Portal: The 4th Millennium Franchise

"Three years. Three characters. Three adventures.™"

And now. Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise.

Made by a person taken straight from the former Soviet Union, Aperture Science Business Magnet, Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise isn't really popular, it just tends to get on top of Google searches a lot.

Its entire story can't be explained with one work set in it, and stacking works one upon another makes it worse, to the point of being more confusing than Homestuck, the queen of convoluted plots itself. Let's say all you need to know is that there is one Marty Stu, Aperture Science Business Magnet, that is essentially a Self Insert who went forward in time and became the leader of Aperture Science, and there is another Sue, Ms. Johnson-Rattmann "interdimensionalPortaller", that is originally Chell from Portal 1 who, along with heavy characterization, received Sue powers and rose to power rivaling the first Stu's, and there are also canons they mangle horribly while fighting for power.

Links:


 * Most of the stories written for Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise
 * Stories written in-character for the second Sue
 * Official website, including a wiki and an in-universe blog

Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise provides trope examples of:
"Aperture Science 3007 Colony, officially the Republic of Idiots (Idiotų Respublika) is a nickname for an Aperture Science colony in northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic colonies (the other ones,, being controlled by Black Mesa). Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with to the north, / White Russia to the southeast,, oops I mean Land of Life and No Death, and the  to the southwest. Across the Baltic Sea to the west lies the country which claims it made Minecraft and another one full of pigs. Its population is 3320 (99.9% of its original population emigrated). Its capital is the Village Meškučiai and largest city is."
 * Actionized Sequel: Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time is this to the Portal game, to the point that it doesn't really fit the atmosphere.
 * Airstrip One: Let's just see how horrible the franchise has got it.

"CINEMATRONICS CELEBRATIONS HEADQUARTERS, BELLEVUE, THE CORNER OF THE WORLD THAT ISN’T OWNED BY APERTURE NOR BY BLACK MESA"

"„The year 1986. While Cave Johnson's wife-" Who left a mistake HERE? IN THE FAN FICTION APPLICATION? These events are supposed to be REAL!
 * Alternate Self: The Business Magnet and the Warweary Serket.
 * As well as Chell from Portal 2 and "Chell" from Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise.
 * April Fools' Day: Annual.
 * 2010: Simultaneously with the Combine OverWiki renaming itself to "Cake Wiki", Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise became designed after the Combine, leading to names like Combine Overtal 2: The Blackest Mesa of All Time.
 * 2011: Not as elaborate, but the Soviet Union is returning and Portal: The 4th Millennium Wiki is a Soviet republic.
 * 2012: There was a huge buildup that preceded this April Fools' Day by providing pictures of Vriska over the news, but on the day itself, the author went to play in a Minecraft Invader Zim server, because Minecraft is the TV show about Steve? trying to take over the Earth and Herobrine trying to stop him and Invader Zim is the video game where Dib landed on Zim's planet and forgot he was supposed to kill Zim.
 * Artifact Title: Originally a story of a new far-future Aperture leader, it has taken on two other fandoms, Homestuck and Invader Zim, and most of its plot revolves around the 20th, 21st and 22nd centuries.
 * Artificial Brilliance: 0ver5e3r was built to be better than GLaDOS in every way, and even scores an additional point in the Aperture Intelligence scale.
 * This trope also includes the "lightbugs" from Thinking with Diversity Vents work, which do something you wouldn't expect from an amateur mapper: normally, they go around until you complete a test chamber (which is just a button leading to "the outside"), but once you hop onto them, they will go away from a test chamber.
 * Bigger Is Better: In general. Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise doesn't play with human sized toys, no, everything must be at least kilometer in scale.
 * "Aperture Science Main Headquarters 3007" are 3007.1009 meters high, which makes the Burj Khalifa look like a wooden stick stranded on a dirt land.
 * Some of the empires are really out of scale. And by that I mean, they span an entire universe.
 * Call GLaDOS "ASCAIS" - That's what people from 1998 tell you. (Except they actually don't know the name "GLaDOS" in the first place.)
 * Though, at least three attempts were made to bring Portal 2 story back.
 * Characterization Marches On: Most notably for Chell Johnson, who from a Heroic Mime turned into the leader of the franchise's La Résistance, and 0ver5e3r, who from "yet another GLaDOS" turned into a Blue Blood Ditzy Genius.
 * Christmas Episode: (2010) In which the holiday changed several times, anger was unleashed, and which overall didn't make sense.
 * 2011: The Grand Relaunch, which is preceded with a recap that is as good as a Yet Another Christmas Carol minus An Aesop and a character to deliver it to.
 * Though it really is the third anniversary, which makes Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise itself a huge Christmas Episode.
 * Deus Est Machina: See above.
 * Dr. Pedia and Mr. Trope: Take a look at what Portal: The 4th Millennium Wiki claims. Then take a look at the Business Magnet's edits on Combine OverWiki. Then take a look at Portal: The 4th Millennium Wiki again. Your mind is now fucked up for at least several years.
 * Exty Years From Now: The "release date" of Portal: The 4th Millennium, 3007 October 9, is actually the release date of Portal plus 1000 years.
 * Same for Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time, 2107 October 9.
 * Fan Nickname: Names for technology given by Valve and names for technology in Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise are bound to deviate.
 * Take one example: GLaDOS is named "ASCAIS", which stands for "Aperture Science Central Artificial Intelligence Supercomputer."
 * Filk Song: The author has rewritten Want You Gone at least four times: a parody version that steals lines from Still Alive, the first verse as sung towards Yellowapple's trolling, the first verse as sung by Empress Contine and The Credits Song, supposed to end Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time.
 * Fish Out of Temporal Water: It is more of a rule and not exception for characters to transfer between epochs (and, by extension, timelines and galaxies).
 * Golden Age: Literally.
 * And then Valve proposed their own Aperture Science Golden Age in Portal 2.
 * And then they collided.
 * Last Supper Steal: The Eleven.
 * Massive Multiplayer Crossover: If you write fan fiction for or make a mod for Portal, there is an approximate chance of 10% that the Business Magnet will include it in his ever-expanding franchise.
 * If the fan fiction or mod becomes (in)famous, the chance raises to 100%.
 * If the plot for the fan fiction or mod changes, said work is discredited from the franchise, yet the things "borrowed" from it remain.
 * If you actually frown upon that, it gets to an edit war lasting a goddamn year.
 * Missing Episode: For a franchise that has colossal amounts of content that was released, expect even more colossal amounts of content that was cut.
 * For example, Portal: Prelude Convention AU No. 1, described above.
 * Even worse, a Portal: Prelude Convention AU No. 2 was announced, and is described in Portal: The 4th Millennium Wiki, but also never saw the light of the day.
 * Another notable example is: The Business Magnet mentioned that Portal 2 Episode Two: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time Part Two is an alchemization result of Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time and never-released concept art for the said fan fiction.
 * And unless the concept art is miniature / pixel art, the result can't be only one fifth of Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time.
 * No Export for You: There is a work, named Lena Bestselerovna: The Real Fail, about the life in the Aperture Science Golden Age, which was never translated from Lithuanian.
 * And even worse, without it, Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise is suddenly lacking the "4th millennium" part.
 * And even even worse, you can find Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise by Googling "4th millennium".
 * Oddly Named Sequel 2: The Electric Boogaloo of All Time: Originally played weird with Portal 2: The Fake Community-Made and Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time being done within two months' period, but then it had to be made worse with endless Snowclones of "Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time".
 * Orwellian Retcon: You can literally do that with the Fan Fiction Application.
 * And it will spawn a billion other transcripts of some text pertaining to event X:

