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.

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.

Videos

Search Interest

External References