Bioshock

[FOG3]

There's only one Vita chamber in the game that was turned off. That was the one in Andrew Ryan's office. Pretty much everything in Rapture that's locked down can only be used by Ryan or a relative. The only one who can change vital systems in Rapture is someone with Ryan's DNA. It's not just game mechanics. Also, only a few splicers are armed with explosives, and they're really more concerned with getting ADAM then with blowing up Vita chambers.

And? I strip the SSNs to one shift, remove the supplies, and I have a transport that can send Companies (>100) of Marines/SEALs in per trip. Combat engineers have a saying about how there's no problem that can't be solved with sufficient explosives.

If the USN and USMC decide to go in there you think they're about to be really hindered by such? Even if they were do you think a nuclear depth charge wouldn't settle things quite thoroughly?

Furthermore I can pretty much gurantee I can find a speed-run vid that involves the character getting killed no times. I certainly didn't rely on those machines in the earlier Shocks. So the, but he can respawn excuse is rather thin.

I wasn't making a big point out of it. I was just saying, if they can create things like teleportation and invisibility plasmids, then there's no real leap showing them creating an ICBM, a piece of tech we know to be possible.

You're not making a big deal out of it, but you are? How disingenuous of you. Tell me does a biological firm know the first thing about gyros? Will it know anything more about these gyros after the entire research staff is either dead or utterly deranged? I believe you were saying something about such things not involving absurdly long leaps of faith?

This is what I call the impossible fanboy sales pitch. "They did something not physically possible due to universe contrivances, so they utterly pwn you." Uh huh, sorry not going to fly if I have anything to say about it.

It's a what if about making Rapture a world power.

France hardly qualifies as a world power, merely calling them a power is kind of pushing it.

What does this little city of the deranged supposed to have that makes it a power. It economy? Oh, oops no trade with the rest of the world. Its ability to project its power and influence through military might? Do you see a Navy, Army, or anything else that's a threat to anybody that's not still primarily using stone spears?

Us as in the city of Rapture. Stop taking everything so literally.

Us implies we, we implies inclusion of I. Why do you feel the need to identify yourself with such? As you point out Rapture would do.

I'm waving my fucking hands to give Rapture a nuke. Didn't my OP convey that? Do you have anything to contribute besides "Wah wah, u is teh suck!11"? If you don't like the OP, don't post in the thread.

Your OP specifies per a modified version of the bad ending that he improbably gets the nuke, you have nothing waving away the consequences of such an action. Further I'd point out given the substances known mental deranging effects, and the main characters high level of usage by that point, him starting to become deranged isn't unreasonable.

If you don't like reality then stop pretending it is associated with reality, and postulate it on Planet X where everyone else makes Pakleds look brilliant in comparison say so.

You asked what happens, I've told you. You just don't like what you're hearing because Rapture hardly qualifies as a speedbump problem for the rest of the world.

[FOG3]

On second thought let me correct that. Several thousand peak population is hardly a city.

A village of the deranged, which is supposed to become a World Power.

[Darkevilme]

While you can probably find a speed run vid my second run through Bioshock was no deaths on hard. though i took my time somewhat.

And uh blunt as he is FOG3 is right, the amount of handwaving here required just to get them to the op position, nevermind a world power, is enough to conduct a full orchestra.

1. Somehow reverse the mental damage from Adam dependency in the splicers, more adam doesnt do this and no known mechanism for such exists.

2. Somehow repair the massive damage to Rapture that's ruined the infrastructure and causing the city to leak and outright flood.

3. Become a threat when the armies involved in the civil war and all that was on hand was basically civilians hopped up on adam to make themselves tough and strong and stupid.

4. Not reap the consequences of stealing a nuclear weapon from the united states navy in a somewhat traceable fashion.

And i think everyone is in agreement the best and only option if put in charge of rapture is to lay low or failing that abandon it. And that's

Even in the best case scenario for the nuke, where the missile is preassembled and they somehow jury rig the bomb to either detonate or where they believe it will detonate, the US will probably be over Rapture by then.

Which brings me to some interesting questions.

1. How close would those with naval knowledge say the nearest ship would be to the nuclear missile sub and Rapture at the time the sub goes missing/is attacked. and how long would it take to arrive.

2. Missiles launched from underwater presumeably only start to seriously accelerate once they breach the surface, the ship above would presumeably hear this on sonar as i suspect underwater rockets are noisy, could the ship shoot down the missile during its boost phase?

Course no question they may just drop depth charges on the already damaged Rapture until they're sure it wont launch anything but in the event of missile launch could the ship do anything?

[Zixinus]

What are the possibilites of taking the crazed splicers and then turning as much of them as possible into Big Daddys? Sure, it would be a risky step, but it make them far more managebable and stop them graving for ADAM.

The real issue is to be able to change their programming. Tenenbaum may help with that.

