Diary.12: Conclusion - A man chooses, a slave obeys

1960, the unforgiving abyss of the Atlantic Ocean. The moment a visitor pushes open the doors of the isolated lighthouse floating amidst the pitch-black waves, they are greeted by a lavish Art Deco bust and a massive brass banner hung above it. “No Gods or Kings. Only Man.” (NO GODS OR KINGS. ONLY MAN.). This declaration is the entirety of the founding principle set forth by Andrew Ryan, the creator of the underwater city of Rapture, and the ultimate culmination of the Objectivism philosophy he embraced.

The underlying theme of the masterpiece BioShock is a scathing critique of absolute individual freedom and Rational Egoism, as epitomized by Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. However, this article, the final installment of this project, focuses on more than just the collapse of a political ideology. What this work truly sought to depict is a more profound and terrifying psychological and deterministic thesis: “Does human free will actually exist?”

In this report, centering on Ryan’s words, “A man chooses, a slave obeys,” we will thoroughly elucidate how the city of Rapture devoured its own philosophy. We will detail the rampage of Behaviorism under the Cold War structure of the 1950s, the depths of mind control through genetic engineering, the madness of a dictator eloquently told by environmental visuals, and the true meaning of the “choices” imposed on the protagonist, Jack. This will be done by integrating micro-level factual relationships, such as audio diaries and circumstantial evidence left within the game, while clearly separating them from our analysis.

1. The Demise of Objectivism and the Reality of Dictatorship Told by the “Wall of Corpses”

The utopia Andrew Ryan built in the deep sea was based on the absolute belief (The Great Chain) that eliminating all state market intervention and religious moral constraints, and prioritizing the individual’s “freedom of choice,” is what drives society forward. To Ryan, one who acts of their own will and solely enjoys the fruits of their own labor is a “Man,” while an altruist who depends on others or one who blindly follows the orders of authority is nothing more than a Parasite or a “slave.”

However, the reality of Rapture that the player witnesses in the game is a gruesome dystopia where this noble philosophy has completely died out. The most vivid historical evidence of this collapse is the environmental visual of the “wall of corpses” displayed at the entrance to Rapture Central Control, namely, on the outer wall of Ryan’s office.

1.1 Environmental Evidence: Former Comrades Turned into Examples

As a fact explicitly shown in the game, the charred corpses of several humans are crucified with spears on this wall. They are not outside invaders, but citizens who once believed in Ryan’s ideals and devoted themselves to the development of Rapture.

One of them, Bill McDonagh, was a man who could be called a close friend and contributed to the construction of Rapture, but he rebelled against Ryan’s dictatorial behavior and was executed after attempting an assassination to save the city. Furthermore, the female corpse hanging next to him is Anya Andersdotter, a shoemaker in Rapture. Her audio diary left on her corpse, “Going To Heat Loss,” records a definitive despair over the collapse of the ideals.

“Me, an assassin… it’s a laugh. I could have just become a Splicer and forgotten everything. I believed in this place. I believed in Ryan. But when things got tough, Ryan didn’t believe in Rapture, or The Great Chain. All he believed in was power.”

Anya met a gruesome end: she had a sexual relationship with Pablo Navarro to obtain information for the assassination, was subsequently betrayed by Kyburz, and handed over to Ryan’s men. Moreover, even Sullivan, the head of security, hints at his resignation in his audio diary “Have My Badge,” stating in response to the relentless string of hangings of smugglers, “If Ryan and his crew want to push their laws through, they can have my badge.”

1.2 Integration of Facts and Analysis: The Psychological Mechanism of Self-Destruction

Factual Aspect: To suppress the city’s chaos caused by the power struggle and civil war with Frank Fontaine (Atlas), Ryan imposed martial law, publicly executed those who rebelled against him, and personally executed the “rule of terror by power” that he had once denied. Analytical Aspect: As an analysis inferred from environmental evidence, this “wall of corpses” is an expression of Ryan’s own severe psychological paranoia, going beyond a mere device for deterring rebellion. The contradiction of a man who believed in the absoluteness of free will crushing the “free will” of those who do not agree with his ideals by force. He fell into the dictator’s trap of only being able to maintain his own freedom (power) by depriving others of theirs, transforming into the very “oppressive state power” he hated most.

2. Science Without Ethics and the Abyss of Behaviorism: MK-Ultra and “Lot 111”

What sealed Ryan’s philosophical defeat was the mind control project at the genetic level by the genius scientist Yi Suchong. Behind this setting lies a clear ideological context of the rampage of Behaviorism during the Cold War, including “Project MK-Ultra,” which was secretly conducted by the US CIA from the 1950s to the 1960s.

