Standard disclaimer: None of the characters, places, etc. in this story are mine, but are instead the property of 2K Games and / or Irrational Games. No copyright infringement is intended by their use in this story.
Author's note: Just a little something that popped into my head and wouldn't go away. Really, I can't think of enough good things to say about BioShock and BioShock 2. BioShock 2 in particular just blew me away. It's the rare sequel that doesn't feel like a simple retread of the original, but instead improves and expands on it, deepening and enriching it not just in terms of narrative and world-building, but philosophically as well. Is BioShock 2 the best game of the year? Well, the year's not over yet, and already there's been some pretty stiff competition (Mass Effect 2, I'm looking in your direction), with possibly more to come (Fallout: New Vegas, I'm looking in your direction), but they'll have to go a long distance to beat the latest offering from the guys at 2K.
I think the pairing of Lamb and Ryan has utterly fascinating possibilities, and I'd love to see some deep, extensive fic done for the two of them, which is part of the reason why I wrote this. Unfortunately, I don't feel that I have the philosophical background to really pull the two of them off (which is why this fic is so short), but consider this the best I can do at this time.
In this fic, I've tweaked Ryan's backstory—I have him having done some time in the Gulag camp of Kolyma. Unfortunately, the camp at Kolyma wasn't established till the 1930s (I think 1932,) whereas Ryan escaped the Soviet Union in 1919. I hadn't remembered Ryan got out so early until after I had finished the fic, at which time I checked his backstory on the BioShock wiki. However, given that the world of Rapture is already an alternate universe to our own, perhaps the gulag system got going much earlier in that universe than in our own.
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[Sigh] This Lamb woman is … infuriating. Infuriating. We had our first public debate today in Apollo Square, at the urging of Bill McDonagh. He claimed that engaging her, philosophy to philosophy, in a public setting, would "defang" her, and it seemed … logical enough, I suppose, so I went along with it. I … am afraid I did not come off well. She baited me, and … I lost my temper, I fear. Grew incoherent, angry, could barely speak, let alone lay out my case with anything like the necessary precision. And yet, why should I have to? Everyone in that crowd was familiar with my reasoning, or should have been; it was that reasoning that drew them to Rapture in the first place. What did they expect, in coming here? I never promised them a kingdom, I only promised them a chance, and they knew it. I am not responsible for their self-delusions. And yet … to hear the way they cheered her on… [Tch]
I must admit, there is something … admirable about the woman, about the strength of her convictions, despicable though they may be. In some ways there seems almost to be a similarity between the two of us: her philosophy, like my own, rose like the phoenix from the smoldering embers of Hiroshima, the knowledge of mankind's terrible capacity for self-destruction. "Were the modern world a patient in my care," she told me once, when she first arrived here, "I would diagnose it as suicidal." And I … I sense in her an iron strength of will, of purpose, that seems very much akin to my own, if I may say so myself. Strange that two individuals as … alike … as we are should have come to follow such diametrically opposing philosophies. Of course, she did not have my experiences. She—she was living in ease and comfort at Oxford while I froze and starved behind the barbed wire at Kolyma, a victim of the very principles, the … altruism … which she espouses. I, I know where such principles lead. She, apparently, does not. Or perhaps she thinks she can avoid them, the camps, the firing squads. Is that it? Has she fallen for the old lie that this time will be different?
She was so cool, so controlled, during the debate—her eyes, clear and calm, her words measured and even, never raising her voice by so much as a whisker, while it was all I could do to keep from shouting her down. I was so angry I was practically tongue-tied with emotion, as inarticulate as a schoolboy—I cannot have left a very good impression. Our next debate is in a week's time. The thought of facing her again is…unsettling, somehow. I must do better. I must. If I can show that she is wrong … if I can get her—them—to see … then who knows what might happen. Who knows…..
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