This page covers fan theories for BioShock 1 and BioShock 2; however, BioShock Infinite has its own page due to having a different setting.
- Rapture was water, Columbia was air. Future cities will be earth (deep underground, perhaps in a giant cave, making use of the darkness) and fire (even deeper underground with lava being a constant hazard)
- Fire will be a space station very close to the sun.
- And the accompanying Miracle of Sound songs will end with "...and I dream of the earth..." and "...and I dream of the sun".
- The fifth and final game will be cosmos (sometimes considered the fifth element), and that will be a space station in interstellar space.
- You mean System Shock?
- The other take on the "Fifth Element" Aether, fits there too.
- Fire will be a space station very close to the sun.
- Jossed, since Jack's eventual death is shown in the final cutscene, and Delta dies at the end of BS 2 very far away from the hospital scene where Jack dies.
- Expanding on that, perhaps Jack has also been programed to not remember himself saying the phrase. So although he and by extension the player don't ever him say it, he has been saying it every time the 'would you kindly' phrase has been used.
Now, I realize this would be massive character derailment, but consider that other Ferengi depicted in the series have been shown to be quite vicious, vindictive, and completely amoral when isolated from their society e.g. many TNG Ferengi and the space pirate Ferengi in Enterprise. Although this has never been formally addressed in canon, it would seem that Ferengi go insane when cut off from the comforts of their capitalistic culture. Since as far as Quark was concerned, his culture was destroyed forever, he would probably have gone completely insane. His only motive at that point was payback against those who tore down his culture, the human race.
First, he would have to be able to live among humans unnoticed. Given Quark's extensive black market connections, he wouldn't have difficult time finding someone who could perform the necessary genetic and surgical alterations to disguise him. Then he acquired whatever advanced technology he could get his hands on to take to 20th century Earth in an attempt to revolutionize human society in a way that would ensure that they would continue to support capitalism in the centuries that followed. This included advanced genetic engineering technology that could grant the empathic and telekinetic abilities seen in some species to humans. This technology became the basis for the radical genetic alterations seen in the Splicers. In addition, he brought other advanced tech that would make it possible to build an underwater city with computerized security and defense systems.
Because time travel can be dangerous and unpredictable, he was unable to control exactly which time he could travel to, so let's say he was targeting sometime in the late 19th-early 20th century when collectivist movements began gaining momentum. Now, his actual trip back in time didn't go as planned, and he ended up with much of the advanced tech he brought back damaged, but enough of it survived that he was able to use his own knowledge of it's working to recreate it with early 20th century equipment and materials. He wasn't able to prevent the Russian Revolution of 1917, but he was able to establish an objectivist movement which then laid the foundation for Rapture. His human name was intentionally chosen based on Ayn Rand's name and her works were the inspiration for his vision for humanity's future. His goal at that point was to set up a free market society which would be able to survive a nuclear war, and then goad the USA and Soviet Union into destroying each other. Obviously, he no longer had 24th century weapons available, or he would have been able to wipe out the USA and USSR on his own. Unfortunately, this meant that he wouldn't be able to fully isolate Rapture from the influences of the surface world, otherwise he would be unable to manipulate the surface powers into engaging in nuclear war.
It was his attempts to infiltrate the US and Soviet governments that left Rapture vulnerable. OSS caught wind of his operation and assisted mafia backed smugglers in their business of providing contraband goods to the citizens of Rapture. This is what led to Fontaine's rise to power and the eventual conflict the caused the collapse of Rapture's society.
- If it had been underwater, it is doubtful that whales and giant squid would swim so close or that the building exteriors would be free of your typical underwater growths. Also, there is no evidence of the adverse effects of being underwater (air pressure and so on) affecting the residents. All of the water leaking in all over the place is part of the illusion.
- No, the water that "leaks" in is real—it's piped in from somewhere to form "leaks" to enhance the illusion of there being water outside. It's not illusory water.
- The effects of living underwater could have been major problems for the people living in Rapture before everyone went crazy; they're just too far gone by now for it to be noticeable. The people living in Rapture didn't go psychotic long before the start of the game, either, so they could have been removing plant life and barnacles from their buildings up until a few years before the main character arrives in the city.
- Debunked in BioShock 2. You play as the first Big Daddy and there are scenes in which you can walk on the ocean floor.
- However, you're encased in a huge suit of powered armor, with only a little window into the world. If the conspirators can project images into every window in Rapture, surely they can do the same to your helmet's visor! (Yeah, yeah, and we might all be brains in jars, I know.)
- Still Jossed by the ending. You can physically see the ocean from the cutscene outside the ballast escape pod.
- Err, what about the fact that you're swimming in the goddamn ocean at the beginning of the first game? Then you step into the lighthouse, and go to the bathysphere. Therefore, you are definitely underwater. In fact, you're already underwater when you enter the bathysphere, albeit, not too far. And don't you dare say it was All Just a Dream.
- Rapture was just a hallucination caused by an android trying to drown you in an aquarium, really it is 1912 and you're in a flying city. http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/14258733/bioshock-3/videos/bioshock_trl_081210.html?show=hi
- Also Jossed. Word of God says that BioShock Infinite's Colombia (the flying city) is set in the same universe as Rapture.
- Same universe, maybe, but Word of God also says it's a different timeline.
