History Headscratchers / Bioshock2

* How can Subjects Delta and Sigma rescue the Little Sisters without Tenenbaum's antidote plasmid?

** In this case, it wasn't a case of what Ryan WANTED to do (believe me, if he could, he probably would've personally drowned Lamb the way he had Sullivan drown Culpepper), but what he COULD do - by the point he moved against Lamb, she had already established anti-Ryan movements threatening to depose him - killing Lamb would've turned her into a martyr, and likely would've sparked the Lamb supporters into civil war before Fontaine[=/=]Atlas even showed up. The most feasible solution then was to have Lamb imprisoned, and [[UnPerson slowly sponge her name and influence from Rapture]]. As for why he didn't kill her in prison, he thought that locking her up would be AFateWorseThanDeath for Lamb, and that she would eventually snap behind bars - [[UnderestimatingBadassery a grave underestimation of]] [[TheDeterminator Lamb's resolve,]] [[{{Understatement}} to say the least]].

** Part of it is also an oversight in programming. The developers meant for the proper choice to be killing him, but the kill or spare choice was programed just like the others.

* This has been bugging me since I started [=BioShock=] 2, and I was hoping the game itself would give some kind of explanation, but it didn't seem to, or, at least, I didn't find it. When you start the game, you're a Big Daddy, doing your job: stopping people from harassing the Little Sisters. Then Sofia Lamb comes over and forces you to shoot yourself. Why?

** This is a fairly ridiculous FanWank which I haven't seen any evidence for in the series, but it's possible that the Alpha Series don't have the stinky smell that later Big Daddies do. Instead, they have a unique pheromone that only their Little Sister will hone in on. The Little Sisters would recognize you as their Daddy once they saw you because of their connection to Eleanor, but they weren't physically able to recognize your smell like she could. They only leave their vents when they smell the later Big Daddies, otherwise they'd all be eaten by splicers pounding on the vents. Incidentally, this is why NPC Daddy/Sister pairs don't get swarmed by splicers while gathering like you do; the stink masks the smell of the raw ADAM that seeps from the corpse when its most ADAM-rich parts are punctured. So why did Jack get swarmed in the last level of [=BioShock=]? Because... shut up.

* Those grungy little moppets howl for your death and order their Big Daddy to "unzip" you in [=BioShock=] 2 whenever you're smashing her Big Daddy, but when old Tinhead goes down, she starts crying, turns to look at you.... and instantly accepts you as her new father. WHAT?!

* So, whatever happened to Jack? We know this game follows on from the 'Good' Ending to VideoGame/BioShock1, the one in which he chooses to bring the Little Sisters whom Tenenbaum had taken under her wing to the surface and teach them to live full and happy lives of their own. Then, by the time of this game, Tenenbaum has grown aware that someone (i.e. Sofia Lamb) has been continuining her research into the creation of Little Sisters, and in Rapture, the most dangerous city on earth (or below the ocean), to boot. Naturally, this prompts her to return to the city and investigate. But why go there without the one person she knew she could trust absolutely, had proven capable of surviving in such a hostile environment, and who also had a personal attachment to the Little Sisters? It's plausible that Jack's rapid-ageing condition, brought on by the experiments designed to turn him into Ryan's assassin, meant that he'd grown too old by this point for another battle under the seas. Or maybe Tenenbaum realised she could die on this mission and didn't want the Little Sisters to be left without a guardian. But sadly, the game never drops the slightest hint about any of this.

* Where are all the Splicers coming from? Rapture never had as large a population as most cities on the surface, and the civil war that happened prior to Bioshock 1 thinned out the population even before Jack and Delta's rampage. Hell, the basic economy (Little Sister, Bid Daddies, Adam, ect.) ''relies'' on corpses, meaning that their ''needs'' to be a substantial casualty rate for the city to even function. With all the chaos, murder, civil war, decaying architecture, and big-daddy inflicted casualties, Rapture should be completely depopulated before you even start the game. This is especially glaring in Bioshock 2, where the whole city has had an additional ten years to decay, and there are still enough splicers running around to make an army.

* So why can't Delta use the hypnotic plasmid on other Big Daddys the way Sophia does in the opening?

* Does one feel there were a lot of flaws in Sophia Lamb's plan? She wants to create a non-sentient creature born from the minds of everyone in Rapture dedicated to goodness. Except a creature that does good out of mindless directive rather that deliberate choice would be no more different than a machine. Additionally, if her plan did come to fruition, what's to prevent the thing she created from killing her if it determines her to be a great evil that must be eradicated, or even absorbing her into the collective like the [[StarTrek Borg]]?

