#jen's bioshock au

[angellayercake]

Meliora from Square Hammer and Rapture from Welcome to Rapture

I talked a little in my bioshock/ghost au summary about how Terzo may have had an influence of the conception of Rapture by sharing his ideas of Meliora during his friendship with Andrew Ryan in the 20s/30s and I just wanted to put these together to demonstrate the similarities.

[angellayercake]

I'm seeing your Bioshock posting. Any project your working on that's related?

(I'm excited I love Bioshock)

Thank you very much for noticing!! I have been pretty obsessed with Bioshock and Rapture since I played it last year and then I had a brainwave about how similar the descriptions of Meliora is to the concept (not the reality iykyk) of Rapture.

So below the read more are some of my rambling thoughts. This may turn into a fic one day or it may just stay an idea but who knows? I have included no spoilers for either Bioshock or Bioshock 2 storylines as most of this takes place pre Raptures construction.

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So Jen, you might ask, how would Terzo even be invited to Rapture in the first place? Doesn't Ryan hate religion? Why would Terzo even want to be there?

And I have a very extensive answer for you! (after you chose with me to ignore all dates in canon because for this we need Terzo in his late 20s/30s in the 1920s)

To begin I must explain my headcanon for how the Ministry and the Clergy works. The Ministry was founded in opposition to the rise of the Catholic church in Italy. They opposed the strict and cruel ways the Christian church and wanted to offer an alternative and a sanctuary to those mistreated and maligned. Their numbers grew until they were noticed and forced to flee Italy.

They found a home in rural Sweden, taking advantage of the overwhelming rise of Protestantism and there they stayed, biding their time and increasing their ranks. Their congregation grew so large that they were starting to struggle to sustain themselves so the Clergy came up with a plan. The Projects were different businesses, outreach and recruitment efforts to build revenue and attract the rich and successful to their cause and it worked! They were truly self sustaining and starting to have influence in important places but the Clergy understood that they were playing the long game.

Which brings us nicely to New York in 1922. Terzo Emeritus, third son of the reigning Papa has been assigned to set up a speakeasy to make the most of the Prohibition movement. His goal is to make a load of money and convert as many sinners as he can find. He sets up his 'dance hall' which he calls his House of Sin. There are cocktails and dancers and escorts and cross dressers and all the outcasts and freaks that aren't welcome anywhere else. It gains a cult reputation as a wonderland where anything goes, seemingly built from nothing into the most inclusive yet exclusive club in New York.

Andrew Ryan begins frequenting the place, not because he has tastes for anything other than a pretty girl but because he respects their ethos. He has respect for anyone who disregards laws and social norms and makes their own rules. He is made to feel welcome as are any of the rich and powerful that frequent the club, not because Terzo necessarily likes them but because part of his work there is to recruit powerful people to the Church. He welcomes them personally, brings them the best men or women that they might desire, keeps the drinks and smokes flowing freely until he can bring the conversation around to politics, morals and values so he can see how receptive they might be to the Ministry's teachings.

With Ryan though he barely has to push, almost as if he had come to investigate Terzo's views and opinions for himself. He finds a like mind in Ryan, someone who sees the flaws in society and how they could be improved. He finds himself talking about Meliora openly much to his surprise, the gleaming metropolis of his imagination where people are unrestrained by the petty and the inconsequential, where the seven deadly sins are celebrated and encouraged.

He fears he slips up bringing his religion into his ramblings but Ryan is unaffected by the revelations. He asks directly if Terzo worships the Devil and when he says yes the response he receives is surprisingly respectful. Ryan doesn't believe in God so equally he doesn't believe in the Devil but if he had to pick between the two the one who would earn his regard is the one who chose His own path and didn't just blindly obey. They spend many a night discussing the possibilities of such a place well into the early hours neither of them sure that such a place would ever exist.

Time went on and the world changed. Prohibition ends and the club goes legitimate. Slowly but surely wider society begins to take notice of their live and let live policy and don't like it at all. What was once the place to be seen becomes the place an upstanding member of society would never be seen. Business dwindles as the depression takes hold and by the time the rumblings of the Second World War reach the US they close their doors for good. Terzo returns to the Ministry and to Europe, serving the Clergy in a much more traditional capacity, that is until in 1946 when he receives an invitation from an old friend.

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It takes a hell of a lot to convince the Clergy to let him go, most of them writing off this supposed underwater metropolis as impossible. Eventually though the curiosity and ambition win out and they allow him to go but only if he takes a company of ghouls to keep him out of trouble and who have the abilities to get him out if the worst were to happen, most leaning towards the roof caving in under the pressure of the ocean.

Rapture is almost everything he imagined Meliora to be. The grandiose architecture, neon lights and atmosphere of excitement. The only difference was the underwater setting. It was fascinating, the low blue glow coming from all of the countless windows. Wherever he went he would find himself captivated by the swaying plants on the seabed, the schools of fish or the dark shadow of a whale passing by. The longer he stays the more he starts to forget, until he looks out the window and is reminded all over again of the fascinating place he lives.

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He slips back into his old life so easily, finding many familiar faces from the social circles of New York making up the elite of Rapture. He secures a place in Fort Frolic and goes about recruiting the most beautiful and hedonistic people he can find to work at his club. Anything goes there as is the case with a lot of things in Rapture and it becomes so popular that Ryan even sends his mistress to work with him when she isn't otherwise occupied with him. Everything is perfect for a time but if you have played the games then you know what is coming next.

For now I think I will leave it there. I have a lot of ideas about how he tackles some of the issues that grow within Rapture but if this becomes a fully fledged fic I will save those for that. I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings and I would love to hear others thoughts and ideas if you have any!! I will leave you with the below quotes which were where I started with this so give them a read, would you kindly?

The world since he was last seen has changed. Called Moloch by some, the great industrial machine has been grinding away, grinding everything and everyone down in the process. Spies are everywhere. Their eyes are behind the screens of your televisions and devices, their ears attentive to every frequency in the air. Everything is mediated, pre-packaged, and pressure sealed, your lives preordained. From the cradle to the grave, the world moves along as if there is free will, but this is the grandest illusion. There is no power beyond that which the all-seeing eye controls. The gods are all dead. Even art is pure commodity. But some still fight, quietly at first, but soon they will rise and make the glorious noise of the ancients, donning their masks, these nameless ghouls led by Papa Emeritus III. - Source

To build a city at the bottom of the sea! Insanity. But where else could we be free from the clutching hand of the Parasites? Where else could we build an economy that they would not try to control, a society that they would not try to destroy? It was not impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea. It was impossible to build it anywhere else. Source

"We would sit down to studying exciting Futurist manifestos, sketched the blueprints of utopian metropoles, spiked with shiny skyscrapers stabbing at the heavens belly… Wantonly swollen zeppelins would to carry our gospel of indulgence to the farthest corners of the globe to summon and enslave. (…) Forged in nostalgia of steam and fire, this brave new world of ambition, vice, lust and greed - all so inherent to the enlightened modernity, was always with him through all these years. And it is now - when our church continues to grow stronger and wealthier under wise reign of Papa Emeritus III -  that these visions may finally be witnessed and embraced in the preaching's of  'Meliora’ - his most contemporary and humane Encyclical.” - Source

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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. Source