- What about near the beginning of the game when you're walking down the glass tunnel and the tail section of Jack's plane crashes into the tunnel, breaking it and pouring water inside?
- Which leads to some interesting speculation regarding the main character after he becomes a Big Daddy.
- Well, Gil Alexander's mutated form does look an awful lot like Cthulhu.
- Possibly confirmed by the viral website for the sequel - one of the pieces of paper says that one of the kidnappings took place in Innsmouth, RI.
- This troper agrees with this theory, and would like to make an addition. The ADAM slugs are the gibletized remains of a Eldritch Abomination. after all, even dead gods still dream.
- Also, one of the idle Little Sister quotes in BioShock 2 (when she's with another Big Daddy, to be precise) is;
- Which is a pretty obvious reference to Cthulhu. This is also relevant to the previous WMG.
- The "luminescent biomass" that apparently acts as the original source of ADAM (generating the mutations in the sea slugs), isn't too hard to read as an Eldritch Abomination, particularly given the statement in the audio-log found in the Persephone Prison Colony that the recorder could feel something watching him in the water.
- There is actually substantive evidence suggesting this. The two primary BD weapons? A giant drill (useful for cleaning off the outside of Rapture), and a rivet gun, which could be used to patch leaks. Not to mention that, in at least one area of Rapture, you can see dead Big Daddies sitting on the ocean floor, OUTSIDE of Rapture. Now what are they doing out there?
- But what about the Rumblers, you ask? Demolition crew. As for the mini-turrets, they're just added firepower for the sake of firepower. After all, Rosies carry proxy mines, which wouldn't have much use outside of killing someone, so the Big Daddy creators clearly aren't above that sort of thing.
- We aren't looking at this closely enough; the Big Daddies aren't who the equipment was designed for. It started out as maintenance equipment, and was co-opted by the Bigs to help them "protect" the innocent girls that they mind control and turn into ADAM processors. Like a lot of horrible things, this wasn't part of the plan originally, but became institutionalized when it went out of control. Which is why we see infrastructure dedicated to Big Daddies and Little Sisters.
- More accurately, it was co-opted by the people who created the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, who are most certainly sick fucking bastards. The Big Daddies themselves are more or less mindless automata.
- Pretty much confirmed in the beginning stage of BioShock 2, where a Rosie is clearly seen repairing a leak from the outside. Keep in mind this takes place some ten odd years after Rapture went to hell in a hand basket.
- One fanfic[1] suggested an explanation: whenever the Big Daddies see a leak, they obsess over the danger it presents to the Little Sisters, who can still drown.
- It's possible. As shown in the first 5 minutes trailer, a Big Daddy is seen repairing something, and later fixing a billboard.
- Except that if you examine it you'll discover that that Vita-Chamber was specifically shut off (the only such in the game). Ryan intentionally let himself die, on his own terms, in hopes that this display of Jack's lack of free will would cause him to rebel against and kill Atlas/Fontaine. Also, there's the whole "betraying everything he stands for" thing, which may've grown too much for him.
- If you listen to one of his last radio messages, he says 'Now that I have seen you, know that I cannot fight you...' Given the twist that happens RIGHT AFTER THAT, he did it because he couldn't bear to kill his own child. He knew he couldn't manipulate Jack for long, and that Atlas had the upper hand, and he chose to die forever rather than shoot his own son.
- In retrospect, the Vita-Chamber's instructions say that he will be cloned at the NEAREST AVAILABLE CHAMBER. What's to say that Ryan didn't decant at another chamber (the chamber just outside of Ryan's office, if I recall) and flee Rapture?
- I've perused some of the plot guides from GameFAQs, and supposedly Vita-Chambers don't work that way. It seems there aren't any of the chambers near Suchong's apartment, so if you die there, you get a game over instead of a regeneration. Also keep in mind that Ryan had access to bathyspheres and other subs - if he wanted to leave Rapture, he had ample opportunity to do so.
- The same applies to the final boss, you get a message stating that you cannot save and there are no Vita-Chambers nearby, so if you die you have to start over from the autosave.
- In this case, one does have to keep in mind Gameplay and Story Segregation. It's likely that the only reason you can't resurrect in those areas is because a loading screen separates Jack from the nearest Vita-Chamber. Ryan would not have that problem.
- There's one near enough to Ryan's office though. If you die in Ryan's office, you pop out at the Chamber near the Bathysphere. Also, who says he wanted to leave? Ryan still believes Rapture can be saved. He wanted to manipulate the player into killing off Fontaine, leaving him with no genuine opposition.
- Look at it this way—the sequel has to have a villain, and Sander Cohen probably isn't up for it. That leaves either Ryan, or you in the evil ending, and while the latter would be a cooler twist, developers seem curiously squeamish about making evil paths canonical.
- Jossed by the previews; Big Sister is quite clearly the villain. There may very well be a twist about her role, but Ryan isn't necessary as an opposing force.
- It doesn't say that he's not alive...just that he's not *the* villain. Though it would completely wreck the scene of his death in BioShock considering how he went out of his way to make his death a giant Mind Screw for Jack. Also, Big Sister runs Rapture now, so if he were alive, he apparently has no power over the city anymore.
- Actually, a recent issue of Gamepro states that the Big Sister is a villain; just not the main villain. She is most likely going to play the part of muscle and act as his/her enforcer. Who, then, is the main villain? Personally, this troper has his money on someone we've met before (though he has no idea who that might be, since most of the characters from the first game, are, you know, out of commission...)
