Diary.08: Frank Fontaine (Atlas) - The Ultimate Egoist

Introduction: The Darkness of the Deep Sea and the Quickening of the Parasite

In the 1950s, as Cold War paranoia and the threat of nuclear annihilation blanketed the surface world, a single miracle was constructed at the bottom of the unforgiving, dark abyss of the deep sea. It was the underwater city of Rapture, a place where the resplendent neon of Art Deco coexisted with an almost maddening aesthetic consciousness. This city was born under the ideals of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism and Rational Egoism, championed by a single man named Andrew Ryan. A utopia for the great creators (builders), free from government censorship, the moral oppression of religion, and the shackles of Altruism that sought to save the weak. Ryan referred to those who would seize the fruits of his labor as a “Parasite,” and dreamed of establishing a completely free-market economy isolated from them.

However, the completely deregulated market and the absence of ethics ironically became the perfect breeding ground to cultivate the “ultimate Parasite” that would devour the system from within. That man’s name was Frank Fontaine, also known as Atlas. As a historical chronicler of Rapture, this report aims to thoroughly elucidate the psychological depths of this con artist of a thousand faces and the causal relationships of the ruin he brought about.

In the game BioShock, Fontaine’s existence cannot possibly be confined to the mere framework of a crime syndicate boss or the mastermind of a rebellion. He was the very fatal blind spot of The Great Chain constructed by Ryan. He is living counter-evidence demonstrating how the philosophy of Objectivism, which pursues only self-interest, can lead to moral nihilism and the thorough exploitation of others. While Ryan defined himself as a “builder” and martyred himself for his philosophy, Fontaine was a Looter through and through, possessing no philosophy or beliefs within his own inner self. By synthesizing a micro-level body of evidence—left behind in audio diaries, environmental visuals told by posters and the ruins of facilities, the heartbreaking dialogue of NPCs, and his own gruesome demise—the full picture of this ultimate egoist will be brought into sharp relief.

2. The Usurpation of Identity: From Frank Gorland to Fontaine

The most terrifying trait of the man known as Frank Fontaine lies in his pure emptiness—the complete absence of a “firm self (identity)” at his core. In Objectivism, one’s identity and creativity are the most revered and inviolable domains. However, to him, identity was nothing more than a temporary “costume” used to manipulate others and maximize his own survival and profit.

2.1 Synthesis of Factual Relations

As a fact ascertained from in-game records and related materials, his real name on the surface before descending to Rapture was reportedly “Frank Gorland.” In New York around 1946, he operated in the shadows as a loan shark and con artist. He demonstrated a natural talent for preying on the weaknesses of others, such as swindling a bar called “The Clanger” from its original owner as collateral for a debt, and it is recorded that he used multiple aliases (Barris, Winston, Moskowitz, Wang, Lucio Fabrizzi, etc.) even back then.

Subsequently, he stole the identity of a real longshoreman and food distributor named “Frank Fontaine,” and used that name to successfully smuggle himself into Rapture. The words he spoke to the protagonist, Jack, right before his death vividly express his true nature: “A man in my line of work takes on a variety of aliases. Hell, once I was even a Chinaman for six months.”

2.2 Analysis Based on Circumstantial Evidence

As an analysis inferred from these facts, it is highly likely that Frank Gorland murdered the real Frank Fontaine and completely usurped his identity. In the closed space of Rapture, past histories were uncertain and based on self-reporting. To deceive the eyes of Ryan’s immigration screening, it was most rational to steal the identity of a real person who was actually scheduled to be involved in the construction or labor of Rapture.

He switched his personas according to the situation, acting as a parasite on the “psychological gaps” possessed by each target. The table below shows the main personas he used inside and outside of Rapture, and the structure of his exploitation.

In this way, his individualism was nothing more than “one-sided board control to manipulate others and win his own game of survival.” He maneuvered most cunningly within the rules of free competition created by Ryan, while simultaneously mocking those very rules from the bottom of his heart.

