Rapture

An underwater "aerial" view of Rapture.

“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 would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

― Andrew Ryan

Rapture (also known as the North Atlantic Project and the Rapture Colony) is a massive underwater city forged from the personal dreams of Andrew Ryan to escape from the political, social and religious anxieties of a post-World War II world. It was first established on November 5, 1946, and construction of the city itself finished in late 1951. It is located at 63° 2' N, 29° 55' W, approximately 433 kilometers west of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland.

Rapture's Purpose

A memorial replica of Rapture's foundation on November 5th, 1946.

Main article: Society in Rapture

Andrew Ryan named his city after the goal he set in mind: To create a paradise free from all the people he saw as "Parasites", a place of true rapture.

In terms of its philosophical underpinnings, Rapture can best be described as a "gulch", (a term derived from Galt's Gulch in the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged), which is a localized underground economic and social community of free-minded individuals. It differs from a commune in that it is uniquely freedom-focused and so upholds individual and property rights rather than operating by the rules of a collective community.

The original goal of Rapture was to create a capitalist society free of any religious and government interference of any kind, where any citizen could prosper for his or her own gain, without having to fulfill the wants of others. The "world's best and brightest" would be granted freedom of will and choice in Rapture, unrestrained by government, religion and similar established institutions. Instead of abiding by the traditions and moral systems imposed by those institutions, values such as logic and scientific reason were to guide the inhabitants in their pursuit of achievement.

This would-be utopia had its flaws. In Rapture's purely capitalistic society, there were no publicly funded social programs, and everything within the city was privately owned and came with a price. This included the city's food, health care, sanitation and even its oxygen supply. The police and fire departments were subscription-based private companies such as Poppadopolis Police Department and Fontaine Fire Fighters. There were less restricted norms for businesses and labor, allowing unscrupulous business practices, but with competition and customer's choice balancing the market.

This system alienated Rapture's less fortunate citizens, who when hard times came began to resent Ryan's society as cold-hearted and elitist. Andrew Ryan's hostility and growing paranoia towards "Parasites", and others exploiting Rapture's freedoms to seize wealth and power kicked in motion a set of events that would ultimately lead to Rapture's downfall, and that of Ryan.

History

"I test you... but for a reason. I test all my disciples. Some shine like galaxies, and some... some burn like a moth at the flame!" - Sander Cohen This article, Rapture, contains disputed content or may not have any sources and may be fan fiction or a hoax. Please add where this subject is mentioned in the BioShock series and add references using the format detailed at Help:Cite. Check the talk page for more information about what might need references in this article.

Origins

Rapture began as a dream of Andrew Ryan's long before its construction. Ryan had thought about such a place at least a decade before a viable location was chosen. He had escaped Belarus just before it became a part of the Soviet Union under the rule of Communism and had worked his way to become an industrial mogul in America. He had come to view 'workers' unions, left-wing collectivists, politicians selling altruism, and organized religion as Parasites ruining man's life on Earth. He explored the idea of a closed-off society, of collecting achievers and those who believed in the empowering of the individual and allowing them to flourish in some remote location uncontaminated by the rest of the world. When the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the Second World War, and the USSR was on its own path to nuclear weapons, Ryan foresaw the inevitable destruction of humanity in a war ending in nuclear fire. Ryan wasted no time in contacting like-minded individuals and marshaling his resources into realizing his vision. His city, Rapture, would be built on the seafloor in the North Atlantic, with a suitable location being picked in between Iceland and Greenland. One of the first involved was Sullivan, a trusted man who was already in Ryan's employment at the time. With Sullivan's experience in law enforcement, he was made head of Rapture's security. Ryan gathered many construction experts and secured the architects Simon Wales and Daniel Wales to draft the design for many of Rapture's buildings. Needing workers to build Rapture, Ryan hired many of the most talented and skilled engineers, workmen and mechanics. Many, like Bill McDonagh, shared Ryan's ideals and saw Rapture as a new start where they could rise above the impairments of the parasite-ridden world.

