Line #128 Headscratchers/BioShock2


1	!!Pretty Butterflies
2	* 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 it be much to cold for them?
3	** Perhaps they have been genetically modified with ADAM.
4	** In the part where you see the world through the eyes of a Little Sister, the various corpse-eating carrion are replaced by butterflies. Perhaps there is something in Rapture's air that causes minor hallucinations to all of its denizens/visitors?
5	** Or maybe it's also a leftover of Delta's Big Daddy conditioning?
6	** Maybe it’s a modified version of Insect Swarm that summons butterflies instead of bees?
7	!!Sorry Gil
8	* Why was it evil to kill Gil? His last conscious act was to beg for death. I think that it was too subjective to judge that on the level of Grace or Stanley.
9	** Depends how you look at it really. But among other possible reasons is the argument that what you're doing is no longer honoring Gil Alexanders last wishes that someone mercy kill him since the person you'd be killing is not Gil Alexander. Sure its the same body but the personality has clearly been changed into something new and different which leads to the question of whether Alexander the Great has the right to live contained and otherwise harmless in Raptures basement. He can't hurt anyone who could have been saved at the moment since he's trapped in with the splicers, and can't escape to reach the mainland either due to his seriously messed up biology, along with that he is also clearly expressing the desire to live. So is Alexander the Great a distinct separate person from Gil Alexander, whose life could be worth sparing in spire of his predecessors request? Up to you to decide.
10	** The solution to crazy people is not, generally, "Shoot them", or in this case, "Boil them to death". Yes, he's a nut and mutated as hell, but there could be a cure out there -- which becomes irrelevant if Gil dies. Also, he's too funny to murder.
11	*** A crazy person who has been murdering other denizens of Rapture while actively trying to kill you and everyone you're involved with. Really pissed me off it was considered bad to do that.
12	*** It may not be the morally correct choice, but the merciful one. If you killed Gil, then you're sending Eleanor a different message - that it was perfectly fine to kill people if you said so.
13	*** The game actually has an interesting way of dealing with this ambiguity - it is dependent on your other actions. If you save all the little sisters, then you only need to spare one of the three to get Eleanor to spare Sophia Lamb (in other words based on your otherwise good actions, you are given the benefit of the doubt with respect to the issue of forgiveness). If on the other hand you harvest at least one of the little sisters, then you have to spare all three (because your other actions are more ambiguous, Eleanor needs more reinforcement to accept the concept of forgiveness)
14	*** He also begs for his live if you hesitate to push the button. Even if he was slightly crazy, he still was sentient enough to consider his life worthy to be lived. Think about it: A person permanently lost his memories but is happy with his life. Now you find a message from that person, which reads "Kill me If I will lose my memories " Does that give you the right to kill that person?
15	*** Every splicer in the game is mentally ill and only acting violent because of their sickness. If you can accept the notion of killing any of them, it makes sense to accept the notion of killing Gil too.
16	*** But the splicers are actively trying to kill you, so it's self defence, whereas at this point Gil is no longer a threat to you.
17	*** So all the calling down of the Splicers and the Alpha Series, that doesn't count as "actively trying to kill you"?
18	*** It does. However, there's simply no way to deal with Splicers non-lethally. You cannot scare them away or incapacitate the. A shame, in my opinion, but that's how it is. So the difference is "self-defence against an unrelenting opponent" vs. "execution of a defenceless opponent ''who's begging for their life''".
19	*** Pretty much this. Subject Delta still retains parts of his Big Daddy behavioral programming as an established set of moral standards (as far as he remembers anymore, they were the only ones he ever had). Those standards are what the morality system in the game revolves around; you're deciding how closely he abides by them, and/or how far he's willing to deviate from them to get what he wants/needs. One of those standards is to take no further action against a person if they cease to be a threat to himself or to his Little Sister. By the time you're given the prompt to choose, whatever threat Gil posed to you or to Eleanor has been eliminated. Any further action taken against Gil at that point--even by his own request--would be a compromise on Delta's personal standards. "So," the game asks the player, "would you be willing to compromise, given the circumstances?"