3. Alchemy in the Ethical Void: Smuggling and the Monopoly of ADAM

Fontaine’s rise in Rapture originated from his smuggling operation from the surface, using Fontaine Fisheries as a front. Ryan’s complete severance of contact with the surface created an enormous black market demand for luxury goods such as Bibles, surface music, cigarettes, and beef. Fontaine accurately struck at Ryan’s “contradiction”—imposing authoritarian control over the single point of contact with the surface while championing a free market—and amassed immense wealth.

In the audio diary “Offered a Deal,” smuggler Peach Wilkins describes the situation where Fontaine’s influence is beginning to surpass Ryan’s: “Fontaine’s got the ADAM, and everybody wants it. Ryan’s got the speeches and the fancy suits. Down here in the bottom of the ocean, any fool can see which way the wind is blowing.”

However, what propelled him from a mere smuggler to the true ruler of Rapture was the discovery and commercialization of ADAM. When Brigid Tenenbaum discovered a miraculous substance in a Sea Slug from the deep sea that could regenerate and alter cells, Ryan and other capitalists failed to see its true value. But Fontaine was different. In the audio diary “Kraut Scientist,” he delivers an extremely cold-blooded assessment of Tenenbaum: “She’s a crippled-up piece of junk from the camps, but she ain’t crazy. She’s gonna bring in a vein of gold that’ll make Ryan’s paper route look like chump change. All she needs is supplies for her research, and a friend to watch her back.”

3.1 Separation of Fact and Analysis

As a matter of fact, Fontaine did not make any scientific inventions himself. He financially corralled genius scientists lacking ethical compasses, such as Brigid Tenenbaum and Yi Suchong, and packaged their research results into commercial products known as Plasmids and Gene Tonics. What can be analyzed from this is how perfectly Fontaine understood the “blind spots of capitalism.” In the utopia of Objectivism, the side effects of mental and physical collapse in exchange for the supernatural power of ADAM were unleashed upon a completely free market, without being caught in any net of regulations or safety standards. Fontaine knew all too well how selling an addictive product without regulation could become a means to dominate society in a short period of time.

A further noteworthy fact is that Fontaine felt absolutely no pangs of conscience regarding the inhumanity of the existence of the Little Sister. The plan to kidnap other people’s daughters from orphanages and implant a Sea Slug in their bodies to turn them into ADAM production factories was executed on a massive scale with Fontaine’s immense financial backing and approval. Amidst the dystopian madness of the 1950s, where the taboos of Eugenics and human experimentation had been removed, the lives of others were mere “capital” to him, and moral right and wrong were not even obstacles to his business.

4. False Salvation and the Weaponization of Philanthropy: Fontaine’s Home for the Poor

Fontaine’s “ultimate egoism” manifests in its most gruesome form through the brainwashing and exploitation system he deployed under the guise of “philanthropy.” Andrew Ryan, a devotee of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, harbored an extreme disgust for Altruism—the saving of the weak—viewing it as the ideology of a Parasite. In Rapture, those who lost in the competition fell through the safety net, destined to starve to death in the dark of the ocean floor without anyone’s help. Fontaine saw through to the fact that these very “losers” discarded by Ryan would become his greatest weapon.

4.1 Synthesis of Environmental Visuals and Factual Relations

He established Fontaine’s Home for the Poor and the Little Sister’s Orphanage in Hestia Chambers of Apollo Square. This massive facility is a dense, tower-like structure that looks as if a 1950s New York slum had been brought directly to the ocean floor. Propaganda posters praising Atlas and graffiti reading “Atlas Lives” are painted everywhere on the exterior and interior of the building.

The table below organizes the structure of Fontaine’s Home for the Poor and the factual relations of “Environmental Storytelling” that can be read from it.

In the audio diary “Sad Saps,” he coldly confesses the true purpose of his philanthropy: “Sad saps. They come to Rapture thinking they’re gonna be captains of industry, but they all forget that somebody’s gotta scrub the toilets. They handed me the best trump card in the deck. I give ‘em a cot and a bowl of soup, and they give me their lives. Who needs an army when I got Fontaine’s Home for the Poor?“

4.2 Analysis Based on Circumstantial Evidence

It is analyzed that this philanthropy was a grand “Confidence Scheme” inspired by the free counseling activities of Sofia Lamb, who would later become Rapture’s psychiatrist. By giving alms, he manipulated the self-esteem of the poor, instilling a blind faith that “Ryan won’t help you, but Fontaine will lend a hand.” The residents of the Home for the Poor were used as test subjects for inhumane biological experiments of new Plasmids, and were driven into ADAM addiction. While Ryan tried to bind people with “ideals,” Fontaine bound them with the most primitive desires: “stomachs” and “the thirst for ADAM.” This was the very essence of his terrifying social engineering: becoming the greatest Parasite himself, while directing other parasites (the poor) toward the heart of the host, Ryan.