Construction (1945-1951)

Beginning in late 1945, Ryan contracted a series of companies to begin the construction of Rapture at the selected location between Iceland and Greenland. Ryan and his associates secured the manufacturing materials in secret so as to avoid attracting unwanted attention. These resources were then transported by ships like the Olympian thousands of miles across the North Atlantic to the project site. There, the materials were submerged to the ocean floor via a giant State-of-the-Art submersible platform nicknamed "The Sinker." Deep sea welders and mechanics created a foundation for the city by sinking pilings and girders deep into the rock and silt. Eventually "The Sinker" was permanently anchored on the sea bottom. Pre-fabricated buildings with frames of aluminum were assembled near the surface, submerged and lowered using lunette rings, and anchored into the foundations, thus creating the Art Deco metropolis. By November 5, 1946, Rapture began receiving its first residents. The major construction period continued until the end of the 1940s, with smaller projects continuing in and around the city until Rapture's construction was fully completed by 1951.

Rise and Fall (1946-1958)

The golden age of Rapture.

From its initial opening to inhabitation in 1946 onwards, Rapture flourished. Newly built with the latest technological marvels from the surface and possessing an active and growing economy supported by wealth, idealism and a new population, Rapture seemed well on its way towards becoming a capitalist utopia in Andrew Ryan's image. Compared to most of the surface world, Rapture could indeed be seen as a utopia, with everyone having the right to freely reap the rewards of their own labor without outside interference.

However, despite its apparent success, cracks soon begun emerge within Rapture's society, specifically, between the social classes. Being a pure individualist capitalist society focused exclusively on the pursuit of profit, Rapture subtly begun to condone things such like greed, elitism and other begun to drive a wedge between the upper and lower classes of society. Being devoid of any social programs, charities and similar to support the less fortunate elements of society (due to Andrew Ryan seeing such programs as "parasitic" and forbidding them), the poor of Rapture were left with little to no means of improving their economic standing, trapping them at the bottom of the Rapture's society. The economic system of Rapture alienated the city's less fortunate citizens, who when hard times came began to resent Ryan's society as cold-hearted and elitist.

Andrew Ryan's hostility and paranoia of "Parasites", and others exploiting Rapture's freedoms to seize power resulted in him issuing an edict, declaring that all contact with the outside world be severed in order to ensure the Rapture's safety by keeping the city's existence secret from the surface world, now in the midst of the Cold War.

Things seemed to take a turn for the better at some point between 1948 and 1952 when an incident in Rapture's docks led to the discovery of ADAM, a chemical substance that, if refined into a special serum called a Plasmid and used alongside an actuating chemical called EVE, would allow the user to alter their genetic code without any limits whatsoever aside from their own imagination, allowing the user to change themselves according to their own design and needs. This led to a huge upswing in productivity and ADAM soon became an integral part of Rapture's society, ushering in a golden age of productivity and creativity.

Unfortunately for Rapture, ADAM turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. While it allowed for unrestricted genetic engineering with only one's imagination being the limit, it also turned out to be extremely addictive. After using ADAM, the user would develop an extremely strong addiction to it, forcing them to take more ADAM to stave off the addiction as otherwise the withdrawal symptoms would drive them insane, which served only to worsen the addiction even more and exacerbate the need for ADAM, forcing the user to consume even more ADAM with every subsequent dose becoming bigger than the last, escalating the cycle and bringing with itself an insatiable hunger for more ADAM and a gradual mental degradation and breakdown.

This enabled a man named Frank Fontaine to build a criminal empire through smuggling goods from the surface, allowing him to obtain the funds to finance the creation of a sprawling ADAM industry. The mass production of ADAM only served to exacerbate Rapture's addiction to the chemical, with it soon becoming vital for Rapture's continued function. Everybody wanted ADAM, everybody needed ADAM and as a result of that, Fontaine's power and influence over Rapture increased greatly and he soon begun to draw up plans for exploiting the class differences of Rapture to overthrow Andrew Ryan and take over Rapture for himself.

Downfall of Society (1958-1960)

Initially admiring Frank Fontaine's success and citing as a prime example of the kind of individual Rapture was aiming to create, Andrew Ryan soon begun to suspect Fontaine of various crimes, including the ongoing smuggling problem. With Fontaine's growing criminal influence over Rapture's less fortunate inhabitants and his monopoly on ADAM production, he was becoming a powerful rival to Ryan, beginning to threaten both the social order of Rapture as well as Ryan's rule. Things finally came to a head in 1958 when Ryan attempted to arrest Fontaine but Fontaine, resisting arrest, was killed in the ensuing shootout between his goons and Ryan's forces. After Fontaine's apparent death, Ryan, with the support of the oligarchic Rapture Central Council assumed control of Fontaine's corporate assets.

