Portal 2 Space Personality Core

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About

Portal 2 Space Personality Core is a robot artificial intelligence (AI) character that appears at the end of the first-person puzzle video game Portal 2 who is programmed to be obsessed with space. The character's often quoted exclamation "Spaaaaaaacce" has inspired several single serving sites and fan illustrations, as well as a modification for the action role-playing open world game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Origin

On April 19th, 2011, the first-person puzzle-platform game Portal 2 was released by the video game development and distribution company Valve. During the final boss battle in the game, the player interacts with a group of sphere-shaped robots with unique personalities. One of the robots introduces itself as the "Space Core", a yellow-eyed sphere who constantly repeats the words "space, space, space" and quotes random factoid about space.

The same day the game was released, a discussion thread about the Space Core was posted to the Steam^[13] forums, where several fans hailed the spherical robot as "quite possibly the best video game character ever."

Spread

On April 20th, spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccee.com^[1] was launched as an instant sound effect site that curates various Space Core remixes on YouTube, including the Cat on a Keyboard in Space^[2] and Nyan Cat^[3] derivatives. The same day, SoundCloud user betarepeating uploaded the complete Space Core dialogue as heard in Portal 2, which received over 109,000 plays within a year.

On April 24th, a YTMND^[4] page was created which featured the Cat on a Keyboard in Space background with the Space Core audio samples. On April 27th, the Space Personality Core Tumblr^[12] page was created, which showcased a variety of fanart illustrations submitted by the fans. On June 25th, the video game blog Kotaku^[14] published a post titled "Portal 2's Space Core has Landed on Earth", which featured an edible cake replica of the video game character.

As of April 3rd, 2012, the @Spaaaaccee_Core Twitter^[10] account has 143 followers and a "Space Core" Facebook^[8] page has received 8,887 likes.

Skyrim Space Core Mod

On January 19th, 2012, the Elder Scrolls video-game developer Bethesda^[5] announced that a "Creation Kit' would be released for its "Skyrim":knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/the-elder-scrolls title that will allow users to create their own modifications. On February 4th, Bethesda's vice president of marketing and public relations Pete Hines announced in a tweet ^[6] that the Creation Kit would launch three days later with an added bonus.

For our Skyrim PC fans, the Creation Kit is on track for release on Tuesday. And, we also have a special surprise with it. #whatcoulditbe!?
— Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) February 3, 2012

On February 7th, the Creation Kit was released with a mod named "Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1,"^[7] which featured the Space Core as a companion character. In the mod, the Core falls from the sky and lands nearby the town of Whiterun. The core has a weight of 3.1 units, a value of 256 gold coins and constantly talks when standing nearby.

NASA Tribute to Space Core

On July 20th, 2012, Portal 2's official blog released a statement^[15] announcing that an anonymous National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) employee has decorated a panel piece for the International Space Station (ISS) with an engraving of Wheatley and the catchphrase "In spaaaaaaaace!", which was blasted into orbit with a Japanese resupply craft later that same day.

Notable Examples

Fan Art

Artwork featuring various depictions of the Space Core is often posted to the art sharing website deviantArt^[11] and several crafted versions of the core spheres have been created.