Seventh Entry
Education
I've never had much respect for classroom settings. All they're good for is indoctrination, in one form or another. Aperture Science has always embraced the concept of freedom of scientific expression...and hazmat suits. As such, I had a very simple way of educating Gilda as far as the various technology she needed to know about to handle everything Test chambers could throw at her.
I let her build her own.
Video below...
"And this is the aerial faith plate," Glados explained as Gilda looked over the schematics. "As you can see, it is calibrated for a standard weight, the same weight that weighted cubes are matched to. It is approximately the weight of a human test subject."
"Why does it only launch one way?" Gilda asked curiously.
"It has to do with the calibration of the launching apparatus," Glados explained. "Current designs are unidirectional, though the exterior can disguise which direction."
"What if it was on a rotating platform?" Gilda asked curiously.
Glados calculated that for a time. "Rotating platforms...an interesting idea. Let's see..."
After a time, schematics raced across the screen as the fabricators across the room began assembly. Before long, a circular platform was braced inside a square platform, the circle endlessly rotating. "It seems to function," Glados observed calmly. "However, we need to test someone on it..."
"Pea-brain! Ass-phalt!" Gilda barked out.
Grumbling over the - now official - change in designation, the two Cooperative Testing robots made their way onto the rotating platform. Their grumbles soon faded as they started enjoying it, playing on it like a carousel.
"It seems to handle weight fine-" Glados began.
"Variable speed?" Gilda asked in surprise as she looked over the controls. "Let's crank it up!" She set the speed to maximum.
As the platform spun rapidly, Pea-brain and Ass-phalt let out screams as they went round and round like mad before being flung off the platform and into opposite walls.
"Huh, when was the last time you dweebs upgraded your internal gyroscopes?" Gilda asked scathingly.
Glados chuckled indulgently. "Very nice," she praised. "You're mastering the psychological aspect of testing quite effectively."
"Oh! Can we conceal the faith plates under the rotating platform so they won't know where the plate is until they step on it and get flung like crazy?" Gilda asked eagerly.
"I like how you think," Glados purred as schematics flew across the screen and the fabricators went into overtime. Ass-phalt groaned, covering its optic with one hand. Pea-brain let out an excited series of squeaks and clicks, interested in what was going to happen.
This was the pattern as we went over each aspect of the testing environment. I would explain how each device functioned, Gilda would ask a question about how it worked - specifically, asking why it didn't work some other way - and I would initiate a manufacture of the variation her question suggested. Some were as entertaining as the one previously demonstrated. Some were rather silly. Some were...nostalgic. But one was especially interesting.
Two videos below...
"Why don't the turrets have bombs?" Gilda asked curiously.
"Bombs?" Glados coached, encouraging further explanation.
"Well, the rocket turrets shoot rockets," Gilda explained. "And the gun turrets shoot guns. But there are also bombs that get piped here and there...so why aren't there turrets that throw bombs?"
"The bombs as they are would not fit in any reasonable supply in turrets," Glados explained firmly. "Beyond that, part of turret design is for them to appear innocuous...right up until they kill you. 'You', in this case, being the unnamed test subject going through the test, or unauthorized invader."
"Then make the bombs smaller!" Gilda insisted. "I mean, if the Handheld Portal Device can be shrunk to the Portal Emitter, why can't the explosive force of the bombs be compacted in something smaller? Something you can make look innocuous?"
"And what would you suggest?" Glados inquired, her tone amused. While compressing the bombs would be difficult, accepting a smaller explosive yield would solve the problem readily enough.
Gilda thought back to picture books from earlier lessons in reading and writing. "How about lemons?" she suggested. "Innocuous and incongruous!"
Glados was silent for a time. "...burn their house down...with combustible lemons..."
"Yeah, Mama!" Gilda crowed happily. "Now you're getting it!"
As Gilda turned back to the schematics, Glados whirred her optic idly. So very much a Johnson... she thought to herself.
"Mom?" Gilda asked curiously as she went over the designs for the new 'bomb turrets', which would lock on like the gun turrets and then start throwing 'lemon bombs' until the target was destroyed or exited lock-on range. "How come the turrets don't move?"
"Test chambers are supposed to be a puzzle," Glados explained calmly. "Find your way past all the obstacles and open the door. Obstacles are stationary so they can be planned around."
"Well, why not have hunt zones and preset hunt paths?" Gilda pointed out, drawing a quick sketch with the terminal's stylus. She sectioned off part of the virtual test chamber with emancipation grids, then drew a curving loop around the sectioned off area, marking arrows to show the direction of hunt. "Flying turrets follow that path until one locks onto the test subject, and then they all converge, returning to the hunt path if the subject leaves the hunting ground."
"...flying turrets?" Glados inquired curiously.
"Yeah, that's something else I'd been poking at," Gilda explained as she called up some other files. "I saw some old files about giving cores Anti-Grav so they could float around, instead of having to ride rails or be carried. At first I couldn't figure out how to make it work...but then I looked at those files on my wings and jammed data together until the Anti-Grav files said 'Condition Green'. That means it works, right?"
Glados quickly called up the discarded Anti-Grav files and examined the alterations Gilda had made. The theory seemed sound...but the only way for that to be tested was to...test it. Different used a modified form of the Anti-Grav files, but she was much smaller than a standard core, or even a small turret. Beyond that, she had really big, thin dragonfly-based wings for hovering to back it up. "Initiating fabricator..."
Before long, a blank core had been constructed...and it hovered there, three feet above the floor.