The population's worsening addiction to ADAM soon brought with itself a gradual deterioration of order, followed by widespread civil unrest. This was further worsened when a revolutionary named Atlas rallied all the poor people who had flocked to Fontaine's poorhouses and begun waging a guerilla war against Rapture's security force. This forced Andrew Ryan to take drastic measures to restore order, resorting to increasingly authoritarian means to maintain control, with him dissolving the Rapture Central Council and installing himself as the despotic ruler of Rapture. Ryan begun issuing ever more restrictive laws to limit people's freedoms and introducing harsher punishments towards "problem citizens".

The turning point.

On December 31, 1958, a massive working-class uprising—the 1958 New Year's Eve Riots—was started by Atlas, with Atlas' men carrying out attacks against many upper-class locations, such as the Kashmir Restaurant. This soon escalated into an all-out civil war between Atlas and Ryan, made worse by the mental degradation caused by ADAM addiction in the city's population. Traditional projectile weapons were used, and were soon joined by Plasmids, first by Atlas' splicers and later employed by Ryan supporters. As the conflict went on, a Plasmid-based arms race begun to take place, with both Atlas's and Ryan's forces beginning to use more and more Plasmids and ADAM on themselves to gain an edge against their adversaries. As was quoted by Bill McDonagh in one of his audio journals, this was not about who could build the best guns and the biggest bombs. Instead, it was about who could become less of a man and more of a monster.

The main conflict lasted for around four months, with the continuing violence causing great destruction to cohesive society and serious damage to infrastructure within Rapture. In the multiplayer mode of BioShock 2, the player gets to participate in the warfare which was part of the fall of Rapture. In the end, a large portion of the population became insane ADAM-addicted Splicers while the rest were either killed by the Splicers, committed suicide or died of starvation. The destruction and devastation of the Rapture Civil War brought society to an end.

Events of BioShock (1960)

Rapture in anarchy

By 1960, Fontaine—posing as Atlas—was feeling the pressure of Ryan's legion of pheromone-controlled Splicer forces. In a last-ditch effort to turn the tide in his favor, he summoned his mind-controlled assassin Jack to track down and kill Ryan and enable Fontaine to take over the city. After a year of ceaseless civil war and ruinous violence, Rapture is severely damaged and teetering on the verge of total collapse. Water constantly leaks in virtually every corner, and Splicers roam about the passageways looting or killing everything in sight. As bad as it is though, Rapture is still being held together by Ryan. Automated repair systems and the Big Daddies keep the city from falling apart.

Mistaking Jack for a CIA or KGB spy sent to report Rapture's location, Ryan sends waves of Splicers to deal with him, to no avail. Losing his patience, Ryan chooses to destroy Arcadia's trees, depriving the city of its oxygen supply, and trapping Jack in an area-wide lockdown. Jack, with the help of Julie Langford, manages to restore the foliage of Arcadia and continues on to Hephaestus and Ryan's office. As Jack journeys on through Rapture unabated by the bathysphere lockdown, the Splicers, and the security measures, Ryan slowly begins to piece together Jack's true identity. When Jack draws near, Ryan—in a final attempt to prevent Fontaine from gaining the city—activates a self-destruct system for all of Rapture. Jack finally manages to kill Ryan and stop the self-destruct sequence, then is commanded to turn over control of Rapture Central Control and the whole city to Atlas. Fontaine reveals himself—his Atlas persona having been a "con job"—and betrays Jack by ordering his execution. Jack escapes and hunts down kills a massively spliced Fontaine in his towering hideout. Jack travels by bathysphere to the surface where he either: takes control of a nuclear submarine with the aid of a horde of Splicers, or leaves Rapture with his rescued Little Sisters to live out his life in peace.

Events of BioShock 2 (1968)

Rapture in ruin.

Image of salvation.

In the years following the deaths of Ryan and Fontaine, the city continued to deteriorate. With the damage done to Hephaestus, Rapture is running on limited power. Big Daddies still continue to do maintenance work, but several areas are damaged beyond repair, have become completely flooded and some buildings have collapsed and crumbled down to the ocean floor, with the situation worsening ever still.

