*******************************************************************************
BioShock Plot Summary
A Complete History of Rapture
Version: 1.14 (07/22/09)
Author: XG3
Contact: bioshockstory@gmail.com
!! ** SPOILER ALERT ** !!
===============================================================================
IF YOU HAVE NOT COMPLETED BIOSHOCK, CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK. THIS GUIDE
CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS RIGHT FROM THE GET-GO.
For the Record
===============================================================================
- The BioShock story is very complex and richly woven, but it is told through
many fragmented audio diaries and radio messages. As such, not everything
that happens in the game is directly stated; many events are implied or
inferred. Feel free to email me if you have a better take on a certain
character or event, and I will include it with proper credit if your argument
is compelling enough.
- If I got any part of the timeline wrong, please email me with a source
(quote, image, link, etc.) or compelling argument for why I'm wrong, and I'll
do my best to correct it.
- I'm not the best writer in the world, and a lot of the text was spliced
(sorry) together from various sources. I tried my best to blend everything
together into one cohesive text, but some sentences may be awkward, the tense
may be wrong, or the flow of a certain section may seem off. If you have any
suggestions or possible rewrites - in which you are able to state the events
more concisely than I have - feel free to email it to me. I do plan on
eventually rewriting it to improve the grammar/sentence structure of this
FAQ.
- If you really enjoyed this FAQ and would like to donate, please email me and
I will provide a paypal address.
- If you have any questions, comments, edits, or suggestions about the story,
this FAQ, or anything at all, I'd love to hear from you. Don't hesitate to
email me!
Sources
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90% of the facts stated in the account of Rapture below are taken from the
things you hear, see, and experience in BioShock. 5% are taken from reliable
outside sources. Ryan's backstory was taken from an interview with Ken Levine,
creative director of BioShock, on CultofRapture.com. The construction of
Rapture was taken from a magazine ad someone had transcribed on some forum
(I've never personally seen the ad but the info seems compelling enough to
post, and I doubt the poster made it up). Per the disclaimer above, some events
(the last 5%) are implied and not directly spelled out for the player.
BioShock's story is a big puzzle. I merely put together the pieces.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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{c01}  ...  Andrew Ryan
{c02}  ...  The Construction of Rapture
{c03}  ...  The Discovery of Adam
{c04}  ...  Frank Fontaine
{c05}  ...  Little Sisters
{c06}  ...  Rivalry
{c07}  ...  Jack Ryan
{c08}  ...  The Beginning of the End
{c09}  ...  New Years Eve
{c10}  ...  Big Daddies
{c11}  ...  Paradise Lost
{c12}  ...  Welcome to Rapture
{c13}  ...  Frequently Asked Questions
...
"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.'
'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.'
'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.'
I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something
different. I chose the impossible. I chose...Rapture,
a city where the artist would not fear the censor,
where the scientist would not be bound by petty
morality, Where the great would not be constrained by
the small!
And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your
city as well."
- Andrew Ryan
===============================================================================
Andrew Ryan                                                               {c01}
===============================================================================
Andrei Ryan was born in early 1900s Russia. The Russian Revolution, which led
to the rise of the Soviet Union, destroyed his family when he was a child.
Resenting the Communist ideology, Ryan fled to the United States, changed his
name to the more American-sounding "Andrew", and eventually became an
incredibly successful industrialist, scientist, and inventor. Ryan was
initially very happy with America, a place where intelligence and
determination was rewarded with prosperity and fame. When the Great Depression
came about in the 1930s, however, Ryan got a bit of a rude surprise. The New
Deal, a series of programs facilitating the redistribution of wealth to the
poor, upset Ryan because it reminded him of the world he thought he had
escaped. His belief in, and devotion to, the American Dream was finally
shattered with the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Immediately after World War II, Ryan began plans to build a hidden sanctuary
for those who shared his beliefs - a place for those he considered to be
humanity's best and brightest, in a location where it could not be taken from
him by outside forces. The society was envisioned as the ultimate capitalistic
and individualistic paradise, with the elite achieving for themselves rather
than for the whole. It would be free from God, government, and the Parasites
of the world - those who take without giving. The city would be named Rapture,
where all of Ryan's chosen people would at once be taken away from earth,
leaving everyone else behind. It became obvious to Ryan that there was only
one place he could conceivably build Rapture: at the bottom of the ocean. It
would have been impossible to build it anywhere else.
===============================================================================
The Construction of Rapture                                               {c02}
===============================================================================
"What would the Russian Bear and the American Eagle do if
they discovered our paradise? Our secrecy is our shield!"
