Bioshock 1
BioShock is set during 1960, in Rapture, a fictional underwater dystopian/anti-utopian city. The history of Rapture is learned by the player through audio recordings as he explores the city. Rapture was envisioned by the Randian business magnate Andrew Ryan, who wanted to create a laissez-faire state to escape increasingly oppressive political, economic, and religious authority on land. The city was secretly built in 1946 on a mid-Atlantic seabed, utilizing submarine volcanoes to provide geothermal power. Scientific progress flourished in Rapture leading to rapid developments in engineering and biotechnology thanks in part to the brilliant scientists that Ryan brought to the city. One such advancement was ADAM, stem cells harvested from a previously unknown species of sea slug, which were discovered by Dr. Bridgette Tenenbaum to have the ability to regenerate damaged tissue and rewrite the human genome. In cooperation with businessman and mobster Frank Fontaine, they created the plasmid industry, in which customers could enhance their bodies with superhuman qualities. Tenenbaum found that ADAM could be mass-produced by implanting the slugs in the stomachs of young girls ("Little Sisters"), whom they took from orphanages created by Fontaine.
As time passed, the gap between rich and poor increased. Frank Fontaine established charity organizations to support the underclass (something antithetical to Ryan's philosophy). Ironically, his motives were far from benign; his ultimate goal was to use his charity organizations to manipulate the underclass. He also established a smuggling operation to supply citizens with forbidden items from the surface, such as religious material. These, along with his control of the plasmid industry, made him immensely powerful. He tried to overthrow Ryan, but the revolt was violently crushed and Fontaine was reportedly killed. Ryan seized control of Fontaine's plasmid business. Within a few months, a new figure named Atlas rose as the leader of the disgruntled lower class. On New Year's Eve of 1959, Atlas and his ADAM-infused followers began a new revolt against Ryan that spread throughout Rapture. Ryan in turn began splicing his own forces, and his paranoia had reached such a level he was hanging dozens of people, mostly innocent, in Rapture's main square. In order to solve ADAM shortages, the Little Sisters were mentally conditioned to wander the city and extract ADAM from the dead, recycling it into raw ADAM in their bellies after swallowing it. "Big Daddies", enhanced and mentally sterilized humans in armored diving suits, were created by Dr. Suchong, the scientist behind many plasmids, to protect the Little Sisters in their work. A drawback of ADAM is that a user must take regular infusions or suffer mental and physical degeneration. As the war disrupted production and supply, every ADAM user in the city eventually went violently insane. By the time the player arrives, only a handful of non-mutated humans survive in barricaded hideouts.
Fri Oct 30, 2009 11:07 pm
It was pretty cool to.