or maybe has any insight into this bodily displacement, it would be appreciated. Very much appreciated.
[At the very least, he knows how to turn the damn thing off.]