Despite its decaying state, there is still life left in the ruins of Rapture. During the eight years since the first game, the Splicers have become even more violent, desperate and deformed. Controlled by Sofia Lamb, one of Rapture's few remaining unspliced citizens, her Rapture Family appears to have become the de-facto regime. The Family is rebuilding society according to Lamb's beliefs, but is hazardous to those who refuse "to believe." With the Family in control, citizens who had previously failed to stand out under Ryan's Rapture rise to prominent positions. In an atmosphere of cultish religious fervor, the Family embraces the goal of imbuing Sofia's daughter Eleanor—through human sacrifice—with the combined genius of Rapture's citizens to create a "Utopian", the ultimate altruist. This Utopian was to eventually ascend to the surface world. To achieve this goal, the ADAM production process is restarted. Children from around the world are kidnapped to be turned into new Little Sisters, the previous Little Sisters having grown too old to be able to continue as ADAM producers.

In 1968, a long dead Alpha Series Big Daddy known as Subject Delta is revived by Eleanor. He is aided by Brigid Tenenbaum and Augustus Sinclair in effecting Eleanor's release from her mother's captivity, and her subsequent escape from the city. During Delta's journey, several sections of Rapture get destroyed as a result of his encounters with Sofia Lamb's supporters. This includes the Adonis Luxury Resort and Siren Alley, which are both flooded, as well as the Persephone Detention Facility, which is sunk into an ocean trench. In the end, Sinclair ends up dead, but Delta, Eleanor and Sofia Lamb manage to escape in Sinclair's submersible Lifeboat moments before Persephone, the Rapture Family headquarters, is destroyed by Sofia Lamb.

Current Status (1968-Present)

“Rapture is a mass grave. Here lies the Holy Self, a budding Mozart rots beside a girl who might have surpassed Einstein.”

― Sofia Lamb

With Andrew Ryan, Frank Fontaine, and the Rapture Family all gone, it is unlikely that there are any sane individuals left to fill the power vacuum and rule what remains of Rapture. Over the course of the games much of the city is either damaged or destroyed, no organized maintenance is set in place, and whatever remains of the population is either dead or driven insane by ADAM addiction.

During both the first and second games, the player observes various forms of structural damage including a multitude of leaks and without any maintenance efforts, any area with even the smallest leak will eventually flood once the pumps fail and sooner or later, all areas will start to leak due to the deteriorating state of the city. As there is no longer anyone left to maintain the repair systems or to create new Big Daddies to help maintain the remaining habitable areas, less repair work will get done and the structural integrity of Rapture will continue to deteriorate; the number of leaks will grow and older leaks will grow larger and the support structures will begin to fail completely. Many, if not all of the Little Sisters have been either removed or harvested, thereby eliminating the primary source of ADAM production in the city. With so many core functions damaged or destroyed and its population further reduced down to little more than leftover insane Splicers, residual Big Daddies, and Big Sisters (providing they were not all killed by Jack and Delta), there is no way for Rapture to sustain itself.

Another major problem is that Rapture is built using aluminum in place of steel in the buildings' internal support structures. Using aluminum as structural support in buildings comes with a lot of problems that were not known at the time when Rapture was built. The most notable of which, is that aluminum is a lot weaker than steel when it comes to handling stress; at some point, the structural supports for the buildings in Rapture will eventually fail and the buildings will collapse completely, though it is not known how much time there is left before this happens.

It is likely that by the beginning of the 21st century (the present day), Rapture will have crumbled into a barren, uninhabitable ruin; all buildings will likely have collapsed by this point with all interior areas having been flooded and destroyed and no life remains within the city.

There is no official confirmation for this theory but this is the most likely scenario for the ultimate fate of Rapture.

The last reference to Rapture in the series is given by Tenenbaum in the Minerva's Den DLC in which she states that she intends to go to the surface to work for a cure for ADAM sickness and end the "Rapture nightmare." She is successful in doing so by restoring Subject Sigma to his original identity as Charles Milton Porter, but there is no mention of her return to save the remaining people in Rapture.

Religious Beliefs and Philosophies

"No Gods or Kings. Only Man."

