Andrew Ryan

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



Andrew Ryan (voiced by Armin Shimerman) is the founder of Rapture and the owner of Ryan Industries. He is the main antagonist throughout most of BioShock. He only appears in person in the Rapture Central Control level.

History
Ryan was born Andrei Rianofski in Minsk in 1892 to a rich family that were important figures in the Russian government. As a result he was witness to the murder of his entire family by Communist rebels in 1918. He was then sent to a work camp in the Gulag until he escaped in 1919.

His experiences under Soviet rule led Andrew Ryan to his personal philosophy: the modern world was created by great men who strove to make their own way. Anytime "parasites" gained control of such a world, they destroyed it. After his escape from Russia, he traveled to Britain where he enrolled as a student at Oxford University. He emigrated to America in 1927, believing it is a place where a great man could prosper.

For a time, he was devoted to his adopted country, grateful for the wealth and fame it awarded his intellect and determination. It was there he founded Ryan Industries, a manufacturer of steel products and weapons. In the stock market crash of 1929 Ryan was barely affected. In 1932 he was named by "Life magazine" as the youngest billionaire in the country.

However, the social programs adopted in the 30s increasingly tested that devotion. His experiences in the "worker's paradise" made Ryan despise the ideals of Socialism, believing that those who benefited from others were "parasites." In his mind, one could only own what one earned. For instance, he once owned a large forest as a personal retreat, one that many groups envied (one of them saying that it "belonged to God" as Andrew Ryan put it). Eventually, the government attempted to nationalize it as parkland. His response, before surrendering it, was to burn it to the ground, thus keeping the "parasites" from taking what was his.

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.

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 not be constrained by the small," in the only place he felt the "parasites" could not touch — the depths of the Atlantic ocean. He used his company called Warden Yarn on the surface to order metal for his city. Meltzer hinted for a yarn company that was a lot of metal. Ryan filled his city with several thousand of the world's best and brightest, and for a time, it was everything he dreamed it would be, a paradise of freedom and wealth.

There was only one flaw in his plan: the reason he built the city in the first place. To keep Rapture safely hidden from the "parasites", he strictly forbade contact with the surface, inadvertently creating a market for smuggled goods, which in turn led to the rise of the one thing Ryan had been unable to imagine — a brilliant and determined man for whom freedom, wealth and comfort were not enough. A man who could only be satisfied by control — former mobster Frank Fontaine.

Fontaine's life prior to becoming a citizen of Rapture provided the skills that allowed him to dominate the small black market in smuggled goods the city's forced isolation made possible. The wealth gleaned from that small black market funded Bridgette Tenenbaum's research into a mysterious sea slug, making him the primary distributor of ADAM. As Rapture was completely isolated from the surface world, few were aware of the chaos of the post-WWII reconstruction era, and Fontaine was easily able to sway the lower classes with promises of revolution. With black-market wealth, ADAM-based biotech, and duplicitous propaganda, it took him less than three years to acquire the power to challenge Ryan openly.

The idealistic Ryan was totally unprepared for the brutality of armed conflict as opposed to the genteel honor of economic competition. As Rapture fell into chaos due to the machinations of first Fontaine and later Atlas, he grew ever more desperate in his efforts to protect his utopia. Out of obsession with his enemy, he became his enemy.

His war with Fontaine put paid to the freedoms which made his city prosper. His decision to alter plasmids so he could control their users with pheremones reduced its population to slaves. Eventually, he abandoned each of his ideals until he was nothing more than a tyrant spouting monologues of self-determination while smiting his enemies like a spoiled god.

He became one of the very "parasites" he had built Rapture as a sanctuary from, and he was destroying it — just like he believed all "parasites" did to great things. This is the state of affairs in which Jack finds the city at the beginning of BioShock.

Ryan is an ever-present voice while Jack travels through Rapture. Although Frank Fontaine set Jack on his journey to kill Ryan using the would you kindly trigger phrase, Ryan knew exactly what was occurring.

