The Portal Scientist

1. Summary

The portal scientist is a surviving scientist of D4 who still works feverishly in an occupied research office, as though the research had never stopped. Convinced that the world is malignant at its foundation, he wants a portal that can carry him outside the structure of existence itself. When Edmund brings him the portal documents from D6, he reads them, becomes strangely calm and takes his own life. He is the centre of the side quest The Last Shift.

2. Identity

• Name: unnamed.
• Position: a scientist who worked on portal research; one of the surviving scientists of D4. See: Enemies › Broken Survivor.
• Location: an occupied research office in D4, among broken computers and stacks of papers, with an adjoining room he keeps locked.

3. Personality

He speaks quickly and continuously, mutters calculations, consults pages, and scribbles incoherently. When Edmund tries to speak to him, he does not acknowledge his presence. He behaves as though the research has never stopped.

How Hamish and Edmund judge his state is part of the side quest. See: Campaign › 7. A Question Of Trust.

Throughout the room and in his muttering, one phrase recurs: "I want to stay alive."

4. Background

His research notes trace how his portal research turned into an obsessive search for an escape from existence, and why he needs documents stored on D6 beyond the supersoldier robots of D5. See: In-World Documents › The Scientist's Research Notes. See: Enemies › SQUAD Unit.

His private records show that he had turned to meditation and the study of consciousness while struggling with his fears. He accumulated survival supplies in the adjoining room: bandages, medicine, ammunition, and a pistol.

5. Role in the Story

The scene in which Edmund hands over the documents and the scientist withdraws into the adjoining room belongs to the side quest. When the room becomes accessible, Edmund finds the scientist dead from a self-inflicted gunshot, sitting in a lotus-like meditation position with a pistol nearby.

The document he dropped, open at the last page he was studying, reveals that the machine on which he placed his hopes could not be justified as the escape he sought, without proving that his wider metaphysical interpretation was false. See: In-World Documents › Portal Transit Research Assessment and See: Campaign › 7. A Question Of Trust.

6. Relationships

• Edmund: the scientist never acknowledges him, even when Edmund brings him what he needs.
• Other scientists: colleagues who tried to pass the supersoldier robots of D5 were killed. See: Factions › Project Schwarzwald.

7. Gameplay Role

He starts the side quest The Last Shift in D4. The quest continues on D6, where Edmund may retrieve the documents after traversing D5, and concludes when he returns them to the scientist. Its rewards are the supplies of the adjoining room, the scientist's pistol, and the recovered research information; completing it requires Edmund to read the document the scientist dropped. See: Campaign › 7. A Question Of Trust.

8. Open Questions

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