- Andrew Ryan
During his time in America, Ryan amassed a fortune worth billions from
contracts with the United States and other various world powers on underwater
weapons and research, which funded the construction of Rapture. In 1942, Ryan
invented an ingenious device that compressed the molecules in water with an
electrical charge in the same way that air is compressed with force. Ryan
originally intended for the device to be used applications such as cooling
mechanisms and for desert countries where water was scarce. The government,
however, decided to use it as a military weapon. The device could rapidly
increase the water pressure around nautical vehicles such as submarines,
crushing them in a matter of moments. Ryan resented the government's use of
his invention in such a way, which added to his extreme dislike of government
and his own extreme individualistic ideals.
Ryan began construction of Rapture in early 1946. An oil rig construction site
was set up in the mid-Atlantic, in-between Greenland and Iceland (63* 2' N 29*
55' W). Rock, granite, and other resources for his buildings were gathered on
location using drills, while metal was purchased from outside sources. The
materials were processed on the oil rig while the actual buildings were
constructed on a platform supported by two other massive oil rigs.
The base for each building was constructed on the platform and slowly lowered
down into the water using flotation devices and very sturdy chains. The
foundation for each building was laid first, with the other stories being
lowered in succession like building blocks, each placed on top of the other.
The sections of each building were then sealed together using the granite and
cement harvested on site, and the windows were securely fasted into place.
Finally, the buildings were drained using Ryan's water compression device. A
"pressure explosion" blasted the water out of the top of the buildings while
creating a huge pressure bubble to keep the lower levels dry. Conventional
pumping methods would have been costly and unfeasible, making the device
absolutely essential to the construction of the city. After most of the water
had been blasted out of the buildings, the outlets were sealed permanently.
Protected by a network of giant sea walls and consisting of a cluster of
enormous skyscraper-shaped hive towers, Rapture was designed to be entirely
self-supporting, with all of its electricity, food production, water
purification and defense systems powered by undersea volcanic openings. To
harness the heat from the geothermic vents, Ryan created a massive power
production facility called Hephaestus and situated his main office there.
Ryan also hired a scientist from Berkeley by the name of Julie Langford to
build a tree farm at the bottom of the ocean. Arcadia became the living,
breathing heart of Rapture, its lush forests and abundant plant-life serving to
generate life-sustaining oxygen. Transportation among the different areas of
Rapture was by a system of bathyspheres called the Rapture Metro. Smaller scale
travel was facilitated through a network of glass tunnels. Mail was delivered
through a series of pneumo tubes. The city's architecture featured a grand Art
Deco style that had an appearance merging the futuristic and archaic.
After construction had completed, the oil rig on the surface was cannibalized,
with the exception of its foundation. It was used to support Rapture's only
entrance, a great stone lighthouse flashing its guiding light to the world's
down-trodden.
Rapture opened its doors to the world's elite on November 5, 1946. The city's
population numbered several thousand at its peak during the early 1950s,
composed of those people Ryan viewed as the best examples of mankind. A large
and tiered economy grew among the people, catering different quality products
to different levels of the society.
===============================================================================
The Discovery of Adam                                                     {c03}
===============================================================================
Bridgette Tenenbaum was only 16 when she found herself a prisoner in a German
prison camp. She was able to observe German doctors as they did experiments on
the prisoners, and it was here where she discovered her love for science.
During these experiments, Tenenbaum would often point out to the doctors their
errors. The Germans noticed that this girl was clearly brilliant and decided
to employ her talents. They called her "Das Wunderkind", the wonder child. She
was very interested in discovering why people were born the way they were, and
did genetic experiments on the other prisoners. For some reason, she did not
consider her colleagues in the German prison camp as tormentors, but rather
kindred spirits. Her scientific talents allowed her to survive World War II,
and her desire for scientific growth eventually led her to Rapture.
One day, Tenenbaum saw a man with a crippled hand from the war playing catch
on the docks of Neptune's Bounty - home of Rapture's fisheries. She inquired
about this apparent miracle. The man revealed that he had been unloading the
barge one day when he was bitten by a sea slug. Waking up the next morning, he
discovered he could move his fingers for the first time in years. Luckily, he
had the foresight to retain the sea slug, and so he gave it to Tenenbaum for
research.
Tenenbaum discovered that the slug secreted pure stem cells, later called
Adam, that not only healed damaged cells - it resurrected them completely.
Needing money for further research, she approached all of the "respectable
labs" for funds, but was turned away. With nobody else to turn to, Tenenbaum
was approached Frank Fontaine, a successful businessman who also happened to
be Rapture's criminal mastermind.
===============================================================================
Frank Fontaine                                                            {c04}
===============================================================================
"A gun in every home, peace on every street."
- Frank Fontaine at the installation of the
first Power to the People machine, 1/22/57
Frank Fontaine was a savvy entrepreneur of modest beginnings and engaged in
charity and various other enterprises. He built the foundation of his empire
on Fontaine Fisheries, a front for his smuggling operations in Port Neptune.
