Which is Safer? Black Mesa or Aperture Science?

[@MauricioJara]

“After a year & a half of a delay, and constant revisions, technical difficulties, real-life issues, and things that need not to be stated -- I present to you all a love-letter to the series that changed my life four years ago. It's surreal to see content I edited more than a year ago in tandem with things edited more recently at the time of writing this. Without further delay, I hope you all enjoy this project. Yours in infinite finality." In case you missed it, make sure to check out EDC’s side of this collab project: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qn_Xl6SAidd0gLMsi=stAQZO1vaOOIyy4L

[@kaijoswilman]

how did you pose this 18 hours ago if the video came out 6 hours ago?

[@user-gf5yn9ti9r]

Hey this vid goes hard keep it up

[@Splarkszter]

Just in time :)

[@notimportant768]

Actually cave johnson has his conciousness in a nigh indestructible bust of himself in aperture as per the valve index tutorial game. He asks to be killed and the player fails.

[@AwesomeTheAsim]

This is an amazingly fun and well crafted video. Thank you.

[@TheOnlyBloke]

In Aperture's defence, per square foot of space, they have a hell of a lot more handrails than Black Mesa does. That's gotta count for something.

[@zekeram129]

Black Mesa can get you killed by normal and boring negligence and poor safety regulation. Aperture would never make such silly mistakes. Instead, they'll kill you in unique and whimsical ways while commiting warcrimes that don't even exist yet!

[@Jrsonicyt-is-weird]

​@@zekeram129God:how did you die Rock moon cancer God:and you? My bones jumped out of my own body God:you? My wife ate my head... oh ya i was a bug during the eating head part also my wife was also a bug

[@venator-fb7yy]

Aperture science wouldn't learn anything if their test subjects died from gravity instead in an unnecessary experiment that cost as much the GDP of most countries!

[@cantfindagoodname.211]

​@@zekeram129war crimes happen during war, at aperture it is all corporate.

[@andyghkfilm2287]

Lot more shower curtains, too!

[@TheTrytix]

Osha: "Okay, listen Black Mesa, you got several things wrong here... More guardrails, less nuclear waste areas." Black Mesa: "Well, if you think we're bad at it, have you checked up with Aperture Laboratories yet?" Osha: "Aperture what now?" *Meanwhile, in Aperture Laboratories:* Cave Johnson: "Alright people! Don't worry if you start feeling a but nauseous, we've been slowly converting your blood to gasoline. And batch B seem to have done well after we spliced their DNA with Mantis DNA... Though, we now have a unrelated invasion of Mantismen down at level 3-A that we need to take care of, so... I've got a proposition, does anybody want to make 5 dollars?..."

[@atticusmortimer9997]

hey thats pretty funny

[@thesymbiotenation.4552]

Oshawa would be having a field day with Aperture Science

[@deadmemes21]

At least Aperture has handrails

[@LunaticThinker]

"Since making test participation mandatory for all employees, the quality of our test subjects has risen dramatically. Employee retention, however, has not."

[@Biotear]

​@@thesymbiotenation.4552Well, until they find out about Cave's policy on dealing with OSHA inspectors...

[@Monomiknose]

It makes it all the more hilarious that one company was blindly stumbling into mad science experiments, not giving an inch of though about safety or further implications, just trying their darndest to screw over the laws of physics and biology, and it's the other company that takes safety seriously and a careful approach to experimentation which ends the world through a single incident. Like you go through Portal 2 hearing Cave Johnson describing several barely avoided apocalypses, meanwhile Black Mesa accidently misses a 0.01 in their number crunching and lets in interdimensional doom.

[@zekeram129]

To be fair, they were sabotaged by the Intergalactic Business Guy of Doom. Though I think he was honestly _scared_ of Cave.

[@EnderIzzy124]

Part of that is likely due to the difference in tone between Portal and Half Life. Portal (moreso Portal 2 than 1) is more of a Black Comedy, while Half Life is far more serious and action-y.

[@iamunamed5800]

@@EnderIzzy124 to be fair the government contractors get attacked by aliens is such a cool idea. At least from someone who lives in a city where almost everyone is working for a defense contractor (and some the militaries largest projects are designed here). its more compelling then just "giant mad science lab" for me at least.

[@JuanGelogo]

Have you ever heard of a company called alphabet which owns ai companies, media companies, weapons companies, robotic weapons companies, quantum super computer...and the list goes on n on

[@EnderIzzy124]

Yes ​ @user-ep2es1mp5r , we are infact aware of google and just how shitty it is. We are, infact, using youtube.

[@Dingghis_Khaan]

I think the reason Aperture never got the funding it needed and Black Mesa _did_ is because Black Mesa actually put out results for its research while Aperture was basically just faffing about with science equipment. Black Mesa was actively developing practical technology to fill niches and exploring an extraterrestrial world. Aperture, on the other hand, kept trying to find solutions without problems, especially with Cave Johnson at the helm. Occasionally they would get something worth investing in, but you can only give so many bogus experiments before investors start ruling you as a financial hazard.

[@superJK92]

and Black Mesa was supported by the government and got funding from them

[@seniorvac589]

As someone who's looking into the Lore, i Can tell you that Black Mesa steals almost every good idea from Aperture Science like the gravity gun or HEV combine protection ! Aperture are great. But couldn't make the ages

[@NotAGoodUsername360]

Black Mesa was founded specifically in response to Aperture's inability to be practical. Black Mesa stole the portal technology that put Aperture on the map and gave them unlimited resources because of Aperture's faffing about and building frustration within its own researchers- they left and founded Black Mesa the same way Valve itself was founded by devs fed up with Microsoft's faffing about. Black Mesa then experimented with its teleportation properties and opened the first portal to Xen. That put them into contact with G-man who encouraged them to continue their research, which ultimately lead to the Resonance Cascade and the invasion of Earth that was the prelude to the Combine's formation and subsequent conquest of the planet.