"Radical!" Gilda crowed happily.
"Very impressive," Glados purred softly. "Now we can build turrets that would need to be taken out by launching something into them even when stationary. Now, you were saying about hunter turrets?"
"Oh, I like that name!" Gilda cackled eagerly, rubbing her talons together with glee.
Jeez, Gilda, you're turning into a mini-core that is plugged into GLaDOS.
GLaDOS, what are you doing? Oh, wait, I meant Caroline. Carry on, carry on.
Also, dear God, someone please make a Portal mod named "Gilda's Modifications" and make sure all of Tat's projects here are turned into a mod! I mean, the Hunter Turrets can be used from the AI of those little bots from Half-Life, splice it up with modified bombs from CS bombs, then we have this!
Also, lemons.
Alright, you have completely sold me on this Gilda. She is unquestionably cool and surprisingly cunning, while still leaving most of the actual "egghead stuff" to Momma GLaDOS. She has all the makings of an ultimate huntress, without sacrificing the core of her "too cool for school" Gilda-ness.
Now please, give me more.
LEMONS!!!! Nothing better than Combustible LEMONS!!!
Those test subjects are gonna be real sour when they have to face those new bomb turrets.
She doesn't want your d*** lemons! Do you know who she is? She's the griffon who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons!
I see Gilda is taking the Dark Souls aproach to this: making everything harder for the vict- ahem, 'test subjests'.
Gilda, what are you doing.
Gilda, please stop. You're scaring me.
GILDA, WHY THE HECK WOULD YOU WANT TURRETS THAT CAN DO THAT?!
Man, now I want to see bad guys chase Chell back to Apeture so we can see all these wonders get used against acceptable targets we don't care about. That way Chell can recover and spend time with Gilda so they can bond and form the most awesome testing team ever!
Also the one funnest classroom settings are the one where you get to have fun, like cooking, chemistry, and art classes. So maybe Gilda should get some of those??? I know she'd like making things like stink bombs, a cake of her own, or even just carving some logs with her claws.
I want to talk to life's Manager! I don't want your damn Lemons!
Oh?
Ooh!
This makes me so happy.
I love this.
You are evil! I love it.
They wouldn't fit?
Ah.
I mean, Samus makes bombs and Power Bombs from seemingly nothing.
And she gets it! Cave Johson would be so proud.
Oh dear.
Is it bad that I'm having so much fun with these? ... Naaah! Looking forward to more.
Keep up the great work. Deus tecum.
as if the portal test chambers wern't already annoyingly hard enough
An interesting read, I'm looking forward to the next chapter
if this Gilda, Rachet's Twilight, and Fortress Flutters ever collaborated on stuff.... I'll leave you all to imagine that.
7890705 When that happens, I will be staying in the Void with Dr.Gaster.
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Here's your damn lemons
7890705 Don't forget Marvel Rainbow Dash
Oh dear.....hunter turrets....WHEN CAN I GET ONE???
This may be the deadliest My LIittle Pwny combination ever.
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Uh.... I think I am going to be hiding in my ship, running far, far away and not even attempt to give first contact a try. Just those characters.
Is our Earth even Safe? That...
I am worried and scared by those power houses getting together.
Did someone say combustible lemons?
7890970 Or Wily's Vinyl.
7890453 i always thought something more like this
img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110915150158/mlp/images/8/8b/Gilda_Pinkie_Pie_marshmallow_roast_S1E05.png
7891192 Or X's Octavia!
7891120 I don't think we can escape if THEY went to contact us, I mean, we got a merc, a batpony(literal and in costume)/martial artist, god-allied inventor junkie, Twilight(I don't want to know about it), a demon hunter, and a killing machine full of fluffy.
Now, if we moved to the other guys... Can somebody get me Aperture Science Multiverse's Earth-1 Cave?!
7890947 WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE?!?!?!
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Burn some houses down with the combustible lemons obviously
(I am in no way encouraging arson. Standard disclaimer if you are foolish enough to actually burn houses down I have on the record that this was commented in jest)
7891558 Oh...well, at least these work.
Please have the Animal King turret at some point, it would be fun to see
7891277 Eh, she seems to use the technology rather than create with it like the others.
Ooooh boy. Can't wait until the end when Gilda goes back to Equestria.
Anyone else picture Gilda stepping through a suddenly appearing portal, only to be followed by Glados-as-griffon-bot-the-size-of-a-dragon?
Because all the other 'parents' get to visit Equestria, why not her?
Hunter turrets are things that need to exist in portal 2
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*needED
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Tatsurou actually will probably do that, once he gets them all done. Welcome to the PWNY verse.
7892178 yeah that.
When are Wheatley, Space Core, and Chell are going to appear in this story?
7891929 Eh, true. I just pegged her as knowledgeable.
7892482 Oh, she definitely is; its merely a different type of knowledge.
Good thing Glados didn't freely experiment this way before. Imagine how much harder the tests would be with turrets that could fly or lob grenades?
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Bullets... so many bullets..
Feels like bullet hell...
Gilda is SO adorable and huggable
Oh god, I loved the 'exploding lemons' bit! That's my favorite rant from Portal 2!
I forgot the definition of a term; sue me.
"I hope this doesn't become a lemon fic."
7890442 Did someone say LEMON!?
7890705 if i may inquire: Rachet's Twilight?
Fortress Fluttershy is pretty easy, but not Rachet's Twilight. who is she?
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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/213696/the-sparkle-in-his-eye
7946533 speaking of which, what does PWNY stand for?