Atlas

"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. These people will liberate themselves."

- Atlas

Atlas is the revolutionary who led many of the disillusioned of Rapture against Andrew Ryan and his supporters during the Civil War. A significant character in BioShock, he guides the protagonist through the collapsed utopia after Jack's arrival. Atlas speaks with an Irish accent, specifically, a working class Dublin accent.

History
When Ryan nationalized Fontaine Futuristics, Atlas was the first to protest against him in front of the citizens. With Frank Fontaine pronounced dead by the Council, Atlas used the poor houses left behind by him (such as Fontaine's Home for the Poor) to rally the disillusioned citizens and build an army against Ryan. Making the Hestia Chambers in Apollo Square their headquarters, Atlas' followers started to gather weapons, Plasmids and Gene Tonics to arm themselves. The initial action which officially started the war was the 1958 New Year's Eve Riots, and the bombing of the party at the  Kashmir Restaurant, where most of the important and wealthy people in Rapture were gathered for a Masquerade Ball.

In order to contain the rebels, Ryan gave orders to "relocate" Atlas' supporters and isolate them in Apollo Square, thus transforming the district into a ghetto enclosed in by a giant gate defended by Ryan's forces. The Council agreed to introduce the death penalty in Rapture for smuggling, which caused more people in Ryan's ranks to reconsider their support in the conflict, including Security Chief Sullivan.

As the conflict escalated through 1959, more people joined Atlas' cause, including Ryan's ex-lover Diane McClintock. These followers organized themselves to take down Big Daddies and seizing weapons, causing casualties on both sides during the armed struggles. The raiding parties had the goal of seizing power from Ryan, and were willing to kill young girls, the Little Sisters, to get the ADAM stored within them.

In the desperate arms race with the rebels, Ryan was forced to use more and more security measures, eventually locking down most public transportation in the city in an attempt to restrict the movements of Atlas' followers. In the end, Ryan used a plan left to him by the late Dr. Suchong: modifying the structure of Ryan Industries' Plasmid line to make Splicers vulnerable to mental suggestion through pheromones. With his army now controlled by his enemy, Atlas and the few remaining unspliced rebels went into hiding in the ruined city, unable to escape Rapture with the bathyspheres in lock down since the beginning of the war.

BioShock
At the beginning of BioShock, Atlas is trying to escape the city with his family. When a plane crash occurs near the Lighthouse over Rapture, one of Atlas' followers, Johnny, tries to reach the only survivor of the accident, Jack, who had descended in the only bathysphere left topside. With Johnny trapped and killed by a female Splicer and the bathysphere severely damaged, his only option is to help Jack and guide him through the wrecked districts of Rapture via a shortwave radio. He hopes that Jack will help him rescue his wife Moira and infant son Patrick, who are both trapped in Rapture. Atlas states that he had come to Rapture in search of a better life for them (like many among the working class), but now feels as if "God's punishing [him] for bringing her and Patrick to this place".

Atlas serves as Jack's guide, proving to be a useful ally in the otherwise totally alien city of Rapture. He introduces the young man to the fallen utopia, ADAM, and the events which occurred after the 1958 New Year's Eve Riots. He asks Jack to help him reach his family in a bathysphere hidden in the Smuggler's Hideout, a secret cave used by the smugglers before the Civil War and located below the foundation of Fontaine Fisheries in Neptune's Bounty. Atlas states that his plan is to escape the city once they have been reunited at the bathysphere.

Atlas helps Jack by guiding him through the Medical Pavilion and then through Neptune's Bounty. Eventually, Jack reaches the secret submarine bay in the hidden base used by the smugglers. Waves of Splicers sent by Ryan begin to invade the area soon after Jack opens the door to let Atlas into the submarine chamber. As Atlas fights for his life, the submarine blows up, killing his wife and son. With Jack retreating to Arcadia, Atlas' goal then becomes revenge — the murder of Andrew Ryan. Atlas asks again for Jack's continued help to end the tyrant's reign.

Atlas continues to guide Jack through Arcadia and the Farmer's Market, where Ryan introduces a toxin into the air that kills all the trees producing oxygen, decreasing the oxygen in both places enough to automatically put the area into lock down. Atlas guides Jack through the process of creating the Lazarus Vector, an invention of professor Julie Langford, which restores the trees to health and ends the lock down. Jack continues on to Fort Frolic, where Atlas' radio frequency is jammed by the boss of that area, the eccentric artist Sander Cohen. This forces Jack to rely only on himself to escape the recreation district.

Finally, Jack reaches Hephaestus and Rapture Central Control, Ryan's headquarters. With the self-destruction of Rapture triggered, Jack has a final confrontation with Ryan in which the latter reveals Jack's true origins and the fact that Atlas had been controlling all of Jack's movements since his arrival through mental conditioning. This conditioning had forced Jack to obey every command Atlas gave that was connected to a single trivial phrase: "Would you kindly". With Ryan dead, Atlas orders Jack to use the city's genetic key in order to stop Rapture's impending destruction. Once this has been completed, Atlas drops his disguise.

With this long-awaited objective now accomplished, "Atlas" reveals his true identity as Frank Fontaine, the smuggler, mobster  and businessman who rose to power in Rapture's society and challenged Andrew Ryan's claim over the city, thus leading to its downfall. Fontaine admits that just about everything he said as Atlas was a lie. Atlas was a name that Fontaine adopted when supposedly killed in a staged shootout at Fontaine Fisheries in 1958 with Security Chief Sullivan's city security forces. Referring to Atlas as his "longest con", Fontaine had created his new persona to be a working class hero who could rally the people in his struggle against Ryan.