In a public debate with Sofia Lamb, Ryan said that individuals have a right to practice religion in private, but that there shall not be any such public institutions in Rapture. Despite this, the following are the major beliefs held by citizens in Rapture:

• The Great Chain - Belief in self-interest and free markets which unite the people in their forward progress. This is more of a philosophy than a religion, as it is a belief promoted by Andrew Ryan, who is a staunch atheist.
• The Rapture Family - Everyone owes each other a sense of unity and brotherhood with religious fervor. This was the most recent cult to have appeared in Rapture, having been created and promoted by Sofia Lamb and Simon Wales.
• Christianity - Belief in the Christian God and Christ as the savior of humanity. This is an underground religion in Rapture, as it is officially banned as an organized religion. The ban enabled smugglers to make money from smuggling many religious artifacts and gave fuel to demented religious fanaticism (as shown by the Waders Splicer type).
• Atheism - The disbelief in a metaphysical God or spiritual beings. This is the official philosophical stance of Rapture, as imposed by Andrew Ryan who is a devout Atheist.
• The Saturnine - A dark pagan cult found in Arcadia, having come into being as a result of heavy ADAM usage. Worshipers of this cult dress themselves in leaves, drink human blood as well as cups full of Plasmids (most likely raw ADAM or EVE) that they call "Ambrosia". They also believe they have been "touched" by ancient gods.

Businesses

Various advertising images from businesses in Rapture.

Main article: Rapture Businesses

Companies that were founded in Rapture:

• Atlantic Express - Railway transportation for citizens that was decommissioned years previous and superseded by the Rapture Metro system. Founded by Prentice Mill then bought by Austen Bathysphere.
• Circus of Values - Vending machine company that sells various items (among them, ammunition used during the Rapture Civil War). Owned by Lloyd Webster.
• El Ammo Bandito - Vending machines for weapons and ammunition.
• Fontaine Futuristics - Mainly Plasmid and Tonic production facilities. Founded by Frank Fontaine before being nationalized by Ryan Industries, by order of the Rapture Central Council.
• Fontaine's - A lavish shopping center owned by Frank Fontaine, selling many of his products such as men and ladies clothes, Plasmids or home electronics. The department store buildings were converted into a prison for Fontaine's spliced followers after his death.
• Gatherer's Garden - Vending machine for genetic upgrades. This business dealt with ADAM as currency, not common money. Belongs to Ryan Industries.
• Jet-Postal - The main citywide system for distributing mail and parcels through Pneumo Tubes.
• Power to the People - Free vending machines for custom weapons upgrades. Belongs to Fontaine Futuristics.
• Rapture Central Computing - Computing and calculation data center for Rapture. Performs computations for other businesses and operates and manages automated systems of Rapture through the Thinker. Co-founded by Charles Milton Porter and Reed Wahl.
• Rapture Metro - A consolidated transportation system carrying citizens to areas of the city. Founded by Anton Kinkaide.
• Ryan Industries - Construction, utilities, and product development. Founded by Andrew Ryan.
• Securis - Construction company for bulkhead doors and airlocks of the city.
• Sinclair Solutions - Provides various services to businesses and individuals, in particular Plasmid and Gene Tonic testing for other companies such as Fontaine Futuristics first, then Ryan Industries. Founded by Augustus Sinclair.

Science and Technology

The Elite of Rapture Society in 1952: Brigid Tenenbaum, Sander Cohen, Gilbert Alexander, Andrew Ryan, Sofia Lamb, and Yi Suchong.

Ryan believed that scientific achievement in the world was being restricted by "petty morality," so he ensured that the inhabitants of Rapture could explore paths of inquiry previously deemed too immoral or controversial to follow. Some scientific breakthroughs were in robotics, bringing about an advanced automated security system; others were in biology, where developments advanced in the restoration of life, both in plants (the Lazarus Vector) and humans (the Vita-Chamber). There were also some technological advancements regarding items that were created before they were commercially available on the surface, such as portable audio recording devices (approx. five years earlier), automatic doors (eight years earlier at the most) and vocal biometric security.

One of the major breakthroughs achieved in Rapture was Brigid Tenenbaum's discovery of ADAM: unstable stem cells from a species of sea slug. This led to the creation of Plasmids and Gene Tonics. ADAM allowed a user to splice new genetic material into the individual's DNA, enhancing health and intellect, and giving extraordinary powers to the human body. However, ADAM was soon found to cause physical and mental disruption and damage, as more of the user's native cells were replaced by unstable stem cells. The populace's need for ADAM became an addiction, accelerated by excessive splicing, done increasingly during and after Rapture's civil war.