I would rebuild Rapture in a more safe place like in the Antartic or in a less busy location that's very remote and seemlesly unimportant from the two superpower's standpoint. Like in the Antartic coasts or near the South Pole.

[Setzer]

Rapture is already up near Greenland. Not exactly prime real estate.

And if you can convert some splicers into Big Daddies, and get the programming to stick, then that would help Rapture. You see one fixing a tunnel when you descend. I would use them to repair areas too dangerous for normal people.

There have got to be some splicers that aren't completely apeshit. Peach Wilkins was somewhat normal, just extremely paranoid regarding Fontaine. It's just we usually only see them when Ryan's pumping pheromones into the air, making them go all berserk. It'll be something, hopefully enough to make a new generation.

[Zixinus]

Where there is still the problem of ADAM. The whole Little Sister method is just too unethnical on many levels (besides, Tenenbaum won't allow it, and we need her help to rebuild Rapture). Maybe animals can be used instead of humans?

But regardless, we have to find a way to stabilse the stem cells in ADAM. If we could do that, we could solve the problems assosiated with it. That is going to require serious research. That may not have to be the first priority. Since we are talking about the 1960's we could just wait and slow take snippets out of the developing medical industry.

Ryan was able to hire the genuises of the age, whom could not be recognised for some reason, like they were gay or they were black and so on. How many Edward Turners are in the world? Have gene-coded (or ADAM addicted) agents in the right spots and we will get the people necesarry. And expand beyond the USA: go to other countries that will struggle in the time.

On that note, am I the only one that notices that Rapture has a overwhelmingly big mayority of white people?

[Setzer]

Where there is still the problem of ADAM. The whole Little Sister method is just too unethnical on many levels (besides, Tenenbaum won't allow it, and we need her help to rebuild Rapture). Maybe animals can be used instead of humans?

I dunno. If we store it in an animal's stomach lining, maybe the ADAM will only work on animals. Perhaps we can clone a human stomach, keep the organ alive and farm ADAM that way.

But regardless, we have to find a way to stabilse the stem cells in ADAM. If we could do that, we could solve the problems assosiated with it. That is going to require serious research. That may not have to be the first priority. Since we are talking about the 1960's we could just wait and slow take snippets out of the developing medical industry.

I think stabilizing ADAM would be a moot point. The instability is what makes ADAM useful. My idea was to limit plasmid use and carefully ration ADAM. I don't think splicing would have gotten out of control were it not the deadly combination of civil war and Ryan's refusal to regulate plasmid use. There's no harm in splicing for a nice rack, or a full head of hair, or muscles. It's outfitting yourself with an arsenal of combat plasmids that really needs the ADAM.

Ryan was able to hire the genuises of the age, whom could not be recognised for some reason, like they were gay or they were black and so on. How many Edward Turners are in the world? Have gene-coded (or ADAM addicted) agents in the right spots and we will get the people necesarry. And expand beyond the USA: go to other countries that will struggle in the time.

Hmmm... Recruiting from the outside is a must. Rapture could be a world leader in civil rights and LGBT rights. Problem is, will that give us away? And is staying hidden forever really the best course?

And Edward Turner? Wikipedia says he's a British motorcycle designer. I think I missed the reference.

On that note, am I the only one that notices that Rapture has a overwhelmingly big mayority of white people?

You aren't. I personally think that some might have spliced themselves white. I'm sure some minorities would have become white if they had the choice. With ADAM, they did.

[Darkevilme]

I think the idea is the stabilize the ADAM after the changes have taken place. So you take adam and the tonic DNA, your cells become stem cells and change to what you ordered, then you get given a dose of something to stabilize the stem cells back into something normal. So you lose the regeneration effect but dont lose your sanity. Admittedly this will demolish the gatherers gardens and turn the medical pavilion into a gene tweak clinic where you go to spend a few days while getting Adam'd and de'adam'd.

Now all we need is develop said stabilizer.

[Zixinus]

Perhaps we can clone a human stomach, keep the organ alive and farm ADAM that way.

I am not sure that would have worked. Tenenbaum mentioned that originally she wanted the Little Sisters to do their thing in a vegetetive state, but that didn't work. The chances might be lower with using a cloned stomach. But who knows?

I think stabilizing ADAM would be a moot point. The instability is what makes ADAM useful. My idea was to limit plasmid use and carefully ration ADAM.

The instability is also what makes ADAM a liability. Once we introduce ADAM we will get get people wanting more and more of sooner or later.

What I want to do is to take ADAM, let it do the changes in the body we want it to do (make us muscular, give us a nice hair colour or in the extreme, give us telekinesis/pyrokenesis), then stabelise those changes and remove or stabilise the ADAM. Once that happens, we will get a less powerful human then one tripped up on ADAM, but still one better (from the physical standpoint) then we had before the procedure.