20	** For this explanation to make sense I'll have to reference an event that happened in real life. [[https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/01/health/dnr-do-no-resuscitate-tattoo-medical-debate-trnd/index.html In 2017, a man in Florida was found unconscious and when the emergency responders had to unbutton his shirt, they found a tattoo reading "Do not resuscitate"]]. After debating on whether or not they should save him, they chose to let him die and were able to keep their jobs because there was a legal written document in the old man's house that said that nobody should resuscitate him if the worst came to be. From then on, it caused a debate on whether or not a tattoo is legally binding and they ultimately decided that a tattoo is not enough evidence to authorise the request. The devs must have wanted to pose a trick question for the player and have decided that the pre-recorded message doesn't authorise Gil's death, especially since the creature is practically begging to be spared and let go. The creature may not be human or even the original Gilbert anymore but it still has the right to speak for himself and the right to live.
21	** To quote Rosie; "Ain't no monster alive turns the other cheek. A thinking man does that." Alexander's not in his right mind. Legally, killing him is murder because he doesn't understand he's doing anything wrong.
22	** Dealing with the survivors isn't the 'good vs. evil' section of the game; that's dealing with the Little Sisters. The survivors are Forgiveness vs. Vengeance.
23	!!Tenenbaum's fate
24	* Why'd Tenenbaum just...disappear so soon? It's implied that she'll help Delta like she did for Jack...only to hand mentoring over to Sinclair!
25	** The plot had significant changes made to it fairly late in development. Originally it was going to be focused on the same Big Sister hounding you throughout the game, kidnapping little children to keep them 'safe', developing - thematically at least - alongside Tenenbaum'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.
26	*** And, let's face it, she'd be ''a lot'' more sour if you harvest the Little Sisters instead of saving them, to the point that it'd make little to no sense to have her tutoring you. Sinclair, like Atlas, cared a lot less about that matter.
27	** From a narrative standpoint, she had to attend to Sigma and the Thinker. On top of preventing the abduction of more Little Sisters, she wanted to retrieve the Thinker's code so she could use it to find a cure for Adam's negative elements. Feeling confident Delta was ready and in good hands, she moved on to helping out matters in Minerva's Den.
28	!!Delta Saving the Sisters
29	* Where does Delta get the ability to rescue Little Sisters from? Jack, in the first game only has the ability thanks to a special gene tonic from Tenenbaum, and it's probably not a standard feature of an Alpha Series, or even something that would have been considered necessary while Delta was in active service.
30	** Maybe when Delta was resurrected, Eleanor incorporated it into his structure.
31	** Tenenbaum probably did it. Eleanor conspired with her to bring Delta back from the dead, since Bridget had the genetics experience and Eleanor knew who to revive and where their corpse was, so it wouldn't be out of the question that Tenenbaum asked her to include the non-lethal slug killing plasmid into his genetic code as a requirement for her cooperation.
32	** Agreed; after all, she was working with Eleanor to begin with.
33	!!Rapture's Fate
34	* Was Rapture eventually swallowed by the ocean regardless of the ending?
35	** One of the logs you find states that once Rapture starts to take on water, there will be no way to fix it. Couple that with the Big Daddies being too busy helping the Little Sisters to properly fix the place up and everyone else being driven insane and you have a big underwater graveyard.
36	** What about the nuclear submarine in the bad Ending?
37	*** That's the implication of the bad ending. Jack knows that Rapture is a lost cause, so he's using what little time in Rapture he has left to capture the tools from the surface he needs to begin an invasion of the rest of the world.
38	!!Delta's Drill
39	* How does Subject Delta have a drill? Dr. Suchong was killed, and as the audio tape and the visual evidence proves, his drill broke off when he gored him. Yet, he has one firmly attached in the game. What, did it come out of his hammerspace? I mean, maybe he could have removed one from another Big Daddy, but aren't those specially built for the 2nd generation Big Daddies? It cost too much to make each Big Daddy wield a rivet gun and a drill, so they split them into the Rosies and Bouncers. Unless, he is a supergenius. One last thing: how is the drill still smoking? The tape is aged, after all. It happened before the civil war.
40	** Mass-production Big Daddies of the bouncer's design have, indeed, a drill that completely replaces their right hands. Delta still has his two hands. His first drill never broke, he just left it after killing Suchong and got another one later to replace it. Delta was a prototype from before the Big Daddy designs were split between Rosies and Bouncers. He is much more flexible and can assume the role of both, thus the detachable drill. Considering he start with it and never find another one, it must be an extremely rare design however.
41	** As far as I remember, Alexander's voice messages indicate that Delta was created after Suchong's death. He was killed by some earlier prototype.