Transportation

Transportation within Rapture is mainly provided by Rapture Metro, a public transportation system consisting of bathyspheres and tram cars, in which citizens access most areas of the city. One terminus of the Rapture Metro system is the bathysphere dock inside the remote lighthouse in the North Atlantic, which is Rapture's primary entrance to the outside world. Another mode of transportation within Rapture is the Atlantic Express, a pressurized rail system for moving a larger number of citizens (though this mode of transportation was mostly decommissioned years before the time of BioShock). Adjacent areas of Rapture are connected through bulkhead doors. Areas within some levels are connected by glass tunnels: small ones for pedestrians, larger ones for the system of railed tramways. Rapture is intentionally isolated from the world, and the primary mode of access was via bathyspheres traveling down from the lighthouse, perched on an island above.

Explorable Areas

The lighthouse which houses one of the ways to Rapture.

BioShock

Main article: BioShock Locations

Main Game

During the journey through BioShock, the player will explore the following areas of Rapture:

• Welcome Center - Home to recreational areas like the Kashmir Restaurant and first stop for all newcomers in the city.
• Medical Pavilion - The primary grouping of medical, surgical, dental and funerary facilities.
• Neptune's Bounty - The main port and fishing district in Rapture.
• Smuggler's Hideout - One of Fontaine's criminal enterprises: an abandoned tunnel network housing a secret submarine bay.
• Arcadia - A forest, agricultural, and recreational district in Rapture, with an experimental facility and supplying part of the city's oxygen and other natural resources.
  • Farmer's Market - Marketplace for foods, and organic produce grown in Arcadia, home of Tasha Denu's apiary and the Worley Winery.
• Fort Frolic - Arts, entertainment, and shopping district, overseen by Sander Cohen.
• Hephaestus - Geothermal power generation facility, workshops, and headquarters of Ryan Industries.
  • Rapture Central Control - Andrew Ryan's private quarters and office, and Rapture's centralized control.
• Olympus Heights - Residential area for the high society, residents included Yi Suchong, Sander Cohen, Brigid Tenenbaum, and Fontaine himself.
• Apollo Square - Transportation hub and Atlas's stronghold, also low-class apartment complexes and Dr. Suchong's Free Clinic, condemned and turned into an internment camp for Atlas supporters by Ryan.
• Point Prometheus - Rapture's tallest skyscraper, home to several ADAM-based genetic research laboratories and a development and production center for Big Daddies and Little Sisters.
  • Proving Grounds - Big Daddies/Little Sisters' training area. Previously Rapture's Memorial Museum dedicated to biology.
  • Fontaine's Lair - Top of Point Prometheus and highest building in Rapture where all the gathered ADAM converged, the final battle location.

Challenge Rooms

Of the three playable maps in the Challenge Rooms, two of them features original parts of Rapture mostly designed with textures and models from the main game:

• Rapture Firing Range - A specialized facility designed for firearms practice.
• Rapture's Grand Carnival - A carnival attended by citizens for festivities.

BioShock 2

Main article: BioShock 2 Locations

Main Game

During the journey through BioShock 2, the player will explore the following areas of Rapture:

Rapture in 1968.

• Adonis Luxury Resort - A Greco-Roman themed spa, baths, and Plasmid/Gene Tonic therapy center for the upper-class citizens of Rapture. Situated near Olympus Heights.
• Atlantic Express Depot - The main administration facility for the construction and maintenance of the Atlantic Express trains and giant connector to the rail network.
• Ryan Amusements - An amusement park where the main attractions were designed to teach the children of Rapture about the "evils" of the surface world and the story of Rapture's construction.
• Pauper's Drop - Home of the 'down and out' and lower-class citizens. Constructed by the workers themselves as a shantytown and later redeveloped. Previously known as the Atlantic Express' Maintenance Junction 17.
• Siren Alley - Rapture's red-light district. Previously the Mason's Quarter, home to architects and artisans.
• Dionysus Park - A free art park created by Dr. Lamb, dedicated to psychology and self-expression. Used by Lamb to support her ideology behind a facade of art and nature.
• Fontaine Futuristics - Headquarters of Frank Fontaine's technology business, later seized and condemned by Ryan Industries. Includes the administration departments, a theater for Plasmid demonstrations, and hidden research facilities.
• Persephone Correctional Facility - A hidden penal colony suspended above an abysmal ocean trench used to hold Rapture's criminals and political dissidents, and practice Plasmid trials.
  • Outer Persephone - Lamb's private office and base of operation. Includes a quarantine holding.
  • Inner Persephone - The holding cells, the infirmary, and the therapy facilities of the prison.