[@nimnimn6930]

In fairness Aperture is seemingly leaps and bounds ahead of Black Mesa in every aspect that isn't bound by the needs of actual people. I mean in half life 2 the Combine and the resistance are still trying to develop short range teleporters and its basically the only reason humanity isn't dead, meanwhile aperture figured it out decades ago, compressed it down into a gun and then didn't sell it because they couldn't figure out how to make use of it. The main difference is that Black Mesa is much closer to normal science where what scientists can and cannot do is dictated by whether they can get funding and the results build upon each other to create a more cohesive whole, most of black mesa we see throughout the game seems to somehow be related to studying stuff related to Xen. Meanwhile aperture scientists basically have a blank check and keep getting their focus torn in different directions depending on the whims of their billionaire founder, everything they invent is spectacular but also with little relation to each other and never sees the surface, the only use any of it ever ends up actually serving is that of tormenting Glados's test subjects.

[@josephconover5270]

The problem is that Aperture's portals require walls that have gel made from Moon rocks that led to health defects and death. The Black Mesa portals don't need that and as such, lowers those kinds of deaths.

[@taste5728]

Fun fact: Glados was able to stop either the army or the fucking combine invading Aperture. Her programming is holding her back because Chell was a test subject (maybe also Ratman as he is technically an Aperture scientist and is allowed on the site). Aperture was a death hazard and we only saw the "safe" parts.

[@MauricioJara]

The army never went into Aperture Science. By the 2000s, the name of Aperture Science had fallen into obscurity. With the 7 Hour War, Black Mesa Incident, and the Lockdown of Aperture being so close together, the military was so preoccupied with... certain invaders... Nobody went back to save those poor souls in Aperture.

[@B.L.U.S]

But the combine did try to enter as stated by GLaDOS saying that she is holding THEM back I just imagine trying to break into aperture you would face an assortment of portals launching turrets everywhere and they shooting at you and also portals spinning arround with lasers cutting everything in the way In other words: your average Kaizo level

[@taste5728]

@@MauricioJara i would also add that Black Mesa survival rates Comes from the design of the complex being built like swiss cheese with multiple exits The fact that Aperture has no moral standards about safety of their gadgets from weapons to the recipes of monsters in the hands of the smartest AI murderer and a tight security not even a whole Galactic dictatorship was able to discover just add more about Aperture dangers. I would want to go throught everything in the Half-Life series than being stuck as an intruder in Aperture.

[@Armin2012]

@@B.L.U.S I don’t think the combine was actively trying to enter. It’s possible that GLaDOS was trying to keep a low profile to avoid combine detection.

[@devlintaylor9520]

i know half life is cannon in portal, but is portal cannon in half-life?

[@deadzulu7836]

I noticed one small issue: Aperture used scientists and homeless people as test subjects. This would make it significantly worse to work there because you're likely to die during testing.

[@britneyhochman5204]

Yeah testing became a requirement for employees once they started running out of money and quit resorting to homeless people.

[@endernightblade1958]

there were clauses to get out of it (at least until glados took over) like you could unelect yourself from it if you felt confident enough in your abilities, or if you were pregnant.

[@popularvote3613]

​@endernightblade1958 the "if you felt confident in your abilities" thing is an implied threat from management. "You can skip testing... if you're sure that you're so valuable to the company that we can't immediately fire you for refusing testing."

[@endernightblade1958]

@@popularvote3613 that makes sense, actually. never thought of it like that.

[@TylerTMG]

667th like haha

[@squillamsquallace2468]

As a scientist that HAS lived and worked at scientific facilities I must say Black Mesa (Pre cascade) looks really cool to live and work at. As for danger... that kinda comes with the job. I lived at marine research facilities so we were on boats and in the water scuba diving a lot so injuries' do happen. My buddy even got bit by a shark (nurse shark he was trying to tag) He is fine, but has a cool scar to show off at the bars now.

[@thesteelsquid863]

You can't lie to the public, I know about your shark-man hybrid experiments

[@squillamsquallace2468]

I bet you'd love to get one of their blood samples under the microscope @@thesteelsquid863

[@TheScholarOfLemons]

@@thesteelsquid863 there was a whole movie about that I'm pretty sure, with lava-women to boot

[@thesteelsquid863]

@@TheScholarOfLemons "REPORT HIM TO THE PRINCIPAL AND HAVE HIM EXPELLED!!!!! >:(((("

[@warpspeedscp]

​@@thesteelsquid863aha, it was a love bite!

[@endernightblade1958]

reminder that there exists a canon parallel universe in which cave johnson takes control of black mesa and *directly prevents* the resonance cascade.

[@austinrimel7860]

Yeah! Also, where can i find the original source for that? I dont know where it is

[@endernightblade1958]

@@austinrimel7860 somewhere in the perpetual testing initiative apparently (never played it), the quote is on the wiki

[@ffwast]

Only Cave Johnson would be crazy enough to see through the gman.

[@Skullhawk13]

@@ffwastconsidering his speech pattern it’s shocking anyone fell for it. The voice actor was specifically directed to “Act like you’re trying to sound human but not very hard”

[@ffwast]

@@Skullhawk13 His plans,not his disguise. Everyone saw through the disguise. Enough people went along with the plans for the Black Mesa incident to happen.

[@Skyrionn]

Definitely worth the year and a half of production! Happy 25th anniversary.

[@MauricioJara]

Nice to see you here man. Hope you enjoy your stay! Happy 25th Anniversary to Half-Life! Cheers.

[@The_irish_meatball]

Holy moly it da lore man

[@THEPIECRAB]

He actually came!

[@femboyshitposter676]

My fav ASMR half life lore KZbinr ❤️

[@insanejughead]

Skyrionn, good to see you around, supporting other Valve aficionados. Love your vids and input on all things in which we share interest!

[@Your_Toaster]

I think the fact that no one except Chell and Ratman survived in Aperture Science says a lot

[@mackpog-g4z]

well, actually there were hundreds of survivors from Aperture Science but they were locked away in an old section of aperture in cryogenic status

[@jood9574]

@@mackpog-g4z You saved science!

[@concept5631]

​@@mackpog-g4z ...Before GLaDOS killed them all within a week.