And Edward Turner? Wikipedia says he's a British motorcycle designer. I think I missed the reference.

I mean the guy that cracked ENIAC. The famous mathematican and one of the first true software engineer (or programmer or whatever).

[darthbob88]

And Edward Turner? Wikipedia says he's a British motorcycle designer. I think I missed the reference.

I mean the guy that cracked ENIAC. The famous mathematican and one of the first true software engineer (or programmer or whatever).

You mean Alan Turing?

[Zixinus]

You mean Alan Turing?

Yah.

[FOG3]

1. How close would those with naval knowledge say the nearest ship would be to the nuclear missile sub and Rapture at the time the sub goes missing/is attacked. and how long would it take to arrive.

2. Missiles launched from underwater presumeably only start to seriously accelerate once they breach the surface, the ship above would presumeably hear this on sonar as i suspect underwater rockets are noisy, could the ship shoot down the missile during its boost phase?

Course no question they may just drop depth charges on the already damaged Rapture until they're sure it wont launch anything but in the event of missile launch could the ship do anything?

The rocket engines for sub launched missiles don't engage until the missile has basically broken the surface, and you do that little trick at periscope depth. Anything more particular then that I don't feel you need to know. Super cavitating torpedoes is an entirely different technology set.

Just like you, they probably wouldn't know that which could lead to some interesting results. I'm pretty sure Polaris used a timed fuse, possibly with an impact fuse back up, so if they tried it that way it could just be getting out of the silo when the fuse times out instead of anywhere near the ships. In effect nuclear depth charging themselves. When you don't know systems inside out, little boo-boos like that can happen.

Depth charges could probably knock a nuke out of commission as they are designed to destroy much more sturdy things, and one needs only insure it doesn't go off just right. Hitting it would be the problem, but that's why they do it in groups of charges. A lot depends upon just how far down Rapture actually is.

Even if it didn't, so what? They just used a nuclear weapon on a super power that has more then they know what to do with, and now has confirmation of exactly where the fools that stole their nukes are. In other words they just went from, we might let you live to there will be nothing other then radioactive ash to hark the fact you once existed, compliments of the SAC.

[PeZook]

I mean the guy that cracked ENIAC. The famous mathematican and one of the first true software engineer (or programmer or whatever).

"Cracked the ENIAC"?

As for making Rapture a world power, you can forget it. The bad ending has splicers hijack a submarine (it doesn't tell if it's a nuclear or diesel SSB, and the model is generic enough that it could be any of the two) armed with nuclear missiles (for some reason, the launch hatch is open during the outro...)

Now, they actually need to take the nukes and missiles down into Rapture, and that means removing them from the sub, disassembling them and taking them down in bathyspheres (the sub can't go deep enough, and the splicers can't run it anyway)

Even if the missiles will work after such a process, they still need to assemble them and implement a launch system that won't kill them all, and that takes time (and expertise they don't have...). Meanwhile, whoever lost that submarine is swarming the area and it's impossible that they'll miss the giant fucking tower with the entrance. Oh, and disassembling a missile is serious work - they will probably get spotted by aircraft looking for the airliner while still on the surface, and since Rapture is off Greenland, there's gonna be tons of NATO assets nearby.

At this point, it's over. You just attacked somebody's (did we see the uniforms?) SSB, and they will want their warheads back. If you don't give them back, they will start dropping nuclear depth charges at you untill you either cave in or get squished by the detonations. Unfortunately, your best best is to give the warheads back and then abandon Rapture.

[Zixinus]

"Cracked the ENIAC"? Shocked

Or ENIGMA or whatever fucking anacrom the nazi military had for encrypting its massages.

[PeZook]

Or ENIGMA or whatever fucking anacrom the nazi military had for encrypting its massages.

1) It's ENIGMA and it's not an anagram, acronym or an abbreviation

2) Turing didn't really "crack it". He was part of a huge multinational endeavour which strived to continously reverse-engineer individual messages. He just designed (or rather, significantly improved upon an earlier design) an electromechanic computer used to brute-force through the codes (when fed with proper data)

and 3) The ENIAC was the first ever electronic computer

There. Now I'm satisfied with the tangent

[Starglider]

The ENIAC was the first ever electronic computer

Not quite. The Colossus[/quote] machines were fully electronic and went into operation a couple of years earlier, although they weren't quite as flexible as ENIAC. The [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_%28computer%29]Z3 was fully digital and programmable and went into operation two years before that, in 1941, but it was electromechanical.

[PeZook]

<snip>

Ah, right. Thanks for that correction.

