BioShock (series)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

* What is happening to the outside world while all this is going on? In Atlas Shrugged, Galt and company withdrew from society to basically bring about [[The End of the World as We Know It]], yet in Bioshock the goal is to simply "Get away from the stupid people." Surely stealing away some smart and presumably famous artists, doctors, actors, and scientists have to make some kind of wave outside. Could the CIA and KGB really know about Rapture after all?

** That will most likely be covered in the sequel, if there's going to be one.

** Nothing, presumably. That's part of the point. [[BioShock (series)]]'s relation to Objectivism is that it deconstructs Atlas Shrugged by taking a contradiction (the situation at the end of the novel and how we know societies, innovation, markets, etc. actually work) and resolving it (the objectivist society is destroyed by externalities, our society keeps on ticking).

* In the good ending we see that the sisters are given a chance to live full lives, and at the end we see an old and wrinkled female hand holding the hand of the presumably dying protagonist in a hospital bed; presumably one of the sisters. Which is nice, except for the age difference. Suchong's recording found right before meeting Ryan mentions that at an age of six months Jack has the body of a 45 year old, or something like that. Even if we assume the accelerated aging was turned off, he's about 30 years older than the sisters. Unless that was Tenenbaum there...

** A variety of reasons. Tenenbaum and Ryan both, at that point, had no idea what was going on; to see Jack so blindly follow Atlas' orders would definitely have been further evidence to Jack, Tenenbaum AND Ryan about Fontaine's mind control scheme. Tenenbaum would have recognised the phrase and made an enemy of Fontaine and Jack. At the first meeting, she wouldn't have recognised Jack OR Fontaine, using the phrase so liberally would have clued her in. And Fontaine did not NEED Jack to get the ADAM. It was a suggestion.

** Also keep in mind that even in 1960, nobody knew that Atlas was really Fontaine. For the past two years Fontaine has been dead and Atlas has been a working class hero leaving the rebellion against Ryan. Using the phrase right in front of Tenenbaum would have tipped her off, blown his own cover and probably revealed Jack's true identity to everyone. Fontaine wasn't just lying to Jack, he was lying to everyone.

** Bit of [[Fridge Brilliance]]: Sander Cohen, according to a certain diary, sucks as an artist and composer, and only stayed at the top through Ryan's good graces. It makes sense that even the comic stories he makes don't have any real backstory and have an AFGNCAAP as the hero.

* Don't get me wrong, the good ending is one of the most heartwarming things ever, but...how did Jack go on to live a normal life, let alone give the Little Sisters one? He has no money, no past life, and twenty or more little girls to take care of. He also has no vocal cords, likely has some scarring from ADAM usage, superpowers, and will be working as a single dad for twenty or so little girls long enough for them to get through school and all have families of their own. A single parent with that many kids during the time period will raise a ''lot'' of eyebrows. Heck, just imagine what the parent-teacher conferences would be like! "Mr. Ryan, I'm afraid Emily's screaming about psychopaths, marine life, and this 'Mr. Bubbles' is seriously disturbing the other children. We're worried about what kind of life you lead for th-do you smell something burning?"

** Ryan could have ''easily'' co-opted Jack into his own personal killing machine once he reached Rapture Control. He didn't ''want'' to. He wanted to prove to Jack just how worthless he was and how much he was being used.

* Did Sigma{{spoiler|/Porter}} ever have a Little Sister?

* Rapture's population is described to be in the thousands, along with an unknown number of workers who made the city. But, with all the businesses, jobs, and products seen in Rapture, the numbers just don't add up. Most big, modern corporations employ in the thousands, which would mean that Ryan Industries and Fontaine Futuristics would have employed most, if not all, of the people invited to Rapture. As for the workers. . . well, it's one thing to build a city, and another thing entirely to maintain a geothermal power plant.

** It started out as thousands, but grew to several tens of thousands eventually. As for maintaining the geothermal plant, this ''is'' a game where you can grow a hive of bees in your forearm. The fact that they were able to build a functional city at the bottom of the sea in the 40's and develop technology more advanced than modern technology indicates that they probably did have the capacity to build a functional geothermal plant.

 

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[[Category:Headscratchers]]

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