When he laid eyes on Jack, however, he instantly recognized him as the son he might have had with Jasmine Jolene, had she not sold him before he was born. His own flesh and blood, reduced to a puppet, was the ultimate insult this world could have given him. Looking at his life and his works, now all in ruin — by his own hand as much as his enemies' — he decided to die as he had lived: on his own terms, by setting Rapture's self-destruct mechanism.

Minutes later, Ryan is confronted by Jack. With the trigger phrase, he could have controlled Jack as Atlas did, and directed him against his enemy. Instead, he educates Jack about his true self while calmly putting golf balls into a shot glass, telling him of his birth, his conditioning, his experiences in Rapture - and the phrase would you kindly, which controlled his every action. He tells his son that it is not money or power that make people great, but that "A man chooses, a slave obeys". He then hands his son the club.

And orders him to kill him. Jack obeys. As he batters his father to death, Andrew Ryan seems to plead to his son that, "a man chooses, a slave obeys." But Jack has no choice but to shatter his father's skull with the broken club and claim Atlas' prize - the genetic key to Rapture's systems.

On the way to the controls, Jack notices a Vita-Chamber - a deactivated chamber. Rather than fleeing or doing battle with Jack, Ryan had shut it down, to prevent the device from resurrecting him, before confronting his son for the first and last time - Andrew Ryan, industrialist, inventor, and father, was irreversibly dead at age 68.

There are a number of theories as to the motivations for Ryan's assisted suicide.

Some say that with his city and his dreams in ruins, Andrew Ryan lacked the courage to live in a world not under his own control, and instead chooses permanent death; this is ironic in that Ryan, who has not hesitated to murder others for his own ends, cannot find the fortitude to commit the final act himself, instead relying upon Jack to do it for him.

Others say that Andrew Ryan saw this as his only chance to be a father to his son; to teach him to be a man, not a slave. He ordered Jack to kill him to demonstrate that a man chooses his own destiny; that he, a man, would not be controlled. If the conditioning could be broken, this challenge was the only way he could imagine to make the attempt. And if the attempt led to his death, perhaps that might accomplish what the challenge could not. By deactivating the Vita-Chamber he could demonstrate to Jack that he would rather die than live as a slave to Atlas's whims. If this is the case, he succeeded; Jack immediately sets out to free himself from Atlas' control, and ultimately avenges his father by slaying Fontaine.

Bioshock 2
In Bioshock 2, 2k Marin announced that Andrew Ryan is indeed deceased after Jack killed him in Hephaestus and will not be making another appearence in the sequel. However, you can still hear Ryan's recorded announcements throughout Rapture and in his audio diaries.

Andrew Ryan introduction
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"I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

'No,' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No,' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.' 'No,' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.'

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...

Rapture.

A city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great will not be constrained by the small.

And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city, as well."