5. The False Image Named Atlas: Usurpation of Myth and Mass Manipulation

Against Fontaine, who had begun to dominate Rapture’s economy through the profits of smuggling and ADAM, Ryan finally decided on a purge through the use of armed force. However, Fontaine was always one step ahead. On September 12, 1958, he faked his own death following a shootout with Ryan’s security forces. Disappearing from the public stage, he underwent meticulous cosmetic surgery and vocal cord training, and was reborn as a completely new persona: “Atlas.”

This naming of “Atlas” contains an extremely intense and blasphemous irony directed at Ayn Rand’s representative work, Atlas Shrugged. To Ryan (and the Objectivists), the mythological giant Atlas is a symbol of the “great creator and capitalist who supports the world” through his own talent and labor. However, Fontaine usurped and redefined the name Atlas as that of a simple fisherman with an Irish brogue, a “hero of Collectivism” who would liberate the working class (proletariat).

5.1 Witness to Tragedy: Diane McClintock

The best micro-level evidence demonstrating how deep and cruel Atlas’s psychological manipulation was is the footprint of Diane McClintock, Andrew Ryan’s former lover. She was caught up in the New Year’s Eve terrorism (the bombing at the Kashmir Restaurant) and suffered ugly scars on her face. Abandoned by Ryan and having lost her beauty and status, she was torn between hatred for the terrorists who scarred her and despair toward Ryan, who would not save her.

However, she met Atlas’s followers in Apollo Square and was moved by seeing them “liberating themselves.” In the audio diary “Meeting Atlas,” she says: “They finally took me to see Atlas. Even though I was Ryan’s girl… he took me in. He says he’s no liberator. He says they liberate themselves…”

Furthermore, in “Today’s Raid,” her psychology is recorded as she becomes completely brainwashed as Atlas’s private soldier, to the point of justifying even inhumane acts: “Today we went on a raid outside the wire. (…) We had to do some terrible things to take down a Big Daddy and get the ADAM from that little girl (Little Sister). But we didn’t start this. Ryan did. I can’t wait to report back to Atlas. He’ll be so proud.”

As a matter of fact, Atlas (Fontaine) exploited Diane’s loneliness, her desire for revenge against Ryan, and the fundamental human weakness of wanting something to cling to, sending her to the front lines as a disposable pawn. In the cold-blooded city of Objectivism, the communal warmth of “family” and “the cause” spoken of by Atlas functioned as a fatal, potent poison.

6. Behaviorism in the Cold War and Pavlov’s Dog: “Would you kindly”

Fontaine’s lust for domination did not stop at social agitation or inciting the masses. Stripping away human free will itself from its very roots to create a perfect biological weapon (automaton) was the true nature of his ultimate project, the “Ace in the Hole.” Symbolizing this is the infamous trigger phrase that has gone down in gaming history: “Would you kindly.”

6.1 Synthesis of Ideological Background

This method of brainwashing is the culmination of “mind control (brainwashing),” which became an object of fear under the Cold War structure of the 1950s, and Behaviorism, such as B.F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning and Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning. Fontaine bought the illegitimate child (the future protagonist, Jack) that Tenenbaum had discovered from Ryan’s genetic information, and ordered Dr. Suchong to administer rapid physical growth at the genetic level and absolute obedience (imprinting) to a specific phrase.

6.2 Facts Shown by Suchong’s Records

The audio diary “Mind Control Test” left by Dr. Suchong is a hair-raising record of facts showing how coldly Fontaine’s directives were executed. The recording preserves the voice of an innocent young Jack (whose body has rapidly grown, but whose mind remains that of a child) playing with a puppy.

