It's the end of World War II. FDR's New Deal has redefined American politics. Taxes are at an all-time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has brought a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business has many watching their backs. America's sense of freedom is diminishing… and many are desperate to take that freedom back. Among them is a great dreamer, an immigrant who pulled himself from the depths of poverty to become one of the wealthiest and admired men in the world. That man is Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserve better. And so he set out to create the impossible, a utopia free from government, censorship, and moral restrictions on science—where what you give is what you get. He created Rapture—the shining city below the sea. But as we all know, this utopia suffered a great tragedy. This is the story of how it all came to be… and how it all ended.
Thanks to Eric Raab and Paula Guran.
Special thanks to Dustin Bond for additional game research.
Special thanks to everyone who put up with my bitching.
I am Andrew Ryan and I’m here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own 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.
Imagine if you could be smarter, stronger, healthier. What if you could even have amazing powers, light fires with your mind? That’s what plasmids do for a man.
Sullivan, chief of security, found the Great Man standing in front of the enormous window in his corporate office. The boss was silhouetted against city lights. The only other illumination was from a green-shaded lamp on the big glass-topped desk across the room, so that the Great Man was mostly in shadow, hands in the pockets of his crisply tailored suit jacket as he gazed broodingly out at the skyline.
It was eight o’clock, and Chief Sullivan, a tired middle-aged man in a rain-dampened suit, badly wanted to go home, kick off his shoes, and listen to the fight on the radio. But the Great Man often worked late, and he’d been waiting for these two reports. One report, in particular, Sullivan wanted to have done with—the one from Japan. It was a report that made him want a stiff drink, and fast. But he knew the Great Man wouldn’t offer him one.
“The Great Man” was how Sullivan thought of his boss—one of the richest, most powerful men in the world. The term was both sarcastic and serious, and Sullivan kept it to himself—the Great Man was vain and quick to sense the slightest disrespect. Yet sometimes it seemed the tycoon was casting about for a friend he could take to heart. Sullivan was not that man. People rarely liked him much. Something about ex-cops.
“Well, Sullivan?” the Great Man asked, not turning from the window. “Do you have them?”
“I have them both, sir.”
“Let’s have the report on the strikes first, get it out of the way. The other one…” He shook his head. “That’ll be like hiding from a hurricane in a cellar. We’ll have to dig the cellar first, so to speak…”
Sullivan wondered what he meant by that cellar remark, but he let it go. “The strikes—they’re still going on at the Kentucky mines and the Mississippi refinery.”
The Great Man grimaced. His shoulders, angularly padded in the current style, slumped ever so slightly. “We’ve got to be tougher about this, Sullivan. For the country’s good, as well as our own.”
“Sir—I have sent in strikebreakers. I have sent Pinkerton men to get names on the strike leaders, see if we can… get something on them. But—these people are persistent. A hard-nosed bunch.”
“Have you been out there in person? Did you
Sullivan knew that the Great Man had the benefit of luck—he’d struck oil, as a young man—but it was true he’d invested brilliantly.
“I’ll… see to them myself, sir.”
