I'm making this app out of brass ok? ok
Dec. 22nd, 2012 04:06 pmName: Caz
DW username:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cazrolime
E-Mail: hobbitesque at gmail dot com
IM: (AIM) Rianofski
Other Characters: Alex Kralie (40410) and, more importantly, Mirror Alex (eidedick).
Character Name: Bill McDonagh
Series: Bioshock
Timeline: Rapture’s halcyon early days, soon after the market debut of Plasmids.
Canon Resource Link: Bill’s page on the Bioshock wiki
Character Background: The only sane man in Rapture.
Wait, you need more than that? Well, okay.
(Note: This is kind of written for someone who already has a general idea of what Bioshock’s about, since I know Linda at least knows stuff about it and I think Koji might? Uhh anyway, I’m doing that for the sake of simplicity. But in case that’s made the History section too obfuscated, I’ve put some quick helpful summaries in the glossary down at the bottom. It contains spoilers for Bioshock 1 and 2.)
Bill worked as a plumber on the surface, patching up leaks and installing pipes during the postwar era and the introduction of FDR's New Deal. He first met Andrew Ryan, Rapture’s founder, when he was called in to repair the fixtures in Ryan’s fancy New York digs. Ryan had arranged with the contractor for tin fittings, but Bill installed higher quality brass ones and picked up the cost himself. It was a point of pride, he explained to Ryan. Nobody would have to bail out substandard fittings installed by him.
Ryan was impressed, and hired Bill as his general contractor.
Ryan had some pretty strong political opinions, which you might have sort of picked up on since he literally went and founded a second Galt’s Gulch, and as they became friends Bill also came around to Ryan’s way of thinking. This wasn’t met with universal approval; Bill had at least one nephew who called the philosophy BS and Bill a narcissistic bastard for buying into it.
The novel Bioshock: Rapture has more to say about Bill’s past and his role in the underwater city. But Ken Levine, omnipotent god of the Bioshock franchise, has never declared the book canon and hearsay has it that he’s distanced himself from it, so I’m going to be sticking to stuff from the games for this app. There are a few nice things I might steal, but I’m free to ignore the bits where it goes totally mad and starts talking about Sander Cohen’s arse plasmids*.
When Rapture was being designed and built, Bill was at the forefront; and when it was finally opened in late 1946, he moved there without a word to the world. (Maybe he took an immediate family with him, as the novel suggests; maybe he just didn’t have one.) Once there, Ryan’s respect for him earned him a place on the city council, a small and reserved group which deliberately held little power at the time. The Rapture Central Council began as the platonic ideal of a small hands-off government.
For a while, Rapture was prosperous and idyllic, like something lifted wholesale from an Ayn Rand novel but with fewer improbable monologues. Businesses flourished, citizens recorded their obligatory survival horror diary entries, and at least from the top down it looked like the city would go from strength to strength.
When he wasn’t advising on the council, Bill continued the physical upkeep of the city, keeping out the leaks and bitching out posh geezers when they let their pipes freeze over. He also appointed himself the thankless role of Ryan’s conscience, taking notice of the growing numbers of people below the poverty line, and trying to persuade Ryan that their grievances were worth paying attention to. But all he got from Ryan was a token response, a few debates that backfired, and the disaffected continued to gather in Lamb’s cult and Fontaine’s poorhouses.
While Bill adopted Ryan’s philosophy of a free man and a free market, he never took it to the extreme Ryan did; he cared about the have-nots as much as the haves, and was probably opposed to policies such as the banning of religion. Not that he could do much about it, since Ryan had a habit of dismissing good advice, and overruled the council on at least one occasion (by introducing the death penalty). But Bill kept on trucking on, determined that the situation could be salvaged.
This isn’t the place to detail everything that went wrong in Rapture. Suffice it to say that basically Bill predicted all of it and nobody bloody listened. To summarise: Plasmids went on the market and slowly turned everyone into murderous zombies; Ryan began to abuse his power to keep himself securely at the top; the countless citizens living in poverty began to rebel violently; and all these things led at last to a vicious and horrifying civil war. The city, cut off from the rest of the world and all but inescapable, turned into a cageful of hungry rats. Have you ever seen the movie of Watership Down, the part with flashbacks to the Sandleford Warren? Like that, but every other rabbit can open his flesh to let out giant angry hornets.
Even through all of this, Bill wouldn’t believe that the city he loved, the city he’d designed and built with his own hands and brain, was gone. He couldn’t believe that his old friend Mr Ryan wasn’t still in there somewhere, no matter how crazy he got.