Dr. Suchong: “That is a very pretty puppy… break its neck.” Jack: “No… please…” Dr. Suchong: “Break that dog’s neck. — ‘Would you kindly’.” Jack: “No, no… (Immediately followed by the sound of the dog’s bones snapping and the puppy yelping)” Dr. Suchong: “Very good.”

Through this maddening experiment, Jack’s free will was completely destroyed. In another audio diary, “Fontaine’s Human Jukebox,” Dr. Suchong testifies: “For years, we thought we were making progress with Skinner boxes and electroshock. Waste of time. Until ADAM, taming a child was like taming a python. … Fontaine hands me a script of memories he wants implanted in the child. That kid isn’t human. He’s just a human jukebox, playing whatever tune Fontaine wants to hear.”

“A man chooses, a slave obeys.” This is the absolute thesis that succinctly expresses Ryan’s beliefs, but Fontaine remade Jack into a “perfect slave with no choices” and unleashed him onto the surface as a time bomb to assassinate Ryan. Then, when the civil war bogged down and he was cornered, he had Jack hijack a plane and called him back to Rapture. Fontaine’s parasitism did not merely steal the wealth and structure of society; it eroded and violated even the sacred domain of human “independence of mind.”

7. The Longest Con and the Exposed Void of the Mind

The moment the protagonist, Jack, reaches deep into Rapture, to Rapture Central Control, and beats Andrew Ryan to death by the hands of his own daughter (more accurately, his genetically engineered son), Fontaine’s plan is completed. Even at the moment of his death, Ryan refused the defeat of his philosophy by “choosing death of his own free will and having a slave (Jack) kill him.” However, Fontaine possesses no such aesthetics whatsoever.

Immediately after Jack inserts the genetic key taken from Ryan’s corpse into the machine, Atlas’s voice undergoes a dramatic change. The gentle, strong, Irish-accented voice of a hero who loves his family suddenly vanishes, transforming into the natural voice of a cold, mocking con artist with a New York Bronx accent. “I’ve partnered with a lot of guys in my time, but you were the best. Course, the fact that you were genetically conditioned to bark like a cocker spaniel when you heard the phrase ‘Would you kindly’ might have had something to do with it… Now I rule Rapture.”

The decisive fact showing how he disguised even his true face and deceived everyone around him is the audio diary “The Longest Con,” left in the headquarters in Apollo Square (Hestia Chambers, 4th floor). “Atlas is the longest con I ever pulled. Ryan wanted Frank Fontaine dead, I just gave him what he wanted. As Atlas, I got a new face, a clean record, and a fresh start. Now it’s time to take back Rapture—” During that recording, Diane McClintock unluckily enters the room. Just as she was about to make a report to “Atlas,” she overheard the monologue of Fontaine’s true ambitions. Fontaine hastily tries to cover it up with his original voice and unnaturally cuts the recording.

Diane’s corpse lies gruesomely right next to the safe beside the desk where this very audio diary is placed. She was murdered by his own hands immediately after learning the despairing and cruel truth that the man named “Fontaine,” whom she hated to the marrow of her bones, was the exact same person as “Atlas,” whom she had devoted everything to and loved completely.

Right after revealing his true identity, Fontaine easily tries to leave Jack, who has outlived his usefulness, to die, and repeatedly throws cheap taunts while sending security bots after him. From Jack’s perspective, he is thrust into the blunt reality that Atlas, who had been his guiding light of hope and the symbol of familial warmth, was merely the mimicry of a psychopathic Parasite. Here, the bottomless mental void of the man who collapsed the utopia of Objectivism from the inside is exposed.

8. Point Prometheus: The Thirst for Power and the Fall into Monstrosity

When his plan is completely exposed and Jack, with Brigid Tenenbaum’s help, breaks free from the mind control (via the administration of Lot 192) and begins to pursue him, Fontaine’s fate takes a sudden nosedive. The man who had always manipulated others from the safety of the shadows and ruled the world with the spell “Would you kindly” is driven into an unprecedented corner. At this point, his “ultimate egoism” triggers its greatest self-contradiction.