- News these days seem to say that the main baddie of BioShock 2 is some sort of cult leader that the Splicers and Big Sisters follow who wants to kill you and bring Rapture back to its former state.
- Jossed by the previews; Big Sister is quite clearly the villain. There may very well be a twist about her role, but Ryan isn't necessary as an opposing force.
- I could imagine him singing Still Alive.
- Oh god, now I can't get Ryan singing that out of my head. Thanks.
- Even if he did die 'for good', BioShock 2's resurrection of Delta 10 years after he died proves that Vita-Chambers do not have to be used immediately. Ryan could have paid off a Splicer or convinced a Little Sister or something to revive him after the situation in Rapture had calmed down.
- This theory could make sense, as in the sequel you see the Little Sisters in a cleaner and more sympathetic light, you yourself being a Big Daddy.
- Except that, in one instance, you see a couple who committed suicide after seeing their daughter as a Little Sister.
- That doesn't mean anything, except for the husband in that particular family wasn't chosen to be a Big Daddy. With the above theory that plasmids make each Big Daddy believe each Little Sister is his own daughter, you wouldn't need to nab both the father and the child from the same family.
- It's also shown in the factory that creates the Little Sisters that the Big Daddies get their food when the sister gives out her ADAM. There's a button marked with a Little Sister symbol, and a Big Daddy symbol. The Sister button gets you hurt (symbolizing that a needle just jabbed you) and then when you activate the Big Daddy button, chip bags fall out. Note however: you cannot simply push the Big Daddy button over and over, you have to activate the Little Sister button, and THEN you can get the bag of chips. Being told "Keep this brat safe or you'll starve to death." is another way to keep them on their toes regarding others in Rapture.
- Actually, the buttons are labeled with a Big Daddy and standard representation of a man (or a woman, I don't recall which). This area is for training the Little Sisters to associate Big Daddies with reward (hence the chips), and anyone else with punishment/pain (hence the, well, pain). If you look, both buttons are at an inconvenient height for an adult, but perfectly placed for a child.
- The Big Daddy button will also re-dispense chips, it just takes a little time to reset. I'd been blown up a lot by the rocket turrets and was out of first aid kits at the time, ducked into that room to get out of sight of the splicers, and I frobbed the button until it barfed up enough chips for me to completely heal. After zapping myself with the other one when the Big Daddy didn't drop chips the second time...
- I always assumed that the Big Daddies were Fontaine loyalists or other people Ryan didn't like. Andrew Ryan is not kind to his enemies.
- Many inmates of Persephone were apparently turned into Big Daddies.
- BioShock 2 gives credence to this theory in the form of Mark Meltzer, who came to Rapture specifically to rescue his daughter, who had been turned into a Little Sister. He was arrested for trespassing, and he was given a choice: to be executed, or to become a Big Daddy bonded to his daughter. Upon killing him (unknowingly, as when you meet him he seems to be just another Big Daddy - but his corpse is labeled), his daughter reacts the same as every other Little Sister; crying over their dead Daddy at first, and then accepting the player as their new Daddy, completely forgetting their former one. You gotta feel for the guy, after all he went through to get her back.
- The teaser trailer shows what appears to be an older Little Sister holding a Big Daddy doll. The doll is still on the site. Two of the kidnapped girls have the same last name - one with a family, one from an orphanage. They all look very similar too.
- According to Game Informer, Fontaine Futuristics will be visited, especially the place where the ADAM is processed from the Little Sisters. Doesn't mean he's alive, the Big Sister could have easily gotten it running herself, but even so, it's there.
- As a alternative method of survival, he could have used the Vita-Chambers. He knows they exist and work, he has the genetic key to Rapture, and seemed to have a back up plan for everything. It's not hard to imagine that he attuned them to his genetic code while he was preparing for his battle with Jack. Having them used against you in the second game would be a nice twist on things.
- Long since Jossed by the actual plot of Bioshock 2
- The teaser trailer shows what appears to be an older Little Sister holding a Big Daddy doll. The doll is still on the site. Two of the kidnapped girls have the same last name - one with a family, one from an orphanage. They all look very similar too.
The alternative to the above - Jack, having slaughtered all the remaining Little Sisters, needs to replenish his ADAM and has started snatching little girls from the surface. The red glow under the sea is a crazed Jack preparing his invasion of the surface world.
- The latest updates discuss the potential of the glow being a submarine. Dun dun DUN!
- It's a Big Sister running the sub.
- Jossed. The plot of BioShock 2 only works assuming Jack didn't destroy/take over the world in the seven year gap between the games. Plus, Jack is no longer present in Rapture in the second game.
- The latest updates discuss the potential of the glow being a submarine. Dun dun DUN!
- Maybe as a favor to his old friend, Ryan programmed the Vita-Chambers to resurrect Cohen too? But he's not enough of a raving lunatic to keep attacking you over and over after you kill him the first time?