As Jack survives his attempts to put an end to his life thanks to the help of Brigid Tenenbaum and her saved Little Sisters, Atlas (now Fontaine) retreats to the laboratories at Point Prometheus and to his final lair past the Proving Grounds. He uses his new control over the city to set Splicers upon his former pawn, while injecting himself massive massive amounts of ADAM in hope to surpass his strength and defeat Jack. Fontaine finally dies at the hands of a group of saved Little Sisters and Jack, finally free from his control, can then decide to take from him the Key to Rapture.

BioShock 2
Even though Fontaine is long dead during the events of BioShock 2, several of his audio diaries mentioning his fake identity can be found throughout the game.

One of them, "Falling Into Place", can be found at the Imago Fine Arts gallery within Dionysus Park. In this audio diary, he marvels at the fact that he has an entirely new face to fit his fully developed Atlas persona, and he mentions setting up the events which would occur in the first game, including that "the prodigal son is 'bookin' his flight."

Another one, "Goodbye to Fontaine", can be found in Fontaine's sacked office at Fontaine Futuristics. The audio diary depicts the man sliding into his Atlas persona for the first time while working on his fake Irish accent.

BioShock 2 Multiplayer
In BioShock 2's Multiplayer, Team Atlas is one of the two factions fighting the civil war (he other being Andrew Ryan's). Also, several of the loading screen quotes either reference Atlas or are spoken by him.

Burial at Sea - Episode 1
While Atlas himself does not make an appearance yet during BioShock Infinite's first story-driven downloadable content, Burial at Sea - Episode 1, several propaganda posters depicting him can be spotted at the employees' locker room behind the Appliances showroom at the Housewares building of Fontaine's Department Store.

Burial at Sea - Episode 2
Atlas will appear in Burial at Sea - Episode 2. Trapped in Fontaine's Department Storesunk below the city with many of Fontaine's followers, he attempts to sneak back into Rapture with the aid of Elizabeth. Atlas makes a deal with her after she impersonated Suchong's lab assistant, threatening her life if she does not keep her part of the bargain. He gives her a portable radio to stay in contact and departs with Sally as his hostage, judging the Little Sister far too valuable to be left with her.

Behind the Scenes

 * The name "Atlas" is, like Andrew Ryan, inspired by the works of Ayn Rand, a Russian-American philosopher whose 'Objectivism' is similar to the philosophy on which Ryan founded Rapture. Rand's last novel was entitled, Atlas Shrugged , a reference to the Greek myth of a Titan condemned to support the heavens on his shoulders for eternity.


 * The posters inscribed, "Who is Atlas?" are a reference to the line, "Who is John Galt?" from Ayn Rand's novel, 'Atlas Shrugged'.


 * The player may find a poster in Fort Frolic and Atlas' HQ in Apollo Square advertising the play "Patrick and Moira", a story of love after death. This was probably the source of Fontaine's inspiration for the names of his fictional family.

Fontaine and Atlas's pictures, compared side by side.
 * Occasionally throughout the game, Fontaine gets out of character of being Atlas and he does not have his story straight. While posing as Atlas, Fontaine tells Jack that he brought his wife, Moira, and son, Patrick down from the surface to Rapture. However, when Jack enters The Fighting McDonagh's Tavern, he says that he took Moira there for their first date. He also uses distinctly American phrases, like when commenting that Nitro Splicers are "sounding off like it's the 4th of July," Cohen being a "Section 8" kind of crazy, and an American football allusion: "Every time we get a yard ahead, Ryan goes and moves the goal line down to the other side of the field!"
 * If one compares his photo to Fontaine's, it is easy to notice that Atlas's face is clearly Fontaine, only with hair, without a mustache, and a more noticeable cleft chin. It wasn't so hard for Fontaine to disguise himself as Atlas: only the basic change of appearance and a different way of speaking.


 * Inside Fontaine's apartment in Olympus Heights, a phonograph can be heard playing "Danny Boy" by Mario Lanza, a famous Irish song.


 * Greg Baldwin, the voice actor of Frank Fontaine, has stated in an interview that he was originally asked to speak the part of Atlas as well, and would have done them in an American southern accent. However, the developers chose to switch to an Irish voice for Atlas, and hired a separate voice actor.


 * Even though Atlas is a major character, he does not have a uniquely designed model (unlike Andrew Ryan and Sander Cohen). Instead his model is a re-skinned Waders Splicer. This is because Atlas is never encountered up close until the final boss encounter. However, he is given a unique character model in Burial at Sea - Episode 2.


 * His "I am not a Liberator" quote is taken from the famous Argentinian-born revolutionary, Che Guevara.


 * In the BioShock: Rapture novel, Atlas claims to have a daughter when speaking to Diane McClintock and yet claims to have a son in the game.
 * Interestingly, due to the sepiatone of the radio images, it was thought that Atlas has blond hair. However, Burial At Sea Episode 2 shows he instead has black hair.
 * His hairstyle (slick black with a small fringe above his eye), as well as his stubble, slightly resembles that of Edward Richtofen from Call of Duty Black Ops II's "Origins" map. This is likely unintentional.