Andrew Ryan



"We all make choices. But in the end, our choices make us."

- Andrew Ryan

Andrew Ryan (born Андрей РаяновскийAndrei Rianofski [sic] ) is the founder of Rapture and the owner of Ryan Industries. He is the main antagonist throughout most of BioShock. He is the Chairman of the Rapture City Council, owner and operator of Hephaestus, and one of the most important men in the city. He only appears in person in the Rapture Central Control level.

Early Life in the Russian Empire (Belarus)
"My journey to Rapture was my second exodus. In 1919, I fled a country that had traded in despotism for insanity."

- Andrew Ryan Andrew Ryan, born 1911 in a village near Minsk in the Russian Empire (modern day Belarus), grew up in a Jewish-Belarusian family during the time when the Tsar still held autocratic rule over that country. Minsk was on the front lines in the First World War. In 1917 he witnessed the Russian Revolution, which eventually brought the Bolsheviks into power and also destroyed Ryan's family business. Ryan's experiences under Soviet rule led him to his personal philosophy: the modern world was created by great men who strove to make their own way. Any time "Parasites" gained control of such a world, they destroyed it. As a boy in 1919, he fled to America, believing it to be a place where a great man could prosper, just before Belarus and multiple other countries such as Ukraine and Russia formed to create the Soviet Union in 1922. He anglicized his name to Andrew Ryan.

Life in America
For a time, Ryan was devoted to his adopted country, grateful for the wealth and fame it awarded his intellect and determination. However, the state-run social programs created in the 1930's increasingly tested that devotion. His experiences in the "worker's paradise" made Ryan despise the ideals of Socialism and Collectivism, as he believed that those who benefited undeservedly from others were "Parasites" (e.g. he considered Roosevelt and his "New Dealers" to be "spoon-feeding" Americans on the "Bolshevik Poison"). In Ryan's philosophy, one could only own what one earned—Ryan himself once owned a large forest as a personal retreat, one that many groups envied (one group told him that it "belonged to God," demanding that he establish a public park there). When the government attempted to nationalize it as parkland, Ryan's response was to burn it to the ground to deny it to the "Parasites".

The final straw for Ryan was the destruction of Hiroshima with the atomic bomb. In his eyes, the bomb was the ultimate corruption of his ideals—science and determination harnessed for destruction, creating a weapon that gave the "parasites" the ability to destroy anything that they could not seize.

Creation of Rapture


"In what country is there a place for people like me?"

- Andrew Ryan

Ryan's response was to use his entire fortune to build Rapture; a community 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," in the only place he felt the "Parasites" could not touch—the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Ryan personally choose the location of Rapture from his ship, "The Olympian." He created shield companies on the surface like Warden Yarn (an anagram of his name), and through it conducted business with suppliers, such as Orrin Lutwidge's Scarlet Sovereign Import and Export, to purchase materials necessary to build his city. When Rapture was completed, Ryan filled it with thousands of the world's best and brightest individuals. He was only 35 at the time.

For a time, Rapture was everything Ryan dreamed it would be: a paradise of freedom and prosperity. From 1946 to 1958, Rapture experienced tremendous economic progress, and solid political stability. As Ryan predicted, citizens in Rapture created a culture of entrepreneurship that was unrivaled, with numerous businesses established and unprecedented scientific advancements, including the discovery of ADAM by Brigid Tenenbaum. The full ramifications of the Plasmid technology were not immediately appreciated by the people of Rapture or Ryan who dismissed the concerns of men like Rosenberg and Bill McDonagh. Ryan's failure to understand the effects of the burgeoning ADAM-based culture allowed the destructive rise of the fishery owner, smuggler, and black market operative Frank Fontaine.

With Rapture at its apogee, Ryan's greatest supporters maintained control of many sectors of the city, such as Sander Cohen in Fort Frolic and J.S. Steinman in the Medical Pavilion. Ryan had hired a man named Carlson Fiddle to build Ryan Amusements: a theme park that doubled as a propaganda tool for the children of Rapture, with Ryan himself providing narration for many of the rides and animatronic set pieces. Its primary purpose was to warn of the evils of the Surface. The theme park eventually embraced the city's new ADAM-culture, exalting Plasmids like Incinerate! in a Hall of the Future section of the park.