- Andrew Ryan

Audio Diaries

 * 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 Diaries
 * Congregations

Trivia

 * Andrew Ryan is heavily based on the character, John Galt, from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Their political philosophies are identical, and they both broke away from the world because of their views on "parasites". Andrew Ryan's name is an anagram of Ayn Rand, with the letters REW added in. References to John Galt can also be seen through the course of BioShock, such as the phrase "Who is Atlas?", which is a mock-up of "Who is John Galt?", Atlas Shrugged catch-phrase.
 * In his office, as aforementioned, Ryan has turned off the Vita Chamber which could have otherwise resurrected him. However, there is a glitch which turns it on without so much as touching it; after you have killed him and put the genetic key into the slot, wait until the locked door opens and the alarm begins to sound. When the Little Sisters appear, don't follow them, but instead allow the Security Bots to kill you. You will then respawn in the previously deactivated Vita Chamber.
 * His appearance is very similar to that of actor Vincent Price (especially on the Audio-Diary portrait)
 * His appearance and voice also evoke actor Orson Welles as he appeared in the film Citizen Kane, a movie that centers on a powerful press magnate who ultimately alienates everyone close to him do to his hubris and ego and finds himself alone and isolated in his decaying palace full of beautiful artworks.
 * Despite despising and hating both Fontaine and Atlas, he never pieces it together that they are the same person.
 * Ryan's destroying Rapture is reminiscent from d'Anconia's, from Atlas Shrugged, worthless San Sebastian mine, in that the effort he put into it was considerably outweighed by the effort the 'Looters' put in to exploit it. Eg: while Ryan invested a sizable portion of his life in building Rapture it was only his life. Fontaine/Atlas invested not only his own life but also the lives of Jack, Jasmine, Langford, Wilkins and countless others in seizing control, and summarily got very little for their pains(Fontaine's capture of Rapture was short lived and ultimately ended with his death).
 * Also Ryan can be seen to resemble d'Anconia', as he is willing to compromise his principles to defeat the 'Looter' enemy which cannot be otherwise defeated. Perhaps he did have some grand plan to defeat Atlas and return victorious, perhaps his plan was Jack, a living metaphor for Ryan himself; he that was controlled by his foes into unspeakable acts, does himself defeat his foes by sheer resolve and will power.
 * He is also prone to favoritism, doting on those who side with him, so much so that he has subdivided Rapture and given two of his subordinates Sander Cohen and J.S. Steinman complete control over their respective sectors.
 * By some interpretations of what he says he appears to be a hypocrite. However Objectivism as a whole justifies much of what he says and does. That not withstanding though much of what he says and does towards the end, chronologically, contradicts what he says in the early days:
 * For example in his speech he states, "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow." When Fontaine proves to be more businesses savvy, he orders him to be killed and nationalizes his company. This is, however, only after allowing Fontaine to amass his fortunes. It is only when Fontaine shows real threat of becoming a tyrant. As shown by his recordings in Arcadia; e.g. 'Offer a better product'. It is also with the complete knowledge that Fontaine is a 'Looter'(See Atlas Shrugged).
 * He also says, "Where the great would not be confined by the small." But almost immediately he begins making rules and regulations, which suit him best, allowing him to control the population of rapture. This spate of rules are, however, limited to only one rule 'No Contact with the Surface', which is later expanded into Smuggling and then into the war on Fontaine. But fundamentally Ryan is the 'greatest' because he built Rapture and he is not 'confined' by the 'small' because he does not take their views into consideration, as shown by 'Arresting Fontaine'.
 * Ryan even goes as far as charging admission for Arcadia and selling oxygen. Both of these are, however, perfectly acceptable parts of the Objectivist philosophy and, indeed, fit with his policy of burning his above water forest rather than let 'the rabble' 'stand slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise earned.' Additionally Arcadia, doubtlessly, took a great deal of investment on Ryan's part, and to merely provide it as a free service because it is required makes as much sense as providing free electricity when it costs you money to buy the coal to burn.
 * Furthermore he states "No Gods or Kings only Man," and in his speech "Where the scientist would not be constrained by petty morality," yet he expresses shock, when he discovers Jasmine Jolene sold his son's embryo. This manifests a murderous rage and he beats her to death with a pipe. Though this could just as easily be seen as betraying him, selling out his 'property'. Additionally petty morality is morality which stands in the way of progress, not morality in general. As McDonagh, Sullivan and Tenenbaum show morality is not something to be abandoned but an integral part of Objectivism; it defines what takes you forward and what holds you back; i.e. Selling your child, your ticket to immortality, will definitely hold you back.
 * He says "Where the artist would not fear the censor," but orders Sullivan to assassinate Anna Culpepper after she insulted Sander Cohen by releasing her song, "Ryan's Songbird".
 * He also claims to have made Rapture a place where "The great would not be confined by the small." Yet he fanatically tries to remain in power doing things from placing a bounty on Jack's head, to sending hordes of splicers after him to even gassing Julie Langford and even trying to suffocate Jack by destroying Arcadia. Finally, he went so far as to try to blow Rapture up to prevent Atlas from seizing control. Though it could be argued that placing a bounty on Jack's head was simply pest control, preventing the 'CIA' or 'KGB' 'Looters' from invading Rapture. Additionally, Arcadia and Rapture are both, fundamentally, his; to do with what he wishes. If he so chooses to throw his entire oxygen producing capacity, and later the entire city, behind destroying a single rogue operator then that is his choice. Choice being the very foundation of Objectivism.