Fontaine used his charisma to those in Rapture who were disenchanted with
Ryan's Great Chain philosophy. A man of great foresight, Fontaine understood
that even in a society of the world's elite, "somebody's gotta scrub the
toilets" and so he began his campaign to control Rapture by appealing to the
lower class. He set up Fontaine's Home for the Poor and recruited the fish
workers in Neptune's Bounty, led by Peach Wilkins, to smuggle items from the
outside world into Rapture.
Bibles and crosses were among the most prolific contraband smuggled into
Rapture by Fontaine's operation. The items were in demand from those who found
their lives in Rapture to be empty and those who would need something to turn
to during imminent war between Fontaine and Ryan. Fontaine supplied these
religious articles to make a profit and simultaneously gain an edge over Ryan
by appealing to the public's morality.
Fontaine immediately saw the potential economic viability of Adam, so he
decided to invest in Tenenbaum's research in exchange for any future profits
resulting from it. Through his smugglers in Neptune's Bounty, Tenenbaum was
finally able to get the equipment and money she needed.
Thus, Fontaine Futuristics was established. Tenenbaum spent her time
researching Adam. She discovered that the substance could be used to enhance
one's body, improving physical or mental capabilities, cure disease and
heal injuries. Her research partner, Dr. Suchong, began developing a series
of genetic modifications made from processed Adam called plasmids. These
plasmids, code-named "Lots", gave humans special powers and additional innate
abilities using a serum called Eve. While Suchong immersed himself in
developing different applications using plasmids, Tenenbaum focused on
studying the genetic properties of Adam itself.
As Adam reached the general public, Fontaine Futuristics began reaping the
profits. At this point in time, Fontaine had become a major influence in
Rapture through his various business ventures. These included the oxygen
market, Accu-Vox Personal Voice Recorders (everyone who was anyone had one),
and the Power to the People machines. He sunk the profits he made from Adam
into bigger and better plasmids. Fontaine, now a player in high technology, had
cornered the market on genotypes and nucleotide sequences while Ryan had spent
his time purchasing real estate. Initially, Ryan praised Fontaine's plasmid
business as an exemplification of the free market ideology, and refused to
regulate it despite pressure from his closest advisors.
===============================================================================
Little Sisters                                                            {c05}
===============================================================================
Adam revolutionized Rapture. The world's best and brightest humans were able to
better themselves by "splicing" (integrating into the genetic makeup) more and
more plasmids and gene tonics. Plastic surgeons were able to sculpt the flesh
in ways never thought possible. The long-term effects of Adam soon became
apparent as more people used it. Adam acts like a benign cancer, destroying
native cells and replacing them with unstable stem versions. This instability
is what gave it its amazing properties, but was also what caused the cosmetic
and mental damage resulting from it. It became a vicious circle; the more Adam
you took, the more Adam you would need to undo the damage. While this was
catastrophic from a medical standpoint, it was great from a business
standpoint.
Another side effect of splicing was the ability to see ghosts. This occurred
from memories being passed on between users of the Adam through genetic
sampling. Those who overused plasmids and gene tonics became psychotic and
extremely aggressive, and were known as splicers. Fontaine himself was
secretly building a spliced up army of lower class citizens in the poorhouses.
As the demand for Adam grew, Fontaine Futuristics began looking for a way to
increase the supply. Tenenbaum discovered that she could produce more Adam by
implanting the sea slug within the stomach lining of a host. The initial tests
using young girls as hosts were a success. The host was induced to regurgitate
after feeding, yielding 20-30 times the amount of usable Adam as a lone sea
slug. The host also became indestructible as a side effect. Any wounded flesh
would be regenerated with stem versions of the dead cells. Since the
relationship with the implanted slug was symbiotic, harvesting the slug would
result in a dead host. Tenenbaum discovered that the symbiotic relationship
only worked on children, and of them, only girls. She did not understand why.
When she disclosed this fact to Fontaine, he quipped that it was one less
bathroom to build for the orphanage he was setting up to address the shortage
of hosts. Before long, Fontaine opened the doors to the Little Sister's
Orphanage, welcoming his future "Adam factories" with open arms.
===============================================================================
Rivalry                                                                   {c06}
===============================================================================
"We laid the foundations of Rapture at the end of the last war...
but before the final, terrible war that is to come..."
- Andrew Ryan
As Fontaine's influence and wealth grew, Ryan became more aware of him both as
a political threat and as his ideological antithesis. Ryan began attempts to
stomp out all smuggling in order to prevent Fontaine from becoming even more
influential. He was sure that Fontaine was behind the rampant smuggling taking
place in Neptune's Bounty, and so he put his chief of police, Sullivan, on the
case full time.
Sullivan and his men made it their mission to take down Fontaine by any means
necessary, and even resorted to torture. Unfortunately, Fontaine always
managed to be where the evidence wasn't. Fontaine displayed his cutthroat
personality at this time by taking a bigger cut of the smuggling revenue and
threatened to report the workers himself if they had a problem with it. In one
case, a worker died from electrocution under interrogation after refusing to
reveal anything to Sullivan because he was more afraid of Fontaine than he was
of Ryan. In another case, a worker privately revealed that he was going to rat
out Fontaine, but was found dead in a sack the next day. Peach Wilkins and his
crew were essentially trapped between a rock and a hard place.