[@LexusLFA554]

It is actually Doug Rattmann that kills them. He converts the power of Aperture onto Chells pod simply because it says she is stubborn as hell.@@concept5631

[@good-lock]

​@@concept5631... or not?

[@Inventure751]

The Black Mesa remake made most of the hazards safer, if at least more believable - with a lot more handrails for instance. But the pools of toxins will never be justified.

[@NomadTheProtogen]

I thought those were due to the leaks caused by the cascade, besides the first one you see in the intro, which they were cleaning up when it all went down.

[@teoborges3949]

​@@ILiveInSpainButWithoutTheSpainno

[@LordTrashcanRulez]

​@@teoborges3949 It kind of is, music and gameplay wise. Story wise they're tied.

[@NexusLore]

@@LordTrashcanRulez the original is outdated and janky. Also the environments in the remake are more detailed and stunning

[@Kevin-hx2ky]

@@NexusLore When you grow up with one it's hard to say that the other is better. Thankfully i never played the original Half Life

[@dr.virus1295]

All this cause Valve developed Portal & Half Life 2 in the same engine, so they decided "ah screw it, put them in the same world."

[@Neotrec]

Might as well put Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress in there too

[@CZpersi]

Yeah, and for the better part of the next two decades, nerds all over the world are thinking about narrative bridges to actually connect the two. My rule of thumb is that if you need either time travel or alternate universes to connect two lores together, then you better consider them separate.

[@Organ_Inspector]

@@CZpersithat’s the thing though, you don’t the portal franchise is happening deep underground in North America while the bulk of half life is in Eastern Europe as that is where city 17 is

[@roblox_talon_gaming1309]

@@Neotrec Csgo should go with left 4 dead because csgo literally has left 4 dead maps in it

[@Gogglesofkrome]

@@Neotrec considering Half life 2 literally references aperature science and their lost research boat, half life and portal being connected is undeniable

[@TinyDeskEngineer]

We know that quite a few people survived the Black Mesa incident, but we only know of one person who survived GLaDOS flooding the enrichment center with neurotoxin.

[@mercce6750]

The BMI was an unfortunate accident caused by the manipulation of higher interdimensional beings and the callousness of the administrator while Aperture event was an intentional mass murder by a dangerous AI system and come to think of it why was there a need for a facility wide neurotoxin dispersal again?

[@skulldozer1462]

​@@mercce6750for last ditch defensive measures against overwhelming invaders?

[@randomtexanguy9563]

@@mercce6750 Mantis Men

[@nonya1366]

At least two, the others are in cryogenic stasis. The rat man put Chell up for spot one of the cryogentic stasis, resulting in the events.

[@brobruh7850]

@@skulldozer1462Makes me wonder, if the resonance cascade event happened at Aperture instead, would they have been able to contain it?

[@fallenking2719]

The fact chairs give you cancer in aperture makes me feel black mesa is safer

[@iWhisperASMR]

How many health stations did you count in Apertures expansive facilities? They did have neurotoxin in abundance for some reason tho... Every single wall that you could put a portal on was toxic. It's how the owner died, without finding a cure. Chell alone was brain damaged enough to not even be able to speak. At least Gordon was PhD badass that didn't need to speak.

[@gamesandglory1648]

@@iWhisperASMRas far as I know, it's specifically powdered moonrocks that is deadly, the gel and walls coated in it are actually safe (unlike other gels) (though apeture does have way too much other deadliness anyways)

[@justinliu7788]

@@iWhisperASMRthe moon rocks are unsafe however you can also place portals on white concrete found mostly in the old aperture area and some hallways

[@luckyshot2343]

The fact that Black Mesa, what you could say is the most serious and grounded of the 2 labs caused the end of the world, while Aperture science was throwing poop to the wall and even is using a black hole for their portal gun, literally holding in your hands an almost instant planet wipe, is just so funny to me.

[@iWhisperASMR]

The funny part is both were trying to make the same thing, just Aperture got it done better, but never released it, and Black Mesa did it and destroyed the entire planet to alien invasion.... so like it's kind of funny that there's even pros and cons. I think it says more about what great writing they BOTH have.

[@lenship2]

quite a few scientists survived the neorotoxin at aperture, but they ended up becoming test subjects for glados and died from their own tests

[@concept5631]

Irony at its finest

[@unusualusername8847]

No. Labrats revealed Chell was moved to Test Subject-001 by Doug Rattman. Chell was the ONLY human test subject of portal 1.

[@lenship2]

@@unusualusername8847 on page 19, glados mentions a "new voluntary testing program" while this could be interpreted as just flavor text for genocide, it seems to be a more literal in terms of aperture: the rusting everywhere in portal 1 implies prolonged neglect from employees. glados has the combination of the central mainframe's drug-like testing rewards and her own personal urge to pursue "science". i find it very hard to believe glados could even neglect testing for a week, especially since she almost immediately redeployed the cooperative testing initiative the moment she ran out of human test subjects in the art therapy dlc. as wheatley puts it, "i have to test, all the time, or i get this itch." thus, it would be realistic for glados to have spent the time implied from the facility degradation, testing whatever humans she had left (remaining aperture employees) it would also be unrealistic to flood the entire facility with neurotoxin simultaneously, and thus, like the folks at black mesa, there were ample opportunities to evade death. considering the vastness of aperture, there must've been thousands of employees, and the likelihood of only one of them escaping is near zero. doug also seems to have escaped from the testing tracks himself, since he deliberately hijacked the diversity vents in chamber 15 to get himself a companion cube, seemingly as a result from the trauma of incinerating a companion cube. this trauma could only come from being directly in the tests. his hideouts are along chell's main track, but i think he managed to escape testing around chamber 16. doug escaping a testing track means he must've had to be one of the people testing that particular series of chambers, once more implying there were others before him. he moved chell to the top of the list, but there's no reason to not believe there were others before her that weren't doug. on page 20 glados does say that "everyone is dead," but this was in the context of her literally lying and gaslighting doug, and thus shouldn't be entirely believable. while i might've exaggerated the scientists themselves being exposed to the irony of testing, i do believe that there were aperture employees tested post bring your cat to work day. doug was just the only employee able to escape testing, due to his independence and general grand knowledge of how aperture worked (he literally knew about the vitrified borealis experiments despite never witnessing them, he's pretty resourceful). once he escaped, he promoted chell to be the next test subject since he probably firsthand observed her extreme perseverance and knew she would be able to do more than him against glados. tldr doug was an employee and was tested, so there easily could've been other employees tested after bring your cat to work day but before chell

[@Volcano22207]

@@unusualusername8847 yes she was the only Designated test subject but glados used staff before the official test subjects

[@unusualusername8847]

@@Volcano22207 No. The surviving staff were in status. That's why Doug put Chell at the top.