In the real world at the time, experiments in brainwashing and forced confessions using LSD, electroshock, and sensory deprivation were being conducted. Theories such as Donald Hebb’s “neuroplasticity” (Hebb’s rule that neurons that fire together wire together) were misinterpreted, and it was believed that the human mind could be wiped clean and reconstructed by external stimuli. Dr. Suchong’s experiments in Rapture are the ultimate embodiment of this real-world madness through the fictional substance known as ADAM.

2.1 The Sale of Free Will: The Decision of “Mental Suggestion”

In the in-game audio diary “Mental Suggestion,” Dr. Suchong proposes to Ryan an improvement to a Plasmid that mentally controls citizens via pheromones. Ryan initially shows strong disgust, stating, “Free will is the cornerstone of this city. To sacrifice it is an abomination.” However, the fear of defeat in the civil war against Atlas shatters his last remaining sense of ethics.

“But… we are at war. If Atlas and his bandits take over, won’t we be made slaves? What happens to free will then? Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

This progression of factual events demonstrates a universal lesson in dystopian literature: any noble ideal (Objectivism) easily crumbles in the face of existential crisis and fear, descending into a system that strips citizens of their fundamental human rights under the guise of a just cause.

2.2 “Lot 111” and the Tragedy of Pavlov’s Dog

The protagonist, Jack, was born as the masterpiece of this mad science. He is by no means a castaway who accidentally wandered into Rapture. Despite being the biological son born to Ryan and his mistress Jasmine Jolene, he was bought by Fontaine at the fetal stage and artificially “designed” by Dr. Suchong to be the ultimate assassin.

In the audio diary “Baby Status,” Dr. Suchong dispassionately reports an astonishing fact. “Subject Lot 111. Client: Fontaine Futuristics. The baby is now one year old. Weighs 58 pounds, possesses the gross musculature of a healthy 19-year-old. The results are disappointing, but within acceptable tolerances.” Jack was never given the time for the “process of growth” or the “establishment of ego” essential for human formation. He is closer to a weapon manufactured in a short period for a specific purpose than a biological human being.

Even more terrifying is the intense imprinting based on Behaviorism. To completely erase Jack’s ego and turn him into a puppet, Dr. Suchong embedded an absolute conditioned reflex to a specific trigger phrase into his brain.

The audio diary “Mind Control Test” records the ruthless experiment that heralded its completion. Dr. Suchong faces the subject boy and orders him to break the neck of a puppy he adores. When the boy cries out and refuses, saying, “No, please,” Dr. Suchong coldly declares:

“Break that puppy’s neck—Would you kindly…”

Immediately after, regardless of the boy’s will, the sound of a bone breaking echoes, and the boy lets out a cry of despair. This phrase, “Would you kindly,” is the Pavlovian bell embedded in Jack’s brain. The moment he hears these words, Jack’s neural circuits bypass all moral conflicts and self-determination processes, physically wired to fall into a state of unconscious, forced obedience.

3. Hijacked Fate: The Fiction Called Memory

From the start of the game, the protagonist Jack (and by extension, the player themselves) is given the intense illusion that he is “acting of his own free will and confronting a harsh fate.” He miraculously survives a plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean, swims through raging waves to reach a lighthouse, and fights terrifying madmen, relying on the radio instructions of a mysterious guide, Atlas.

However, the fact that becomes clear as the story progresses is the cruel reality that there was never a single “moment of his own choosing” in Jack’s life.

3.1 Forged Identity

The family photo in the wallet Jack cherished and the “warm memories with his parents on the farm” are all nothing more than false memories implanted directly into his brain to give him the illusion of being human. Ryan asks Jack in the final phase: “You think you have memories. A farm. A family. An airplane. A crash. But did you really have a family? Did that plane ‘crash,’ or was it hijacked?”

As a matter of fact, even that crash over the Atlantic Ocean was no accident. The moment a letter containing the phrase “Would you kindly” from Atlas (Frank Fontaine) was delivered to Jack waiting on the ground, Jack unconsciously activated, hijacked the plane he was on, and intentionally crashed it right next to the lighthouse at pre-calculated coordinates.

Analytical Aspect: This mechanism not only depicts the psychological despair of the character Jack but also poses a meta-question: “Does the player have true free will in a video game?” The player has followed the objective markers displayed on the screen and Atlas’s polite guidance of “Would you kindly…” without any doubt, slaughtering enemies and progressing through the map. The very structure of the story proves that we, the players ourselves, were “slaves” conditioned like Pavlov’s dog by the game’s system, made to harbor the illusion of free will.