- Portable Ops establishes the basis for Big Boss's cloning into Solid, Liquid and Solidus Snakes. This is in the late 1960s. Surely an expert understanding of DNA had to come from somewhere. In Rapture scientists can mutate DNA so that Jack can shoot FIRE out of his hands, showing that expert understanding. Now, if Fontaine's forces smuggled Bibles from outside Rapture, surely it wouldn't be too difficult for a couple of Rapture scientists to come up with the Plasmid technology, smuggle it out and sold their secrets to the US or the Soviet Union. Also to note is the stress on both game series on megascale mechanical engineering. Who knows - scientists who sneaked out from Rapture earlier could have gone to the Soviet Union and incorporate that drill idea for a giant ICBM tank...
- Thinking about this, a few of the characters in Metal Gear could have their abilities explained by features of BioShock. MGS3 for example: Volgin has an electroshock plasmid, The Sorrow can see ghosts through ADAM exposure, The Pain uses an insect swarm plasmid, The Fear is a spider splicer with a natural camouflage gene tonic, The Fury is a modified Big Daddy...
- This is awesome and is now officially canon for both the game and reality.
- Agreed. To the troper who made this WMG (whose name has, sadly, disappeared from the edit history), I award you a Made of Win.
- To my knowledge, they're trying to make it so either ending could work, like in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Also, didn't Jack get his vocal cords drilled out? Don't get me wrong, I think this is the best theory ever, but I'm 80% certain he didn't get them back.
- Well, IRL Mister Rogers was a minister, if I remember correctly. Maybe Jack!Rogers struck a deal with/strongarmed God into fixing him up.
- There are loads of different ways he could've fixed his voice box after winning, from the extra Rapture medkits he had in his pockets to doctors back home.
- Jossed. The plot of BioShock 2 clearly shows that this theory wouldn't fit.
- But then how would he be able to use the Vita Chambers?
- He doesn't. He's just imagining them because he's utterly insane. That's why nobody mentions or uses them.
- Suchong mentions the Vita Chambers in a recording, but he thinks they're a half-baked idea. They may have indeed been yet another failed experiment, but Crazy Jack nonetheless believes that they help him.
- If he saves the Little Sisters, it's not because of any sudden attack of conscience, but because he's a psychopath who wants more playthings when he returns to the surface.
- He doesn't. He's just imagining them because he's utterly insane. That's why nobody mentions or uses them.
- So, SO jossed by everything. Jack obeys Langford and Sander and the like because even without use of WYK, he is trained to be subservient. This idiotic idea is jossed by Fontaine and Tenenbaum both knowing what Jack looks like due to having raised him, and recognizing him. By him being able to unlock the bathyspheres to get into and travel around Rapture, which only people related to Ryan can do. By your body moving against your control when direct WYK commands are used (specifically "Would you kindly lower your weapon" where you do it without player input, meaning without player character control), thus proving it is in effect on Jack. By the ending cutscene being from Tenenbaum's objective outside perspective. By Bioshock 2, particularly Tenenbaum mentioning Jack's daughters living safely with him (and her having his wrench, suggesting they are still in contact), Sophia’s direct mention of Jack and his programming, and the Vita-Chambers always having been successful and working BEING A PLOT POINT. Why would you even suggest this? Just to be unpleasant, gross, and contrarian?
- Alternately, he bucks Fontaine's control and shuts off the game just before killing Ryan; when he reaches the room just before Ryan with the recordings and such that cause him to realize how Atlas has been controlling him, he stops right there and does not proceed to Ryan's office. Perhaps, realizing it's just triggered by words, he turns off the radio and then politely asks himself not to kill Ryan, wiping his orders and preventing Atlas from sending him any more.
- She most likely sent those little sisters to save him from Ryan's office. I think she probably realized around the same time Ryan did (likely while Jack was cut off in Fort Frolic). Even if she knew sooner, though, I doubt she'd have used WYK to force him to do anything, since Tenenbaum's whole character arc was how she saw her former experiments (including Jack) as humans who shouldn't be controlled.
- Considering that Tenenbaum PROBABLY had no idea who Jack was on their initial encounter, having had no knowledge of Fontaine's use of Jack as a time bomb, she probably realized it too late to have an affect.
He really got killed when Fontaine became more plasmid then man. Jack was actually lying on the ground, imaging that he was saving the little sisters or taking over the world, while he slowly died. He never escaped and never beat Fontaine. I mean,Fontaine is basically Superhuman in every way,no man could beat him on the first try,even with the amount of guns Jack was carrying, but Jack probably got the last laugh when Fontaine got killed by the little sisters in a revenge attack. Sadly, though, they were a little too late.
- This actually could explain why nobody seems to know exactly what happened to him after Fontaine's death. If he dies after that titanic battle, he won't lead splicers in an attack on a nuclear sub nor will he lead the little sisters to freedom. Which, now that I think about it, explains where Tenenbaum is during that sequence. He's imagining what Tenenbaum would say to him, given his previous actions in-game.
- There are a fair amount of Big Sisters in BioShock 2, and they're basically teenage Little Sisters, so it's quite possible none of them were saved. However, Subject Delta never goes back to any of the areas that Jack visited, so unless we find out what happened to those places, we can't really know that fate of the Little Sisters. It's possible all the Little Sisters that Jack saved were just saved by Tenenbaum, if Jack died.