Multiplayer

Part of the city seen from the multiplayer apartment window.

Between matches, the player has access to their own apartment, which they are free to explore while they customize their character.

• Unknown apartment building - An residential building with its own Bathysphere station. Sinclair Solutions provided rooms here for customers testing their products during the war.

Minerva's Den

Minerva's Den features a previously unseen district of Rapture composed of three different parts:

• Minerva's Den - Rapture's high technology center, housing the administration wing of Rapture Central Computing, McClendon Robotics for advanced robotics development and manufacturing, and the Air-Tite Archives for personal storage accessed via Pneumo Tubes.
  • Operations - Center for operations and maintenance of Rapture Central Computing's computers.
  • The Thinker - Home of The Thinker, the Artificial Intelligence behind Rapture's automation systems.

BioShock Infinite

Main article: BioShock Infinite Locations

Main Game

The alternate version of Rapture.

Nearing the end of the game, the Bathysphere Station is explorable when Elizabeth teleports herself, Booker DeWitt and the Songbird there (destroying the latter in the process). A Little Sister can be seen mourning a Bouncer Big Daddy in the background. As Elizabeth and Booker trans-dimensionally travel, it is revealed that the city of Rapture is one of the "constants" in her multiverse, bound to appear in one form or another in the continuum. In BioShock Infinite's set of timelines, it takes the form of Columbia, an early 20th-century city floating in the sky. Dialogue in Burial at Sea - Episode 2 confirms that Elizabeth and Booker's brief visit takes place in 1960.

Burial at Sea - Episode 1

Rapture on New Year's Eve 1958.

Burial at Sea - Episode 1 revisits Rapture, while featuring new original places before its fall:

• Market Street - An upper-class retail and residential promenade with a scenic view over Rapture's uptown area.
• High Street - A lavish entertainment street, with a number of bars, located above Market Street.
• Fontaine's Department Store - A shopping center showcasing various products of businesses owned by Frank Fontaine, including Plasmids and electronics from Fontaine Futuristics.
  • Housewares - One of the annex buildings of Fontaine's Department Store, featuring various departments such as Electronics, Appliances or Toys and The Bistro at Fontaine's.

Burial at Sea - Episode 2

A map of Rapture as seen in the Test Drive.

Burial at Sea - Episode 2 continues the story initiated in the previous episode where it ended. This episode further explores the Housewares building along with some new and familiar areas.

• Housewares - Other parts of the building featuring mainly the Bathyspheres DeLuxe showroom, but other businesses such as the Ryan the Lion Preparatory Academy or the Silver Fin Restaurant.
• The Room - A secret interrogation room used by Atlas during the war.
• Dr. Suchong's Free Clinic - Suchong's charitable clinic in Apollo Square hiding a secret laboratory where he conducted his own researches such as the Protector/Gatherer pair bonding, ADAM products or the Vita-Chamber's development.

Mentioned Areas

• Athena's Glory - Apartment complex located in Olympus Heights.
• Aventine Hotel - The hotel can be seen from Market Street.
• Cameron Suites - Mentioned on advertisements for Pharaoh's Fortune Casino and Cinema Réal.
• Fontaine Court - An area located somewhere on the Atlantic Express' route.
• Hotel Monseñor - Signs for the hotel are seen in several locations throughout Rapture.
• Med Plaza - Mentioned in public announcements for SportBoost, Genetic Horizons was located here.
• Mermaid's Landing Aquarium - Mentioned in a public announcement in Burial at Sea.
• Palmetto - A large skyscraper seen from Market Street.
• Temple Hill Drive - A residential address seen on a letter
• The Aegean - A building seen from High Street.
• Water Treatment Station - Mentioned in newspapers scattered on the floor. It was shut down after some water contamination by a pathological bacteria.

Video

Exploring the city with Console Commands.

Gallery

Concept Art

Early concept art for Rapture, by Mauricio Tejerina.

An early corridor concept showing biological growths and an early splicer.

An idea of how Rapture was constructed, by Mauricio Tejerina.

An early 3D render of how Rapture chould look, by Dave Flamburis.

Another early 3D render of how Rapture could look.

Concept art for Rapture seen from above.

Concept art of Rapture, by Eric Lawson.

Concept art for Rapture's interior, by Mauricio Tejerina.

