Frank Fontaine



"This Fontaine fellow is somebody to watch. Once, he was just a menace, to be convicted and hung. But he always manages to be where the evidence isn't. He's the most dangerous type of hoodlum... the kind with vision."

- Andrew Ryan

Frank Fontaine, is one of the primary antagonists in BioShock. He is a criminal mastermind, the arch-enemy of Andrew Ryan, and the leader of the opposition in the power struggle which led to Rapture's collapse. He speaks with a coarse, thick Bronx accent.

History
Fontaine had been around in Rapture for 12 years, making his arrival sometime in 1948. He was originally the owner of Fontaine Fisheries, but Fontaine soon expanded his income by creating a smuggling ring, bringing high demand, contraband items into Rapture. Fontaine was a conman who loved nothing more than the power of a good grift. He was known to regularly disguise himself as various people to accomplish criminal activities that he would not normally get away with. One of these is mentioned by Fontaine himself after revealing himself "Hell, once I was even a Chinaman for six months!".

Fontaine's smugglers were the first to discover the sea slugs which naturally produce ADAM. When Brigid Tenenbaum came to Fontaine with a proposal that he fund her genetic research regarding this substance, Fontaine quickly saw the business possibilities in the endeavor. Fontaine soon set up his business monopoly, Fontaine Futuristics, employing Tenenbaum and Dr. Suchong to research and develop Plasmids and Gene Tonics. When Tenenbaum informed him that they would need little girls in order to mass produce ADAM Fontaine created the Little Sister's Orphanage, pretending it was charity out of the goodness of his heart. In reality it was just a front to get parents to willingly give up their children to be turned into Little Sisters. Fontaine also created the Fontaine's Home for the Poor, which provided for the increasing number of destitute citizens who were victims of Ryan's free market policy. Fontaine mainly used these charity angles to boost his own public image in opposition to Ryan's.

Andrew Ryan at first observed Fontaine's rise to power with pride, as the opportunity for determined men to better themselves in this manner was exactly what he built Rapture to ensure. However, when he discovered the criminal arm of Fontaine's enterprises, the smuggling operations, he began to see Fontaine as a threat, as such activity might reveal the location of Rapture to surface-dwellers. Ryan also began to fear the greater power that Fontaine was gaining over the city of Rapture, as Fontaine's monopoly competed with his own. Ryan instructed Security Chief Sullivan to crack down on the smuggling ring, employing increasingly severe measures to find a connection to Frank Fontaine.

Facing growing pressure from Ryan, Fontaine engineered, as a back-up plan, an elaborate scheme to take control of Rapture. After acquiring Jack, the illegitimate son of Ryan himself, he instructed Suchong to brainwash, train, and artificially age the child, creating an obedient assassin whom he sent to the surface as a sleeper agent.

In 1958, Fontaine apparently died in a shootout with Ryan's men, sealing himself the status of a martyr to those who did not know his true nature. In reality he faked his death, hoping to stir up discontent among the lower classes and give Ryan the false hope that his nemesis was dead. He reemerged as Atlas, a fisherman, proletariat hero and family man. His original voice remained, covered for with a heavy Irish accent. He then charismatically charmed the mob as a humble freedom fighter, while setting the stage for the Civil War which would tear Rapture apart. Originally hoping for victory in this genetic arms race, "Atlas" soon found himself trapped in Rapture, with Ryan in control of the bathyspheres and the splicers through his pheromone systems. With no other way out, "Atlas" activated his sleeper agent, Jack.

BioShock
While posing as Atlas, Fontaine never allowed Jack to see him, except for the brief moment during Atlas' "family" execution. After Andrew Ryan's death, he finally revealed his true persona. Fontaine reveals that his ultimate goal was not simply to conquer Rapture, but to use it and the ADAM technology to extend his power to the surface and become an industry tycoon.

After Jack frees himself from the effects of the mind control, he finally comes face-to-face with Fontaine in Point Prometheus, where he is already spliced up, displaying inhuman strength by hurling a massive iron girder. Fontaine hesitates to fight Jack, however, fearing that Jack would defeat him, so he barricades himself in Point Prometheus and starts splicing himself soon after, saying that he had never tasted ADAM before then, but now he cannot get enough. He straps himself into a machine that pumps all the ADAM (which the Little Sisters have collected) into him. He starts taunting Jack, proclaiming that no one can stop him, as he is too powerful.

When Jack finally reaches Fontaine, he has already spliced himself into a hulking, statuesque monster with three different major plasmid elements. During the battle, Jack extracts the ADAM out of him with a Little Sister's needle until finaly he is weakened enough that he is ambushed and killed by a swarm of Little Sisters who stab Fontaine multiple times with their needles, draining him of the remaining ADAM in his body.

In his death, Fontaine illustrates Brigid Tenenbaum's realization that excessive ADAM use forces the body into dependency. The ambiguous expression "Keep back the tide" is shown to mean a not only mental but physical degeneration when the body's dependency is denied. Without ADAM, Fontaine's enhanced body simply could not survive.

Hard Difficulty

 * 1) Grab the needle from the Little Sister to the right of elevator. There may be a glitch if you leave the level to get more money and ammo and you return and Little Sister is not holding the needle.
 * 2) Before you save, make sure all weapons are full. If you don't have enough money to buy the full amount go back to other levels to kill Splicers and Big Daddies for it.
 * 3) Save before you enter the elevator. If you die press load game so you reload at the elevator or you might press continue. the best way to kill him is use incinerate! or freeze him and hit him with a wrench
 * 4) Before you press the button for the elevator to go, select Telekinesis and Grenade Launcher.
 * 5) Press the elevator button.
 * 6) Set traps before you stick Fontaine with the needle, when you first arrive you have all the time you need to set traps.