[@lordjaraxxus5418]

While aperture may be the more dangerous company to work for, they are also the ones who won in the end. Aperture was the ones who perfected portal technology long before Black Mesa, outlived it through AI and brain mapping technology keeping Aperture going long after the combine invasion, and even developed multiverse travel and bought out black mesa.

[@rommdan2716]

SHUT UP, CAVE JOHNSON!!

[@inoxisane]

To be fair, Black Mesa is the only reason why the combine are even struggling. Aperture did nothing about it.

[@RedGoldDolfin-ez9iy]

Multiverse is a questionable topic

[@lordjaraxxus5418]

@@inoxisane Blame Glados only caring about tests for that.

[@jimskywaker4345]

@@inoxisane Because they went under due to Black Mesa stealing their tech. To put it simply, it's all black mesa's fault

[@juanvilas5341]

Who knows, it may be that Gordon Freeman received an offer from both Black Mesa and Aperture Science and accepted Black Mesa's precisely because of what was mentioned above about having all his needs covered as well as having friends and colleges there.

[@warpspeedscp]

He probably had a friend who joined aperture, cut off all contact, then suddenly started spamming him with suspicious job offers or something

[@dasirrlicht5415]

Ah, the age old difference between incompetence and disregard. And somehow, Black Mesa is Incompetent while Aperture is Disregard! Everything going wrong in Black Mesa is because of faulty equipment, bad screening, and pure chance as the end of the world hits because they experimented while nothing was working right that day. Everything going wrong in Aperture is because equipment working JUST as it should, Tests being run with no care towards how it affects people, experimenting on at least one very unwilling person, and obsessing with applying any tech they create everywhere, regardless how suited it is for the job.

[@DJVideso]

The world ended because of G-Man

[@witchcraftanditsconsequenc4280]

Black Mesa's equipment wasn't really faulty, it was just all defecting because the Anti-Mass Spectrometer was taking up most of the grid. That's also why the guard at the front desk tells Gordon about the recent system crash, as well as the computer that blows up (the one with Eli Vance) right before he heads down into the test chamber.

[@anarchosherman961]

can't really call the resonance cascade pure chance when it's literally set in motion by paracausal forces like the G-Man seems to be.

[@richardkirkland6805]

About the future self thing, Cave states in a pre-recorded message that contact with a future or past version of yourself can completely wipe out reality, forward AND backward.

[@Nevernamed]

Actually it just wipes out time, not all of reality- that's probably a different test.

[@ZugTheDragon]

13:53 Interestingly, tape storage is still not outdated, modern tape storage still offers a better price to storage ratio than hard drives, at the expense of access speeds and cost of the reader itself. Great video, glad someone finally pointed out some of the way that Black Mesa was more hazardous than aperture, and happy 25th birthday to Half Life :)

[@flamestoyershadowkill]

ldo drives?

[@ninjacat230]

Yes, but modern tape storage doesn't look like THAT

[@trulyinfamous]

They also require climate control and are generally more fragile than other data storage, but fitting 15TB into a box almost half the size of a regular hard drive makes it worth it for low access mass storage.

[@mfaizsyahmi]

> At the expense of access speeds That's why tape is only used for very long term storage. You only ever write/read it occasionally.

[@ZugTheDragon]

@@mfaizsyahmi true, or maybe if you have a bulk of data you need all at once anyway Something the scientists might possibly need

[@raiogelato6921]

Aperture: hundred of failed human experiments, thousands of casualties. Black Mesa: One failed test, 6 billion casualties

[@timmy6890]

Black Mesa is like the Older more Mature brother while Aperture Science is the crazy younger brother. Which is kinda funny since I’m pretty sure Aperture was made before Black Mess

[@Omega-jg4oq]

And that crazy younger brother is surprisingly more smarter and more creative that even inter-dimensional Alien Empire seeks their technology and specially their ship which it’s could be the key to save humanity and FCKING HALF LIFE 3 😭

[@MauricioJara]

Smarter? Maybe. But certainly not intelligent. If Aperture was cunning about their technology, they would've poured their resources into the Portal Gun rather than testing a product that was perfected 50 years ago over and over again. Aperture could've had a bright future if they didn't keep the Portal Gun a secret.

[@LegionIscariot]

​@@Omega-jg4oqAperture is not smarter than Black Mesa. Although they both do work in science its different kinds of science. Black Mesa does legit science work for the government. So they are regulated. Whereas Aperture performs illegal research and experiments. Aperture was going out of business and destroyed itself. Black Mesa was very successful and its destruction was caused by a higher power. Black Mesa is the smarter company in my opinion.

[@Omega-jg4oq]

@@LegionIscariot I meant making projects and some science such as the portal gun and personality cores and the Multiverse theory thing and everyone is so determined to find the Borealis, I may not know much but I’m sure Aperture is going wild that even Combine is interested and there’s even theory that Combine stole some technology in Aperture or something

[@reservoirfrogs2177]

@@LegionIscariot Aperture was not smarter business wise but what they created was lightyears ahead of black mesa. Teleportation technology is the most coveted technology in the half life universe

[@zeroknight1311]

What i find interesting is that Aperture has revolutionary technology such as the long fall boots, hard light platforms and the portal gun. Which are all stuff that I can just see being what would have gotten funding if the working prototypes were shown off to investors.

[@captainjirk9564]

I remember my first impression when playing the Black Mesa game that they've been working on was, "wow, I wish I worked here." Everything looked great and like the facility was impossibly large.