As the smuggling problem grew worse, Ryan enacted the death penalty despite the
disapproval of the council. Convicted smugglers were publicly hung in Apollo
Square for all to witness. As a result, the residents of Rapture rioted in
the streets.
===============================================================================
Jack Ryan                                                                 {c07}
===============================================================================
Fontaine began preparations for his Ace in the Hole, a secret weapon he would
use as a last resort in the imminent war against Ryan. He knew that his weapon
would need to be genetically tied to Ryan to get past his security measures.
On behalf of Fontaine, Tenenbaum approached Mary-Catherine "Jasmine" Jolene -
a performer at a club called Eve's Garden who was publicly known as Ryan's
mistress - to get pregnant with Ryan's child in exchange for some much needed
money. Once this was done, they extracted the egg and proceeded to create Jack
Ryan, Andrew's illegitimate son. Andrew Ryan eventually found out about this
arrangement and killed Jolene in the back room of Eve's Garden.
Dr. Suchong was assigned to engineer Jack for the purposes of assassinating
Andrew Ryan, if that were to ever become necessary. He used an accelerated
growth plasmid on Jack to speed up the aging process, and he weighed 58 pounds
and had the musculature of a 19 year old at the age of one. Suchong was also
responsible for the false memory and mind control imprinting that Fontaine had
requested. Jack was made to obey the phrase "would you kindly", a test which
was proven successful when Suchong ordered him to break a puppy's neck against
his wishes. Fontaine commissioned an antidote to the mind control plasmid
in case Jack ever fell into the wrong hands. Fontaine also had a second code
phrase, "Code Yellow", imprinted into Jack's brain to slowly stop his
heartbeat in the event Jack ever rebelled against him. When Jack's physical
and mental conditioning was completed, he was smuggled out of Rapture to the
surface as a sleeper agent living a pre-programmed life until the day Frank
Fontaine would need him.
Tenenbaum eventually had a falling out with Fontaine over her increasingly
afflicted conscience. She was disturbed by the maternal instinct she had
developed over time working with the Little Sisters. Seeing this, Fontaine
fired her from Fontaine Futuristics. Tenenbaum went into hiding, building a
safehouse for the Little Sisters she would attempt to find and cure.
===============================================================================
The Beginning of the End                                                  {c08}
===============================================================================
"Ryan takes down smuggling operation...Fontaine
and thugs killed in fiery shootout!"
- Headline, Rapture Standard, 9/12/58
On September 12, 1958, Ryan and his men, including security chief Sullivan and
general contractor Bill McDonagh, killed (who they thought was) Fontaine and
his thugs in a fiery shootout, after overcoming his army of splicers. Fontaine
had seen this coming and faked his own death. Instead of handing over the
organization to those specified in Fontaine's will, Ryan proceeded to
nationalize Fontaine's Futuristics, assimilating it under the Ryan Industries
banner despite the protests of McDonagh. Ryan, who once burnt down a forest he
owned when the government moved to nationalize it, betrayed his own
principles. The event was a turning point in his career, and was the first in
a series of poor decisions that would lead to the downfall of Rapture.
McDonagh resigned from the council in protest and Tenenbaum was nowhere to be
found, having previously disappeared. With Fontaine and Tenenbaum both gone,
Suchong took advantage of the situation and eagerly accepted a position from
Ryan, knowing that he was the only other person in Rapture who knew all about
the Little Sisters, which had been a Fontaine Futuristics secret up until this
point.
At this time, Fontaine reemerged as Atlas, a revolutionary war hero that
picked up the movement where Fontaine had left off. Adam use was still not
ubiquitous in Rapture, and civil order was still maintained relatively well.
Ryan was becoming a dictator. He hired Sander Cohen, a musician and artist, to
shill for him in Fort Frolic, writing and performing propaganda pieces to
clean up Ryan's increasingly corrupt policies. Anna Culpepper, another
performer in Fort Frolic, openly condemned Cohen for being Ryan's stable boy
and wrote a few songs criticizing Ryan himself. As the feud between Culpepper
and Cohen escalated, Cohen sought out Sullivan to do something about
Culpepper. Eventually, Ryan got involved and ended up ordering Sullivan to
execute Culpepper. Sullivan complied, but not without remorse. He killed her
as she was taking a bath in her Mercury Suites apartment, and took with him a
red and black, half-knitted blanket to remind himself of what he had done that
day.
Ryan's biggest mistake during this period was perhaps his complacency. He
assumed he was controlling the situation and failed to disassemble Fontaine's
organization, so Fontaine was able to continue his underground activities under
the identity of Atlas. Atlas had control over certain areas of Rapture,
such as the poorhouses in Apollo Square, and he never stopped recruiting and
planning for the day he would finally strike.