Rapture's Decline


By populating a city with ambitious experts, opportunists, geniuses, and breakthrough artists, Ryan set up a top-heavy class system. The social conditions resulting from the economic readjustments allowed Frank Fontaine to establish the influential but philosophically undermining Fontaine's Home for the Poor. Later, these poorhouses were used by Atlas to rise to political power and to openly challenge Andrew Ryan's leadership.

Ryan faced challenges in other sectors as well. A seemingly benign psychologist named Sofia Lamb (whom Ryan had invited to Rapture to help citizens cope with psychological issues stemming from the isolated and sunless environment) began to speak out openly against Rapture's philosophy. Lamb espoused a collectivist, altruist philosophy that directly opposed Rapture's ideological founding. Ryan engaged Lamb in debates on various topics to win back public support, but the people present were usually in Lamb's favor. Lamb's followers represented a threat to his city, and Ryan eventually sought to neutralize them by having Lamb incarcerated at Persephone Penal Colony for sedition.

Earlier, to keep Rapture safely hidden from the "Parasites," Ryan forbade unauthorized contact with the Surface. Intending for this to be his only law, Ryan inadvertently accelerated the black market for smuggled goods, which assisted the rise of Frank Fontaine's criminal enterprises. This atmosphere set the stage for a divisive civil war and Rapture's decline.

Fontaine's illegal profits enabled his businesses to expand, placing him in a good position to fund and exploit the new ADAM industry. At first Ryan had no issue with the rapid growth of Fontaine Futuristics, even as his own associates tried to convince him to get involved in the genetic market and others complained about Fontaine's business practices. Sensing that "the Great Chain was pulling away from [him]," Ryan finally realized Fontaine was behind some form of illegal activity, which soon revealed itself to be the huge smuggling operation, and began to take steps to curb his influence. To get legal proof of Fontaine's smuggling, Ryan ordered investigations into Fontaine and his men. These efforts eventually were successful in destroying the smuggling operation, but Fontaine for a long time remained elusive, always managing to be "where the evidence isn't." The frustration of this situation affected Ryan deeply, causing him to use questionable methods to catch the criminals. Despite considerable uproar, Ryan implemented a highly unpopular law, with smuggling being the equivalent of treason and made the crime punishable by death.

Sometime in 1956, Ryan unknowingly impregnated an Eve's Garden exotic dancer named Jasmine Jolene. Aware that Ryan had much of Rapture's security and infrastructure control coded to his genetic frequency, Frank Fontaine made arrangements to purchase the embryo from Jolene, who claimed to "need the money." Fontaine realized that Jack, as the child was named, could be a powerful tool able to access secure areas where only Ryan was permitted. When Ryan learned of this betrayal, he personally killed her in a fit of rage.

With his operatives closing in on the smuggling operation, Ryan sought a decisive conclusion to the Fontaine question. An unrepentant Fontaine chose to, as Bill McDonagh put it, go down like "John Bloody Wayne" in one last stand. A famous Rapture Standard headline proclaimed, "Ryan takes down smuggling operation … Fontaine and thugs killed in fiery shootout!" on September 12, 1958.

Unbeknownst to Ryan, his archrival concocted and succeeded in a scheme to fake his own death. As Fontaine was later to relate in one of his Audio Diaries, "Ryan wanted Frank Fontaine dead, I just gave him what he wanted. As Atlas, I got a new face, a clean record, and a fresh start." Atlas proved much more dangerous than Fontaine, due to his cultivating an elevated reputation as a man being one with the poor: Fontaine was looked upon as a thug by much of Rapture's citizenry, while Atlas was beloved by the 'have nots', by telling them what they wanted to hear and supplying some 'handouts', and to many he represented an alternative to Ryan's philosophy.

In the aftermath of Fontaine's perceived death, Ryan took a step that many took to be a betrayal of his philosophy: the nationalization of Fontaine Futuristics. Although he built Rapture to escape the sort of "big government" that could take over private industry, Ryan was forced to engage in precisely the same behavior. This move shook Rapture to its core and proved to be significant in its decline. Even Ryan's long-time friend Bill McDonagh resigned from the Central Council in protest. Two months later, all who had been identified as involved in Fontaine's crimes had been arrested and put into Fontaine's Department Store, which Ryan had turned into a prison to house them. This further unsettled the citizens of Rapture, as a hundred or more people were imprisoned so quickly, with one citizen even describing it to be like a trick by Houdini.