[@goofy-ahh101.]

Well yeah there are Dormitories for the Employees!

[@AGrayPhantom]

Let's not overlook that even if the resonance cascade hadn't happened there were MASSIVE radioactive spills all over Black Mesa. If that had ever gotten into the ground water that would spell game over for a large chunk of the southwest United States.

[@rmiller339]

You're incredibly underrated! Not only is this amazingly immersive, but it's well written and is of high quality! Props to you!

[@PabloZurita-yc3wz]

consider this, apature really did have the best of the best working for them, they were able to create a self contained handheld portal device, that seemingly required zero charging for decades apon decades, and the fact that all the "absurd" experiments had some decent result was a testament to the scientists, and i do believe if caroline wasn't forced into GLaDOS she would've easily surpassed black mesa, and nearly eliminated all hazards present, and lets be fair, the portal gun to the face, consuming moon rocks, giving neurotoxin to a violent ai(although im pretty sure that cave johnson transferred ownership of the company to GLaDOS the moment he died and had anyone who disobeyed her fired, so they were forced to obey her eventually), and a majority of the incidents could've been solved with a new ceo/common sense

[@512TheWolf512]

Actual rifle grenades have an arming distance. It's impossible to accidentally blow yourself up if everything is otherwise handled properly

[@АндроидБишоп]

In Half Life they clearly dont

[@concept5631]

​@@АндроидБишоп Black Mesa forgor 💀

[@theenderdestruction2362]

​@@АндроидБишопi blame the combine

[@goofy-ahh101.]

It would’ve been better if it had like a Trigger Discipline or no Grenade Launcher just for Safety.

[@Hal_2189]

I mean... Black Mesa seemed like a pretty nice play to work before the whole convergence thing. I'm not so sure I'd be down to work at Aperture lol. Even before Glados had done away with everybody, some of those Johnson recordings didn't exactly inspire confidence.

[@theepicone100]

Aperture science: 1 survivor. Black Mesa: At least a dozen survivors. NO contest.

[@noobyboi6324]

I mean you need to factor the 7 hour war and the xenian race invading

[@RedGoldDolfin-ez9iy]

@@noobyboi6324 Resonance cascade and alien invasion was a result of GMan's actions

[@klaykid117]

YEP Aperture has A survivor hundreds of years later. Black Mesa has survivors plural! Seven survivors at least from my memory at least enough people to start up a resistance base and call it Black Mesa East.

[@dappleofthedualies]

Well, there were test subjects in cryogenic storage. keyword: were

[@winternightst7001]

to be fair black mesa probably has a LOT more people considering how huge the facility is

[@nocturno7660]

Since its somewhat on topic, I always imagined hl3 combining the tech of both aperture and black mesa to gain an edge over the combine

[@popularvote3613]

I wish I could find it, but someone did a fan concept for a Half Life 3 weapon that's the big science gun you get towards the end of the game. But what made it cool was it was presented as a project proposal blueprint, and was signed off by Dr. Kleiner, I think the Vortigaunts, and GladOS (whose "signature" was an ASCII Aperture logo).

[@normalhuman9878]

Too bad Valve can only count to 2

[@KKST.]

This was a pretty cool explanation and really got in-depth to the rival companies! Happy 25th anniversary! Also, the bottomless pits are completely OSHA approved.

[@sylvercritter]

functionally, there is little difference in the fatality of a bottomless pit and a great height.

[@Awesomeness-iz3dh]

I think something that's interesting is that both fatal incidents were the result of sabotage (to some extent.) In Black Mesa, the sample was swapped out for a different one shortly before the test, one that was provided by a mysterious third party (most likely the G-Man), and while the administrator has since been retconned to definitively be Wallace Breen, originally the nebulous "administrator" figure we hear about who insisted the limits of the equipment be pushed that day was originally never given a clear face and may have been implied to be the mysterious business man himself. Aperture Science, meanwhile is a bit more subtle in the source of its sabotage. We don't know the who or why of it, but the red phone in GLaDOS' chamber that we can see in Portal 1, the very same phone intended to be used to call for an emergency shutdown of GLaDOS has its line cut. There's no clear answer as to who sabotaged it or why.

[@aslychair3096]

Are we sure the wire was cut and it's not just a physics object to look cool? I'm not saying you're wrong. That's actually a really interesting idea, I was just curious if there was any other evidence for the thought.

[@ElephantsDoingCrack]

Thanks for having me on the channel and for our collab! It was a long and brutal process. I hope to see even more from you.

[@MauricioJara]

Midway through this collab months ago, I truly thought this was never going to see the light of day and was going to be scrapped. I'm glad we pushed through, and got it out the door. Cheers to our future endeavors

[@versace6609]

@@MauricioJarawe’re all so glad you didn’t scrap this too cus this is the most refreshing Black Mesa vs Aperture content I’ve seen in a while

[@ElephantsDoingCrack]

@@ticklemedaddy Holy crap dude I don't even think that was a year ago. That was 2 years ago and I am surprised you even know about that. So, to make a long story short: me, Mauricio Jara and Richter Overtime kind of got screwed over or didn't have a good experience with Radiation Hazard at the time. Radhaz basically banned Richter for literally no reason and it was a complete shit show. Radhaz was kind of losing his mind behind the scenes, a lot was on his mind at the time. I was just doing some trolling out of spite against Radhaz for him being an asshole to my friend Richter. It was just weird and strange times. I don't even know why that 9/11 joke caused that much drama, it was pretty much just a shit post and I didn't put much thought into it. But don't worry, me and Radhaz are on good terms now. We made up in DMs and even if not I can at least say there is no blood between us now. It is whatever, Radhaz is cool. It is a shame nowadays because Richter now is the dick. But that is all that I will say.

