Minervas Den The Thinker

* See also Minervas_Den (1st DLC map level)
* See also Minervas_Den_Operations (2nd DLC maplevel)
* See also Porter
* See also Sigma
* See also Wahl
* See also The Thinker
* See also Amended_Game_Level_Maps
----
--- --- --- --- ---
Map Orientation based on the adjacent Operations Level. Direct connection/transition via the Security Airlock (an early system to prevent flooding across large building sections), which is bothersome, but less disruptive than the same kind of airlock would be between Arcadia and Farmers Market, which would have seen ALOT of customer traffic. The Thinker has more exclusive/restricted access made to fewer facility personnel.
There (as in many of my series of maps) would be another Foundation floor below level 0, containing mostly the foundation filler cement (and embedded rocks), and the Sump systems and passages needed to drain the water that continuously seeps through the concrete structure.
The "Porter Bat Cave" portion of my map isn't particularly clean height-wise, especially in the lower portion which steps downwards quite a ways to the Bathysphere Dock, yet the path is shown contiguous ( it didn't warrant a separate map just for that portion ).
Adding together the sizes of the 3 Map Levels (Minervas Den/Operations/The Thinker ) you get an extent northwards of about 1300 feet ( about a quarter of a mile), which if you place it on my Rapture City map makes some of the adjacent complexes ( 'Carnival' and 'Green Belt' ) quite close.
You will notice on these recent maps that there is often a fillet at the inside wall corners. This serves to structurally improve the distribution of the great forces pushing on the outside walls, transmitting it into the inner mass of the building ( or even to the force coming from the opposite side ). Earlier maps had less detail, and I probably will go back and revamp them a little to match the current ones' additional detail ( and another whole playthrough ... ).
Porter's Bat Cave area is a bit deeper than is shown on the drawn maps, as its elevator takes you down about 30 feet below its elevator entrance - a bit further than the typical difference between the game map levels ( which is closer to 15-20 feet -- the thickness being : the visual space, plus a false ceiling for utilities, and a thick concrete floor which is integrated into the building's pressure-resisting structure ). From there, in the second cavern, the walkways in that section descends about another 60 feet, to where the Bathysphere Dock is.
--- --- ---
==Issues and Fixes :==
Big pipes/cable-bundles seen thru windows going thru a wall, and then on the other side of the wall interior there is no sign of the pipe (and vice versa) --- not too consistent (par for this DLC). Took quite a while to try to tie many of the pipes/cable-bundles together so there was some continuity and seeming reason. Actually it is poor design/no reason to have so many of the pipes out in the ocean ( and repeatedly go inside/outside buildings ) when they could have been inside the immediately adjacent buildings. The MMORPG will do better. Most things in MMORPG game will be objects/systems with a simulated function, logical connections/layout, instead of 'baked' static terrain created just as filler detail.
-
Also, having the windows looking out onto a pipe/cable makes little sense. It can't be for "inspection" because other sections of the extensive pipe/cable systems AREN'T viewed by windows ( and alot is embedded/hidden in walls where they can't be seen at all ). Such windows are a liability/added cost, and again are there just as 'pretty' non-sensical filler. If you are going to go to the trouble of creating an industrial terrain, at least do a little simple research and have the things make sense and be consistent (instead of looking like it was just thrown together).
-
All three of these 'levels' (Minervas Den, Operations, The Thinker) overlap to some extent, so when fixes and adjustments had to be made to one, it often had to be made also to the other maps. It was quite a 'fun' 3D puzzle to work out sometimes.
-
I've adjusted some segments of "The Pit" (maintenance tunnels) between the original level maps. The 'Dn' tunnel shifted to the lower level, so we can fill in upper main floor with more logical computer equipment contents. Actually, we see only part of the entire 'The Pit'. Look at Level 0 to see all the conduits/cables and drainage tunnels in the foundation spaces, and everywhere a bunch of various equipment needed to make the large computer systems operate as well as to maintain the building.
-
That sideroom (now marked Security station) of the Level's entry area overlaps above the window on the level (far) below ( Porters Office/living room which has windows/Viaduct looking out onto ocean water ). To fit that section the sideroom section would have to cantilever out and be poorly supported (not usually done in Rapture's structures). So I needed to stretch the map a little bit in that part, so that Porter's Bat Cave section is spaced further away (about 40 feet Eastwards) from the adjacent building structures.