[Darkevilme]

Now, they actually need to take the nukes and missiles down into Rapture, and that means removing them from the sub, disassembling them and taking them down in bathyspheres (the sub can't go deep enough, and the splicers can't run it anyway)

It's actually worse than that, the intended missile is an ICBM, the missiles on the sub are shorter ranged. This means in order for the missile launch to work. The missile warhead has to be taken from the sub missiles, have the safeguards removed so it'll detonate under their control which might involve partially rebuilding the nuke, mount it on an untested missile platform for delivery which also uses an untested method to get it up to the surface for the rocket to start.

I'm putting my money on the rapture missile floating up to the surface with strap on bouyancy aids resembling shuttle boosters and then slowly tipping over once it breaches. Cause the idea amuses me. That or it fails to go off once it reaches the target.

As for how deep Rapture is, well there's giant squid and Whales in the welcome to rapture bit swimming outside the city. The wiki for bioshock mentions the big daddy suits are designed to resist the pressure six miles under the sea. On the other hand while the average depth of the atlantic is 3600m or so i suspect the water off Greenland is a fair bit shallower than that.

[Setzer]

Alright, forget the nuclear thing then. It's clear I simply need too many things to go just so to get anything workable.

Still, we do need a way to get more people, and resources from the surface. Perhaps something like Fontaine's smugglers, only legal.

[Zixinus]

Alright, forget the nuclear thing then. It's clear I simply need too many things to go just so to get anything workable.

Not if you try to develop the whole thing yourself as opposed to trying to steal it.

Still, we do need a way to get more people, and resources from the surface. Perhaps something like Fontaine's smugglers, only legal.

How are you going to regulate how people go to the surface? Only thing that can truly assure loyalty by using the gene-twicking to somehow make the people obsessively want to protect Rapture or make it so that only you can safely provide Adam and they know they are going down the deep shitter if they are cut off.

[Setzer]

Yeah, that's the idea, not only for smugglers but for all of Rapture. People will still need ADAM, and Jack has the only supply. That's what I meant when I spoke of an ADAM based hydraulic despotism. Think Paul Atreides and Melange.

I had the idea of having agents in place on the surface that can recruit people. If they're caught, they're cut off from ADAM, and anyone trying to interrogate them will have to distinguish insane babble from useful information. Bathyspheres to the surface will give the agents enough ADAM to get by. If the smugglers recruit someone Rapture needs, they get an ADAM bonus.

The main problem is how to get people to voluntarily come to Rapture without blowing our secret location. I'd hate to cooperate with human trafficking rings. I'd just end up working with a new Fontaine.

[FOG3]

At this point, it's over. You just attacked somebody's (did we see the uniforms?) SSB, and they will want their warheads back. If you don't give them back, they will start dropping nuclear depth charges at you untill you either cave in or get squished by the detonations. Unfortunately, your best best is to give the warheads back and then abandon Rapture.

The US Navy was the only organization on the planet with a boomer in 1960. The very first boomer's maiden voyage was on November 15, 1960 changing the nature of war forever in one fell swoop. The reason it wasn't 1965 was because Admiral Burke gave Raborn the Navy equivalent of the power of God to insure it got done.

The Soviet boomers didn't show up until 1967, and basically were stuck with much more dangerous liquid fuel rockets for most of their history. Plus they only had 15% of their fleet out at any given time compared to 2/3rds for the USN.

Britain's first boomer also appeared in 1967, with France sending their first out in 1971.

Any earlier ballistic missiles like the Regulus used conventional warheads, and were utterly unsuited for the task of carrying nuclear payloads.

So unless it's even more of a crazy world there is exactly one option of who they would have just picked a fight with, which is why I focussed on the USN earlier.

[Zixinus]

For recruiting people, I think you need a specilised people.

I am not that confident about the Adam hydraulic despotism based on Adam. I would prefer something more stable. And I need to find an alternative to the Little Sisters or risk running out of Adam, which would even more important with your little despotic world. There are the sea slugs mentioned. The concept art of the game suggest that it may have more potential then mentioned. Breed them perhaps?

Either way, again, I would grant people access only with special priviliges and some kind of ensurence that they won't plan my downfall behind my back. Otherwise, their necessity on Adam makes them a liability.

Also, for people, there will be quite a few people willing to leave the USSR or even the USA that may be great potential recruits.

[PeZook]

Also, for people, there will be quite a few people willing to leave the USSR or even the USA that may be great potential recruits.

You should avoid pissing the USSR off by smuggling people out: the US won't like it and pressure you to stop. It's better to siphon off immigrants from the US, but to truly become a world superpower you will need an enormous amount of people, expertise and resources.

[Setzer]

Well, the sea slugs are only good for about 5 ADAM. That was enough to heal a man's crippled hands. Still, breeding them might be a good source of supply. Build huge underwater aquariums, gene locked to your DNA key. Access could be given to people with conditioning similar to the "Would You Kindly" setup. Same for the surface recruiters. But for the US to apply diplomatic pressure, we would need to be exposed to the world. Should we blow our cover?