User blog comment:Pawn of Atlas/Important Discussion for Rapture Storyline page/@comment-75.36.142.227-20140329223049/@comment-867628-20140402204359


 * Jack arrived in 1960. We know this because--spoilers--the very first line we see in Bioshock reads "1960, Over the Atlantic Ocean".


 * No, the war technically ended when Ryan followed Suchong's suggestion to modify the Plasmids with pheromones. This effectively allowed Ryan to gain total control over the Splicers (and as a result, the entire city).  Thus, Jack arrives in a Rapture no longer besieged by civil war, but still filled with crazed, bloodthirsty Splicers.
 * Knowing Fontaine, it's likely he began planning his role as Atlas very quickly after his "death"; I'd imagine a series of synchronized attacks all around Rapture on the very same day would take some time to plan (going by the Audio Diary in Bioshock 2 detailing an attack on Ryan Amusements).


 * Because the pheromone suggestion was essentially the total denouncement of Ryan's core belief (free will), I'd imagine that it took place very late in the war; Ryan only very reluctantly agreed to this, as it went against the very philosophies and ideals upon which Rapture was originally built.


 * We don't necessarily need to know every little detail; the laws against "public congregations of more than four persons", the curfews, as well as the laws against approaching Little Sisters were likely all wartime policies instilled after the attack on the Kashmir and during the civil war. We see that there's been severe structural damage to Rapture, but we don't really need to know exactly when a tunnel flooded or collapsed; we just know it happened because of the war or due to careless maintenance.  From all accounts, Rapture really began to fall apart in the 1958-1959 period.  It was the downward spiral to which all the events beforehand (such as the economic struggle between Ryan and Fontaine) had been leading up.


 * 'Nationalization' is a term, referring to a governing body taking control of a private business, which is essentially what Ryan did with Fontaine Futuristics. If you don't agree with the wording, take it up with Levine; that's the word McDonagh uses in his Audio Diary.


 * Fontaine Fisheries was most certainly not up and running; by the time Jack reaches Neptune's Bounty there are bodies strewn all over the docks. Just because Peach Wilkins had taken it over doesn't mean he was legally in charge of it; during the war the entire city was in chaos, and since Ryan likely had no real interest in a fish-processing plant (which was only a front for Fontaine's real business of smuggling anyway), it would have easily fallen into the hands of Splicers.  Or maybe Fontaine just left it to Peach, knowing that Atlas wouldn't be coming back to it.  Also, outside of Tenenbaum and Suchong, to which employees are you referring?  Perhaps Ryan did retain much of Fontaine's staff, but as seen with Suchong, at that point Ryan was already going over to the dark side.  Despite the fact that Suchong had helped work on turning little girls into monsters, Ryan still valued the 'business' of producing ADAM, especially when he realized that a good majority of Rapture had become Splicers.


 * I'd argue that much of the storyline is rather coherent and easy to understand once you learn about the characters' beliefs and personalities and analyze what kind of society Rapture was.