===============================================================================
New Years Eve                                                             {c09}
===============================================================================
"Do we gouge the suckers a little? Maybe.
But where else they gonna go?"
- Lloyd Webster, President, Circus of Values Vending
The Kashmir Restaurant served as a staging area for fresh arrivals, welcoming
them to their new home in Rapture. It was also a popular destination for the
inhabitants of Rapture to both eat and play in style; its New Years Eve
celebrations were legendary. The Rapture Masquerade Ball of 1959 would become
perhaps the most legendary of all.
Rapture's wealthiest citizens gathered in The Kashmir, many of whom were
sporting bunny masks, to ring in the new year. One of the attendees was Diane
McClintock, Ryan's girlfriend. Ryan himself was nowhere to be found, working
late in Hephaestus, something that McClintock had come to expect. She was
complaining about this fact into her audio diary when shots suddenly rang out
and screams erupted from the party.
Fontaine's splicers came streaming out of the poorhouses, breaking into riots,
storming the rich, and razing the rest of the population. It was an open
revolt that would initiate a full blown civil war and signal the collapse of
society. McClintock's face was horribly disfigured in the attack. A handful of
sane individuals, including Ryan and Dr. Tenenbaum, survived but locked
themselves away to prevent being attacked, while other, less sane beings found
other forms of "entertainment" to keep themselves occupied.
People quickly joined the call to arms, and soon the city was divided into
two. Rapture's capitalist nature rose to the occasion; before long,
companies were installing vending machines, such as the new El Ammo Banditos,
to provide ammo and weaponry to those who needed it. More combative items were
added to the Circus of Value and U-Invent machines. The Power to the People
machines were so popular during this period that they would often run out of
upgrades after a single use, as many a customer would find out to their dismay.
Ryan began setting up a harsh regime of security and checkpoints. Security
cameras and automated turrets were not an uncommon sight all over Rapture.
Ryan instructed Sullivan to lock down all of the bathyspheres in Rapture by
installing a genetic device that would only allow him and his inner circle to
move around the city freely. Unfortunately, the genetic keys at this time were
unreliable, and anyone in the same genetic ballpark (close relatives) could
come and go as they pleased.
As things in Rapture grew worse, and due in part to Ryan's capital punishment
policy, Sullivan officially resigned as chief of police. He was haunted by what
he had done to Anna Culpepper, and committed suicide.
Atlas' popularity soared among the population, with many preferring to support
him rather than Ryan, who had become reclusive and increasingly dictatorial.
To counter Atlas' growing number of supporters, Suchong proposed a mind
control plasmid - in the form of pheromones - through which the actions of
Rapture's citizens could be effectively be controlled. Ryan was initially
hesitant to go with the plan citing free will as a fundamental cornerstone of
Rapture, but he quickly succumbed to the "desperate times call for desperate
measures" mentality. He rationalized the decision by saying that if Atlas were
to win the war, they would be turned into slaves, which would be just as bad
if not worse. By bending his ideals yet again, Ryan was able to amass his own
army of splicers.
Ryan also commissioned Suchong and his team of scientists to create a series
of Vita-Chambers, a device that could resurrect specified people, upon death,
through the use of plasmid reconstruction and quantum entanglement. Ryan had
the device tuned to his genetic frequencies only for the testing phase, which
it never left.
===============================================================================
Big Daddies                                                               {c10}
===============================================================================
One of the benefits of the war was the number of corpses strewn about the
city, many of which contained recyclable Adam which had skyrocketed in demand
since the war began. Suchong, now working for Ryan Industries, solved this
problem by adapting the Little Sisters to become scavengers, harvesting Adam
from the corpses of people killed in the war. Knowing that the Little Sisters
would be at great risk if they were out on the streets gathering ADAM with no
protection, Suchong sought to rectify the problem through the use of
bodyguards called Big Daddies. These Big Daddies would follow the Little
Sisters around and attack anyone who attempted to harm either of them.
Suchong presented his idea to Andrew Ryan, but with trepidation. Knowing that
becoming a Big Daddy would be a "one way street" Suchong was worried about
finding candidates. Andrew Ryan assured him that this would be no problem, and
began "volunteering" people for the job. The Big Daddy program was initiated,
and a Big Daddy/Little Sister production facility was quickly set up at Point
Prometheus.
Volunteers had their skin and organs grafted into an enormous diving suit.
Ryan was cheap and asked an incredulous Suchong to reuse the suits to conserve
on materials. This was disgusting and impractical as it was impossible to
remove the steam-sealed flesh from the suits of expired Big Daddies.