Traps

 * Pressure gas tanks.
 * Steel drums.
 * Gasoline on the floor in random places.
 * Proximity Mines.

Placement

 * When Fontaine knocks you down and jumps to the floor you should place Proximity Mines and pressure tanks.
 * Set Proximity Mines and gas cans near any gasoline, but be aware if you are there when Fontaine sets them off. It will hurt you, but you can go through them without blowing yourself up.
 * Before you stick Fontaine with needle, select Winter Blast and Grenade Launcher with Heat-Seeking RPGs.

Survivor Difficulty

 * 1) Before you enter the elevator, make sure all weapons are full. If you don't have enough money to buy the full amount go back to other levels to kill Splicers and Big Daddies for it.
 * 2) Hack the Health Station. Go to the Gene Bank and equip Electric Flesh (both if you have), Frozen Field (both).
 * 3) Go around and get 4-5 pressure gas tanks or steel drums and place them down the stairs from the podium of Fontaine, right where the floor is wooden. Put 1 or 2 Proximity Mines there. Put several Proximity Mines just outside the elevator, this way you'll prevent the Splicers to enter the room on the later stages of battle.
 * 4) Prepare you Chemical Thrower with Electric Gel, and your Crossbow with steel-tip bolts or incendiary bolts. Set your plasmid to Incinerate!.
 * 5) Go and stick Fontaine with needle. He hits you back to elevator, and when jumps he will land on the trap. If you set it correctly it'll drain all his health.
 * 6) Go and stick him again. This time when he jumps burn him with plasmid and go to Bot Shutdown Panel to shut down the bots. Then use the Chemical Thrower until you have deployed all the Electric Gel. Now start hitting him with the crossbow. If you have equipped Frozen Field you just have to dodge his charge since the ice attacks won't hurt you too much.
 * 7) Go to the Health Station if you need. Set your Grenade Launcher with Heat-Seeking RPGs or Frag Grenades, the ones you handle better. Go and stick him again. Hit him till you drop all his health. If you're having problems while hitting him just use Winter Blast. If you have equipped Electric Flesh you won't have to worry for his electric attacks, just dodge him when charges.

BioShock 2


Even though Frank Fontaine is dead, his business Fontaine Futuristics is a level in BioShock 2, and he will feature in audio diaries. The player is able to explore his office, where there is an audio diary named "Goodbye to Fontaine", where he first became Atlas. There is also a large picture up on the wall of a man who looks like Fontaine standing next to a woman and a small boy, but it is unknown who they both are. The picture is entitled "The Fontaine Family," so it may be likely that the boy is Fontaine as a child, while the man and woman are his parents.

BioShock

 * Smuggler's Hideout
 * Kraut Scientist


 * Olympus Heights
 * Sad Saps


 * Apollo Square
 * The Longest Con

BioShock 2

 * Siren Alley
 * An Empty Niche


 * Dionysus Park
 * Falling Into Place


 * Fontaine Futuristics
 * Goodbye to Fontaine

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Trivia

 * Frank Fontaine mentions at one point that he used "nose candy and floor polish" (otherwise known as cocaine and heroin) in the past


 * Ken Levine stated at the 2008 GDC that Fontaine's name is not a reference to the Fountainhead.


 * Frank Fontaine, like several of the main characters, exhibits influences from Ayn Rand . The alias Atlas is clearly a reference to Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged . According to Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, the goal of a human being is rational self-interest: living for one's own happiness, success, and creativity, with as little interference as possible.


 * Fontaine came to Rapture with little or nothing, and built an empire by his own wits, a rags-to-riches story in the mold of Andrew Carnegie . Later on he becomes corrupted in his struggle for power. He also exposes Andrew Ryan to be, at his core, a tyrant: the very type of "God or King" which the red banner at Rapture's entrance claimed had no place there, winning considerable popular support by pointing out Ryan's hypocrisy. The flaws Ryan showed are however perhaps those that most collectivist thinking humans would have to protect an establishment from what they perceive as a threat. This way Ryan becomes the tyrant of Rapture who in trying to get rid of Fontaine takes away all of the freedom of its inhabitants.


 * Ken Levine has stated that the character of Frank Fontaine was partly inspired by Keyser Söze from the film "The Usual Suspects" . In the film, Keyser Söze is a crime lord whom every criminal is afraid of and described as a "boogeyman" like Fontaine is in Rapture. The scene where the police officer looks at the bulletin board and figures out who Keyser Söze actually is, also inspired the "Would you kindly" board in Ryan's office.


 * Fontaine is manipulative, duping the public for his own gain and ultimately dooming them to mutation, insanity and death. These traits are contrary to Rand's ethos, and he casts doubt even upon Objectivism itself in his correct observation that not everyone in Rapture can become wealthy and famous.


 * Fontaine's boss form is reminiscent of an Art Deco sculpture, such as Lee Lawrie's statue of atlas at the Rockefeller Center or the many sculptures around Rapture.


 * The FreshHair commercial from the public address announcements in Rapture seems to be a dig at Fontaine. The character complaining about being bald is called Frank, and he has a fear of splicing; Fontaine tells Jack in a radio message that he had not spliced previously because he "figured it was bad to mix business with pleasure."


 * 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.
 * An interesting fact is that there is an Irish tenor singer also by the name Frank Fontaine.