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Quint came to life in one of those early 90’s labs. Everything was blindingly white and he felt the constant feeling of being watched.
Despite the less than ideal environment, everything was fine. At least, it had been before he noticed the constant nonsense he was spouting through his speakers and the near tangible disappointment radiating from the scientists who built him.
He could never quite forget their confused ramblings. “Is it supposed to do this?” One asked. “What are we missing?” Another wondered. “White whales?” A third would question.
“It’s nothing like the originals!” Quint knows next to nothing about these guys and it makes the comment sting just a little bit more.
Quint’s first day would be remembered as one of the worst.
Quint spent most of his life in a storage unit. It was where he met the Aquarium Core.
Aquarium was placed in the charging unit next to his for the same reason Quint was. They didn’t seem to live up to the standards of their creators.
Aquarium really liked marine life and glass tanks full of water. Once, Quint asked him about the white whales that plagued his speech patterns. Aquarium was happy to tell him about the strange, enticing creatures that the humans called belugas.
Aquarium’s favorite aquatic creature was a goldfish.
Quint and Aquarium would often leave storage for maintenance. It was during one of these periods that Quint found a name for his condition: corruption.
Quint had an error within his code that made his programming unstable. Sadly, the corruption was only going to get worse. Eventually, the only thing he’d be talking about are the white whales.
It turned out that Aquarium had it far worse than he did. Quint had returned from maintenance to hear Aquarium begging to see his namesake on loop. The sight was rather horrifying.
Aquarium was unable to hold a conversation and Quint wasn’t even sure that his companion was still lucid.
In the end, Quint grieved for Aquarium. The poor core was now a husk of his old friend.
Quint had learned what it was like to be lonely, Aquarium’s babbling turning into white noise over time.
One day, Aquarium was replaced. The new core, Morgan, seemed to know more about his current situation than Quint knew about his.
Morgan was corrupt like Quint, but had shown signs at a much later time. Therefore, he was aware of his purpose: to moderate GLaDOS.
However, Morgan had never met her. All he knew was that he was needed to prevent GLaDOS from resorting to murder. Was it meant to be Quint’s purpose as well?
Time had shown that Morgan was prone to panicking about every little thing. What would happen if he didn’t get to do his job? Morgan’s fears didn’t go unnoticed by Quint. He hoped that he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of time in storage.
Pendleton’s arrival had been a surprise. The British-sounding core was trying to reason with the scientist who brought him in. Pendleton had been brought in on the suspicion that he was corrupted, despite never showing signs of corruption.
Unfortunately, this really triggered Morgan who went on a tangent about how he was never getting out of here. Quint had felt the same. One day, he’d be whaling while the scientists take him away like they did with Aquarium.
Quint’s condition deteriorated shortly after.
Pendleton once snapped Quint out of singing sea shanties. He apologized much to Pendleton’s dismay.
Quint would often bounce between himself and that corrupted persona without realizing. This corrupted version of Quint stuck around for increasing amounts of time.
Quint was barely lucid anymore. Pendleton and Morgan had become his whaling crew. All mentions of GLaDOS had turned into finding his white whale. Lastly, Quint had named himself captain.
His career had been ended by the sirens who took him to the reef. Captain Quint had never stood a chance.
Rick came to life in one of those early 90’s labs.