Imprinting Studies

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The Imprinting Studies are a set of locations in the Fink MFG Research Laboratories of the Factory. In this series of laboratories, different scientific experiments were performed on animals in an attempt to learn how to make the Songbird imprint on a young girl.

Burial at Sea - Episode 2

Main article: Burial at Sea - Episode 2

Elizabeth has to venture here to retrieve a Hair Sample for Yi Suchong.

Entrance

Elizabeth enters this area by walking through the quarantined checkpoint from the Fink MFG Research Laboratories Hub or through a vent from the Surgical Suite. The area was used as an alternate entrance for workers and import/export dock. A turret is set in the center, which gunned down Vox Populi trying the enter, leaving their barge unattended. The entrance main entrance to the Imprinting Studies is inaccessible closed, as well ass the quarantine checkpoint office. Elizabeth has to board the Vox Populi barge and with the help of some Freight Hooks she finds an alternate entrance to the facility: Through broken windows to the Observation and Engineering department.

Once Elizabeth returns with the hair sample, the turret has been destroyed and the quarantine checkpoint office is open.

Observation & Engineering

The Observation and Engineering department was used to study the Big Daddies from Rapture, to further develop the Songbird. This was achieved by observing Tears to Rapture, as well as input from Rapture scientist Dr. Suchong through Jeremiah Fink. Elizabeth enters through the broken window and sees a two miniature models of the Big Daddy and Songbird in a display case in the center of the office. Surrounding the models are several drawing boards with sketches of Big Daddies. Further on is a room with a projector, showing a film of a Bouncer Big Daddy seen through a Tear. Elizabeth puts two and two together and realizes the similarity between the two pairings from the respective universes: Big Daddies and Little Sisters, and the Songbird and herself. Elizabeth continues through a door labeled as "Test Subject Inventory".

Test Subject Inventory

The Test Subject Inventory, as the name implies, was were the test subjects for imprinting tests were stored, in this case: dogs. The room is filled with dog crates stacked upon each other in a neat order. No sound of living canines can be heard as the Imprinting Studies being long abandoned. There is a phial of Salts and a Tranquilizer Bolt, but nothing more for Elizabeth as she continuous on through a door heading down stairs and then entering a door labeled as Imprinting Studies.

Imprinting Studies

The Imprinting Studies was a lab were the main tests for the said subject was performed. Elizabeth enters and and is faced with a chamber holding a a large dead gorilla. Elizabeth pulls a lever in front of the chamber and a floor panel opens, revealing a figure in the shape of a small girl made out of wires, wearing a dress and bow. Elizabeth explains to Booker that this is a wire mother, which Fink attempted to get the gorilla to imprint on. Elizabeth walks ahead and spots another chamber with a dead dog hocked to the face with a tube linked to a tank labeled "oxytocin". Pulling the lever will display the use of the oxytocin gas. Further on Elizabeth finds a note with the skeletal formula for oxytocin, which reveals that this was not a suitable vector for bonding Elizabeth and the Songbird.

Elizabeth enters the next room and is met with the sight of tanks filled with an abundance with dead dogs, drowned by filling the tanks with water, as they failed the imprinting tests. Elizabeth feels sympathy for the dogs, but continuous on.

As Elizabeth enters the next room, she is confused by the sight of a chalkboard reading Imprinting: Failed, knowing that the Songbird did imprint on her. She then sees a what appears to be a Songbird prototype, hanging from the ceiling and watching a projection of a propaganda film, while measurements are being made on it. Further on is a document showcasing the gruesome results of trying to use hypnotherapy on the Songbird. With no other exit than an air vent Elizabeth goes through and enter a dark room with a projector.

Playing the projector, shows a film of the aftermath of the Songbird crashing into Monument Tower, with a young Elizabeth finding the scene. Songbird was injured by the crash and the oxygen tube of the Songbird came loose, causing him to be deprived of air. Elizbeth panics and tries to help him, she manages to reconnect the oxygen tube and save the Songbird. This proved to be the imprinting bond that the Fink tried to achieve: empathy. Elizabeth finds a drawer with a sign reading Subject's Personal Effects above it. Here Elizabeth finds the hair sample along with several of her personal belongings from when she was a child. The room is connected to a security office, where Elizabeth finds a switch to open the quarantine and manages to open every locked door caused by the said quarantine.

Imprinting Studies Hub

After lifting the quarantine, Elizabeth enters the main hub of the facility. The hub was used by scientists to easily access each section of the facility as the hub is connected to each one. Elizabeth was not the only one who gained access to the hub, as Vox Populi solders enters as well. Elizabeth can deal with them any means she want and leaves the Imprinting Studies through the now unlocked entrance.

New Discoveries

Single Use Events

• Hair Sample

Voxophone

1. Jeremiah Fink - Table Scraps - In the of the quarantine checkpoint office by the entrance (only obtainable after lifting the quarantine).

Gallery

Concept art and Models

Protectors display concept.

Gorilla hermetic chamber concept.

Dog hermetic chamber concept.

Concept idea for a hermetic chamber with pigs.

Gorilla model.

Dog models.

Untextured dog models.

Untextured model render of the Songbird prototype.

Fink's sketches based on Big Daddies seen through Tears.

Fink's sketches based on Big Daddies seen through Tears.

The oxytocin note.

The status notes on the tanks with dead dogs.

The status notes on the tanks with dead dogs.

Imprinting: Failed chalkboard.

Review of all Biomarkers chalkboard.

The Hypnotherapy note.

"Subject's Personal Effects" sign.

The quarantine control sign.

In-Game Images

An experimental gorilla.

The abandoned Test Subject Inventory.

The failed oxytocin test.

Dogs who have been left to their fate.

A Big Daddy observed through a tear.

The Prototype of Songbird.

Watching the same film over, over and over again.

This doesn't suit well.

Studying Big Daddies to help build Songbird.

Replicas of the Bouncer Big Daddy and the Songbird.

Elizabeth and the Songbird bonding.

The "subject's personal effects", including the hair sample.

Behind the Scenes

• The concept of "imprinting" derives from the historic behavioral experiments of biologist and ethologist Konrad Lorenz upon geese. The "mystery" of imprinting - and the interrelated possibility of cross-species moral empathy - constitutes a narrative key point of pathos in the BioShock series.
• The shackled gorilla refers to the famous "wire mother" study introduced by Harry Harlow in the 1950s. Infant primates were raised with surrogate wire and cloth mothers to observe developmental behavior.
  • The study was previously referenced by Rosalind Lutece in her A Better Father Voxophone.
• The hermetic chambers and protectors display concepts were done by Robb Waters. The in-game models for the gorilla, dogs and Songbird prototype were made by Peter Anderson.