42	** "The Pair Bond is a success! If, somehow, an Alpha Series wanders too far from his Little Sister, our physical failsafe kicks in: a chemical trigger that induces coma. It is a symbiotic relationship, enforced by the girl's pheromone signature. The first successful candidate was... Delta, I believe. It is unfortunate that poor Dr. Suchong will not be here to raise a glass."
43	*** Is that meant to refute the above statement, or support it? On its own, it could be read either way. There's also a much earlier diary entry that references both the need to come up with a system to keep Big Daddies from ignoring their Little Sisters when not in immediate danger (which is what is currently happening) and Suchong's death. The overall progression of events seems to be: No bond -> Suchong's death + Bond that only works when Little Sister is in danger -> Physiological dependence on a specific Little Sister -> Rosie/Bouncer series. Obviously, Delta is in the second-to-last stage, but I don't know if it's specified whether he was created that way or if this was a modification they made to the existing Alpha series. Anyway, they could have just outfitted him with a new drill, as mentioned.
44	** Actually, there's an even simpler explanation. Delta killing Suchong was taken as a sign of success and he was outfitted with a new drill and sent out into Rapture to protect Eleanor. He died with nothing but the drill on him (because what else does he really need?). When he was brought back to life, the Vita-Chamber restored it, just like it restores everything that Jack and Delta are carrying when they die.
45	*** From the Bioshock Wiki, the Big Daddy you see killing Suchong is not Delta, it was a big daddy from Lot 255 that was created after the way of bonding the Alpha series (AKA Delta) was deemed inadequate. Here a quote "After the Pair Bonding method used for the Alpha Series was deemed inadequate, Suchong, under the order of Andrew Ryan, created Lot 255. Suchong attempted to create the formula using the DNA of Elizabeth as he believed her genes contained the secret to the bonding mechanism from her bonding to Songbird. The formula appeared to fail, as the Big Daddies continued to ignore the Little Sisters. The girls were terrified of the hulking semi-mechanical beasts. While recording a failure in his clinic, Suchong became annoyed and struck one of the Little Sisters he was working on. Unbeknownst to him the Big Daddy had in fact bonded with the girl using a different method and quickly dispatched him: empathy."
46	!!The Opening
47	* 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?
48	** Cause the Little Sister in question is none other than Eleanor, and her mother kinda needs her for her AssimilationPlot. 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.]]
49	*** But it never gave me any impression you were going on any sort of rampage. Not even a minor one! It just showed you following the Little Sister around before Sofia comes around and makes you shoot yourself in the face.
50	*** Eleanor, the Little Sister you are protecting in the opening, and the person you spend the game trying to recover, is Sofia's daughter. Sofia wanted to take her back in the opening scene and had to get around you to do so. Since you are physiologically dependent on Eleanor, Sofia expected you to come after Eleanor if you had the chance later, and therefore she had you kill yourself. When you are revived, you ''do'' come after her for exactly that reason.
51	*** Totally glossed over the whole bond death/coma thing. Thanks.
52	** Which version of the game are you playing? Because in the version I've got, it shows a group of Splicers trying to grab Eleanor and you pounding them to death. Is this one of those weird European versions that censors the violence? The rampage you go on is kind of graphic as it does involve Delta killing a Splicer with the drill at point-blank.
53	*** That's before Lamb and her thugs actually shows up. That's pretty much standard Big Daddy work. After you kill them, you and Eleanor go off on your merry way, before she's grabbed again.
54	*** No, those were Lamb's goons. The fact that one of the Splicers hits you with a hypnotize plasmid followed by Lamb showing up right afterward and making you kill yourself pretty much confirms that.
55	*** I must've blended in the actual intro with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKOaF4Xg4KE this]] trailer. D'oh.
56	!!Delta's Choices
57	* If you are a bona fide Big Daddy in the sequel, why can't you just coax Little Sisters out of their vents rather than killing their minders?
58	** 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.
59	*** The smell part would make sense given that the Alpha Series Big Daddies were only meant to be bonded with a single little sisters. As for why they swarmed Jack (and later Delta) - the current BigBad and/or [[TheDragon Dragon]] sent them.
60	*** This last one actually makes a lot of sense. Fontaine rallys his Splicers and, thanks to his status as co- MissionControl, is able to tell them the ''exact'' location of Jack and a soon-to-be-stuffed-with-Adam Little Sister. Then they ambush you every time she has to stop and gather.
61	** The Alphas appear to be different from the later-run Big Daddies. Note that ''none'' of the Alphas you encounter later on have any Little Sisters with them, period. Eleanor also mentions that you had to be modified specifically so that the other Little Sisters would recognize you.
