Topic: Eden Leaking [A Bioshock RP - M looking for F]

[Barding]

"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
R a p t u r e.
A city where the artist need not fear the censor.
Where the scientist would not be bound by petty moraity.
Where the great would not be constrained by the small.
With the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become Your city as well."

Rapture: a city free of God and government. A place of free enterprise, seperate from politics, seperate from religion, seperate from the pettiness of the modern world. A city, seperate from the world, lying on the bottom of the ocean - isolated and hidden in the depths of the sea bed, nestled like a glistening pearl within the folds of an unassuming oyster. Hidden from corruption and hidden from the modern world's restraints, Rapture lies beyond the contemporary - Rapture lies in the bosom of the future. Nurtured by the world's best and brightest - by the true artist, by the true scientist, by the true captain of industry - Rapture is the world's one and only utopia in the socio-political clime of a world post-war. Founded in 1946 by Andrew Ryan, a Soviet war profiteer and Russia's last great capitalist, Rapture sits at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean: a huge metropolis of massive, art deco styled hive buildings, connected by an intricate network of reinforced glass tunnels and a Bathysphere system. Appearing to be roughly the size of Manhattan Island, the city is entirely autarkikal, sustaining itself in terms of electricity, water purification, food production and air production through a system of massive, park-sized oxygen gardens, integrated water-purification plants and electrical generation plants running off the geothermal energy harvested from the volcanic power lying at the bottom of the ocean trench that Rapture straddles. The city is deliberately isolationist, taking no part in world politics and, preferably, being entirely unsurveyed by the world, lying in the Atlantic Ocean's obscurity. Valuing freedom and autonomous will above all, Rapture was created to be the world's one and only utopia of free enterprise and free choice, in the world but, by Andrew Ryan's one edict, not of it. "No Gods or Kings. Only Man." With science unrestricted by God, politics or 'petty morality', Rapture has seen it progress to the point of breakthrough innumerable times. From Rapture's automated, robotic security system to its similarly automated network of vending machines and electronic mascots of free enterprise, to its breathtakingly efficient power-generation and air production systems, Ryan's utopia has, in its relatively short lifespan, moved ahead of the rest of the world in leaps and bounds. Perhaps the pinacle of Rapture's scientific development lies in ADAM. A substance created in its raw form through the digestive system of a deep-sea species of slug, ADAM is a venomous by-product that acts like a benign cancer when introduced to the human body. It destroys native cells as it works through the body, seamlessly replacing them with unstable stem versions. It is this instability that allows for the wonders ADAM can perform. It enhances healing through its regenerative properties, it can, in extreme cases, grow new appendages to replace old ones for the human body. However, through a collaboration between Doctors Bridgette Tenenbaum - ADAM's discoverer - and Yi Suchong, the volatile stem cells can be transformed by the alteration of the human body's genetic code. With research and a subtle application of chemicals, ADAM allows the double helix to first be bent and then entirely re-written through the introduction or 'splicing' of new Plasmids into the body's code. Where these Plasmids lead, the volatile stem cells left by ADAM follow and allow the body to evolve. With ADAM, anything is possible.

"Adam is the canvas of genetic modification, but Plasmids are the paint."

Similarly, its art is revolutionary, its economy is revolutionary - its people are modern. Rapture knows no prejudice and knows no discrimination. Men and women are judged not by their appearance, the ways in which they to choose to live their lives, whom they choose to love. Rather, the sweat of their brow - their achievements - define them and nothing less. Rapture is a city of great men and women, all of whom are recognised as great men and women. Furthermore, through ADAM and Plasmids they can transcend this.

This was the theory, at least. This was the dream of Rapture - Andrew Ryan's dream. However, the would-be utopia had its flaws. In Rapture's purely capitalist society, 'blissfully' free of any socialist systems whatsoever, everything from public restrooms to healthcare to the very air Rapture's citizens breathed was privately owned. Everything had a price tag. There were few, if any, standards for business and labor, allowing unscrupulous business practices to flourish. This manner of operation alienated Rapture's less fortunate citizens. Men and women who were the best and brightest in their home countries and in their old lives found themselves suddenly the lowest of the low, cleaning toilets and working in Rapture's factories and power plants while those who should, by all senses of justice, be their peers walked above them on a newly formed glass ceiling.

ADAM itself - the very symbol of Rapture's transcendent ideals - had its own problems. Once the body starts to use ADAM, it requires more and more just to get by, using this new lifeblood more quickly the greater the number of new Plasmids 'spliced' into its double helix. Similarly, Splicing had other side-effects. Excessive introduction of Plasmids into the body caused permanent brain and physical damage, driving over-users mad both from need for new ADAM to sustain their 'spliced-up' bodies and the damage to their minds. Physical deformity often followed.