-
Note - the as-presented ridiculously tall skyline (too many floors of tiny window sizes) of huge/overbearing buildings with their too close proximity ( overlapping other parts of the level ). They are the recycled skybox exterior views from Bioshock2, and the same view is seen out all four compass directions. There is the usual mismatched landscapes implying being far above the seabed, when the seabed (rocks/coral/plants/ocean-floor) is simultaneously right below outside many of the windows -- all common issues throughout all the BioShock games' window background 'art'.
--- --- ---
==Additions :==
Pump Station ( also used to drain the data cableways ) which would be backup to that gangley bunch of pipes and such over on the Operations map. Backup cooling systems were added.
-
Added Restroom facilities to Porter's Office/living-space and other places in the complex. Probably wouldn't have a 'bedroom' there, as he left before Wahl isolated the complex, so he must've had a apartment elsewhere ( Olympus Heights ? )
-
The standard Security Airlock ( used as a transition between Operations + Thinker game levels ) has an added feature ( a justification ) of including slip joints between the Operations and Thinker building groups. Rapture is potentially geologically unstable, and the seabed it rests upon can still possibly slip and shift somewhat. The Minervas Den set of maps grouped together scale to a bit longer than a Quarter of a Mile in length (Northwards), which would be logical engineering-wise to break into sections with some flexibility, rather than having one solidly continuous structure. 
All of the Viaducts would have similar flexibility ( and ability to maintain their pressure seal, even though still having periodic emergency seal door systems along their length ).
-
Adding Magnetic Storage and Tape Library for The Thinker - lots of data backups ... Lots of masses of data in an era when large expensive smart-car-sized harddisks were lucky to be 5 Mega-Bytes. Programs at that time were even kept on paper tape, as the main memories were measured in KiloBytes instead of MegaBytes.
Added Battery backup power storage for the computer systems, so to run at least for sufficiently long while the systems were powered down.
Added more Tape systems for the main complex. Business/research computing would be part of The Thinker's main 'day' job (what Ryan/various companies were paying for, instead of Porter's AI project).
-
The Thinker's Communications Hub - used to connect to other computers in Rapture Central Computing, to monitor/coordinate their functions, and also out into Rapture's communications systems running out to various remote computer and sensor systemry. I've added 'network' communication equipment indicated on the map. Communications cables would be going out to all parts of Rapture, with separate dedicated networks for systems like the Atlantic Express and the Metro Transit. Common phone line technology could be used, as that was the Era of modems ( back then significantly less than 9600 Baud ). Higher speed lines were very expensive, and were only used where really needed.
-
'Cable Room' (not exactly a 'room') was where a number of data cables came in from the Ocean. Coming from the West, North-West and North while Other Cables came from The Telephone exchanges in the Minervas Den Main level. For important functions, there would be redundant paths which the data could take to get to The Thinker. I've added the floor below the 'Cable Room' being a wire patch area where various lines come in, terminate, and are connected to lines routed out to their several destinations in the complex.
-
It seems a long way to walk for Porter to get to his Bathysphere. Shouldn't he have an elevator shortcut ?? ( or a 'Bat Pole' ? ) It would be logical for that one elevator to go DOWN further and have a connecting corridor into the lower Bat Cave ????? So I added a long ramp from the back of that elevator ( floor on the Living Room/Office/Bat Cave level ) to connect to the Bathysphere Dock ( which actually is about 25 - 30 feet deeper (descends mostly in the second cavern ). Now the service personnel can use it for the odd grocery delivery or Porter to nip out to his favorite restaurant ( or secret meetings with Fontaine or whatever ).
-
The Level designer has a bunch of pipes coming out of the cavern rock wall/ceiling behind the Bathysphere Dock ( you really don't want to run pipes through rock, unless it is very short distance and straight (and well sealed ) and generally only when there is something it connects to on the other side ( as mentioned elsewhere, it is more logical in Rapture to run pipes INSIDE of building enclosures ).
I suppose some of those pipes have to do with the Bathysphere airlock operations, though there is far more of them than any other Bathysphere Dock seen elsewhere. I've added some cement embedded in the cavern wall to handle the transition fixtures, and connected some pipes back to other parts of the buildings.
Giant pipe valve actuation wheels 6 feet in diameter (and way up high) are wrong, particularly when there is no way to reach them. Pipe Valves (manual AND automatic) are usually located down low so they can be got to/maintained.
-
A Bathysphere itself needs to be serviced/maintained. Where is all the stuff for that ? You saw all the dock equipment in the Smugglers Hideout in BS1, and operating this thing is no different. Here there isn't even a Control Stand for the Bathysphere dock machinery ( as I've said elsewhere these Bathyspheres are much more complicated than Automobiles to operate ). I've elaborated the overhead crane used to lift the 20+ ton Bathysphere out of the water for loading. There would be much more detail included for the MMORPG.
