The Discovery of Rapture (RAR!)

[Zor]

This thread has two scenarios, In general similar in nature.

1-The United States somehow manages to get wind of an unusual underwater operation, as such the united states sends out ships and finds hidden beneith the waves what is nothing short of a city. The city intended by it's creator as a place 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. However, social issues and an unusual mutagenic substance led to it's eventual downfall and eventual collapse. Now much of it is in ruins and over-run with gibbering mutants, many of which having unusal powers and strange drill armed creations. They also find out about things such as "Adam" and "Plasmids".
2-Basically the same event, but substitute the USA finding out with the KGB.

What happens?

Zor

[Eviscerator]

Would this be Bioshock 1 (Ryan still alive) or 2 (Ryan's dead and Lamb has taken over) ?

[Zor]

Would this be Bioshock 1 (Ryan still alive) or 2 (Ryan's dead and Lamb has taken over) ?

Bioshock-1

Zor

[Ford Prefect]

And I presume it's the USA/Russia of the fifties as well?

[Zor]

And I presume it's the USA/Russia of the fifties as well?

Yep.

Zor

[Tiwaz]

Main question would be in my view how easily they can get people into Rapture.

If they are stuck with the elevator/sub seen in the game, they are seriously restricted in ability to get people in.

If they can find airlocks and fit their own subs to them or depth is not beyond ability of divers to get to it is different thing.

[NecronLord]

They nuke it; this is the fifties!

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

They nuke it; this is the fifties!

Ohh yes. The first expedition to Rapture will find that it's populated by insane, mutated, lunatics . . . who are trying to kill them at every turn and take many bullets to put down. And they can buy freakin' grenades from vending machines. They will find that the security system is comprised of highly-effective automatons . . . also trying to kill them at every turn. There are corpses everywhere, with little girls wandering around whose first instinct upon seeing a dead body and/or near-dead person is to stab it repeatedly with a giant needle. These little girls are protected by giant mutants in armored suits. Oh yeah, and the whole city is slowly flooding.

They'd nuke it. And then they'd nuke the radioactive rubble remaining on the ocean floor. Just to be sure.

[Sarevok]

They had nuclear depth bombs and some nuclear torpedoes back then did not they ?

[Shroom Man 777]

Hell, they can just cover it up as an underwater nuclear explosion - which they did a lot of, back in the day.

[Sarevok]

On the other hand there is a lot of very advanced tech to recovered from there. Can 50s or early 60s USA/USSR transport troops there and fight it out ?

[Shroom Man 777]

Do they even have the means of delivering those troops into an underwater city?

[Srelex]

Do they even have the means of delivering those troops into an underwater city?

Divers, I guess. Depends how deep the city is.

[NecronLord]

They also have enough biology to understand that going where freaky mutants is, is foolish.

[Sea Skimmer]

They wouldn’t nuke it, they’d burst it open with some of the 10 million conventional depth charges leftover from WW2 and then start salvaging chunks. The FBI would also start a red scare level investigation into how the fuck someone built such a thing secretly, since no way was that done without involvement of major western corporations. Nukes are a scare resource in the 1950s.

[NecronLord]

They wouldn’t nuke it, they’d burst it open with some of the 10 million conventional depth charges leftover from WW2 and then start salvaging chunks. The FBI would also start a red scare level investigation into how the fuck someone built such a thing secretly, since no way was that done without involvement of major western corporations. Nukes are a scare resource in the 1950s.

Doesn't it rather depend what part of the 50s? By the end they had thousands of the things, including at least one design of nuclear depth charge. I'm sure they can spare a couple. It's not like they weren't regularly tested anyway.

As for salvaging bits, I'm not sure what the cause of the mutations is meant to be, but I'm not sure that'd be very safe (of course, smashing it to pieces or nuking it is probably also likely to spread whatever the contagion is too, but better dead enemies than living ones)

[Simon_Jester]

The mutations are actually crude genetic engineering: splicing chunks of DNA for desired traits directly into your own genes using technobabble. Other mutations (such as mental instability and a varying degree of physical deformity) are caused by side effects. But you can't catch the mutations from the splicers who carry them; that's not a danger.

[Serafina]

The mutations are actually crude genetic engineering: splicing chunks of DNA for desired traits directly into your own genes using technobabble. Other mutations (such as mental instability and a varying degree of physical deformity) are caused by side effects. But you can't catch the mutations from the splicers who carry them; that's not a danger.