When Atlas became a considerable threat to Rapture's stability, Ryan was smart enough not to execute him straight away. With an already tense populace watching his every move, committing such a public act of force would be disastrous. Instead, Ryan had Atlas and his closest followers moved to the prison where the rabble-rousers and the other parasites could live in their own hell. When his own undercover agent in the prison revealed that Atlas was not only surviving in the prison but rallying the prisoners into a new force, Ryan had enough. Ryan Security was sent in to wipe out Atlas and anyone who stood in their way, which failed when the revolutionary and several of his men managed to escape.

Civil War and Collapse
Rapture's high-water mark can be traced to New Year's Eve, 1958. In a televised broadcast that night, Ryan acknowledged "trials" in the previous year but offered a toast to the city that 1959 may be Rapture's finest year. However, just moments after his broadcast, the citizens of Rapture were alerted to an "incident" at the Kashmir Restaurant, where a masquerade ball thrown for Rapture's elite was taking place. Ryan was supposed to attend the party with his mistress; Diane McClintock, but was stuck at work in Hephaestus. During the festivities, a group of Atlas' revolutionaries launched a terrorist attack on the restaurant; this came to be known as the first act of the Rapture Civil War.

Ryan and Atlas then engaged in a destructive guerilla war that brought ruin to the city and claimed the lives of an untold number of its citizens. Some hoped that a peaceful resolution to the conflict could be achieved and that Ryan would be forced to address many of the Atlas supporters' grievances. However, Ryan refused to compromise with "parasites" and killers, and was intent on fighting to the end, believing that giving in to Atlas would bring down the entire city. Plasmid technologies played a central role in the conflict, with the "genetic arms race" as McDonagh coined it, leading to the development of more combat Plasmids and Gene Tonics, as well as more and more destructive weapons to counter them. Ryan's unpopular war measures alienated many of his supporters, turning them against him, as did Ryan's lover, Diane McClintock, who later sided with Atlas. Ryan survived at least three assassination attempts (one of which McDonagh participated in, with another spearheaded by Anya Andersdotter), and kept the corpses of these betrayers mounted on the wall outside his office as a warning to his enemies.

As the civil war deepened, Yi Suchong proposed an unconventional means of breaking the stalemate that divided the city: to alter the structure of commercial Plasmids to make citizens susceptible to mental suggestion by pheromones. To many, this represented the ultimate betrayal of Ryan's philosophy, to deny citizens their free will. Ryan, facing destruction of his city, agreed to Suchong's suggestion, claiming that if Atlas and his supporters were to win, they would turn their opponents into slaves, and free will would vanish regardless. These pheromones proved decisive in turning the tide of the civil war in Ryan's favor. Atlas, with his situation now desperate, and with few unspliced followers who were not susceptible to Ryan's pheromones, was forced to use his "ace in the hole."

Events of BioShock


"Now you've met Andrew Ryan… the bloody king of Rapture."

- Atlas

Ryan is an ever-present voice while Jack travels through Rapture. Frank Fontaine, as Atlas, sends Jack on his journey to kill Ryan using the "Would You Kindly" trigger phrase, though Ryan is not aware of it at first; when Jack first arrives in Rapture, Ryan assumes he is someone from the Russian K.G.B. or the American C.I.A., come to make an already disintegrating situation worse. After Jack makes it safely out of Arcadia, Ryan begins to piece together the puzzle, realizing that it is Atlas who is directing Jack's movements.

As Jack heads to Rapture Central Control, Ryan begins to hint at this knowledge in his final radio messages. The "Would You Kindly" board outside Ryan's office shows how he put together the clues connecting himself to Jasmine Jolene, with Jack as their illegitimate son. Infuriated by this knowledge, Ryan decides to activate Rapture's self-destruct mechanism in a final attempt to put a stop to Atlas' plan. Whether Ryan suspected Atlas was, in fact, Fontaine remains a mystery.