-
Not shown, there would be a huge "Rodins : The Thinker" Statue ontop of The Thinker's 'Core' building, which would be lit and seeable from a long distance ( the usual grand advertisement gimmick we see elsewhere in Rapture ). It would be made of hollow concrete, and shaped like the smaller reproduction seen in the Rapture Central Computing Atrium. ( Of course the COST of such an extravagance might have been unacceptable for a business. )
-
Added a basement level for the 'Core' to extend the processing circuitry to make it a little bigger ( to have some chance to have become 'artificially intelligent' ... ) The 'core' well goes down if you look over the edge - easy to have another level down there.
--- --- ---
==Observations :==
All those walls of Computer Stuff (banks of what appears to be vacuum tubes) :
The Thinker's Computer Core with many walls of racks of circuitry (forming its 'lobes'). And that wouldn't be vacuum tubes ( what the Assets appear to imply ), instead would be the Bio-Electronics created after ADAM technologies made them possible. Masses of memory and processing circuitry ( Sorry, not brains in bell jars with wires coming out of them ... ) would be required to implement the (near) "AI" the Thinker was supposed to have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ENIAC_Penn2.jpg
Those round things you see (arrays of) for The Thinker won't be vacuum tubes. Modular rackmount will still be the machine pattern. The Bio-Electronics technology won't have the circuit density of modern semi-conductor micro-electronics (ICs) and will require many discrete components and in-era plug-ology to interconnect things. Different types of modules could be employed to build the processing functionality the computer required.
There is much more circuitry not visible on those racks, with numerous components, sockets, and miles of interconnecting wire ( even with the simplifications of the Bio-Electronics ), alot of such stuff is behind those racks faceplates. That also means that circuitry has to be accessible. Those mainframes usually had open backs and a maintenance aisle behind. The ones in Minervas Den, mostly embedded in walls, would have swing-out hinged panels to allow their access.
-
The AI Training Lab was located in Porter's "Bat Cave" ( his obsession the reason why he had alot of his personal belongings down there ) ... with a remote 'video phone' ( using that color TV perhaps ?? ) conferencing to a programming staff elsewhere ??? He would have had many capable 'assistants' to generate the huge amount of logic which even the simplest "AI" system requires. Since Rapture's "network" TV channels were not transmitted in color, that had to be a prototype, apparently of interest to Porter ( was he thinking about computer 'vision' also ?? ).
-
Keeping the whole computer systems ( all electric/electronics ) dry was an important requirement ( Dew-point temperature/humidity was the factor most important in a computer environment. Water precipitating on cooling/chilled surfaces can short electrical systems ... )
-
We might assume most of the other Computer Stuff we saw in Minervas Den and Operations were a number of secondary (and older) computers used for (not overly automatic) City monitoring, Business Computing, etc ... Many original systems being built using the old late 40's style tube rack technology, and later (mid 1950's) discrete (individual) transistors on circuit boards. All that you see is not 'The Thinker' - which itself should be largely in one place ( the third MD level - 'Thinker' ), though it can/would be 'networked' to those other computers ). Other locations like Rapture Central Control at Hephaestus, and Rapture Administration performed specific control tasks and had their own systems ( some special purpose computers installed early while the city was built ).
As for the idea that The Thinker or Rapture Central Computing actually runs all of Rapture -- It is ludicrous ( ie- Opening automatic doors as one of the Splicers says. Oh, right -- run a wire all the way MILES back to The Thinker to do the work of a 'Buck-Fifty Electric Eye' -- a pre-1930s technology ). Such a centralized system would actually be used to do things like scheduling/rescheduling Trains/Trams/Bathyspheres, monitoring/adjusting/balancing utility loads, traffic scheduling, cargo and mail routing, rented out computing/data-processing resources, coordinating city maintenance, processing bills for Ryan Industries, etc ... --- Those things are 'more like it', and even those operations are mostly coordinating remote decentralized/localized systems, which would do the actual control work. It would be INCREDIBLY stupid to have a single point of failure for the City, one big computer which controls everything ??? Idiotic. That sounds as if the whole place was designed to FAIL, by the game writers - Oh wait, it was ... ( but then maybe the writers don't realize/know/have-a-clue how such systems actually work in the REAL World ).
-
Cooling system for the computer is multiple redundant systems, using large volumes of outside cold seawater as a sink for the heat, heat exchangers, and a closed internal system which runs through the computer components. The system is independent of the systems in Operations and Central computing. The greater use of Bio-Electronic technology greatly lowered the power consumption and waste heat generated by the older pre-Thinker computers. Those older systems (some vacuum tube based) were slowly being replaced with the newer technology when the 'civil war' ( Atlas's attempted terrorist overthrow of Rapture ) interrupted.