3.2 Materialistic Liberation: The Irony Shown by “Lot 192”

The solution to break Jack’s brainwashing was also not a philosophical triumph of the spirit, but an extremely materialistic means. To escape Fontaine’s control, Jack must find a special drug called “Lot 192” (an antidote to mind control) in Dr. Suchong’s apartment (Mercury Suites) and administer it to himself.

As a fact, Lot 192 is a chemical that physically destroys and reconstructs the pheromone receptors and the structure of Mental Suggestion engraved at Jack’s cellular level. Analytical Aspect: A scathing irony is embedded here. The fact that the means to regain the “inviolable free will” touted by Rapture relies not on moral awakening or spiritualism, but on “administering another chemical substance (drug) into the bloodstream.” This suggests a thoroughly materialistic and deterministic worldview that the human mind and will are ultimately nothing more than physical reactions of chemicals and neurotransmission, as if sneering at the “independence of a noble soul” that Objectivism presupposed.

4. Rapture Central Control: The Moment Philosophy Devours Itself

The philosophical and literary pinnacle of this story is the direct confrontation with Andrew Ryan in Rapture Central Control.

When Jack crosses numerous lines of death and finally opens the heavy watertight doors to step into the control room, there is no expected fierce resistance or preparation for a final battle. In the heart of the collapsing city, Ryan, standing behind bulletproof glass, is merely quietly playing putt-putt golf. At this point, Ryan had seen through the fact that the assassin Jack was his biological son inheriting his genes, and at the same time, a puppet completely brainwashed by Fontaine.

4.1 The Ultimate Proof: “A man chooses, a slave obeys”

Ryan opens the bulletproof glass door and invites the assassin who came to kill him into his own office. Then, he begins a fierce demonstration that could be called the “final lecture” of the philosophy he staked his life on.

“The assassin has overcome my final line of defense, and now he has come to murder me. In the end, what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No, A man chooses, a slave obeys!”

Ryan stares into Jack’s eyes and commands, “Stop, would you kindly?” At that moment, Jack’s body is allowed no resistance and freezes as if sewn to the floor. “Would you kindly sit,” “Would you kindly stand,” “Run,” “Stop,” “Turn.” To the rapid-fire commands, Jack obeys perfectly, like a machine with blood running through it. Ryan proves the horrifying fact that his own flesh and blood has been reduced to a complete “slave” without a shred of free will, like a cold-blooded scientific experiment.

4.2 The Completion of Objectivism Through His Own Death

And Ryan, with his own hands, makes Jack grip the golf club.

“KILL!… A man chooses! A slave obeys! OBEY!”

Following this absolute command, Jack, with no means to resist, swings down the golf club, repeatedly striking his own father’s skull and bludgeoning him to death.

Factual Aspect: Jack bludgeons Ryan to death in a cutscene where the player’s control is taken away, due to Ryan’s command (and systemic constraints). Analytical Aspect: This fierce manner of death appears at first glance to be Ryan’s complete defeat and a mad act of suicide. However, analyzed from a philosophical dimension, this is Ryan’s “ultimate proof of self-determination.” Faced with the unbearable reality that the utopia he built was collapsing and falling into the hands of his enemy, a Parasite (Frank Fontaine), he refused to entrust his fate to others. He completely controlled the timing of his death, the means of his death, and even the actions of his executioner through his own “choice.”

It was not violence or the enemy’s stratagems that took Ryan’s life. “Philosophy devoured itself.” Ryan proved that he was a “Man” who chooses through his death, and simultaneously, by forcing Jack to commit murder, he cruelly proved that Jack was a “slave” who merely obeys orders. With this madness-filled tragic ending, it can be said that Ryan’s Objectivism philosophy achieved ultimate self-completion at the cost of his own blood and life.

5. The Ultimate Ethical Choice — A Chain of Exploitation, or Salvation Through Altruism

After the tragedy in Rapture Central Control, Jack, freed from the curse of “Would you kindly” by the administration of Lot 192, acquires “free will” in the truest sense for the first time. Having broken free from being a slave to the system and finally gaining the right to choose as a “Man,” what kind of decision should Jack (and the player) make?

The story and philosophical questions of this work are all condensed into the systemic choice of “how to treat the Little Sisters,” which is scattered throughout the journey and determines the ending.

5.1 The Logic of Egoism

Strictly following Ayn Rand’s Objectivism philosophy, “sacrificing one’s own interests for others (Altruism)” is a vice that degrades human dignity. Therefore, to survive the harsh Rapture and maximize one’s chances of survival, the most “rational” choice is to eliminate emotion, “Harvest” the Little Sisters, and obtain more power (ADAM). The powerful figures of Rapture, such as Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine, have stood at the top precisely by following this logic, exploiting others and using them as stepping stones.