* So why can't Delta use the hypnotic plasmid on other Big Daddy's the way Sophia does in the opening?

* How does Delta wake up ten years later with his helmet on if he removed it to shoot himself in the head? Sure, you could argue that Lamb or her cronies replaced it when they moved his body out of the way for that nice and shiny Adonis Resort statue, but why?

** The drill is detachable and goes over the hand. The arm fits down inside the main part, and the hinge-like places along the arm are what keeps the drill attached while in use, instead of say, having a grip inside there that would just let it fall out if Delta unclenches his hand.

** Cause the Little Sister in question is none other than Eleanor, and her mother kinda needs her for her {{Instrumentality}} plan. Kinda hard to work on that when you're going on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge to stop her. [[spoiler:Too bad that's what happens anyway, cause poor [[{{Woobie}} Eleanor]] really misses her daddy after ten years.]]

*** Yeah, but you see what that looks like in the intro, and it's obvious he isn't removing his helmet every single time. [[TheyJustDidntCare It's just something they seem to have hoped nobody would notice]].

** In the events of the first game, war and poverty made ADAM a very expensive and rare commodity. You'd find Splicers attacking Little Sisters because they had no other legitimate means of getting their next fix. However, in the second game, Lamb probably supplies Splicers of the Family with ADAM non-lethally Harvested from Little Sisters (via regurgitation). This ensures that Splicers remain loyal to the Family and won't hinder the Little Sisters on their Gathering because they already have a stable source of ADAM. The Splicers who still tango with Big Daddies are not apart of the Family.

** Maybe when Delta was ressurected, Elenor incorpertated it into his structure.

** The plot had significant changes made to it fairly late in development. Originally it was going to be focused on the same Little Sister hounding you throughout the game, kidnapping litle children to keep them 'safe', developing - thematically at least - alongside Tenebaum's own involvement in the creation process. We instead got the current plot arc, for good or for ill, with most of the original elements being exorcised.

* The butterflies. Are they real? If so that raises a lot of questions. How do they survive? What is there for them to eat? If they really are blue morphos, then wouldn't be much to cold for them?

* Does Delta have three arms? We know that one arm ends in a drill (That, judging by the cover art, can't be removed), and the other arm is the plasmid wielding one. So how is he wielding a gun? His plasmid hand is always on screen, so the guns can't be in that hand, and they can't be in his drill hand.

** In this case, it wasn't a case of what Ryan WANTED to do (believe me, if he could, he probably would've personally drowned Lamb the way he had Sullivan drown Culpepper), but what he COULD do - by the point he moved against Lamb, she had already established anti-Ryan movements threatening to depose him - killing Lamb would've turned her into a martyr, and likely would've sparked the Lamb supporters into civil war before Fontaine[=/=]Atlas even showed up. The most feasible solution then was to have Lamb imprisoned, and [[UnPerson slowly sponge her name and influence from Rapture]]. As for why he didn't kill her in prison, he thought that locking her up would be AFateWorseThanDeath for Lamb, and that she would eventually snap behind bars - [[UnderestimatingBadassery a grave underestimation of]] [[TheDeterminator Lamb's resolve,]] [[{{Understatement}} to say the least]].

*** Technically, the question is how Poole survived UNTIL Delta got there TEN YEARS AFTER HE FLOODED THE PARK. Although, in this case, I assumed he realized just how destructive his plan was going to be this time (even if he didn't give a damn about the morality), and stocked up on food and water CrazySurvivalist style before locking himself in the booth - the reason there's little evidence of it when you get there is because, [[RealityEnsues after ten years, he's just about used it all up]]. This would also help explain why he [[{{Railroading}} Railroaded]] Delta from his little quest - seeing as he was going OneManArmy against Lamb's tyranny, Poole thought that Delta was his only shot at getting out of the park, even though he repeatedly screwed him over in the past. This would be especially true in a Good playthrough, as Poole would've thought that, since Delta was so merciful to the Little Sisters and Grace Holloway, [[TemptingFate surely he'd have some pity for poor Uncle Stanley, right?]] This makes less sense in an Evil playthrough, since Delta's slaughtering his way through all of Rapture no matter what, but it's still possible to chalk it up to desperation on Poole's part for any break, no matter how suicidal, from just starving to death.

* Why was Sofia Lamb merely imprisoned while less dangerous dissenters like Anna Culpepper were killed.