But they do not know that.
Anyway, i do not think they will worry about spreading any contagion - the thing is right in the middle of an ocean, and pollution was not exacly a hot button then.

[NecronLord]

But they do not know that.
Anyway, i do not think they will worry about spreading any contagion - the thing is right in the middle of an ocean, and pollution was not exacly a hot button then.

Yeah, but bringing bits back for analysis is a bit more iffy, if it were radiation or something. On the other hand, flotsham... As it's gene-splicing, it shan't come back to haunt them anyway.

Skimmer: I'm still convinced nukes are justified, though. We don't know what kind of submersible capacity they might have, or how far they could evacuate. But I'm willing to say a barrage of nukes followed by a few hundred thousand conventional depth charges might be the way they'd go? It's important to do as much damage in the first strike as possible here, I think.

[Sea Skimmer]

Doesn't it rather depend what part of the 50s? By the end they had thousands of the things, including at least one design of nuclear depth charge. I'm sure they can spare a couple. It's not like they weren't regularly tested anyway.

Yeah the supply crunched eased by the end of the decade, but we had preposterously high stockpile requirements, and production of the first nuclear powered submarines severely cut into the available supply of highly enriched uranium. The first nuclear depth bomb was introduced in 1955.

However on the other hand the Navy had numerous dedicated anti submarine carrier task forces based around Essex class hulls and number escorts for each one to throw into an attack. In addition all USAF conventional bombs could be rapidly converted into depth charges by changing fuses, and those go up to 43,000lb already.

As for salvaging bits, I'm not sure what the cause of the mutations is meant to be, but I'm not sure that'd be very safe (of course, smashing it to pieces or nuking it is probably also likely to spread whatever the contagion is too, but better dead enemies than living ones)

In the 1950s the risk of spreading the contagion would be fully accepted and not blinked on. You’ve got people who saw the Spanish flu in charge of everything, plagues are still more or less facts of life back then.

The material would be transported to a remote island facility for study, and they can have a Honest John nuclear rocket sitting on a nearby island in a chemical-bioweapons proof bunker waiting in case anything goes wrong. In fact during the 1950s and into the 1960s the US military operated a offensive biowarfare research center on Plum Island, which is in Long Island Sound. So concern about this issue.. not overwhelming. Meanwhile the real concern would be that this technology could ALREADY be in Soviet hands. We can’t just destroy all of it with a nuke and leave that unanswered. If anything, the facility would be only destroyed conventionally after a couple attempts to capture it fail.

Skimmer: I'm still convinced nukes are justified, though. We don't know what kind of submersible capacity they might have, or how far they could evacuate. But I'm willing to say a barrage of nukes followed by a few hundred thousand conventional depth charges might be the way they'd go? It's important to do as much damage in the first strike as possible here, I think.

Our convetional antisubmarine forces of the time were massive, and it would be implausible to believe that a completely secret force could outmatch them. If anything tires to escape, then we would be ideally positioned to track and follow in hopes of finding any other secret underwater bases that might exist. Or else just hunt until extinction with dozens of destroyers and whole wings of patrol planes.

We’d only use nukes against fast nuclear submarines if appeared, which could not be countered by any other weapon save nuclear depth bombs at the time. But this would also only heighten the need to capture the facility itself, to find out how the fuck they have such a high level of technology and industry.

[NecronLord]

I'm convinced that an invasion is not feisable; surely it would require a large scale diving-force and new sumarine and submersible support vessels? Unless this city's airlocks can be easily taken. Even then, it's urban war against very resilient (superhuman?) enemies. Yeouch.

[Ford Prefect]

Splicers are pretty tough, but they're not all that clever. Thinking of them as serious drug addicts with their brains fried is pretty appropriate. However, this is at the time that Andrew Ryan is alive, and Andrew Ryan hates the US government (he hates the Soviets, too, for that matter) and he does possess the means to direct splicers where necessary. On the upside he's not totally opposed: he has a serious rival in the form of 'Atlas' who would probably be willing to give pointers to any incoming Americans (or Soviets).

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh man, the US military can so totally contract Howard Huge to build a Glomar Shroomsplorer two decades ahead of time, but instead of recovering some dead sub it ends up like totally salvaging a shit-ruined city! Or dropping in Frogmen!

[Eviscerator]

Why am i having thoughts of SEN Mcarthy and his RAR! Communists Teh Evils suddenly??? Imagine what he'd do with the power of ADAM....

[RecklessPrudence]

After all, Rapture is/was, at least in part, an ultra-capitalist society...