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In Portal 2, Chell awakens and hears that 9999... years have passed. The surface is just a wide field. Is she the last person on earth?

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  • 11
    She hears that 99999... days have passed.
    – Keen
    May 2, 2011 at 23:13
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    @Keen, that makes a really big difference.
    – Teknophilia
    May 3, 2011 at 1:58
  • 5
    The co-op finale holds a partial answer to your question.
    – Erik Robson
    May 3, 2011 at 4:43

3 Answers 3

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Is she the last person alive...

No. There are plenty of additional test-subjects that are uncovered at the end of the co-op campaign

on [the surface of the] earth?

Nobody really knows. Killing everyone on the planet is quite difficult, and the ending of the Half-Life series (as the two exist in the same universe, but vastly separated in time when Portal 2 occurs) would probably provide the best answer. I would assume that the Good Guys win, so people will still be around, but who knows how many or where they're at?

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  • We have no idea how much time will pass between Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 3, of course, since a cross-over of the two franchises has been announced (I believe).
    – user56
    May 4, 2011 at 13:55
  • @Arda, the cross-over was hinted at in Ep 2, but it may just be a one-way thing (WAG: probably just to mix up the gameplay with some weird Aperture Science science in Ep 3). Valve has said they want to separate the franchises though, and the long, indeterminate time that passed was the means to that end.
    – Nick T
    May 4, 2011 at 14:37
  • I recall Valve stating otherwise. I'll have to check.
    – user56
    May 4, 2011 at 14:57
  • I suppose it depends on Episode 3...
    – Raven Dreamer
    May 14, 2011 at 6:04
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Yes there ARE people left on the surface. At the end of Portal 2 you leave the elevator and are confronted with fields of wheat. Wheat fealds are quickly over run by weeds when left unattended. As there isn't a single weed in the fields then there must be people left alive to tend to them......

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  • 3
    Unless they've been tended by automated farm bots.
    – Shadur
    Oct 21, 2020 at 13:02
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GLaDOS also mentions at one point she's been to the surface and seen lots of humans - but won't need them as she has Chell.

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  • 17
    This is assuming, of course, that GLaDOS was telling the truth. Quite a dangerous assumption...
    – DMA57361
    May 3, 2011 at 10:49
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    She also saw a deer.
    – Nick T
    May 3, 2011 at 18:41
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    @NickT She didn't see the deer today.
    – user56
    May 9, 2011 at 19:30
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    Pretty much everything GLaDOS says at that stage is intended to hurt Chell's feelings (and maybe get a reaction from her). Truth or falsehood of a given statement isn't evaluated.
    – Shadur
    May 31, 2011 at 4:57
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    GLaDOS also claims to call Chell's parents who have a voicemail message stating they don't love her. None of this is true, and given how GLaDOS is a centralized robot (who e.g. couldn't shift consciousness to another part of the facility when Chell was killing her in the end of Portal 1), it's unlikely that she can actually move to the surface and thus would inevitably be lying about having been there. Or, alternatively, it's a repressed pre-GLaDOS memory of Caroline, which would be in the distant past and not relevant to the present state of the planet.
    – Flater
    May 16, 2020 at 13:09

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