- If Jack was unable to defeat Fontaine because he was superhuman, then you'd better guess again, 'cause Jack is too. The only real difference between Fontaine and Jack was Fontaine was stronger, but was unable to use weapons. And Jack can use a Vita-Chamber, so how exactly would he die if he could just come back and wither down Fontaine's health? Plus, Jack had a grenade launcher, a Tommy-Gun, a revolver most probably designed for killing bears, a device capable of LITERALLY THROWING ELECTRICITY, a crossbow, a very large-caliber shotgun, and a wrench, as well as the ability to fling every single element of nature from his hands at will. Yeah, Fontaine's going down like a corpse with cement-block shoes.
- Adding onto that, Tenenbaum mentions her former little sisters, presumably Jack's girls, being safe on the surface; she wouldn't have been able to escape in the first place unless she had Jack with her, since Fontaine promised to kill her once he was finished with Jack, and Jack is the only one with Ryan's dna, meaning he's the only one who can unlock the subs to take her to the surface.
Think about it. If it were purely mechanical, you wouldn't be able to hack them, especially with the green liquid that the first game used. The hacking method is to blank its mind out, so that it sees Jack and anyone with him as friendly, and anyone else as an enemy.
- In a sense this WAS the original plan. Early concept art and dev interviews all but confirm that the minigame was originally created with the plan of it being a drug that made the organic elements of the shops, turrets and such happier, something that was given once the right amount of money was given. Hacking it would lower the demands of the little mutant inside. Ultimately it was abandoned with a LOT of early design stuff, most of it because it was VERY similar to System Shock (Originally it was going to be the sea slugs that caused the downfall of Rapture, much like The Many in System Shock.
- Depending on when the movie takes place, it might have been Howard himself. Alternatively, Howards father lived on Columbia, and was a coworker to Fink before he eventually got fed up with him and left. Not before seeing the tear Fink used in the creation of Songbird, though.
- Both are deformed and could be seen wearing a mask
- Both are Mad Artists]].
- Both effectively run the theaters they occupy
Differences acknowledged:
- Different backstories. If Cohen was indeed the Phantom, then the past we know of from him, as well as his audio diary portrait, will be a fabrication.
- Cohen's sexual orientation is ambiguous, and he was not known to have had a romantic relation with, let alone try to seduce, a person of the opposite sex.
- The phantom murders only those who try to get in his way. Cohen seems to murder or torture for the hell of it, though he especially gets mad when his work gets disrupted or if you just piss him off like Fitzpatrick, Rodriguez, Finnegan and Cobb apparently did.
- Not quite sure. Sophia Lamb also had a great number of religious ideals and extremism in addition to her collectivist beliefs.
- For the religious duo, they believe only God deserves the sweat on the brow, theirs included. The difference how one gets sweat off the brow. The Abel version believes only their sweat belong to god and that the society should be relatively closed off to outsiders but is a heavy supporter of ADAM (which he believes is God's blood). Cain on the other hand wants to use outsiders as slave labor to get the sweat. Its more complicated then it's sounds and the message isn't exactly God Is Evil.
- If one counts BioShock Infinite as BioShock 3, this actually comes very close to Confirmed given Columbia's Prophet, Father Comstock, and his relationship to Infinite's protagonist Booker DeWitt.
- Except this is basically Fontaine.
Elysia chlorotica is a species of sea slug that steals chloroplasts from algae to make its own food. It can also pass the genetic material for chloroplasts down to its children, though they have to eat more algae to do the same as their parents. The ADAM slugs are part of this family, except they merely have a rather unstable genetic code, which was how Dr. Tenenbaum was able to make plasmids out of their genetic material.
- Lamb was making more Little Sisters by kidnapping children from coastal cities; by the time Subject Delta wakes up, there are enough to go around.
* BioShock 2 even had an Assimilation Plot.
- When the Little Sisters talk of ADAM-infected Splicers being Angels, they weren't being delusional. They were actually almost Angels, having consumed ADAM's blood. Perhaps Rapture is a SEELE experiment and Ryan and Fontaine were manipulated by them, until both went rogue ala Gendo. The knowledge for alien sciences to construct an underwater city is based from the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, the Splicers and consumers of ADAM didn't turn into Tang or Kaworu, because they consumed the mass-produced low-quality version that only resulted in insanity and ugly disfigurement. It would be further into the future where one could perfect the best host for both cultivating both ADAM and Lilith in the same entity: the Evangelions and Rei.
- The Big Daddies are prototype Evangelions, powered by the synchronization between them and their Little Sister hosts (if the Big Daddy and Little Sister are actually biologically related, then the sync would be even more powerful). The scientists realized that a better way to make superior versions of Big Daddies is through bonding a maternal psyche in a cybernetic ADAM clone, and synchronization with her child born after Second Impact, and hence, infected with greater quantities of ADAM.
After completing his Quadtych, it is ultimately up to the player if they wish to kill him or not and the reason why we didn't see him in BioShock 2 is because Subject Delta didn't go anywhere near Fort Frolic thus never meeting up with the still alive Cohen.
- You can still hear his laughter sometimes in Dionysus Park...
- On the other hand, Sofia may have killed him and used his Adam in her Assimilation Plot. In fact, that might explain why Alex the Great wound up so horribly wrong.