On New Year's Eve, 1958, a massive riot of Rapture's newly created working class citizens and led by a terrorist and revolutionary known as 'Atlas' tore the city into disarray. This marked the end of Rapture as a functioning, utopian society and plunged it into the darkest depths of post-apocalyptic disarray. A society with few laws became a society with no laws, the great gears of the city seizing up from lack of maintenance. With looting in the city's streets and mobs of maddened 'Splicers' swarming and warring in the veins of its gradually decaying corpse, Eden started to leak. Through desperation and through all-consuming need, Rapture's citizens were divided along lines of class that were never meant to exist. They were divided by loyalties. They were divided by what they had done to their bodies, those who had abused them going mad and doing anything - killing, even - to feed their hunger for ADAM while those citizens that had walked the fine line between improvement and 'splicing' found themselves prey, cowering in the shadows, hoping that those who had once been their peers would not find them.

Often still wearing the masks of the New Year's Eve grand celebration in Rapture, these monstrosities - these addicts - stalk through Rapture's veins, climbing along her spine and crawling across her bones, to find prey and to find ADAM. Still, they remain human, whether they have covered what was once their face or not. Still, they remain great men and women. The only difference is the desperation and the blood-crazed lust in their eyes.

Eden has fallen.

[Barding]

Right, so as you may have guessed, I am looking for a roleplay set in the universe of 2K games' interpretation of the late 1950s, as represented in their game, Bioshock. With this in mind, allow me to give the basic premise of the roleplay idea:

Two strangers meet, on New Year's Eve, 1958, in Rapture's Kashmir Restaurant.
All previous character traits aside, they come together and leave for the apartment
of one or the other before midnight. At midnight, chaos and revolution strike.
After this one night stand, the two wake up to see Rapture changed.
Together, they must deal with what they see and together they must survive and together they must escape.

In a way, this is to be a humanistic survival horror RP of sorts but, in part, it is also to be a romance. The focuses are to be on the emotions of the two characters and between them. Their relationship will almost move backwards, starting with a one night stand and being forced, by their experiences together, into the realms of co-dependence and romance. It's been observed that, in life-threatening situations, one becomes attached to those also experiencing such situations alongside you far more quickly than one might normally. Similarly, the human sex-drive is also upped in such situations as the body's selfish gene attempts to pass on its credentials as quickly as possible as death could occur at any moment. These more normal emotions and impulses will, in this roleplay, be mixed with the will to survive, the will to escape the hell the two have been plunged into and the moral dillema of how to do so - will the couple take the easy route out of Rapture and 'splice themselves up' to become more than human and more likely to survive while risking their sanity and health, or will they continue to tread the tightrope between abuse of ADAM and use of it that seperated them from the Splicers in the first place?

That will be for us to decide during the roleplay.

Now you've got an idea of what I want from this roleplay, let me explain what I'd like from a writing partner for it:

• Most importantly, fantastic ability to write. I am aware that, in these two posts, I may not have provided much evidence of my having such abilities but, well, it's been so long since I've really felt intimidated by anyone else's writing. I don't want only to feel equalled. That's the bare minimum. I want to feel dwarfed in terms of writing - that's the only way I improve. Sorry to seem elitist but I am an elitist. I am hugely unlikely to settle for anything less than the best I can get, so I am not going to be choosing partners out of those who apply on a 'first-come-first-served' basis. I will be choosing the cream of the crop and I will wait for it if necessary.
• Preferably female in terms of real life gender. I would be playing the male in this couple and I would hope that you may have gathered you'd be playing the female. Apart from this, I don't mind overly much what the character is like, so long as you play her well. I want the two characters to seem real. I want this roleplay to let them come alive.
• Some knowledge of the setting itself would be nice but a willingness to learn is just as good! I'd like to say I've given the basics of the setting in the first post anyway, right?
• Friendliness OOC is a bonus.
• Sharing On's (as featured in my On's and Off's page, linked in my signature) is also a BIG bonus.
• Look at the links in my signature for more information about me, how I play, what I play and why. My likes and dislikes - the works. It's all there.

Without further ado, I'll hand over to you and hope that someone takes me up on this offer.

Thank you for listening. Please bump this thread if you liked what it contained and, if you are interested in applying to partner up with me to write it, send me a PM AND bump the thread. Thank you very much.

[Barding]

*mews and wants someone to play this with*

[Echo]

Oh. My. God.

-Deep breath-

ILOVETHIS. Bioshock is such a great game and this plot is so amazing. I want this so bad. I'm brand new to Elliquiy, but I can find some examples for you from other roleplays I've done.

-Paws and curls at feet-