[@ticklemedaddy]

@@ElephantsDoingCrack Moly, thanks for replying so quickly, if I had to guess why the 9/11 joke caused drama, it's because Radhaz is from Pakistan, though not affected directly by the event, it's probably a controversial topic there because there's where Osama hid and was killed, with Pakistan receiving international backlash for protecting Osama, or something like that the whole Richter thing is a bizarre situation, and pretty different from what was described by my friends who were there when it happened, either way, Ricther's dickishness has definitely taken ahold of him as a person, just months ago dude fucked up royally on twitter and pretends nothing has happened

[@ElephantsDoingCrack]

@@ticklemedaddy Yeah it is what it is and Radhaz told me that he didn't really take it personally, I just kinda upset him. We both did some bads things that weren't called for, but I think it is all okay now. I would ask what Richter did this time, but I have grown numb to it. The guy used to be so cool and a good friend. I am not mad or hate Richter... I am just done. I don't want anything to do with him anymore. He clearly has an ego and has changed A LOT.

[@thegamingzilla6269]

Black Mesa has literal rivers of radioactive sludge, with no safety railings around them and no hazmat suits in rooms before entering them, oh and you have to parkoar over it to get to some facility function critical stuff

[@Jrsonicyt-is-weird]

to be fair the hev suits help And the railings and other safety stuff defiantly got ripped cause of the xen stuff

[@theenderdestruction2362]

That sludge happened cause of the cascade, and when we do see a sludge thing in the beginning, it was being taken care of

[@jrperry1611]

The sludge on the monorail was just a pipe bursting, you can see that massive silo on the side leaking with sludge, I also think most of the sludge has most likely bursted from somewhere (a pipe, a silo, etc.) also the bottomless pits usually aren’t bottomless, and if you look at most of where they are, they have guardrails on platforms around them!

[@jimtim6206]

There's no indication that BM serves beer. When Barney talks about meeting later to get a beer it's highly likely he just means going to a bar after work to celebrate

[@grady631]

And if they do, its probably only for people done with their work.

[@329link]

The amount of death and suffering aperture caused BEFORE glados is comparable to the black mesa incident. I think that says more than enough on its own.

[@amazingnoo9935]

Insanely good editing skills. Well done on getting this done.

[@redtheyiffer]

I'd say that very summarized, Black Mesa is mostly safer just because all of Aperture was poisoned. At least you had a chance to survive bits of the resonance cascade. Aperture also dealt in very unethical experiments that would have negative effects on the test subjects (all while having a very crazy boss that had no clear goals beyond "let's see what crazy things we can do just because"), while the only bad thing that happened in Black Mesa was the resonance cascade (yes, it was a very thing, but just one), Black Mesa also strikes me as a more professional environment that has some semblance of decent protection for its workers on the average day. Assuming that you were to work on either, and your contract was finished before the events of the poison and the resonance cascade, I'd say Black Mesa is probably safer.

[@shinyrayquaza9]

remember, dooms invasion was originally caused by teleport tech I guess aperture though, the entire company attitude seemed to not care about employees in an almost scp level of neglect for staff and as seen in the gearbox expansions, no gman= no alien invasion of the site (he swapped the crystals and reactivated the black ops nuke that shepard disabled)

[@3DFella]

Is the SCP Foundation particularly known for being neglectful towards staff? Unless you’re a Class D prisoner, the foundation seems to treat its staff fine as far as I’m aware, you even have access to amnestics, aka mind-wipe drugs if you wanna forget traumatic things that have happened to you.

[@theuncalledfor]

@@3DFella There is no one true canon for the SCP universe, and a LOT of older SCP's described very unsafe handling of SCP objects. You are right though in that the generally accepted modern SCP canon seems to be as safe as they can manage, considering what they're working with.

[@ceu160193]

@@theuncalledfor Some SCPs don't really have safe method of handling them.

[@kingkoopa64]

Even tf2 is not safe from this, kead poisoning,malfunctioning weapons, dangerous animals zoos, suppose cancer causing teleporters, and etc

[@shinyrayquaza9]

@@3DFella Im confused, how was this related to valve games?

[@thewolfstu]

18:52 Once more, Portal: Desk Job for more up to date info on what happens to Cave Johnson.

[@DemoR]

Black Mesa seems like a heavily restricted research facility that has a really bad accident. Aperture is what I'd imagine a cyberpunk themed Eldredge horror would be

[@PunishedKrab]

Aperture literally has a “Android Hell” as well

[@idkwhyieventryanymore]

@@PunishedKrabwhich is literally just the incinerator

[@pingdong2493]

Aperture could have easily destroyed the world with half the effort if those nerds over at Black Mesa didnt have the G-MAN.

[@superJK92]

Probably

[@Echoe-14]

The portal guns are powered by a miniature BLACK HOLE

[@zakutskov]

@@Echoe-14well just open a portal on the moon, left it there alone and we're pretty much alr doomed

[@LoneHermit]

As illegal Aperture Science's "science" is... I'll still submit to testing as long as I get to hear Cave Johnson's voice.

[@KaiseroftheBlade]

Looks like he already decided with that black mesa mug in the beginning. (Awesome vid, great editing! You earned a sub! Can’t wait for more!)

[@hoos1584]

Great video! The physical items are a nice touch and add the documentary feel to the video. Editing also feels very smooth. The time it took to produce was worth it.

[@soda7998]

15:12 i love this line, it probably wasn’t planned so far in advance, maybe just a coincidence, but it’s great foreshadowing for Dr. Breen

[@thatonewaspatyourpicnic7978]

You know, despite all the other hazards at Aperture, gotta give em credit for having handrails.

[@MatveyMotion]

This is absolutely amazing, thought this was a full fledged documentary channel with 100k+ subscribers

[@MauricioJara]

Wow, thank you! I've been striving to create documentaries for the channel! Keep your eyes peeled.