** Don't know if you'd noticed this, but everyone in Rapture is ''fucking crazy''. Lamb is not Fontaine. Her plan makes no sense because she's a fanatic. Fanatic's don't tend to make a lot of sense

** Depends on whether you think Andrew Ryan is dead or not. [[Main/LukeIAmYourFather He's [[spoiler: Jack's father]]]], and the Vita-Chambers are triggered by DNA keys, so it's possible he came back.

* Does one feel there were alot of flaws in Sophia Lamb's plan? She wants to create a non-sentient creature born from the minds of everyone in Rapture dedicated to goodness. Except a creature that does good out of mindless directive rather that deliberate choice would be no more different than a machine. Additionally, if her plan did come to fruition, what's to prevent the thing she created from killing her if it determines her to be a great evil that must be eradicated, or even absorbing her into the collective like the [[StarTrek Borg]]?

** For that matter, how do the splicers eat? There is only so much you can loot before there's nothing left. Underwater agriculture is mentioned, but it would be a fairly complex process, and it's hard to preform even basic maintenance when you're a gibbering lunatic. Heck, Fresh water, heat, and even oxygen would be an issue.

** Part of it is also an oversight in programing. The developers meant for the proper choice to be killing him, but the kill or spare choice was programed just like the others.

** Depends on whether you think Andrew Ryan is dead or not. [[Main/LukeIAmYourFather He's your father]], and the Vita-Chambers are triggered by DNA keys, so it's possible he came back.

*** He's not removing his helmet because [[GameplayAndStorySegregation spending ten seconds removing the helmet everytime you eat something would get annoying pretty damn fast.]] Especially considering Alpha can down an entire bag of chips in an instant. They don't show you removing the helmet for the same reason they don't show you ripping open Spider Splicers to get their hearts or rummaging through/taking apart containers or objects to get the items inside. The animation would slow the game down.

** *shakes head* You're asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is: "Why do the Little Sisters all look like Eleanor?". Since Delta was her Big Daddy (which as mentiond above would change how you see the world) it makes sense that [[AWizardDidIt Eleanor Did It]]. She's the reason why the Little Sisters trust you after killing their Big Daddies. Not only that, but she talks to you telepathically, so who's to say it doesn't affect you too

** A possibly greater source of contention arises from the existence of the Big Sisters, Little Sisters that have grown up. Tenenbaum knew a great deal about the Little Sisters, being the one responsible for their creation, and presumably had records of all subjects. So how come she didn't notice that several of them were missing, having already been taken in by Sofia Lamb? Maybe you could argue that she believed them dead, harvested by Splicers... but does that really make sense? If [[MamaBear Tenenbaum]]felt such devoted motherly instinct for all Little Sisters, wouldn't it be natural for her to keep looking for them on the ''off-chance'' that they may still be alive? [[NotSoDifferent Guess that Tenenbaum wasn't quite such a good mother in comparison to Lamb after all...]]

* So, whatever happened to Jack? We know this game follows on from the 'Good' Ending to VideoGame/BioShock, the one in which he chooses to bring the Little Sisters whom Tenenbaum had taken under her wing to the surface and teach them to live full and happy lives of their own. Then, by the time of this game, Tenenbaum has grown aware that someone (i.e. Sofia Lamb) has been continuining her research into the creation of Little Sisters, and in Rapture, the most dangerous city on earth (or below the ocean), to boot. Naturally, this prompts her to return to the city and investigate. But why go there without the one person she knew she could trust absolutely, had proven capable of surviving in such a hostile environment, and who also had a personal attachment to the Little Sisters? It's plausible that Jack's rapid-ageing condition, brought on by the experiments designed to turn him into Ryan's assassin, meant that he'd grown too old by this point for another battle under the seas. Or maybe Tenenbaum realised she could die on this mission and didn't want the Little Sisters to be left without a guardian. But sadly, the game never drops the slightest hint about any of this.

* The civil war started before the new years bombings. This was when Ryan's secret police were hunting down smugglers like Fontaine and other malcontents. The new years bombings was the event that escalated the war and turned rapture into the hell under the sea it is in game.

* Does one feel there were alot of flaws in Sophia Lamb's plan? She wants to create a non-sentient creature born from the minds of everyone in Rapture dedicated to goodness. Except a creature that does good out of mindless directive rather that deliberate choice would be no more different than a machine. Additionally, if her plan did come to fruition, what's to prevent the thing she created from killing her if it determines her to be a great evil that must be eradicated, or even absorbing her into the collective like the [[StarTrek Borg]]?