Fleeing pursuit and cornered in the experimental facilities of Point Prometheus, the deepest part of Rapture, Fontaine begins to inject massive amounts of ADAM directly into his own body. Until then, he had maintained his dominance by giving ADAM to others and driving the Splicers into madness. He, who was supposed to be a “Parasite” that never took risks himself and watched the desires and mental collapse of others from a front-row seat, remakes himself into the most detestable, grotesque monster in order to protect his own life.

8.1 Visual and Psychological Analysis of the Final Form

In his final form, Fontaine retains absolutely no trace of his human original form, becoming a mass of muscle and tumors like a colossal temple statue. As he attacks Jack while sequentially switching between the powers of three powerful Plasmids—fire, ice, and electricity—his appearance seems to physically flaunt a might akin to the mythological giant “Atlas” he once played.

However, analyzing logically from the environmental visuals and the psychological causality of the character, this is not the embodiment of the “will to power,” but nothing other than the final form of “fear” and “escape.” The man who had manipulated others with intellect and schemes, hacking the entire social system, ultimately relied on the most primitive and unsightly means: “physical enhancement of the self and violence.” He could only preserve his own petty mind by overdosing on ADAM as a symbol of “power” and “deifying” himself into a monster.

To borrow Ayn Rand’s words, a “Looter” like him cannot create value through his own inner strength. Therefore, it can be said that in the end, he was destined to be swallowed up in mind and body by the very physical power (ADAM) he had looted and sold as a commodity, leading to his ruin. He tried to rise from a Parasite to a host, but in the end, he was nothing more than a slave to the immense material desire known as ADAM.

Conclusion: Judgment by the Exploited and the Fate of the Parasite

The final battle at Point Prometheus progresses with Jack repeatedly stabbing a giant syringe (ADAM extractor) directly into Fontaine’s chest, stripping the “power” from him. Fontaine screams, agonizing from the rampage of the ADAM he was supposed to have controlled. However, what brings him his ultimate death is not the bullets or powerful Plasmids fired by Jack.

The moment Jack extracts the last of the ADAM, Fontaine collapses ungracefully to the floor. Then, from the darkness of the facility, countless Little Sisters appear out of nowhere. They are the very embodiment of the ultimate “objects of exploitation”—whom Fontaine once subjected to inhumane biological experiments for immense profit, confined in orphanages, and furthermore, under the false name of Atlas, ordered Jack to “take their ADAM (kill them).”

The expressionless girls swarm Fontaine’s massive, grotesque body, simultaneously plunging in the giant syringes (Gatherer’s tools) they use day and night to collect ADAM from corpses. The ultimate egoist, who trampled on all human dignity and utterly destroyed the ethics of the free market solely for his own profit and survival, was literally torn to pieces and drained of all his ADAM by the hands of the fragile children he had treated as the most worthless “things,” breathing his last.

Summary: The Blind Spot of Objectivism and the Collapse of Philosophy

The history of the man named Frank Fontaine was a kind of “inevitable pathology” contained within the city of Rapture. Since Andrew Ryan’s Objectivism preached the “complete elimination of moral constraints” and the “affirmation of individual desires,” it was inevitable that a pure psychopath who preyed on the products, labor, and even the very lives of others would be born there. If Ryan was a slave to “ideals,” Fontaine was a slave to the very system of “egoism.”

The mass brainwashing system he constructed through Fontaine’s Home for the Poor, the completion of the “human jukebox” based on Behaviorism, and the grand, ostentatious tale of “Atlas.” These are all the deeds of a demonic genius who made his natural intellect and charisma serve solely his own self-interest to the absolute limit.

However, in the end, there was “nothing” inside him. The Parasite, who could only define himself by continuously deceiving, stealing from others, and wearing masks, ultimately became dust on the ocean floor through the poison of desire (ADAM) he himself cultivated and the quiet revenge of the weak he had trampled upon. The fall of Rapture does not solely come down to Ryan’s dogmatism or the madness of the Splicers. It is the result of the “bottomless dark void” that pre-existed in the heart of the man named Frank Fontaine, infinitely swelling in the darkness of the locked room that was the underwater city, and ultimately swallowing the city’s philosophy itself. A man chooses, a slave obeys. But the Parasite merely groveled and waited for ruin.