So what is the significance of the Borealis?

[Iggy Wolf]

I mean, from what I've read on the wiki, it's based on the Philadelphia Experiment, while game/story wise, it's got teleportation technology that would be useful to the Combine. I played Portal 1 and 2 before Half Life 2, so never understood the Borealis reference in the 2nd one until now. I'm guessing the dry dock being completely empty is supposed to indicate that the ship and all the equipment around it teleported to places unknown.

Thing is though, Half Life 2 calls it "Aperture Laboratories, but in Portal 2 proper, the area in which i the dry dock is located in is back when Aperture was still known as "Aperture Innovators". Either it's a retcon in the 2nd, or or they never thought to call it "Innovators" until they made the 2nd Portal game.

[KaVoss]

they were called "aperture innovators" now that it has a different name,they use that name.

[Mλrtin2H]

The dry dock is in the 70s area. In the 70s the company's logo just said "Aperture". they have stopped using the innovators name by that point.

But the Borealis does use the wrong logo, it uses the 80s logo even though the dry dock is in the 70s area. This inconsistency always bothered me. I guess you could explain it by saying that the Borealis project was started in the 70s and it stretched into the 80s and they just kept using the old dry dock.