„The year 1986. While Cave Johnson's wife Caroline [Portal: The 4th Millennium Wiki Narrator's note: appears as "Gladys" in the original was captured by „our benefactors"..."]

„The year 1986. While Cave Johnson's wife CAROLINE (See I listen to Portal 2 instead of FALMER TROLLZ) was captured by „our benefactors"...""

"interdimensionalPortaller: You see how almost all the characters he is writing about are against him?
 * Pinocchio Syndrome: For any given Aperture Intelligence, expect them to have precisely two human versions: one that was the intelligence's origin, and one for which the intelligence is an origin.
 * And they apparently still retain whatever mental abilities they had while still a machine.
 * Punctuation Shaker: If there's any reason to stuff first "@" into a name, then "¤", and then just forget the rules of grammar altogether and talk in apparent gibberish.
 * This also leads into a No FanFiction.Net Compliance: FanFiction.Net thinks "GL@DDA Magnet" is an email address.
 * Rage Against the Author: The latter half of Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time and all the works onwards will almost always feature the creators with a hostile relationship towards the Business Magnet, even when it doesn't make any sense.

irenicPie: but if the character that wins against him is written BY him, doesnt that mean he's not actually that bad at all?"

"Now with Skepkitty's CSS sheet too!"
 * Ragnarok Proofing / Modern Stasis: You'd expect a society in an unclear state after 1000 years after a major catastrophe to be completely different, but Black Mesa? Still here. GLaDOS? Just stuff her into a human and everything's fine. Modern-day countries? Just with funny names, but still here. Most of the main cast? Through one or another way, still here. Is this the 3000s or still the 2000s?!
 * You have to look for ridiculous future skyline to identify between 2000s and 3000s: the Combine Citadels and their derivative buildings are scattered around the world in 3000s.
 * Rasputinian Death: Exaggerated, in the means that the characters use the equivalent of plot devices to kill each other and survive. May also be an example of Schrodinger's Cast.
 * Empress Contine, for one, has an indestructible server network telling her how she is going to die in alternate timelines, so that she can avoid it and continue living.
 * Combine that with the fact that she aspires to take over the world and... well... this universe is doomed.
 * Though, that still doesn't explain how she manages to die in the alternate timelines, where the server network is still working.
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: If we were to believe the Word of God, Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time is this dedicated to Valve Software.
 * If the name wasn't enough of an emphasis.
 * Recursive Fanfiction: Is inspired by many Portal mods and fanfics, and inspires a lesser number, but still has its own fanfic.
 * Ridiculous Future Sequelization: In OFU Portal: The 4th Millennium Edition, set in early "2015c", The Half World is at HFF #413, which is Complacency of the Learned.