While Ryan grew more and more totalitarian, nationalising businesses and introducing the death penalty for insurrection, Bill continued to try to reason with him. When people rioted he tried to figure out some way to give them a voice. When the Plasmid-producing Fontaine Futuristics was nationalised, going against the very ideals Rapture had been founded on, Bill resigned from the council in protest. But he admitted in a diary that he knew it wouldn’t do much. Ryan had gone full dictator and while Bill still loved the man he’d been, the war would never end while he was in charge.
So Bill became one of the many assassins to attempt to kill Ryan, because he thought it was that or watch the city die. Advising wasn’t enough, hadn’t been enough for a very long time. Only acting had a chance of setting things on a better course. The city and its people wouldn’t survive while Ryan breathed.
Bill McDonagh ended his life as a charred corpse on the wall of Ryan’s trophy room. And then Jack went and looted him. But can you really expect manners from a three-year-old?
* This Actually Happened
Abilities/Special Powers: Nada.
Third-Person Sample: There's a thick layer of glass in front of Bill's face. A couple of molluscs have already clamped themselves onto the other side. Beyond them, some kind of ghoulish fish with ragged edges hovers in the water, watching him with one huge black eye.
Welcome to Rapture. Bit of a culture shock. Bill has to remind himself that he can safely breathe down here, that the partition he's standing in is finished and sealed up and watertight. He can see more structures going up outside it, prefab metal skeletons lowered from huge ships thousands of yards above. They'll be reassembled on the seabed, zapped free of water using Mr Ryan's patented technology. Real, working buildings, miles under the sea.
He helped make this happen.
One day, people will live here. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. And it's Bill's job to make sure they'll do so safely. Clean water, strong bulkheads, everything has to pass his eyes before it's implemented, and against all expectation -- that's humbling. He can see exactly what he's up against and how much it'll take to get things right. The sea is a hell of a place for a bloke to try to live. Trust Mr Ryan to choose it as his real estate.
Bless Mr Ryan for trusting Bill to be up to the challenge.
He tears his eyes away from the seascape and goes back to his inspection of the supports. They've been OK'd by him twice, in the blueprints and before they went under the water. But he wants to make sure. People's lives literally depend on these holding out, and he doesn't want to meet the man who'd half-arse that job.
The metal and glass is as strong as the day it sank.
Bloody hell. It seems like a dream half the time, but it really is working.
Bill tries not to be a proud man, because pride is what makes you think you deserve more than what you've worked for. And he remembers that it's Mr Ryan who's dreamt this up, the labour of hundreds of men who've made it possible. And yet.
He's watching this city grow. More than that: he's bringing it up from an idea in a brilliant man's head to a real living thing. You can't give something the best years of your life without falling in love a little.
Before he turns away to carry on his inspection, he gives the huge metal supports a gentle pat. They're so sturdy that the fish doesn't even notice.
"You're getting there, old girl," he murmurs quietly. "You're really getting there."
First-Person Sample: [ Without preamble, except for maybe the clearing of a throat, a rough old cockney voice starts to speak over the network. ]
Seems I've stumbled into a wing of Rapture I don't recognise. [ He sounds mildly perturbed by this fact. ] Thought by now I knew every inch of the old girl, but I suppose them building crews've outpaced me at last.
[ Bill, that's not an audio diary you're talking into. Bill, no, Bill you cut that out right now. ]
Important part is, I'm lost. In Rapture! [ Low chuckle. That's not a sentence he thought he'd find himself saying. ] Still, I've gotta run into someone who knows their way sooner or later. And if it's whoever owns the place, I'll buy him a pint to make up for tresspassin'.
Helpful Glossary for the Totally Lost:
DW username:
cazrolimeE-Mail: hobbitesque at gmail dot com
IM: (AIM) Rianofski
Other Characters: Alex Kralie (
40410) and, more importantly, Mirror Alex (eidedick).Character Name: Bill McDonagh
Series: Bioshock
Timeline: Rapture’s halcyon early days, soon after the market debut of Plasmids.
Canon Resource Link: Bill’s page on the Bioshock wiki
Character Background: The only sane man in Rapture.
Wait, you need more than that? Well, okay.
(Note: This is kind of written for someone who already has a general idea of what Bioshock’s about, since I know Linda at least knows stuff about it and I think Koji might? Uhh anyway, I’m doing that for the sake of simplicity. But in case that’s made the History section too obfuscated, I’ve put some quick helpful summaries in the glossary down at the bottom. It contains spoilers for Bioshock 1 and 2.)