During the events of BioShock 1, the Vita-Chambers would only revive someone with Andrew Ryan's genetic code. However, consider the following three factors:
1. Sander Cohen is a powerful Houdini Splicer, whose ability to teleport and throw fireballs allow him to travel quickly and safely throughout the city.2. While Cohen is clearly insane, he appears to be relatively well grounded (for a splicer, of course). So while he occasionally freaks out and kill people if he feels they don't appreciate his work, he often retains his composure and is alert and lucid, unlike like most citizens of Rapture, completely lost in their own little worlds, aimlessly wandering the corridors muttering their respective Madness Mantras to themselves.3. There are hints in the game which suggest Cohen and Ryan were romantically/sexually involved.
Taking these points into account, It's possible that even after the city fell into chaos and Ryan locked himself in his office, Sander could still periodically teleport into Ryan's office if he felt like it, and as long as Ryan didn't say anything unflattering about Sander's new "Plaster Period" Cohen would have no reason to kill Ryan.
Therefore, it is possible Sander was able to use the Vita-Chambers if he was in the possession of Ryan's "genetic material".
Lamb's ideals sacrifice individuality, free choice, etc. for the sake of unity. In essence, she is a Stop Having Fun Guy trying to enforce "Fox only! No items! Final Destination!" for the sake of Competitive Balance.
- Jossed.
- Sorta confirmed...though not involving the plotlines here at all and takes place above the surface.
- Jossed.
- Eleanor!
- Having Eleanor as a protagonist would lead to several gameplay issues as she will start off with several powers rather than earning them as the game progresses.
- A member of the CIA/KGB/Military/a mercenary group who happens to find Rapture.
- Tenenbaum, on a quest to stop Evil Jack from detonating the nuke and starting a war with the surface (Nobody said it had to continue on from BioShock 2).
- I like that theory. BioShock 2 is a continuation of the good ending, BioShock 3 continues the "you're a heartless dick" ending.
- Cindy Meltzer, assisted by Tenenbaum, out to take out Evil Eleanor. Big Sister on Big Sister action!
- Jossed, but those would have been cool.
Another reason why it only works on little girls? Because their uterus still contains rich sources of nourishment, but the slug isn't yet disturbed in its new home by the onset of puberty; mainly, menstruation. When they hit puberty and begin to shed their uterine lining, the slug becomes hostile to the changing environment and the resulting reaction drive the hosts mad with aggression, which is why they are made into Big Sisters to cope. The reason boys aren't suitable slug hosts is because they don't have one. And now I'll go make myself taller for ruining this fandom with my horrible mind. Apologies!
- This Troper had a much less squicky version of this WMG. Instead of actually being in a uterus, the slug just utilizes the hormones to its advantage whatever those may be. during puberty, the slug has to fight an uphill battle with the body producing said hormones naturally. Also while we're on the subject of the reproductive system (And since the WMG tags don't seem to be working for me) Fontaine didn't splice away his balls. He has the Armored Shell tonic equipped and a side effect/feature of the tonic is to cover genitalia with a natural cup made of whatever Armored Shell is made of.
- Just posted in Headscratchers where someone else had a similar idea. Short story: nah. One of Tenenbaum's diaries explains that the Little Sister needs to regurgitate the ADAM-laced blood/goo/whatever in order to mass produce it. Judging by us not seeing Big Daddies molesting their Little Sisters in order to get the ADAM out of them, we can safely assume that that's one place the slugs most certainly aren't.
- The process could be censored, though.
- You can't respond to every rebuttal with 'But censorship.' If something is said and shown directly in the game, that's the thing that is happening. It is stated more than once, by characters who have no reason to be lying, that the slugs are in the stomachs.
- The process could be censored, though.
- The woman in the painting doesn't look anything like Sofia. I always kind of assumed the painting was some sort of practical joke, since Frank is an orphan with no attachment to his parents so he can't be the child, and we know he didn't have a family so he can't be the father. Can't you picture him watching people look at it in confusion and laughing when they ask who he is in it?
Two, Frank Fontaine himself highlights this by saying, "If you survive World War II and Rapture without so much as a scratch, you got more than leprechauns watching over you."
Three, Tenenbaum was one of the few people there in Rapture practically since the beginning. Since she had the authority to start up the Little Sister program and all that, it's not unlikely she was able to develop certain abilities in the field of plasmids, for survival's sake. A person with her authority should have no trouble getting her hands on, say, a plasmid that makes your body indestructible or a plasmid that psychically repels Splicers.
The bit about the ADAM slug is also possible because Tenenbaum practically made the Little Sisters herself, and if anyone would know how to implant those slugs into someone who's not a Little Sister, it's her. As for why, it's revealed in the sequel that people with Little Sister ADAM slugs and the like, such as Eleanor Lamb are immune to the effects of Splicing, and by dabbling in some forbidden science, which is within her ken, naturally, Tenenbaum is able to remain immune to the effects of plasmid use while being able to stay alive in a nightmarish place like Rapture.
- Halfway Jossed. There's an Eleanor-Vision that was removed from the final game showing this, but the developers didn't want Subject Delta's backstory to get too developed.
- There's also another deleted Eleanor-Vision saying that she isn't his birth-daughter.
- Jossed.
- Judging by Delta and Sigma, the Alpha series Big Daddies have hand-held drills they can swap out for other weapons, which could have been left in Suchong.
- But what about the Parasites, you ask? Insect Swarm, level 10 or so.
- Aliens that use Molecular Control are actually just Splicers that have invented a new Tonic that allows them to continue using a few plasmids despite ADAM abuse stopping them from doing so. MC Control and MC Panic are Hypnotize 2 and a variant of Enrage, respectively.