The candidates went through a painful voice box modulation process and a
pheromone application which the Little Sisters were attracted to. They were
then injected with a plasmid that effectively turned them into mindless drones
with only one purpose: to protect the Little Sisters from harm. Using various
other plasmids developed at Optimized Eugenics, the humans inside the suits
were spliced with strength and agility, but with no humanity or sanity to
lose. They were able to lift heavy weights with ease, as their steel suits
were designed to keep them alive during their duties and to resist pressure
six miles beneath the ocean.
Two models of Big Daddies were produced at the Failsafe Armored Escorts
assembly facility: Bouncers were armed with a large drill and Rosies carried a
rivet gun and proximity mines. Bouncers were subjected to far more splicing
than the Rosies, and as such their heads were deformed to the point of
grotesqueness. They wore a helmet with multiple tiny portholed eyes, while
Rosies were fitted with a more traditional diving helmet. In addition, elite
versions of both models were created, with enhanced size and strength.
The Big Daddies communicated by haunting sounds similar to that of a whale's
call, as their larynxes had been modified. For easier understanding and for
the protection of civilians, lights were added to the helmet to display what
state the Big Daddy was in. Green meant that the Big Daddy was completely
passive and unalarmed, common for civilian situations such as repairing and
maintenance. Yellow meant that the Big Daddy was highly aware of his
environment and protecting a Little Sister or actively searching for one. Red
meant the Big Daddy was threatened or engaged in combat.
Since they no longer had access to Fontaine's Little Sister's Orphanage, Ryan
Industries resorted to kidnapping young girls in Rapture to be converted into
Little Sisters. One of these girls happened to be Masha Lutz, daughter of Sam
and Mariska Lutz. The couple stayed at the Fighting McDonaghs Tavern in
Neptune's Bounty and searched tirelessly for their missing daughter.
The kidnapped girls were put through mental conditioning exercises, at the
Little Wonders Educational Facility, to bond with the Big Daddies. Suchong
began work on a protection bond plasmid that would imprint the Big Daddies to
the Little Sisters. One day, frustrated with an unsuccessful test batch,
Suchong was recording an audio diary in his Artemis Suites lab when he was
rudely interrupted by a Little Sister. He slapped her away, and promptly
received a Bouncer's drill to the chest. Since the plasmid was apparently
quite successful after all, Ryan was able to continue production of Big
Daddies without the help of Suchong.
Ryan set up a network of tunnels throughout Rapture for the Little Sisters to
easily traverse, and made it an actionable offense to interfere with them. The
Little Sisters affectionately referred to their accompanying Big Daddy as "Mr.
Bubbles." They were mentally conditioned to recognize the dead as "angels".
Upon seeing an angel, they used a hypodermic syringe to extract the used Adam,
take it into themselves, and convert the material within their body back into
a usable form. Ryan also set up the first Gatherer's Gardens vending machines
to profit off the population's need for plasmids, using much cuter depictions
of the Little Sisters as marketing assets.
One day, the Lutzes saw their barely recognizable daughter drawing what looked
like blood out of a corpse near Fontaine Fisheries and then walking off with a
Big Daddy. The couple later committed suicide in each other's arms by taking
pills.
A few weeks after the New Years attack, Diane McClintock recovered after being
operated on by Rapture's most famous plastic surgeon, Dr. Steinman. Rapture
had changed a lot in the time she had spent in recovery, and she was shocked
to see that people were being rounded up and executed in Apollo Square. She
confronted Ryan about killing innocent people, to which he replied that there
were no innocents, only those with him or against him. From that point on,
Ryan showed little interest in McClintock, and she blamed it on the scars the
"terrorists" had left her during the raid. Eventually, McClintock decided to
seek out Atlas and his men to tell them how they had ruined her life.
When she arrived in Apollo Square, McClintock witnessed one of Ryan's guards
incinerating a woman as she tried to escape. She bribed one of the guards to
let her into the Hestia Chambers compound and began to sympathize with their
plight and living conditions. Eventually, the people living there grew to
trust her, and took her to see Atlas, despite her past as Ryan's mistress.
Before long, McClintock was in Atlas' inner circle and began participating in
raids for supplies and skirmishes against Ryan's splicers. One day, she was
recording an audio diary about how her party had successfully defeated one of
Ryan's Big Daddies and harvested the Adam from the Little Sister, when she
accidentally entered Atlas' office as he was also recording a speech as
Fontaine. Rather than risk having his identity exposed, Atlas/Fontaine killed
her right then and there.
===============================================================================
Paradise Lost                                                             {c11}
===============================================================================
"My city was betrayed by the weak..."
- Andrew Ryan
As the civil war continued, the need for Adam greatly outpaced the supply for
it. Neither side of the conflict had enough Adam built up to help their
combatants resist the inevitable damage caused by the substance. As a result,
Ryan's followers began suffering physical and mental damage, resulting in
widespread depravity and insanity throughout Rapture. Splicers began wearing
the left-over bunny masks from the Kashmir Restaurant, which had been
abandoned since the new years attack, to hide their facial disfigurement.