62	*** The others don't have Sisters because their specific Sister was killed and they went berserk from the loss. Or cracked and turned into broken, crying wrecks from it, but those are presumably dead or out of the way at some Gatherer's Garden somewhere.
63	** The Little Sisters in this game seemed to be made to pair-bond with a specific Big Daddy, so there's more of an emotional connection (inasmuch as one can be) betwixt the two beyond pheromones. In the first game, this wasn't exactly the case.
64	!!These Splicers are different
65	* Why don't you get swarmed when you are playing as the Little Sister and you harvest ADAM? Also, why don't any of the splicers standing around you attack you except the one in the prison cell?
66	** The splicers are part of Lamb's "family", so they don't mess with the Little Sisters who are part of Lamb's operation. The one in the prison cell, appropriately, is not allied with them. Persephone is Lamb's main base of operations, so it makes sense that it lacks the 'feral' splicers sometimes seen attacking Big Daddies elsewhere.
67	** There's also the fact that a Big Daddy is ''always'' around a Little Sister; they know that even if they don't see the Big Daddy, all it takes is one scream, and an asskicking is inbound in seconds
68	** 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 a part of the Family.
69	!!Unzipping
70	* 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?!
71	** At some point, it's explained that [[AWizardDidIt Eleanor Did It]]. Eleanor can see through the eyes of the Little Sisters and control them to some extent because they are based off her own genetic code. Whatever Sophia did while copy and splicing bits to make a new generation gave Eleanor a connection to them presumably the same way she has one with you. When in the company of the normal Big Daddies, the Little Sisters' conditioning is in effect and can't be overridden without getting Sophia's attention, but the moment you kill the Big Daddy Eleanor's connection to the Little Sister pushes them to accept Delta and trust him. And he ''is'' still a Big Daddy which means the difference is small enough for this mental manipulation to work.
72	** It could just be that Little Sisters see every Big Daddy as the same and think that their Daddy was just brought back from the dead/never died in the first place. Quote; "Are we going to be together again, Daddy?" There must be something in their conditioning that makes them forget about the dead Daddies and trust the other Daddies as well.
73	** Also, keep in mind that Little Sisters aren't entirely mentally stable. As a result, the battle could end up showing you revealing the old Big Daddy to be a fake or something.
74	** In the first game, I seem to recall that killing a Big Daddy ''after'' their Little Sister goes into a tube doesn't count towards the "little sisters rescued" and, not long after, a new Big Daddy spawns, bangs on the wall and (presumably) the same little sister comes out and bonds with this new one just fine. It may well be that the girls bond with the nearest Big Daddy, who ever that might be, whatever he may have done.
75	*** A nice theory, except that it doesn't work. When you hypnotize a Big Daddy and set him against another, what happens after the battle is over? Exactly. The winner returns to his duty and the loser's Sister stays and laments her Daddy just as if you'd killed him. So, nope, adopting Sisters still makes no sense.
76	*** That's because the winner never tries to adopt the Little Sister. When Delta kills a Big Daddy, the little sister doesn't just walk up to him and climb on his shoulders. He has to pick her up himself. The modern Big Daddies's "programming" when they don't have a Little Sister is to go bang on the vent and get one (Which explains why a Big Daddy without a Little Sister will just ignore you if you've just won a fight with another Big Daddy, instead of taking the Little Sister away before you harvest/rescue/adopt her) But Delta has free will thanks to Eleanor, and thus thinks to himself, "Hey, I should adopt this little sister which I have just orphaned." (Or he does it because Sinclair tells him to, depending on how you interpret Delta)
77	*** ....yes, it does. Did you not read what was pointed out above, that Eleanor was deliberately altering and controlling the Little Sisters so they would recognize Alpha as their Big Daddy?
78	*** Well, they do say "Daddy, you're all better!" as one of their quotes after killing a Big Daddy, so it's implied that Eleanor's mind controlling them to think the thing attacking their Daddy no longer exists, and you're just like their old daddy.
79	!!Suchong's corpse
80	* If Suchong was killed by the first Big Daddy, how his body is still fresh?
81	** He wasn't killed by the first Big Daddy, just the first one that had a connection with the little sister, which may have been shortly before Jack arrives in Rapture
82	*** Except that's false, because it's been established that Big Daddies were before Rapture's decline. FridgeLogic, there were no bugs or anything around his lab that would start the decomposition process. Maybe Ryan decided to turn down the temperature to preserve his body?