[@d3str0i3r]

in aperture's defense, most of their problems started when cave saw his moral and ethical standards start to drag the company's profits into the red, this is why why commonly see safety features in aperture like handrails, safety posters, manual overrides, even GLaDOS had a gun keeping her in line in the form of a robot mainframe with dynamic redundancy that could remove and replace her and a reactor that would self destruct if she gets too unstable in aperture's further defense, we know that most of their accidents actually only resulted in serious injury and that they had the ability to replace entire organs when necessary, while most of black mesa's accidents not only resulted in death, but also resulted in either unrecognizable or unrecoverable remains further in aperture's defense, their "throw science at the wall" era started at a time when that's how EVERYONE did it, much like the earlier steam railroads, you had an idea, you tried the idea, and if it stuck, that's when you did science the way we recognize it now, you study WHY the idea worked and find ways to improve the idea which brings us to GLaDOS and the portal gun, while cave and his scientists are focused on new ideas and finding the ones that work, GLaDOS is tasked with testing the ideas that work and polishing them off, everything we see in the testing course is known to malfunction regularly and act unpredictably, including the emancipation grill which is known to straight-up delete organs sometimes, these malfunctions would likely not make for great gameplay, so we never really see them in game, which means it's more than likely the portal gun isn't as stable and perfect as it appears to be in game

[@rozasupreme]

Black Mesa at least tried to do stuff for the sake of good. Aperture was almost always downright evil.

[@Stepon14YT]

For Black Mesa The Resonance Cascade was a failed test that was actually caused by gman who swapped the crystal with something more potent. Aperture litteraly worked on a principle ,,If you're hurt, you're hurt. One of the ceos voicelines were that they placed both repulsion gel and blue paint in the same container in the same place some new guy took the paint. CEO's voiceline: You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Last poor son of a gun got blue paint. Hahaha. All joking aside, that did happen - broke every bone in his legs. Now please don't mention that, since i might get in trouble.

[@Gaming_nerd1987]

​@@Stepon14YTWRONG. The game states that HE picked up blue paint, blue paint could have been used on a wall, AND the replication jeel was like, on a self, so yea do research because as a portal fan that was kinda funny, tho it ( *PROBABLY * ) is not a joke.

[@akeiai]

Black Mesa works mostly as a government contractor as seen by the funding graph shown in Portal. That leads to some crazy stuff coming out of the project, and is sometimes, the scientific directions goes out and about on a whim as to satisfy government bureaucrats. Otherwise its a pretty normal company, in the likes of Lockheed Martin, or Boeing. Aperture meanwhile... Nope, that's some crazy stuff right there.

[@WhlteWolf9]

I wonder how the timeline would differ if cave johnson kept himself safe from the moon rocks, and looked at the portal gun and realized that it was perfected already, and that they could show it to the US, that they had beaten Black Mesa.

[@QSBraWQ]

yea, portal gun is so much better for transportation than getting to a sub dimension.

[@TBCC808]

In the trolley ride in HL1, the pool of radioactive liquid was a leak and most likely not intended by Black Mesa. In ether Blue Shift or Opposing Force you can see that the scientist have fixed the leak but the liquid leaked into the floor before and Shepperd/Barney drained it into the sewers.

[@AfterArtist]

It says a lot that the universe where Cave takes over and conjoins Aperture and Black Mesa into Blaperture is somehow the safest timeline

[@DuVious1]

You also forgot to mention the Tau Cannon was just a prototype at the time. If the Resonance Cascade never occurred then the scientists researching it probably would've been able to make it perfectly safe for the user. According to the 4th video in the "Aperture Investment Opportunity" series, the black hole could be "restarted" by tossing two miniature German stick grenades into the device. It's also said if you can't hear the whir of the Black Hole Cooling Fan that it had probably malfunctioned and it is recommended to quickly disassemble the device and locate an "Event Horizon ESTIMATION Wheel" and run away from the apparatus as fast as possible while using the Event Horizon ESTIMATION Wheel to see if you could survive the incoming doom. I'm putting ESTIMATION in all caps because even Aperture wasn't sure of the safest spot to be to avoid the blast radius. Aperture Science was a cesspit of bad thinking by people who probably weren't even scientists. Any attempt to talk about the idea being bad and unsafe would lead to you being yelled at by Cave Johnson and then fired with the idea still heading right up the line. He'd probably even put it higher on the priority list just to spite you.

[@zekeram129]

No, they're scientists alright. They're just _mad_ scientists. They bend reality to their fickle and entirely-unstable whims. They look at any hurdle, even completely sensible ones like "common sense" and "that's legally considered a warcrime" and scoff in their faces, pursuing the advancement of mankind over all else. Sure, that's going to get nearly every last one of them killed, but whatever.

[@tsuwaque]

wow this video is blowing up hard, it was at ~450 when i first started watching and now it's at 1.6k. totally deserved!

[@MauricioJara]

Right? I didn't expect this video to hit 2K already. I thought it was going to go under the radar. Cheers!

[@MeghanTheShade]

Mauricio: - mentions the lack of handrails- Mason the safety inspector: - plans a trip to Black Mesa-

[@mace9708]

I absolutely adore both Portal and Half Life and you definitely captured your interest and love of the series that I also share. Very awesome video and I know you're gonna go on to create some more amazing content!

[@Omega-jg4oq]

If Aperture Science facility existed in real life, I would gladly work there as an employee or scientist but not a test subject because they don’t treat them very well.. lol

[@MauricioJara]

Thank you! Truly, this video served as my love letter to this series that changed my life four years ago.

[@alejandromolina7270]

Imagine that one employee that called in sick and managed to miss all hell breaking loose at their job.

[@J4CKNO1R]

How in the world does this channel have less than 2k subs? The editing is phenomenal!

[@Genrevideos]

Something worth mentioning about the Deserts of New Mexico is that it isn’t really all that hot out there. It’s still very dry for sure but it barely breaches 100 degrees in the summer. Hell, it snows out there in the winter. The fact that the Black Mesa Facility is able to keep a consistent 68 degrees at all time does not surprise me.

[@iwatchyoutube124]

I think i'd work at black mesa Who wouldn't want daily donuts & coffee?

[@Arelated]

"Do you know who ate all the donuts ?"

[@Tau1Operator_Charles]

​@@Arelatedit was me :3

[@oddguy5356]

How could you?

[@snoiper-bp9vf]

6:20 fun fact grenade launcher grenades have arming distances. So you probably wouldn’t blow yourself up *in real life

[@MauricioJara]

All the animated skits are based off the in-game logic.