- China didn't gain nuclear weapons technology until 1964, four years after the game and the bad ending take place.
- More damning, in Fallout the bombs fly on October 23rd 2077.
- Soviet maybe?
- China didn't gain nuclear weapons technology until 1964, four years after the game and the bad ending take place.
- In the book, it's stated that boys given the slug all die. Also, Jack's vocal chords are back to normal during the final fight anyway, so it's possible the star who gave you the needle could also have given him some medical ADAM (which regrows tissue) while he was taking off the armor.
- Maybe Jack's unique vat-grown super soldier physiology could have given him an advantage that allowed him to survive having a slug.
- So ''that's why the Big Sisters only go for you when you've finished off all the Little Sisters- they don't have permission to touch the Little Ones, but waiting for anyone lucky enough to defeat the kid's Big Daddies and siphon off their ADAM then taking it from him/her by force is fair game. The only reason the one in the tutorial carried off the little sister was because she had no other protector with her.
- If splicers aren't sterile, why would Lamb need to steal kids from the surface? They don't have protection, there would already be children around for her to convert into Sisters. The splicers would probably gleefully turn over unwanted toddlers in return for more ADAM factories.
- Or, it could be that Suresh Sheti wads functionally insane and just hearing voices in his head and thus he was crazy to begin with, Crazy Is Coolthat is.
- Its also possible that Jack and Delta have super metabolism. As a science created assassin, and bodyguard, it would make sense that extra measures were taken for their survival, like excellent aim, and gaining advantages from food and water (like eve from coffee).
- Jack at least was rapidly aged, and growing really, really fast probably increased his metabolism a lot. Think about how much regular growing kids need to eat, now think about that times ten. Also, the coffee is just laced with EVE since there are no laws against putting drugs in the beverages.
- Now that you mention it, part of the drill looks an awful lot like an automatic can opener.
- Orrrr it could be that (as was explained in-game) the Alpha Series went insane when the pairbond experiments on them failed. Delta was the first success.
- Chesire Cat: We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad.Alice: How do you know I'm mad?Chesire Cat: You must be, or you wouldn't have come here.
- This is the best BioShock 3 idea ever
- You win TV Tropes!
- His Objectivist principles also had a hand in the downfall of Rapture, particularly when he chose not to regulate ADAM, allowing Fontaine to grow wealthier and more powerful while turning the population into superpowered psychopaths.
- Given that both possess powers such as telekinesis (which they would pick up along the way), and both have fathers voiced by Armin Shimerman.
- While not explicit, the end of BioShock Infinite basically confirms this.
- But you could say that with anyone, couldn't you? "Master Chief goes to Halo, finds way to become Time Lord, becomes Gman."
- When you look at the pattern of people Ryan has dated in the past, you see some trends. Jasmine and Diane were both taller than him and blonde. Traits they share with Lamb.
- But Sophia and Ryan hated each other, why would they...
- What about underground?
- Luddism, of the Adeptus Mechanicus variety, venerating scientific development while ironically stifling it
- Idolizing criminals, with a Roaring-Twenties-style city full of shockingly corrupt officials and gangsters who walk the streets with impunity.
- Well, there's already been a [[Video Game/game like that...
- It could be all this and several more, if the game involves hopping around various cities in various timelines.
- Well, there's already been a [[Video Game/game like that...
- The splicers who repeat the lines have picked up bits of the memories of Charlie and Brenda from ADAM recycling.
- I generally got the impression it's a little less literal than Delta hovering over her shoulder in her mind reminding her to go buy tampons. More "with her" in that his moral compass and memories are passed on to her in his ADAM.
- Eleanor said that Delta would be there "when I need you." So even if his consciousness is still alive and self-aware in her head, it would only be when she called him up. Unless she was somehow never toilet-trained and has no idea how sex works, I don't think she's going to be needing advice in THOSE sorts of situations.
- I don't think it literally means his conscious mind is there with her. More likely, she is absorbing his memories and thoughts through his ADAM, much like taking a physical keepsake from a loved one so he'll metaphorically always be there.
- Alternately, the boys were put through the same rapid aging as Jack and then turned into big daddies.
- Untrue; the book pointed out that boys rejected the sea slug, although Tenenbaum and Suchong could never work out exactly why.
- Actually, the prequel-book pointed out that it was devoted to girls simply because Fontaine wanted to get hold of female orphans to be experimented on as Little Sisters. Orphan boys were not provided for, even though they did exist.
He may not be completely sane, but he's also not totally mad. Barring Jack's intervention (if any) Sander Cohen is pretty much the only person who seems genuinely happy in Rapture.
This tainted ADAM is far more corrupting to body and mind then the pure stuff. The reason Jack doesn't get all spliced up even after the events of the game is due to him getting his ADAM exclusively from little sisters (one way or the other). The few occasional ghosts Jack does see are leftover from ADAM he got that wasn't quite done purifying. The problem for your average Rapture citizen is the only ADAM typically available for use is the dirty stuff on that dead guy over in the corner (which is probably even worse since he's just the last guy on the conga line of splicers to have that particularly ADAM in them). There's good pure stuff around, but it's in a Little Sister who has a pretty big bodyguard.