83	*** Uh, it was established Big Daddies were around first. What's your point? That doesn't change the fact the bonding process between them and Little Sisters hadn't been perfected by that point, which is what Suchong was working on when he was killed.
84	!!The Little Sisters in the Neutral Ending
85	* In the neutral ending, where are the little sisters?
86	** Eleanor killed them, obviously.
87	!!How does this Delta of Big Daddy function?
88	* Umm, how does Delta ''eat''? Is he waltzing around through rapture, mashing the cans into his faceplate, or what?
89	** He runs on the power of positive thinking. He smashes a bag of chips on his face, imagines it would taste nice, and so feels better.
90	** The Alpha series can apparently take off their helmets like Delta did in the opening scene. I just figured that he took it off and scarfed it down.
91	*** Yeah, but you see what that looks like in the intro, and it's obvious he isn't removing his helmet every single time. It's just something they seem to have hoped nobody would notice.
92	*** 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 Delta 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.
93	*** Then ''why have him constantly eating things''? The developers made a conscious choice to have the character wear a diving helmet all the time; it's their problem that they didn't bother to rebalance or reimagine the health system so the character wasn't constantly eating food though osmosis.
94	*** Assume that Delta is pulling off his helmet when he eats, but the game's not showing it to keep up the game flow, the same way it doesn't show either Delta or Jack slicing open Spider Splicers' chests for their hearts or show them rummaging through an entire box for items inside. It's one of several AcceptableBreaksFromReality.
95	*** Maybe he had some system specifically designed to transfer food to him. There's no indication that Big Daddies don't need to eat, and Delta is designed with delivery systems for EVE and medical supplies into the hole where his nose used to be. Why not food too after processing it into a paste?
96	*** Alternately, there could be a flap of sorts over Delta's jaw to allow him access to his mouth. Considering that Big Daddies probably do need food, as mentioned above, it would make sense to have some way for them to feed themselves. He only took his whole helmet off in the opening because he was being forced to kill himself, and a shot to the brain is surer than one to the mouth.
97	*** Not really. Putting a gun into your mouth and pressing the trigger is pretty much a guaranteed kill, where pressing the gun against your head still has a VERY slim chance of the bullet getting stuck before it can do any lethal damage.
98	*** Unless of course he aimed for the inside of the cheek in an attempt to avoid death. He was trying to resist so simply having him "shoot himself in the mouth" could have easily ended with a big daddy, teeth shattered, a blown out cheek, and some blowback damage to the jaw but otherwise alive crushing Sophia Lambs skull. Shooting directly backwards into the spine is certainly a near certain kill but only if you aim for the spine/back of the throat.
99	** His visor can be unfastened and swung open on a hinge. Simple.
100	** Admitedly this does, however, raise another question: Once a Big Daddy has injested food, how does he... [[NobodyPoops get rid of it again]]? They are steam welded to the inside of those suits, after all.
101	** The Big Daddies (in general) seem kinda cyborgish, in which case, Delta probably needs sustenance, but his conversion made it where his body turns that sustenance into fuel, which cycles through whatever built-in system to keep him alive, while the other ones are more machine than, well, human.
102	!!Audio Diaries in this game
103	* Also, is there a justification for Delta picking up audio diaries? Why would he care? As a Big Daddy, wouldn't his mind be scrubbed of urges like curiosity, and generally everything else that isn't "PROTECT ELEANOR."
104	** Probably because he had nothing else to do in the long run. Nothing better to entertain one's self than hear people whine about the days before you stepped out of the Vita-Chamber.
105	** ''As a Big Daddy, wouldn't his mind be scrubbed of urges like curiosity...?'' Did you miss the part where they ''explicitly said'' that Delta had been freed from Big Daddy-style compulsion and that he had free will?
106	** Part of the point of the moral choice system was making it up to the player whether or not Delta was still a mindless (if dedicated) protector or if his death and rebirth had given him back at least some of the sentience he had in life, and his quest to find Eleanor was genuinely out of a sense of love for her beyond his mental conditioning.
107	*** Not to mention that, even if Delta was just another mindless Daddy, there would still be a point to finding these diaries: Information on how to survive and find Eleanor (for example, the "Agnus Dei" recording, or Gil's description of the new Rumbler Daddy)
108	!!That timeline don't line up
109	* What is up with Subject Delta's timeline? Dr. Suchong only dreamed up the Big Daddy program in response to the civil war that broke out AFTER the New Year's Eve Riots. But we already see Delta up and operational on that very night!