[@CisumAPRAT]

Great job, the animation sprinkles where phenomenal, you earned a new sub !

[@MauricioJara]

Awesome, thank you!

[@uitv3gg]

"The once calm New Mexico surface would be filled with tension by the military" ✍🔥🔥🔥

[@oddguy5356]

It's almost like there's tension on the surface.

[@TheMiddleFiddle]

Surface Tension one might say

[@TsuyAr]

Definitive answer: *Mann Co.*

[@alexplosion_ITA]

2:35 the music is "the sound of light" from the Portal Desolation project, beautiful song

[@ShorK]

Amazing video!

[@MauricioJara]

Wow, I am flattered. didn't expect to find YOU here, man! Love your videos dude! The stuff where you get the TF2 cast really warms my heart! Hope you're having a great day, and I hope you stick around. Cheers!

[@EnderMega]

Using "real life" papers and documments was so immersive!!! Great job men.

[@hammerdmx982]

Thinking about it, if gmad never had plans to cause the resonance cascade, aperture science would still have his incident happen and no one would have any idea about it, only if someone would wonder.

[@WarpOverload]

It’s great to have you back! This video was outstanding by the way.

[@MauricioJara]

I’m glad to be back. It’s great to see your return!

[@fella_named_smokey]

I wonder what would've happened if gordon didn't show up to work at all? they probably would've had someone take his place, or if given enough time to calculate the risks in analyzing the crystal, would've completely avoided the resonance cascade!

[@IAteChocolate789]

Well, Gordon would have INSTANTLY been terminated from Black Mesa entirely, so maybe someone also wearing one of the HEV suits, so maybe Gina or Colette, so the other would have been left the other alone making Decay a singleplayer, also. G-Man would probably do some timeline shit to make Gordon's termination.. A little less possible.

[@dar_duck]

I love the little detail of G-man popping up 19:57. Also want to say this is a amazing video great job!

[@MauricioJara]

👀

[@ricecripplestreat6614]

Hey Aperture, science might have rogue AI Black Mesa has rivers of radioactive acid

[@MSDuelist]

15:32 "Why did we usher forth the green apocalypse!?"

[@master4279]

We need a fan game where people after gordon leaves for the artic starts testing with combine technology

[@Silas_The_Silly]

Black Mesa definitely has a lot more hazards but I believe that since Black Mesa is a much more professional environment and was a government facility, unlike Aperture, that they’d have a lot more day to day safety, the handrails is an understandable point but if we take into account that those were made that way likely for gameplay we can assume that in real life they’d have a lot more handrails than we see in game. Also I find it to be a liiiiitle bit unfair to count the Black Mesa Incident, and Glados’ attack in this since those were one off events, so pre both of those incidents Black Mesa would atleast 50x safer than Aperture

[@dontwannabeahero1570]

So just to point out a single thing its not entirely odd that both facilities have a mix of modern and seemingly redundant tech some types of data storage can't survive being transferred or the thing they monitor is simply to sensitive for them to be replaced so its not unsurprising to see stuff like magnetic tape storage in a facility thats existed as long as black mesa

[@subjectnether959]

Otis ain't fuckin around, he REALLY wanted that quarter.

[@sebr6460]

18:58 I see you're a fan of Ahoy as well.

[@MauricioJara]

Ah, you noticed! He's been a huge influence for me as of late. With the projects I've got planned, my love for AHOY will shine through even more.

[@insanejughead]

That was a crazy good outro! Such a pleasing finale to the infinitely interesting topic you've presented here.

[@godofportal5905]

if the portal gun gets damaged or starts to malfunction you have the emergency shut off which happens by throwing 3 grenades into it which are on the device (somewhere) i think

[@rafaelhines1178]

Yeah, but it's an emergency reset not an emergency shut off

[@lybro1080]

That some shit emergency like how do u ever have 3 grenades at all time when it broke or malfunction

[@rafaelhines1178]

@@lybro1080 it comes with the gun

[@godofportal5905]

they somehow contain mini grenades inside the poratl gun???@@lybro1080

[@Mr_Also]

After watching this I watched some of your other videos and you are VERY underrated. I can’t believe you only have 2000 subscribers.

[@MauricioJara]

Wow, thank you!

[@Jakeandthefellas]

this is a very high quality video! Well done

[@BungieStudios]

Die from terrifying aliens, gungho Marines, and a nuke? Or die from exhaustion & failure from nonstop testing?

[@SourceSpaghetti]

Great video! I really enjoyed watching this comparison between Black Mesa and Aperture.

[@bat_milku]

i actually wondered about this 2 days ago, really happy to see that you already answered!

[@Mittens...]

this is very well produced, absolutely amazing job!

[@arkwend4090]

It's amazing how the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. I often have an itch to somehow revisit the universe, but playing it or rewatching videos doesn't do it for me any more. All it needs is a good idea & good execution to scratch that itch real good. This video did a great job at that, it was really engaging and fresh.

[@yarr_bro]

You don’t get to see videos of this quality everyday. Amazing work! Phenomenal editing.

[@RazorsharpLT]

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to have a quarter do you? >Shoots you Somehow i believe Ottis would do that if there was a pristine donut inside the machine

[@Ho_gs]

phenomenally well put-together video, super underrated. hope to see more like this

[@ItsDevinOk]

3:42 i always thought she said 'brief counseling'

[@realrandiee]

Nice video! I've often wondered this myself, and I honestly wouldn't mind working at either, but more leaning towards Black Mesa.

[@savin0279]

Dude, awesome video. The amount of effort that went into this is impeccable! No doubt people will remember this type of content when thinking back to black mesa, aperture science, and the history behind the two. Along side comparing the two, as the video intends!

[@AbiodunOyibo]

This video is amazing, it explains alot of the games in a very entertaining and even cinematic style

[@gman248]

First of all, wow! The production is insane! I can see a lot of work was put into the video and I appreciate every second of it. Also, note that the Black Mesa incident was not caused by Black Mesa itself, but by Gman who snuck the sample into the schedule. Theoretically speaking, none of what happened would happen if it wasnt for Gman.