Minutes later, Jack confronts Ryan, casually playing golf in his office. Ryan educates Jack about his true self, telling him of his birth, his conditioning, his experiences in Rapture, and the phrase "would you kindly," which controls his actions. Ryan tells his son that the fundamental difference between a man and a slave is that "a man chooses, a slave obeys." Ryan then hands Jack the golf club and orders Jack to kill him. Jack obeys, beating his father to death. The Vita-Chamber in Ryan's office was deactivated, so Ryan is dead and cannot be resurrected. With Ryan eliminated, Jack takes the genetic key to Rapture's systems from his corpse and promptly is ordered to hand control to Atlas/Fontaine.

Main Game
Andrew Ryan is featured in BioShock 2, which takes place eight years after the events of the first game. Although dead, his presence remains through Audio Diaries scattered across the levels. His ideals are also promoted in Ryan Amusements through the presented scenes and large animatronic puppets of himself and others depicting his vision of the "parasites' world." Subject Delta is able to listen to Ryan's voice booming over the presentations there. The relationship between Ryan and his political opponent, Sofia Lamb, is also detailed throughout the game.

The achievement/trophy "9 Irony" involves the player destroying the head of an Andrew Ryan mannequin model in Ryan Amusements with a golf club using Telekinesis; this action is an obvious reference to Ryan's death in the first game, and maybe a nod to the "Irony" secret achievement received for taking a picture of Sander Cohen's corpse in the original BioShock. Ryan is also referred to in Brute Splicer dialogue.

During the prologue cutscene at the start of the single player campaign (set on December 31, 1958) Ryan can briefly be seen on television screens, offering a toast to the new year while Subject Delta takes Eleanor Lamb out to gather ADAM. This same video is also seen at the beginning of BioShock 2 Multiplayer.

Minerva's Den
In BioShock 2's downloadable content, it is revealed that Ryan employed Charles Milton Porter and Reed Wahl to create Rapture Central Computing and build the Thinker. In Audio Diaries, he initially congratulates Porter on his success, but as time passed, Ryan grew suspicious of him. While Frank Fontaine rose to power, Ryan's concern grew; since Fontaine had also shown an interest in the computing business. This inspired Wahl to use The Thinker to produce a false recording, in which Porter claimed to support Fontaine to convince Ryan that he had defected to his rival. Ryan had Porter arrested and incarcerated in Persephone for his "crime," leaving Wahl in control of Minerva's Den, and so Rapture Central Computing and the Thinker.

BioShock 2 Multiplayer
When the player first starts the game from their apartment, a prologue will start featuring Ryan broadcast live on a television, stating his disappointment in the past year, and ringing in New Year 1959. Moments later, the events within the Kashmir Restaurant occur. The final cutscene ties in with the beginning of BioShock, with Ryan setting the remaining citizens against whoever survived from the plane crash and made it into Rapture.

Main Game
Andrew Ryan is not seen in this game, though his name is seen on picket signs when Elizabeth opens a portal to Rapture and both her, Booker DeWitt, and Songbird are transported to the Bathysphere Station at the Welcome Center. Those signs were already present in the original iteration of this place in BioShock.

Burial at Sea - Episode 1
While this first episode depicts Rapture in its full glory, Andrew Ryan is not seen in person. His actions regarding Frank Fontaine and the imprisonment of his followers in Fontaine's are the subject of debate among the populace, as they prepare to celebrate the coming of the 1959 new year. His speech, originally heard in snippets during BioShock, can be heard over the public address system in its entirety.

Burial at Sea - Episode 2


Andrew Ryan appears in Burial at Sea - Episode 2 through security monitors. He reveals himself after Elizabeth sends the hair sample to Suchong. Inexplicably, he knows of Elizabeth's presence in the city of Rapture, and that she's been working to help Atlas escape Fontaine's Department Store. He's also learned that Atlas' army will be trouble, and sends Ryan Security to Fontaine's in order to eliminate the threat. Ryan attempts to persuade Elizabeth to work alongside Ryan Industries or die with the rebels. When Elizabeth refuses his ultimatum, Ryan calls her a rube and sends his oncoming forces on her as well.

