OK, so I'm pretty guilty of holding out hope that Portal 2 was going to throw some more links between Aperture Science and Black Mesa, and the 2 universes. But outside of a passing reference to Black Mesa by Cave Johnson, and documents saying they came 2nd in federal funding (which suggests that Black Mesa was the winner), the rest is pure speculation. There is also an achievement for finding the "Lost Experiment", which is assumed to be the dock where the Borealis was before it disappeared.
There has been plenty of speculation from Valve writers, suggesting that the events of Portal 1 was set around the time of the Black Mesa incident. There has also been lots of speculation (and arguing) on the Steam forums about what different parts of the game mean, what information is Canon and what isn't... It's all a bit of a mess. And I'm somewhat disappointed that there wasn't more of a reference to the HL universe. In fact the end really ends the game quite neatly.
So, what do you think? I'd like to think the Borealis has either Portal guns, or some other Apeture tech that was current when it disappeared (suspected to be in the 70s). Or, there is some sort of time travel equipment (which is suggested in some of the posters around the old enrichment spheres). Will we see more of Chell too?