110	** Who said that party was New Years' Eve? It could have been any of a number of parties.
111	*** They are wearing the same signature masks plus the opening gives the date as 1958 so it couldn't be any later than that.
112	*** Those are your normal run-of-the-mill masquerade mask. They probably mass produce them for all sorts of occasions. For all we know, it was the Rapture equivalent of Mardi Gras, or just some random socialite throwing a dinner party.
113	*** But, again: the date given is 1958. That's a GIANT continuity problem.
114	*** It was a random socialite throwing a Masquerade ball at the ''ass end'' of 1958. Simple.
115	** Because he was a PROTO-type Big Daddy. Delta was the Alpha series. A series of test subjects and not a part of the production line that happened after the civil war started. Also, the exact time the protector program got started is unknown, but the time the production model Big Daddies is some time during the civil war.
116	** Look at this quote from the first game; there were no Big Daddies until war had broken out, no one had conceived of them, prototype or not! Delta being up and about on New Year's 1958 is an impossibility.
117	-->'''Suchong''': War a terrible thing. Japanese kill every man in my city, except for Suchong. Suchong have opium. Very good opium. This war, terrible thing, too, but not for Suchong. Everyone scared now. Everyone need ADAM. More than Little Sisters can make. Good news is war makes lots of corpses. Suchong knows way to recycle ADAM from corpse. '''But can't send Little Sister out to street unprotected. Suchong must think on this'''.
118	** Actually, it can make sense if you consider the first-gen Big Daddies and look at Suchong's specific wording. Remember that the first-gen Big Daddies were highly unreliable, often leaving their Little Sisters behind or ignoring them, or going into berserk furies when their Sisters were killed. This means that the protection they offer would be inadequate, and the Alphas had to be retired. Thus the Sisters are left unprotected. Suchong's own words may well support this; it sounds to me like he was less dealing with the issue of "Little Sisters have no protection so I have to invent something" but rather "Protection is inadequate, so I have to go back to the drawing board." Thus, the second-gen Big Daddies were created to fill in the gap left by the first-gen.
119	** 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.
120	*** Actually, that timeline does kinda line up in that he came to Rapture some time around 1946 and likely started working on the Big Daddies betwixt 1951 and 1959, after 1951 but definitely before 1959.
121	!!Changes in the Sisters
122	* Why do the little sisters look nothing like the first game? In the first game, they were 5-ish, with no real recognizable nationality, scruffy hair and pail, blotched skin. Now, they are all 7-to-8-ish, have pale but clear skin and well managed pony tails. AND THEY ARE ALL ENGLISH!
123	** A) You're a Big Daddy, and therefore perceive things differently than Jack did. That's why the Little Sisters look more human. B) Lamb's more orderly regime is in charge, so these Little Sisters are different than the ones created by Ryan's government and subsequent breakdown.
124	** Made by different people, converted at different ages, taken from different locations...the list of reasons goes on and on.
125	** An interview stated that the little sister design was due to you being a big daddy. You see the little sisters as something more "normal". The same way little sisters see places as more "pretty" but get flashes of reality.
126	** 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?
127	** It's because these are not the original Little Sisters. As the beginning of the game states, there were little kids kidnapped from the surface, with even Mark Meltzer coming down to search his own, Cindy. As it is the work of the Big Sister (aka Sofia Lamb), it's not strange to think that the common thread being the Eleanor-ish appearance.
128	** That, and, in the first game, when you played as Jack, you're more "distant" from the goings of Rapture but, here, you're more closely involved in Rapture's goings.
129	!!Jack's fate in this game
130	* 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 continuing 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.
131	** 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? Guess that Tenenbaum wasn't quite such a good mother in comparison to Lamb after all...
132	** Or perhaps she gathered all the girls that she could and got out while she could. It doesn't help anyone if you gather the sisters up and then get slaughtered like sheep by an army of splicers. Jack might have been a OneManArmy, but he was still one man.
133	** If Lamb gets the rescued girls, she'll have them turned right back into Little Sisters. With Sinclair and Subject Delta on the scene, Tenenbaum can leave the Lamb situation in their hands while she goes on to evacuate what girls she'd saved and move on to assist in a different situation explored in the Minerva's Den story. As for the canon ending to the first game and the fate of Jack, you can overhear Splicers at Atlantic Express maintenance arguing over where the guy went after he flatlined Ryan and Fontaine. They make references to BOTH of the main endings, but the conversation ends when one guy points out that it doesn't matter; he's gone now, and they gotta focus on the here and now instead of bickering over some guy.