Bill worked as a plumber on the surface, patching up leaks and installing pipes during the postwar era and the introduction of FDR's New Deal. He first met Andrew Ryan, Rapture’s founder, when he was called in to repair the fixtures in Ryan’s fancy New York digs. Ryan had arranged with the contractor for tin fittings, but Bill installed higher quality brass ones and picked up the cost himself. It was a point of pride, he explained to Ryan. Nobody would have to bail out substandard fittings installed by him.
Ryan was impressed, and hired Bill as his general contractor.
Ryan had some pretty strong political opinions, which you might have sort of picked up on since he literally went and founded a second Galt’s Gulch, and as they became friends Bill also came around to Ryan’s way of thinking. This wasn’t met with universal approval; Bill had at least one nephew who called the philosophy BS and Bill a narcissistic bastard for buying into it.
The novel Bioshock: Rapture has more to say about Bill’s past and his role in the underwater city. But Ken Levine, omnipotent god of the Bioshock franchise, has never declared the book canon and hearsay has it that he’s distanced himself from it, so I’m going to be sticking to stuff from the games for this app. There are a few nice things I might steal, but I’m free to ignore the bits where it goes totally mad and starts talking about Sander Cohen’s arse plasmids*.
When Rapture was being designed and built, Bill was at the forefront; and when it was finally opened in late 1946, he moved there without a word to the world. (Maybe he took an immediate family with him, as the novel suggests; maybe he just didn’t have one.) Once there, Ryan’s respect for him earned him a place on the city council, a small and reserved group which deliberately held little power at the time. The Rapture Central Council began as the platonic ideal of a small hands-off government.
For a while, Rapture was prosperous and idyllic, like something lifted wholesale from an Ayn Rand novel but with fewer improbable monologues. Businesses flourished, citizens recorded their obligatory survival horror diary entries, and at least from the top down it looked like the city would go from strength to strength.
When he wasn’t advising on the council, Bill continued the physical upkeep of the city, keeping out the leaks and bitching out posh geezers when they let their pipes freeze over. He also appointed himself the thankless role of Ryan’s conscience, taking notice of the growing numbers of people below the poverty line, and trying to persuade Ryan that their grievances were worth paying attention to. But all he got from Ryan was a token response, a few debates that backfired, and the disaffected continued to gather in Lamb’s cult and Fontaine’s poorhouses.
While Bill adopted Ryan’s philosophy of a free man and a free market, he never took it to the extreme Ryan did; he cared about the have-nots as much as the haves, and was probably opposed to policies such as the banning of religion. Not that he could do much about it, since Ryan had a habit of dismissing good advice, and overruled the council on at least one occasion (by introducing the death penalty). But Bill kept on trucking on, determined that the situation could be salvaged.
This isn’t the place to detail everything that went wrong in Rapture. Suffice it to say that basically Bill predicted all of it and nobody bloody listened. To summarise: Plasmids went on the market and slowly turned everyone into murderous zombies; Ryan began to abuse his power to keep himself securely at the top; the countless citizens living in poverty began to rebel violently; and all these things led at last to a vicious and horrifying civil war. The city, cut off from the rest of the world and all but inescapable, turned into a cageful of hungry rats. Have you ever seen the movie of Watership Down, the part with flashbacks to the Sandleford Warren? Like that, but every other rabbit can open his flesh to let out giant angry hornets.
Even through all of this, Bill wouldn’t believe that the city he loved, the city he’d designed and built with his own hands and brain, was gone. He couldn’t believe that his old friend Mr Ryan wasn’t still in there somewhere, no matter how crazy he got.
While Ryan grew more and more totalitarian, nationalising businesses and introducing the death penalty for insurrection, Bill continued to try to reason with him. When people rioted he tried to figure out some way to give them a voice. When the Plasmid-producing Fontaine Futuristics was nationalised, going against the very ideals Rapture had been founded on, Bill resigned from the council in protest. But he admitted in a diary that he knew it wouldn’t do much. Ryan had gone full dictator and while Bill still loved the man he’d been, the war would never end while he was in charge.
So Bill became one of the many assassins to attempt to kill Ryan, because he thought it was that or watch the city die. Advising wasn’t enough, hadn’t been enough for a very long time. Only acting had a chance of setting things on a better course. The city and its people wouldn’t survive while Ryan breathed.