If Jack continues to choose to “Harvest,” he degenerates into an “incarnation of power and desire” just like Ryan and Fontaine. If one or more Little Sisters are harvested in the game, the ending branches into the “Bad Ending (or Neutral Ending).” In this conclusion, after defeating Fontaine, Jack transforms into a ruthless tyrant who leads a massive horde of Splicers to the surface and hijacks a submarine equipped with nuclear weapons. This is an extremely ironic tragedy, meaning that a human who supposedly gained free will ultimately degraded into a “slave” to a new master: his own “thirst for power (ADAM).“

5.2 Tenenbaum’s Atonement and the Triumph of Altruism

On the other hand, the choice to “Rescue” all the Little Sisters is a complete rejection of the philosophy of egoism that forms the foundation of Rapture.

Guiding this path of salvation is the scientist Brigid Tenenbaum, the creator of the Little Sisters. She has a harrowing past, having experienced the Holocaust (Auschwitz concentration camp) in her childhood and witnessed the inhumane human experiments of Josef Mengele and others. Despite this, she became obsessed with scientific exploration and ambition in Rapture, committing the grave sin of once again modifying orphans into “ADAM production factories (Little Sisters).” However, she is the only one among the great figures of Rapture who realized her own madness and aimed for the “restoration of ethics” with deep remorse. She once wrote: “ADAM has improved every aspect of humanity, except its character. If only there were a Plasmid to grow a soul.”

If Jack continues to choose “Rescue,” letting go of immediate profit (a large amount of ADAM) and returning the Little Sisters to humans even at the risk of his own life, this altruistic action becomes the very act of “growing a soul” that Tenenbaum sought.

In the “Good Ending” reached when all Little Sisters are rescued, Jack severs the temptation to become the ruler of Rapture and escapes to the sunlit surface with the girls he saved. Tenenbaum’s monologue in the ending beautifully and movingly summarizes the true philosophy this story has arrived at.

“They offered you the city (Rapture)… but you refused it. And what did you do instead? What I’ve come to expect of you. You saved them. You gave them the one thing that was stolen from them… a chance. A chance to learn… to find love… to live. And what was your reward? You never said, but I think I know. A family.”

The “fake memories of a family” implanted in his brain by Dr. Suchong and ruthlessly exposed by Ryan. Through “altruistic choices” and “unconditional love” born of his own free will, Jack acquired that supposedly fictional family with his own hands as a reality of warmth.

Conclusion: The Weight of Choice and the Warning Left by Rapture

Rapture, the skyscraper city sunken in the deep sea. This city built by Andrew Ryan was a massive social laboratory that pursued humanity’s supreme ideal of “absolute individual free will, where neither Gods nor Kings exist,” to its absolute limits by removing the restraints of ethics. However, the cruel truth left by that experiment was the fact that Objectivism (egoism), which pursues only one’s own interests without regard for others, ultimately divides society, degrades humans into slaves of materialism and desire, and transforms the very person who championed the ideal into a bloodstained tyrant.

“A man chooses, a slave obeys.”

These final words left by Ryan were spoken as an expression of his arrogant elitism. However, after experiencing Jack’s fierce journey and the conclusion of rescuing the Little Sisters, these words appear before us taking on a completely different, multi-layered meaning.

Free will does not simply refer to “a state free from the constraints of law or power (anarchy / Laissez-Faire).” It is the intelligence to clearly recognize and resist any ruling structure that attempts to bind oneself—whether it be genetic destiny, brainwashing through mind control, or the curse of the cold-blooded ideology of “Rational Egoism.” And a “Man who chooses” in the truest sense refers to one who does not subordinate themselves to the desires given by the system, but who can stand by the pain of others and make ethical decisions, fully aware of their own disadvantage.

By its very structure, the medium of video games possesses a deterministic nature where “the player has no choice but to follow the systems and rules designed by the developers.” However, this work turns that limitation on its head, sharply questioning through the tragedy of Jack, the “manipulated puppet,” whether we ourselves are unconsciously obeying an invisible “Would you kindly” system in our daily lives.

The wreckage of iron and glass creaking under the cold water pressure in the deep Atlantic Ocean continues to issue a quiet warning to us even now. That true freedom is not something that ends once acquired, but is maintained only through constant ethical choices. A man chooses. When that choice is accompanied by responsibility and love, a person severs the chains of a “slave” for the first time and becomes a true “Man.”