Welcome to Rapture- Where the Utopia became a Dystopia
1959
I am going to tell you a story about a dream; a dream that became a reality; the reality that became a phenomenon. This phenomenon is called Rapture!
Much like the mythical city of Atlantis, Rapture sits at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean somewhere between Greenland and Iceland. Its lights create an aura around the city much like Las Vegas does to Nevada. In Rapture, the greatest minds and artists go at it in the hub of innovation.
A philosopher, Andrew Ryan is the mind behind Rapture. Tired of the achievements of man being taken from him by the government and given to gods, kings and others, Ryan decided that everyone should benefit from the sweat of their brow. Nobody should be limited by law and no innovation should be limited by the public. He was disgusted by those who took and never gave back, that sat on welfare and never contributed. Those people he referred to as “parasites.”
He built Rapture where “the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small.” He collected the most innovative artists and the greatest minds and brought them to Rapture by way of a bathysphere (a small mode of transport) into the Underwater City. These men were free to create whatever they wanted and do whatever they wanted (as long as the didn’t limit or harm others) with the exception of one law: You may never leave Rapture or contact the surface world.
While a great philosopher, this one law would start a chain reaction of the downfall of utopia and create a civil war. You see, the workers who built Rapture weren’t the most innovative and intelligent but since they knew of its secret location, they had to live their as well. Competing for jobs against the highly innovative and highly intelligent was as difficult a task as one might think. Nobody wants to clean toilets or the hallways. This set up a top-heavy class system where the most basic and important jobs were given bad light and eventually neglected.
Another downfall in Ryan’s philosophy was that since government was minimal, everything needed to be controlled by the individual. This led to major corporations being the main source of air, water and basic needs. With great power came greed as these corporations lacked competition and charged whatever they wished to their consumers which created a great deal of poverty among many citizens. Andrew Ryan never stepped in as he believed government had no role in the matter and if enough people cared, it would breed new competition and variety.
Living beneath the sea, many citizens missed the values of the surface from sun to surface goods such as alchohol. This was forbidden as access to the surface was illegal. That led to the rise of a man known as Frank Fontaine (Atlas) who would run an illegal smuggling operation to give these goods to the citizens of Rapture. When Ryan found out about this, a civil war erupted between the two eventually leading in the “death” of Fontaine.
Prior to this, a lady by the name of Tennenbaum discovered a sea slug that could lead to genetic modification. This was known as ADAM. This genetic plasmid would allow people to change themselves, from their hair, to their body structure to their face. This innovation opened a new door of possibility for the city but it would also aide in its downfall.
Science happened, innovation appeared but things were growing darker for this underwater utopia. Fontaine re-appeared under a new alias of Atlas. A “poor civilian of Rapture who wanted more for his people,” was the headline for Atlas. Poverty was growing and this criminal knew that this would be the opportunity to capitalize and take control of the city.
On New Year’s Eve of 1958, the war began. A caste system of those who were bound by the success of others and not aided by anyone decided they wanted to take the city for themselves. This led to the violent and deadly war that would take Rapture down. Nobody could stop it! The man who could have was entrenched so much into his beliefs that he decided that should he intervene, it would be traitorous to his ideals.
Fontaine (Atlas), was the man who operated the corporation for the ADAM Plasmid, and he was the only one. This one detail is why he won the war. Since Ryan didn’t want to intervene in personal achievement, the Fontaine Futuristsics corporation took monopoly control over the selling of the ADAM Plasmid. This ADAM Plasmid, which was originally created for good was used for evil, the evil being weapons. Atlas and his allies used the ADAM to create genetic weaponry: fire, electricity etc to use on their opposition and nothing could stop them.
Rapture now sits at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in a heap of its own failure. An airplane goes down in flames as a man name Jack swims to a Lighthouse with a bathysphere preparing to submerge!