Atlas' army suffered even worse than Ryan's, having lost control of Fontaine
Futuristics and therefore the large supply of Adam the Little Sisters
provided. Peach Wilkins and his men sealed themselves within the Fontaine
Fisheries freezers to protect themselves from both Ryan and Fontaine, whom
Wilkins was convinced was still alive.
The mechanics of the city were routinely targeted by Atlas' splicers and thus
not enough of them were around to keep the city up and running. The city fell
into disrepair, with many areas flooding with ocean water from breaches.
McDonagh begged Ryan to hand over Fontaine Futuristics to Atlas as a peace
offering, but Ryan ignored this and continued splicing up his army with more
and tougher plasmids. It had become an arms race, and by all accounts Atlas
was losing.
At this juncture in time, several people attempted to assassinate Ryan.
McDonagh vowed to kill Ryan in order to save Rapture from going down the path
Ryan was setting for it. He was unsuccessful, and was burnt and staked up in
what had become Ryan's morbid trophy room of "doubters."
Anya Andersdotter, a women's shoe designer who - like Mariska Lutz - also had
her daughter taken away by Ryan Industries, decided to try and assassinate
Ryan on her own initiative. Having lost her daughter and all faith in Ryan and
Rapture, she had nothing else to lose.
Meanwhile, Kyburz, one of Hephaestus' top engineers, was also plotting to take
down Ryan. He did some surveillance but discovered that Ryan had barricaded
himself within his office and surrounded it with splicer guards. Kyburz
decided that the only way he could get to Ryan would be to trigger the circuit
breaker on Ryan's shielded gate using an EMP bomb.
Andersdotter began her mission by seducing and sleeping with a mechanic for
three weeks before he revealed that it would take a "sympathetic overload in
Harmonic Core #3" to reach Ryan. She travelled to Lower Heat Loss Monitoring
to inquire further about this and ended up sleeping with another mechanic by
the name of Pablo Navarro, who finally pointed her towards Kyburz's tool shop.
At this point, Kyburz gave into his paranoia, as his bomb was nearly complete.
Thinking she was sent by Ryan to spy on him, Kyburz reported her as one of
Atlas' sympathizers. Ryan's splicers dragged Andersdotter away and hung her
corpse in Ryan's trophy room, across from McDonagh. Unfortunately, Kyburz was
also killed before he was able to complete the device.
None of Ryan's would be assassins were successful up to this point, each
foiled by Ryan's many security measures, or by each other. Things looked dire
for Atlas' cause. And so he began making arrangements for Jack Ryan's return
to Rapture.
===============================================================================
Welcome to Rapture                                                        {c12}
===============================================================================
"They told me, 'Son, you're special. You were born to
do great things'. You know what? They were right."
- Jack Ryan
For as long as he could remember, Jack Ryan had lived a quiet life with a
normal family on a farm in the United States. One night, he found himself on a
flight over the Atlantic ocean, carrying a wrapped gift with a mysterious note
attached:
To Jack
with love
from Mom & Dad
Would you kindly
not open
until: 63* 2' N
29* 55' W
XXX
OOO
When the time came, Jack opened the package revealing a revolver inside. For
reasons unknown to him, Jack proceeded to hijack the plane, blacking out amidst
the screams of other passengers, as the aircraft plummeted towards the dark
ocean below.
When Jack came to conciousness, he was several feet underwater. He quickly
scrambled to the surface and swam towards the nearest piece of land, an
ominous, towering lighthouse in the distance, carefully avoiding the blazing,
floating wreckage that surrounded him.
Jack went into the structure and instinctively descended down the stairs until
he reached an open bathysphere. Stepping inside, Jack pulled the lever and the
bathysphere slowly submerged into the water. A prerecorded speech by Andrew
Ryan began to play and soon ended to a beautiful view of the underwater
metropolis Ryan had referred to as Rapture.
A voice suddenly emanated from a small handheld radio attached to the wall of
the bathysphere. A man by the name of Atlas was communicating with a man named
Johnny. Atlas had just seen the burning wreckage above and was sending Johnny
to receive the survivor who had apparently taken a bathysphere down into
Rapture. Johnny sounded apprehensive about this, and his fears turned out to be
justified when a splicer attacked and gutted him live, to the horror of Jack
who had just arrived in time to witness it.
"Would you kindly pick up a crowbar or something."
- Atlas
Atlas instructed Jack to to pick up the small radio, introduced himself, and
pledged to guide Jack to safety. Jack stepped out of the bathysphere and made
his way out of the Rapture Metro station, fighting off a splicer with a wrench,
until he found himself drawn to a Gatherer's Garden machine at the top of a
flight of stairs. Jack impusively grabbed the red plasmid syringe that rested
on top of it and plunged it into one of his tattooed wrists. Jack's body began
pulsing with electricity and he immediately lunged himself off of the balcony
in distress.
"Look Mr. Bubbles. It's an angel. I can see
light coming from his belly. Wait a minute...
