BioShock Rapture

Under the bunting-swathed stage overlooking the square, a tape recorder took down Ryan’s speech. He planned to record all his speeches and put edited sections of them out as “inspirational talks” on public address throughout Rapture.

“But where else,” Ryan demanded, “could we be free from the clutching hands of parasites?” His deep voice resonated in the gleaming windows looking out to the shadowy, light-shafted depths of the sea. Bill nudged Elaine and nodded toward the windows as a school of large fish swam up to the glass. The fish seemed to be taking in the speech, ogling Ryan as if awestruck. She hid a smile behind her hand. Bill wanted to take that hand and kiss it, draw his new fiancée away from this pensive crowd, up to the privacy of his apartment in Olympus Heights—celebrate the culmination of so much hard work with another sort of climax. But he had to be satisfied with winking at her, as Ryan went portentously on: “Where else could we build an economy that they would not try to control, a society that they would not try to destroy? It was not impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea! It was impossible to build it anywhere else!”

“Hear hear!” Greavy said, leading a patter of applause.

“The ant society misunderstands the nature of true cooperation!” Ryan boomed. “True cooperation is enlightened self-interest, not grubbing parasitism! True cooperation is not based on the bloodsucking that the parasites call ‘taxation’! True cooperation is people working together—each for their own profit! A man’s self-interest is at the root of all that he accomplishes! But there is something more powerful than each of us: a combination of our efforts, a Great Chain of industry that unites us. It is only when we struggle in our own interest that the chain pulls society in the right direction. The chain is too powerful and too mysterious for any government to guide. The Great Chain may sound mystical…” Ryan shook his head contemptuously. “It is not! Some would imagine the hand of their so-called God behind every mystery! The best of human nature, the laws of natural selection—such is the power behind the Great Chain, not God! We need no gods or kings in Rapture! Only man! Here, man and woman will be rewarded with the sweat of their brows. Here, without interference, we will prove that society can order itself with unfettered competition, with unfettered free enterprise—with unfettered research! I have scientists in Rapture working on new discoveries that will astound you—and the persecution of the small-minded is all that kept those discoveries from happening till now. Science will advance without the oversight of pompous tyrants who would impose their personal view of ‘morality’ on us.” He cleared his throat and smiled, his tone becoming friendly, fatherly. “And now, in celebration of the opening day of Rapture—a song performed by Sander Cohen, written by Miss Anna Culpepper…” Anna Culpepper was an unfinished English major, a naïve but ambitious young woman whom Ryan had recruited out of her third year in college and who fancied herself a lyricist.

Wearing a tux, the impish performer stepped up to the microphone. Bill winced. Cohen got on his nerves.

From somewhere canned music played, and Cohen sang along.

“The paradox of our cityis the freedom of the chain,the chain that holds youuuuto meeeee,a chain that oh so strangely, so very strangely,Sets me at lib-er-tyyyy—As the blue world scintillatesoutside our gates,and the fish gyrate and the lovely, lovely ocean awaits…”

It was a sluggish number, taking a long time to reach its chorus, and Bill lost interest, letting his attention wander to the majesty of Apollo Square, Rapture’s “Grand Central Station” …