"Or, these are CHAPTERS and the fan fictions are PARTS, which makes MUCH MORE SENSE."
 * Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise itself is also updating, and seemingly faster than Skepkitty can MST (which results in Andrew Hussie-like speeds as Skepkitty MSTed 6 chapters of ITS MY LIFE! in one day).
 * Even though it was halted in place by Ms. Johnson-Rattmann "interdimensionalPortaller" in May 2012?
 * No it wasn't!!
 * Rule of Symbolism: Most of things occurring in the franchise are either symbolism or references.
 * Like the number 22 and the 22nd (or, as it would be said in Lithuanian, XXII) century.
 * This page in fact originally listed 22 tropes.
 * Though, the number increased.
 * Show Within a Show Type 4: Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time exists inside itself.
 * Though, in the movie it pops off the existence.
 * Would explain how the movie's plot has nothing to do with the fan fiction's.
 * Spell My Name With a "The": Portal: The 4th Millennium Wiki resorts to putting "the" in the parentheses.
 * Also almost every work within Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise has a "the" stranded somewhere.
 * Unusual Chapter Numbers: Being that the Business Magnet is another 15 year old crazy math nerd, it is totally expectable. Detailed explanation:
 * Originally, Portal 2: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time was a one block ficlet, and hence did not feature any numbering.
 * The second take was preceded with "I wrote the next part."
 * Once on deviantART, the parts were given proper cardinal names: Parts One, Two, Three and Four.
 * When Chell and Doug part their ways, Part Five was separated to Parts 5c and 5d. (The system was later expanded to include "w" (Wheatley), "co" (Contine Overseer) and "a" (the Business Magnet).)
 * Prologues, epilogues and specials are not numbered, though they still suffer from the letters and the first one was still designated as "Part 8,5".
 * Portal 2 Episode Two: The Stupidest Sequel of All Time Part Two, being a direct sequel, continued the numbering with Part 21c.


 * Portal: Prelude Convention uses an entirely different system. The first ficlet is named "The Original Convention" and subsequent additions are named "AUs No. 1, 2" and so on. (That is to say, if they were ever released.)
 * Later the name "Portal: Prelude Convention AU No. #" is more like an In Joke rather than a serious separate chapter.
 * OFU Portal: The 4th Millennium Edition, when it's not being an OFU, lists the names of characters appearing in each chapter. Mainly because there are twenty characters whose points of view we are dealing with and not two.
 * Unusual Euphemism: Portal 2: The Stupidest Webcomic of All Time seemingly has a new way of insulting people, taking obscure words (or actually mashups of words) to insult, such as "driving-on-rails", "Pascal-programmers" and "the worst thing since the guy who banned sliced bread".
 * In OFU Portal: The 4th Millennium Edition, Jake English delivers "trollmance fuckin equivalent".
 * Weird Fourth Wall Shit: To correctly understand how fourth wall works in Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise, this analogy may help.
 * 1. First consider that for a fan fiction to be "published" and "existent" you need two separate programs: a text editor (be it as simple as Notepad or as complex as MS Office Word) and a publisher (usually third-party, see Notable Fanfiction Archives for a list.)
 * 2. Then imagine both programs were stashed into one, let's call it "Fan Fiction Application".
 * 3. Then imagine the characters inside what the author was writing were given access to the Application. (Since they were modifying the Application, they were modifying the events around themselves.)
 * 4. Then imagine said characters eventually became Mary Sue-level.
 * 5. Then imagine said characters challenged the author to an equivalent of rap Battle and won.
 * 6. Then imagine said characters started writing and making up a new fictional franchise. Maybe it is still real life, maybe it is based on a Show Within a Show, maybe it is fixing the past's mistakes.
 * 7. Repeat from step 3, only one fandom further.
 * The Wiki Rule: Portal: The 4th Millennium (Franchise) Wiki III. (There was a first wiki, but the author seems to have abandoned a wiki on a wiki farm in favor of this.)
 * Unperson: Kizzycocoa and Kizzsprite had any references to them removed from earlier works which weren't changed at any time, and it seems to be a direct reference to Nineteen Eighty-Four since the guy who replaced Kizzycocoa was called "WinstonSmith".
 * Then the Business Magnet called Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise "a totalitarian country".
 * Write Who You Know: Often characters will be snuggled from real life and written as if they were always fictional, to the point of the Business Magnet claiming they were always fictional.

-- The Portal: The 4th Millennium franchise TV Tropes page ends here --