He's still breathing. It's all right, I know
he'll be an angel soon."
- Little Sister
When Jack came to, two splicers hovered over his body and were about to finish
him off when he was saved by an approaching Big Daddy and Little Sister. The
Little Sister, mistaking Jack's body for a corpse, was about to harvest him
when she realized he was still alive. She left, and Jack quickly fled the area
and headed towards the abandoned Kashmir Restaurant. At this point, Atlas asked
Jack to help him retrieve his family, who was trapped in Neptune's Bounty.
"So tell me, friend, which one of the bitches
sent you? The KGB wolf? Or the CIA jackal? Here's
the news: Rapture isn't some sunken ship for you
to plunder, and Andrew Ryan isn't the giddy socialite
who can be pushed around by government muscle."
- Andrew Ryan
As Jack approached the entrance to Neptune's Bounty, one of Ryan's security
turrets discovered him and locked the gate. At Atlas' suggestion, Jack began
making his way over to Rapture's Medical Pavilion - where there was an
emergency access entrance to Neptune - but was stopped when Andrew Ryan decided
to confront the stranger through a projection feed. Ryan accused Jack of being
a CIA or KGB agent sent to take over Rapture. As a result, Ryan began a
campaign to kill Jack by using Rapture's automated systems and his splicer
armies, controlled by the pheromones Suchong had created and pumped into
Rapture's air supply.
Atlas was able to hack the gate just in time, and Jack quickly escaped from the
incoming splicers into Medical Pavilion.
"Darling, you really MUST go see Steinman...
everyone goes to Steinman!"
- Marianne Delahunt, Resident, Mercury Suites
At its inception, the Medical Pavilion was the main location to have ailments
treated. The quality of care was directly related to how much a patient could
pay. As plasmid use became prevalent, self-healing eliminated the need for the
Pavilion's services, save for one. The plasmids used to boost physical and
mental performance left their user scarred. The only fix came in the form of
the Medical Pavilions retooled purpose: cosmetically correcting physical
disfigurement.
Dr. Steinman was the most famous plastic surgeon in Rapture, operating on many
of its citizens in his clinic, Dr. Steinman's Aesthetic Ideals. When Adam was
discovered, Dr. Steinman went insane with the endless possibilities of
"sculpting" his patients, considering himself more of an artist than a true
doctor. The utterly delusional Dr. Steinman often conversed with Aphrodite, his
imaginary muse. Aphrodite "convinced" him to pursue a new type of beauty: lack
of symmetry. Thus, the self-proclaimed "Surgery's Picasso" began to operate on
his patients unethically, including one event where he gave an unconcious
patient a face lift she never asked for. It became common practice for Steinman
to butcher his patients' faces and bodies in the name of perfection, killing
many of them in the process.
When Jack arrived in Medical Pavilion, Atlas informed him that Dr. Steinman
held the key to the Emergency Access to Neptune's Bounty. After overcoming
Steinman's obstacles using his newly found Incinerate and Telekinesis plasmids,
Jack killed Steinman and retrieved the key.
As Jack headed towards Neptune's Bounty, he ran into an unguarded Little
Sister. Atlas encouraged him to harvest the girl for maximum Adam, which would
have the unfortunate consequence of killing her. Tenenbaum then appeared on an
overlooking balcony and begged Jack to save the little girl instead, which
would result in less Adam. Tenenbaum threw Jack an antidote plasmid that would
remove the Little Sister's thirst for Adam, and promised to make it worth his
while if he used it.
After much delibiration, Jack made his decision and headed off to Neptune's
Bounty.
Neptune's Bounty was where all of Rapture's critical fisheries were found. In
time, it had become the home for some of the city's criminal element. A local
bar, the Fighting McDonaghs, offered refreshment after the work day. Rumors of
a smugglers ring operating out of Neptune's Bounty had been heard, though no
evidence had been found.
After arriving in Neptune via bathysphere, Jack made his way to Fontaine's
Fisheries, where he reached a lock door. Peach Wilkins, who had sealed himself
and his crew inside during the war, introduced himself and said that Atlas had
radioed him ahead of time to let Jack in. Wilkins, unaware that Atlas was in
fact Fontaine, warned Jack that he would kill him at the first sign he was
working for Fontaine. He then asked him to retrieve a camera from the wharf
master's office and take a few photos of some enemy splicers, in exchange for
access to the fishery's freezer, the only path to Atlas' family.
At this point, Atlas gave Jack a sob story about his wife Moira and son
Patrick. Little did Jack know, his family had been completely fabricated and
their names were taken from two well known Rapture performers of the same
names.
The camera Jack successfully retrieved was able to analyze genetic information
and parse biological structures. After the photos were taken and delivered,
Wilkins kept his word and Jack in, but not before demanding he put all of his
weapons in a pneumo beforehand. Jack complied, and was promptly ambushed by