Bill McDonagh ended his life as a charred corpse on the wall of Ryan’s trophy room. And then Jack went and looted him. But can you really expect manners from a three-year-old?
* This Actually Happened
Abilities/Special Powers: Nada.
Third-Person Sample: There's a thick layer of glass in front of Bill's face. A couple of molluscs have already clamped themselves onto the other side. Beyond them, some kind of ghoulish fish with ragged edges hovers in the water, watching him with one huge black eye.
Welcome to Rapture. Bit of a culture shock. Bill has to remind himself that he can safely breathe down here, that the partition he's standing in is finished and sealed up and watertight. He can see more structures going up outside it, prefab metal skeletons lowered from huge ships thousands of yards above. They'll be reassembled on the seabed, zapped free of water using Mr Ryan's patented technology. Real, working buildings, miles under the sea.
He helped make this happen.
One day, people will live here. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. And it's Bill's job to make sure they'll do so safely. Clean water, strong bulkheads, everything has to pass his eyes before it's implemented, and against all expectation -- that's humbling. He can see exactly what he's up against and how much it'll take to get things right. The sea is a hell of a place for a bloke to try to live. Trust Mr Ryan to choose it as his real estate.
Bless Mr Ryan for trusting Bill to be up to the challenge.
He tears his eyes away from the seascape and goes back to his inspection of the supports. They've been OK'd by him twice, in the blueprints and before they went under the water. But he wants to make sure. People's lives literally depend on these holding out, and he doesn't want to meet the man who'd half-arse that job.
The metal and glass is as strong as the day it sank.
Bloody hell. It seems like a dream half the time, but it really is working.
Bill tries not to be a proud man, because pride is what makes you think you deserve more than what you've worked for. And he remembers that it's Mr Ryan who's dreamt this up, the labour of hundreds of men who've made it possible. And yet.
He's watching this city grow. More than that: he's bringing it up from an idea in a brilliant man's head to a real living thing. You can't give something the best years of your life without falling in love a little.
Before he turns away to carry on his inspection, he gives the huge metal supports a gentle pat. They're so sturdy that the fish doesn't even notice.
"You're getting there, old girl," he murmurs quietly. "You're really getting there."
First-Person Sample: [ Without preamble, except for maybe the clearing of a throat, a rough old cockney voice starts to speak over the network. ]
Seems I've stumbled into a wing of Rapture I don't recognise. [ He sounds mildly perturbed by this fact. ] Thought by now I knew every inch of the old girl, but I suppose them building crews've outpaced me at last.
[ Bill, that's not an audio diary you're talking into. Bill, no, Bill you cut that out right now. ]
Important part is, I'm lost. In Rapture! [ Low chuckle. That's not a sentence he thought he'd find himself saying. ] Still, I've gotta run into someone who knows their way sooner or later. And if it's whoever owns the place, I'll buy him a pint to make up for tresspassin'.
Helpful Glossary for the Totally Lost:
- Rapture: A city under the Atlantic ocean. Built as a haven for people who followed a roughly Objectivist philosophy, “where the great would not be constrained by the small”.
- Andrew Ryan: Born in the USSR, he stayed there long enough to get a real hateboner for communism before fleeing to the USA. When the US government started to expand its influence after WWII (with new regulations and so on), he saw it as a sign of encroaching communism, gave the whole planet the middle finger and founded Rapture as a super duper free market paradise.
- Sofia Lamb: Rapture’s resident sex god and knower of what’s best for you. She attempted to bring collectivism to Rapture and got thrown into jail for her trouble, but that didn’t stop the poor and disaffected from flocking to her banner.
- Frank Fontaine: A conman who used his profits from smuggling to gain power and fund several businesses. His was the first business to produce ADAM and Plasmids en masse. He also established poorhouses in order to attract an army of loyal citizens, with which he could challenge Ryan’s position of power.
- ADAM: ADAM is a substance derived from sea slugs, which repairs damaged cells by replacing them. Unfortunately, the new cells are unstable and require larger and larger doses of ADAM to keep them from crumbling disastrously. ADAM was originally conceived as a medical drug which could regrow and repair damaged body parts. Honestly you’d be better off taking Krokodil.
- Krokodil: Do not google image search Krokodil to make sure you spelled it right I swear to god this is not a drill
- Plasmids: Drugs which utilise ADAM’s unstable cells to imbue the user with superhuman powers. These include perennial favourites such as pyrokinesis, telekinesis, icicle magic and bees.
