Below is the current story for the Scratch Portal Universe Roleplay. Feel free to suggest changes or suggest something I should add. -------------------------------------- Around the late twentieth century, there were two science companies competing for economic dominance. Black Mesa and Aperture Science. Aperture had gone nearly bankrupt multiple times, while Black Mesa thrived, being given multiple government contracts for investigating an alien world known as 'Xen'. Aperture had been attempting to spy on Black Mesa by hacking radio signals using their cover-up company called Arbeit Communications. But they had failed. (You can read more about that here: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1030260606/ ) Aperture had also been working on robots. Cave Johnson had fallen ill due to moonrock poisoning, and had asked to be put into a robot so he could live forever. He succeeded, but was quickly forgotten about and avoided. Years later, he was dropped down from New Aperture into Old Aperture and remains conscious there to this day. Other robots Aperture made are personality cores and GLaDOS, the mainframe of their main facility in upper Michigan. Not long after being activated, GLaDOS had flooded the facility with neurotoxin and killed every human there. Around the same time, Black Mesa did an experiment on a crystal, but accidently opened a portal to Zen and let all sorts of creatures out. Thankfully, the incident was disposed of quickly, but the portal opening let out millions of irregular energy atoms into space, which attracted the attention of the Combine, an intergalactic army that takes over planets and drains its resources. The Combine had enslaved Earth and reigned supreme for about 20 years, before Gordon Freeman, a surviving scientist of Black Mesa, had taken them down single-handedly. But by destroying the Combine's main headquarters, the Citadel, it exploded and unleashed deadly radiation across the earth, destroying most of humanity in the process. and that brings us to present day. The world is a broken wasteland, and few groups and people remain. The main factions which roam the land are: Aperture Science Arbeit Communications Remnants of the Combine. The Helix Organization Civilians