- Given the quality of his scherzo, it's obvious that he's a good composer despite being a bad lyricist. But then again, given how unscrupulous he was, it's possible that he just plagiarized that scherzo.
- Physically the weaker of the two by a extreme margin, making for a better boss fight, as Jack has to outwit the more powerful Eleanor to defeat her.
- Possibly more popular, as BioShock 2 isn't that well-recieved compared to the original.
- Jack came to the world first, and is more likely to have Mooks, while Eleanor's evil incarnation seems to be a power-hungry Blood Knight compared to the Take Over the World goal of Jack, finding Mooks for her will be difficult.
- Delta as a Spirit Advisor.
- Considering the whole Alternate Timelines hook of Bioshock Infinite, perhaps this would involve Good!Jack and Good!Eleanor teaming up to take on Evil!Jack and Evil!Eleanor. Although there may still be debate over what the relation between the two should be: a standard Big Bad controlling The Dragon, a Big Bad Diumvirate, or even being Co-Dragons to the real Big Bad?
- Or he drinks a shit ton of coffee every day to gain more EVE.
On a side-note, Everstones contain a chemical the neutralizes ADAM (enough to stop evolution, but not enough to remove their powers). If only we could get some to Rapture.
- Or Canon!Jack never killed him and it was Cohen himself, whatever floats your boat.
If it were really that easy and they were that well known, everyone would be trying to do it. The non spliced at least. The properties of the chamber were probably not that well known, or easily hacked, and their purpose was not clearly explained to the people, marketed as a therapy\relaxation device.
The wiki also mentions that they were in the trial period and only attuned to Andrew Ryan and his relatives at the time, and though they were a common sight, they had not advanced enough to revive other people,and would only revive trauma-induced death.So by the time the first game came around, he was probably too paranoid to key in anyone else." Thus, they would only teleport/revive Ryan, or someone with a similar genetic code This is the reason only Jack, who is Ryan's illegitimate son, can resurrect at these chambers."
Atlas himself can not get around this, and it would seem no one else knows enough to replicate the effects of the chambers. So if they are not really well known, and no one knows how they work how does Eleanor learn enough about them to hack them? Why does Sophia know about them as well, I should also probably ask. If the rapture populace knew, they would defiantly be trying to hack them for their usage. Unlike, security cameras, the protections on those would have been pretty high, and hard to hack, along with being remotely connected and capable of teleporting things, making it hard to exparament because too much tampering would have put them on alert. So there is room for error.
So rather then re-key a forging the genetic key, she tampered with it and Delta enough for the Vita-Chambers to accept Delta as a Ryan relative.
For something to be able revive people from the dead (specify by trauma)) it would need to be able to replicate the blood, skin, and bone tissue, making anyone who receives it need to be a genetic relation to lower the chance of rejection. That shouldn't be a problem for Delta, because he is grafted to the suit, but I do not think genetic memory is the only memory it keeps.
Trauma related injuries can potentially result in memory loss. So I think Vita-chambers would also keep a mental record of what the user was last doing, to prevent amnesia in its users.
Delta is almost a blank slate though, who follows orders, and a lot like Jack in that respect. So when the Vita-chamber revived him, it couldn't find a genetic memory, it went back to the last mental memory back it had, and the closest similar one. Additionally, the last time Jack was in rapture before leaving he was in a big Daddy suit.
So the chamber assumed Delta was Jack, and that's why the player can play as Delta, we never left the old mindset.
What if the larger caudate is attractive to the slugs because it aligns better with their instincts. The bonding between little sister and big daddy occurred because she healed him, and the slug was first found because it healed a man.Additionally, little boys have more testosterone when they're born, though the level drops until they hit puberty, but is still a lot more then girls. Its possible the testosterone in boys is a repellent to the slugs, making the girls more attractive as hosts.
We know that early concept art for Bioshock 2 included the possibility of "Big Mommas," a detail that didn't make it into the final game. The only female characters that are known to turn into Big Daddies are the three female multiplayer characters in Bioshock 2 whose canonical status is debatable at best.
But think about it, they might not have ever explicitly identified a "Big Momma" in either of the first two games, but how would you tell the difference? The process of turning a person into a Big Daddy involves splicing and permanently sealing them into a rather bulky diving suit. They also undergo surgery to their vocal chords that remove their ability to speak in any coherent fashion.
The bulky suit would easily conceal their body shape (even assuming it remained in any recognizable form underneath)and every known model of Big Daddy has had their face concealed. The vocal chord surgery also makes it impossible to recognize their voice as male or female. Furthermore there's never any particular reason given why only men can go through the procedure.
In short, once the process is finished, how would you be able to tell the difference between a male or female Big Daddy? Between the bulky suit and distorted voice it would be more or less impossible. This is also why the term "Big Mommas" isn't used in either game. Because it's impossible to tell, and the name "Big Daddy" stuck with the people in Rapture, that is simply the term they are all known by regardless of the test subject's original gender.
- Jossed by basic math and observation skills. The hands of his daughters seen at the end of the game are clearly older women. Considering they went through college, got married, and had children, they're probably in their forties. Also, it's clear Jack doesn't rapidly age unless he's being actively dosed with Lot 111 by Suchong. He was 19 when he was one, and 24 (looking at his passport) at 4, so it obvious has slowed down to a normal rate after he was sent away from the city (most likely, it went 1-19, 2-22, 3-23, 4-24).