134	** There's no way of knowing how big the Little Sister operation was and if Tenenbaum knew every Sister and how many there were. I like to imagine that after Fontaine's death in the Good Ending Tenenbaum met Lamb, was told a rosy, positive version of Lamb's plans for the city, and left for the surface with a clear conscience. Tenenbaum could even have seen and un-slugged Eleanor and been told "She's my daughter, I'm keeping her".
135	** As for not bringing Jack back down with her, Tenenbaum clearly feels a lot of guilt about what she's done, and one of her audio diaries says that the Little Ones she turned into Sisters no longer think of her, so it seems like she's not close with them. She might think Jack would be unwilling to come with her, or decide that he deserved to stay topside, or think the problem was small enough that she could sort it out alone.
136	** Or maybe she did ask for his help and he told her no. In between having to care for his five adopted daughters and the probable PTSD from his previous experiences, it'd make sense for Tenenbaum to not want to push him to go back.
137	** Seeing as she has Jack's wrench with her in the DLC, their conversation probably went something like this. Tenenbaum gives Jack a call to let him know she's going back to Rapture. Jack asks to help, Tenenbaum refuses to let him come due to his family needing him. Jack insists she takes his wrench, which she does, and she leaves.
138	!!So many splicers
139	* 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.
140	** 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 perform even basic maintenance when you're a gibbering lunatic. Heck, Fresh water, heat, and even oxygen would be an issue.
141	*** Cannibalism for food along with the remaining vending machines, the upperclass of rapture were on track to get registered for the Vita-Chambers and we are not specifically told how far along that plan got so potentially resurrecting splicers, and an entire cities worth of people numbering at the very least in the thousands making our couple of hundred per run relatively minor.
142	*** The oxygen problem is solved by the presence of Arcadia and its plants, which while may not have been maintained seems quite stable enough to continue providing enough oxygen. As for other maintenance, someone in WMG posted a theory that the Big Daddies are also responsible for making repairs and such.
143	** Fish has got to be some of it. There were fishermen in Rapture as of the start of the war.
144	!!Stanley's in Dionysus
145	* How is Stanley Poole able to survive in Dionysus Park? We know that the Park has been flooded [[spoiler: because of him]] and with the exception of the upper part of the theater, the entire place is underwater. There's also no indication (at least, none visible) of any way out of the place, except by the Atlantic Express, and I very doubt he'd be able to survive in the security booth and last over ten years in there. So, basically, where does he survive?
146	** Who says he does? Poole is a coward with ''very'' poor planning skills. Decisions he made (as revealed in flashbacks and recordings) were virtually ''guaranteed'' to backfire on him (and it was no surprise when they did). In my own playthrough, he was left stranded in that booth with the exit blocked by trap rivets. (An attempt to subvert the moral choice system for my own personal satisfaction. It worked.)
147	*** 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, 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.
148	** He said he's 'incognito' (travelling as an unknown) not missing for ten years. It's possible that he escaped Dionysus Park before it flooded completely and stayed with Sofia at Persephone during the past ten years. All he had to do was claim somekind of accident or assassination attempt took out the park and with everyone else dead nobody could tell Sophia otherwise. He only returned to Dionysus Park when he realised that Delta had drained the whole park out thus allowing the Little Sisters to gather ADAM. Something he didn't want happening since Sofia will find out about what he did there (never mind she already did and 'forgave' him for it).
149	!!Sophia's Plans
150	* 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 [[Franchise/StarTrek Borg]]?
151	** 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. Fanatics don't tend to make a lot of sense
152	!!Why was Sofia in jail?
153	* Why was Sofia Lamb merely imprisoned while less dangerous dissenters like Anna Culpepper were killed?
154	** 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,]] to say the least.
155	*** Either that or Ryan hasn't started his policy of murdering his dissenters when it came to Lamb. Lamb was his first, major opponent and he still believed in no Death Penalty in Rapture at the time of her imprisonment. This changed when Fontaine, then Atlas, took over and started the Rapture Civil War. It's possible that if Lamb was still free by that time, it's highly likely she would have been gunned down, martyr or not.
156	** Actually, the reason why Culpepper was killed was because of her album (''Ryan's Songbird'') upsetting Cohen and that the feud got to a point where Ryan put a hit on her. Another thing as well is that Lamb might have been imprisoned for something relatively minor and wasn't as outspoken about her views about Ryan as Culpepper was, so Ryan probably didn't see her as much of a threat.