The same concept from a different angle.

Color and lighting study for Rapture, of a hall with a gunned-down citizen.

Pre-fall Rapture concept art for Burial at Sea.

Building concept art for Burial at Sea.

Business and building concept art for Burial at Sea.

Promotional Images

"A city free of Law, and God…"

Rapture as it is shown in the trailer for BioShock.

The decaying Rapture seen in the BioShock 2 trailer.

Views of the City

The city seen for the first time.

Rapture as seen in BioShock Infinite.

Rapture's uptown area in Burial at Sea - Episode 1.

Another view of the city.

A view from the top of Point Prometheus, the tallest building in Rapture.

The city limits.

The war-torn city in 1960.

Skyboxes

A skybox of Rapture seen in multiple areas of the city.

Large amounts of seaweed provide the "greenery" surrounding Arcadia.

A skybox of a heavily decayed and darker Rapture seen in areas of the city 8 years later.

The broken tracks on the sea floor.

Rapture seen from the Fontaine Futuristics Headquarters in 1968.

How Little Sisters see the city, even the abyss surrounding Rapture.

The rocky area around Persephone in BioShock 2.

Behind the Scenes

• The names of a majority of the locations in Rapture are inspired by gods and locations from ancient Greek, Roman and Biblical culture.
• Although contact with the surface was forbidden, the surface bathysphere was not disabled (although still under genetic lock). Jack, Orrin Oscar Lutwidge, and Mark Meltzer were able to enter Rapture via this method. The novel BioShock: Rapture establishes that maintenance crews were allowed to visit the Lighthouse to conduct repairs, but their exposure to the outside was minimized.
• Much of the external architecture of Rapture was inspired by the Art Deco architecture of New York City, particularly the Rockefeller Center and the work of Hugh Ferriss, who created perspective drawing of New York buildings in the early 1900s.
  • This is also evident in a promotional image of Rapture (the first image in the "Promotional Images" gallery above), where the building with a clock on it is modeled after the Paramount Building of New York City.
• Rapture is similar to the mythical lost city of Atlantis in many respects. Both of them are cities isolated from the rest of the known world, and their inhabitants were able to master technology far more advanced than what had been discovered elsewhere. Both became plagued with corruption, which led to their ruin. Moreover, one of the chapters in Atlas Shrugged is called Atlantis, and the mythical city is likened to Galt's Gulch by the characters.
• The name Rapture is inspired by the Biblical concept, meaning an event in which the faithful will be taken to Heaven. In this case, the smartest and most artistic flocked to Rapture."
• As seen in Deco Devolution: The Art of BioShock 2, "Rapture is anchored - (while drilling piers, a huge cavern is discovered directly below)."
• If the coordinates 63° 2' N, 29° 55' W are input into Google Earth, it would return a photo of the city of Rapture from BioShock which reads "The City of Rapture."
• In BioShock Infinite, the Welcome Center that Booker and Elizabeth find themselves in is not identical to the Welcome Center at the start of BioShock. The Gatherer's Garden machine in the Bathysphere Station is completely empty, suggesting that Booker and Elizabeth arrive at some point after Jack's first arrival in BioShock. Outside the building, there is a tunnel in which a Little Sister mourns her Big Daddy. Said tunnel is not present in the original game.
  • Further evidence of this is the obstructed doorway into the Welcome Center, which Jack must clear with the wrench, is now clear, but still shows signs of debris around it, suggesting that Jack had already been through thereby clearing the passageway.
  • In addition, the second docking station in the station itself is destroyed in BioShock, but it is the one used by Booker and Elizabeth to leave the city.
  • In an ironic moment, Booker, upon realizing Rapture's location, comments on how a city at the bottom of the ocean is "ridiculous".
• Ryan went to great lengths to keep Rapture secret from the surface. However, bottles of Arcadia Merlot that contained an invitation to Rapture were found on coasts around the world on August 8, 1968. Also, according to the Fact From Myth promotional video for Burial at Sea - Episode 1, other clues have been revealed to the world by the 1980s, with the discovery of a steamer trunk washed up on the New England Coast loaded with artifacts from Rapture.

• The large image of Rapture by Tim Warnock, seen in the Promotional Images gallery above, appears animated in the Need to Know Theater: The Big Daddy. It was also used in the Alpha version of Market Street as a placeholder before the final building models and Skybox were completed.

References

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