Persephone

The level Persephone is host to the Persephone Penal Colony, as the level name implies. It is basically the gulag of Rapture, a political prison constructed by Augustus Sinclair as a favor to Andrew Ryan. It spans over two levels in BioShock 2, Persephone Outer and Inner Persephone. The prison is suspended over a deep trench on the outskirts of the city, and built so that it can disengage from the city and fall into the trench in the event of a serious breakout threatening the city.

Life in Persephone is much harsher even before the war as most were imprisoned without due process. Many of the prisoners were victims of splicing experiments, causing a suicide rate that turned sky-high. By the time Subject Delta arrives, the splicers are weak and most won't even attack the player.

Persephone Outer
Persephone Outer is the eighth level of Bioshock 2. It is preceded by Fontaine Futuristics, and is followed by Inner Persephone. After getting Gil Alexander's genetic key, and entering it into a false oxygen station, Subject Delta unlocks a hidden elevator which takes him to the confines of Persephone Outer. The objective is to save Eleanor Lamb.

After fighting three Big Sisters, Subject Delta reaches the Quarantine Room where Eleanor Lamb is being held. But he is suddenly halted as Sofia Lamb keeps the other door in front of him shut, while she speaks of Eleanor taking every action of the protagonist as "Gospel", until she finally says "Forgive me.", grabs the pillow from below a sleeping Eleanor Lamb, and smothers her with it until her heart stops long enough for the protagionist's bond with her to end completely.

Once Subject Delta reawakens, he finds himself restrained and left to die. As Eleanor explains what has happened, a Little Sister appears and injects Delta with a solution that allows him to control the girl. He sees Rapture through her eyes, as a beautiful place of grandeur. Eleanor then orders the Little Sister first to slip behind her mother and turn off the locking system, then to find a Big Sister suit for her. Eventually, the protagonist finds all three pieces and gives them to Eleanor, who subsequently rescues the Little Sister, (or harvests, depending on the way the player has been acting) thereby transferring Deltas consciousness back to his old body.

Once Delta reawakens, he sees Eleanor in her new Big Sister suit kill a Brute Splicer and cut Delta out of his restraints. Then Eleanor gives Delta a special plasmid called "Summon Eleanor" so that she can be called into battle when necessary. Delta leaves the room with Eleanor and goes through a barrage of many different splicers to reach the atrium into Inner Persephone.

Inner Persephone
Inner Persephone is the ninth and final level of Bioshock 2, following Outer Persephone. Subject Delta and Eleanor seek to board a large spherical lifeboat that Augustus Sinclair had docked next to Persephone in case he had to flee the facility quickly. But unfortunately Sofia Lamb has locked it down. They need the key from Sinclair, but Lamb has captured him and turned him into an Alpha Protector, leaving him with his consciousness and vocal power intact but his body remotely controlled by Lamb, which means that Subject Delta has to forcefully kill him (at his request) to get the key. Then Lamb dumps the boat's ballast into the docking area, making it unable to disengage. Eleanor comes up with an idea to use the energy of both herself and the captive Little Sisters in the Therapy area to boil the ballast water away. Subject Delta has to clear two nursery areas of splicers and Alpha Protectors, so that Eleanor can gather the children. Then, Delta has to flood the docking control room, by blasting out two pipes, to equalize the pressure between the dock and the ocean. Finally, Delta and Eleanor flee to board the boat, but run into a pile of explosives.

At this point, the final cutscenes begin.

Secret Room
There is a locked room in the Therapy section of Persephone. The door code is not found in any audio entry. Instead you must solve a puzzle to figure out the code.

The clues are: Brown legs, Red mouths, Blue arms, Green eyes. The clues refer to the paintings on the wall in front of the victim near the lock: Brown legs (of a deer), red mouths (of a screaming man), blue arms (of two drowned victims), green eyes (of a group of three doctors). The answer is 4-1-4-6

Trivia
Persephone was named after the daughter of Demeter, Greek goddess of the corn, who was kidnapped by Hades, lord of the underworld, to be his queen. To prevent Demeter's search for her daughter from driving humanity to starvation, Hades agreed to let Persephone visit with her mother six months out of the year, in spring and summer, while ruling with him the rest of the year, in fall and winter. Similarly, Sofia Lamb took Eleanor from Subject Delta, and he rescued her to prevent Rapture from ultimately collapsing.


 * Persephone at Wikipedia