Later, as Elizabeth takes the elevator in the Manta Ray Lounge to place the Lutece Particle in Fontaine's office, Ryan makes one final attempt to convince her to stop. He states that Atlas cannot be trusted, and remarks on Elizabeth's otherworldly origin, unique abilities and intelligence and how they'll be wasted when Atlas turns on her. Elizabeth, however, is well aware Atlas will betray her, and argues that Ryan hardly makes a better ally.

Audio Diaries
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 * width="50%" |

BioShock

 * Medical Pavilion
 * Parasite Expectations
 * Vandalism
 * Neptune's Bounty
 * Fontaine Must Go
 * Watch Fontaine
 * Death Penalty in Rapture
 * Working Late Again
 * Arcadia
 * The Market is Patient
 * Offer a Better Product
 * The Great Chain
 * Farmer's Market
 * Pulling Together
 * Desperate Times
 * First Encounter
 * Hephaestus
 * A Man or a Parasite
 * Impossible Anywhere Else
 * Great Chain Moves Slowly
 * Point Prometheus
 * Marketing Gold
 * Mistakes
 * Removed Audio Diary
 * Congregations

Burial at Sea - Episode 2

 * Housewares
 * Building the Impossible!

Main Game

 * Adonis Luxury Resort
 * Generation
 * Atlantic Express
 * The Great Chain Rattles
 * Ryan Amusements
 * Lamb the Problem, Sinclair the Solution
 * Efficacy
 * Pauper's Drop
 * Pauper's Drop
 * Siren Alley
 * Bury Her Memory
 * Dionysus Park
 * Lamb's Time is Over
 * Lamb's Idea of Art
 * Fontaine Futuristics
 * Alone at Last
 * Betrayal
 * Inner Persephone
 * A Stratagem for Sinclair
 * Cult of Rapture
 * Sinclair Solutions

Minerva's Den

 * Minerva's Den
 * Your Link of the Chain
 * Attracting the Looters
 * Operations
 * The Man and the Machine
 * Porter's Legacy
 * Removed Audio Diaries
 * A New Patient?
 * A New Patient? (Alternate)
 * Threats
 * Threats (Alternate)
 * Treason
 * }

Behind the Scenes

 * Andrew Ryan's actions are heavily based on those of the character John Galt from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, though their end results are drastically different.
 * Ryan's actions (burning an entire forest down when the government nationalized it and then isolating himself from the rest of the world) closely mirrors that of another character in the novel, Ellis Wyatt, who burnt down his oil fields and retreated to Galt's Gulch.
 * Project X in the same novel is similar to the atom bomb, as both were applications of science for destructive purpose: Project X was created to "preserve peace" and "squash rebellion," QED oppress and punish those who disagreed with the government.
 * The term "looters" was used often in the novel in the same sense as "parasites" was used by Andrew Ryan in BioShock, both describing either those who take the unearned by force or receive the unearned as alms from big government.
 * Andrew Ryan's name is based off Ayn Rand's. His name is simply an anagram of "We R Ayn Rand." Additionally, his political philosophies and personal history are very similar to hers: they were both born in Russia and emigrated to America after their home country adopted a Communist regime, and both believed in the philosophy of Objectivism.
 * Andrew Ryan was not only based of Ayn Rand, but other historical figures as well, like famous businessman Howard Hughes.
 * Ryan is one of the three people in the first game with unique character models, the other two being Sander Cohen and late-game Frank Fontaine.
 * Considering Ryan's "normal-looking" appearance in comparison to the splicers of the game, it is unlikely that he was ever an ADAM user, or at least wasn't addicted to and mutated by it.
 * Unlike other NPCs, Andrew Ryan's corpse cannot be interacted with whatsoever; it cannot be looted, burnt, frozen, beaten, or lifted with telekinesis, and hornets will completely ignore it.
 * Andrew Ryan was listed under The 30 Characters Who Defined a Decade in Game Informer issue 12, 2010. In a group portrait of all 30 characters, he can be seen skulking in the shadows with the phrase "Would you Kindly?" written in blood on the wall next to him.
 * In BioShock Andrew Ryan has blue/gray eyes, while in BioShock 2, he has brown eyes.
 * Andrew Ryan has been given an updated character model in BioShock: The Collection. The animation for his death scene was also improved.