157	!!Multiple Appendages?
158	* 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.
159	** 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.
160	!!Does the Helmet come with Regen?
161	* 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?
162	** So that no one needed to see the [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/bioshock/images/9/95/SubjectGamaConcepts1.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20111025120111 probably hideous face of a Big Daddy]] further ruined by a headshot?
163	!!Plasmids on Big Daddies
164	* So why can't Delta use the hypnotic plasmid on other Big Daddies the way Sophia does in the opening?
165	** Well, he can make Big Daddies fight for him with the Hypnotize 3 plasmid.
166	* How can Subjects Delta and Sigma rescue the Little Sisters without Tenenbaum's antidote plasmid?
167	** Tenenbaum supplied Eleanor with her antidote plasmid while they were conspiring to bring Delta back from the dead and they integrated it into his genetic makeup. It makes sense since Tenenbaum wanted to save them and Eleanor needed her genetic engineering experience to trick the Vita chambers. As for Sigma Tenenbaum convinced him to take it, or tricked him, before he headed into Minerva’s Den again to serve her agenda.
168	!!WhatHappenedToTheMouse
169	* So whatever happened to Grace, Stanley and Alexander by the end of the game? Yes, sparing/killing them lets us act out on our moral compass while teaching Eleanor your values when it comes to forgiveness and justice, but did they manage to escape Rapture before it was plunged into the deep sea, or was rescuing them out of concern for their lives mostly pointless when they all drowned/were trapped in the abyss anyways?
170	** Only Persephone was sent into the abyss, not all of Rapture.
171	** Well Grace and Stanley both probably ended up dead at the hands of Sofia Lamb after the first betrayed her and the second betrayed her a second time. She isn't the most forgiving sort to begin with so it wouldn't be a stretch for her to sic her splicer army on them. Either that or the went into hiding to wait for another opportunity to get out of dodge since Sofia was watching closely then. Alexander is either floating in his tank or floating around outside in the ocean as a giant slug/man monster thing.
172	!!The Big Daddies and their sense of self
173	* Why, precisely, is everyone treating a Big Daddy as though it were a sentient, self-determinating person? Eleanor makes sense, given she was indoctrinated so severely as a Little Sister and would simply be seeing a father figure who wasn't really a father, but everyone else, from Tenenbaum to Sinclair to Sofia Lamb, Stanley Poole and Grace Holloway? What's all this "get revenge on those who wronged you" and "you and me, kid, we're gonna be rich on the surface" crap? I'm a Big Daddy. I don't give a shit. I want my Little Sister so things can go right back to the way they were.
174	** Two big reasons. First and foremost the exact nature if Big Daddies wasn't made public when they went into service. Ryan didn't want the public panicking or for it to be too obvious what was happening to political dissenters in the supposedly free society of Rapture so he deliberately kept public knowledge vague. All people knew was not to get in the Big Daddies way or make a move on the little sister lest he snap your spine like a tooth pick which left the rest up to memory. In fact you can see in Burial at Sea there were pornographic stories being authored portraying them as strapping young men in diving suits. Second though is that Delta is not behaving like any ordinary Big Daddy and displaying a level of creativity that makes his independent intelligence apparent. No normal Big Daddy would bother trekking across all of Rapture to hunt down one specific little sister nor have the presence of mind to use the Atlantic Express to cut down on travel time rather then simply walking across the ocean floor.
175	!!Attracting Splicers
176	* So why, out of all big daddies in either game, does ''Delta alone'' cause a telepathic mob of splicers to suddenly manifest when he takes a Little Sister Adam hunting?
177	** Because Delta is stealing ADAM from the Family when he brings Little Sisters to gather the stuff.
178	*** But how do they even ''know?''
179	*** If not a Governor like mentioned below, then presumably Sofia sends them.
180	** The area's 'Governor' (Holloway/ Wales/ Alexander) alerts the mob, knowing that Delta will be pinned in place and vulnerable.
181	!!Saving the Memories
182	* Yaay, I spared everyone and got the good ending! Yaay, my adoptive daughter and I finally made it to the surfa-- wait, what? What's she doing to me? ''Why did Eleanor just absorb me into her mind?''
183	** Because Delta was dying of heart failure and there was no way for Eleanor to save him. Preserving his memories was the best she could do.
184	!!Vita-Chambers again

Context Headscratchers / BioShock2