-
Question of whether The Thinker was "all it was cracked up to be". Wahl is insane - likely deluded (ADAM use) into thinking that computer solves anything by 'thinking', or comes up with 'equations' by itself.
Talking - Porter tested the full Pearl Mimic program only briefly before abandoning it. Not for very long, which could lead to Porter ( his twisted Big Daddy remnant of a brain ) into believing its pre-canned dialog patterns seemed real/believable ( How much ADAM had Porter/Sigma taken by that time ??? Besides his possible ADAM testing and Big Daddy 'conditioning', and maybe being on ice for several years as a failed 'Alpha' ?? ) Again, it is US playing the part and perception being fed to us as WE might have taken it in the circumstances ( so it was with Jack and Delta and even every version of Elizabeth and Booker ).
Porter had previously instructed/programmed The Thinker - programmed logic is NOT automatically 'intelligent', simulated behavior is NOT really AI ( even today most people don't know what real Artificial Intelligence is supposed to be ). Porter claims that his system might pass the Turing Test, but there was no real evidence that it did.
-
We can imply a general downslope of the terrain by the seabed progression - particularly from Minervas Den (first level) down to Operations (second level). That Northwards level progression probably would have been better going southwards or eastwards ( South towards the Abyss Dropoff being downwards, as could be East off the edge of the City ... I suppose this could be 'adjusted' for the MMORPG ). Irregularities in the terrain surface also might not be the best indicators of the geological stability of the seabed ( which is really on the side of a Sea Mount - an underwater volcano raised well above the real sea floor in that part of the Atlantic Ocean ). Fortunately Mt_Ryan (the sea mount) is fairly old, allowing some time for unstable terrain to erode and stabilize/settle itself.
-
The Thinker's Central Task Hub - that big cylindrical thing in the 'Core'. The Thinker, is made up of a large number of fairly simple 'slave' computers, which have to get direction to coordinate the whole system's activities. So there is a central hub of closely tied together processors, which determine the direction and priority of processing tasks and farm out activities across the system. Data is brought in from memory, the communications lines, and from the secondary storage (tape and disk) systems, and is fed to logic processing sub-computers for calculation. The results are correlated in the central hub, decisions are made, and new processing is scheduled and directives are sent out to machinery the Thinker controls or alerts/information to humans and data storage.
-
The Voice System for The Thinker may have been located in Porters Bat Cave, being a Project he appeared to have worked on alot ( and could have been a lucrative product service for Central Computing .. for automated phone speech input, data retrieval, and such ).
-
There are a number of light fixtures/power panels and electrical cabinets/switchboxes marked "Hudson Power (Ltd)" can be seen. This might indicate that some of Minervas Den power came from one of Rapture's alternate Power Companies ( competing Power Companies in Rapture ). Having redundant suppliers/sources would be wise ( so it WILL be in the MMORPG ) for such an important computer installation. Most similar fixtures ('Hudson Power') were seen in Sirens Alley, and on a power panel in one of the MP levels.
-
Tenenbaum's calculation equations for 'the Cure' ( as a separate program ) would be quite a bit smaller ( but still take years to program the genetics specific knowledge/logic ). Tenenbaum would have similar difficulties getting computer resources on The Surface, possibly being pursued as a war criminal ( for assisting Nazi medical experiments ), and various Cold War intelligence agencies also would be curious ...
And Porter going to the Surface (?) - after disappearing for how many years, then he 're-surfaces' ? They be after him. And how would he (they) raise money to build this mega-computer ( a quite advanced one too ) ? His Resume is a bit out of date. And he does not have the ADAM tech-base available to him which The Thinker was built with. A good reason that Tenenbaum comes back to Rapture in the MMORPG's plot to finally create her 'Cure' - by using the Original Thinker.
-
With the previous blarney about Porter obtaining Rodin's "The Thinker" Statue (a replica) somehow attracting outsiders' attention ( ??? for a replica ??? ) Was that possibly done AFTER Rapture's being cut off from the Surface (1952), and the Smuggling issue becoming more important ? Did Porter have the statue smuggled in and thus WAS involved with Fontaine. The size/weight of that thing would have made it very expensive to smuggle. So assuming -- WHAT did Porter give Fontaine in return ??? Maybe Ryan DID have good reason/other evidence to suspect Porter's involvement in the Criminal Activities of Fontaine ( Note- Porter knowing how to reprogram a "signal beacon" to get past security systems ... Hmmm... )
That brings up the question of when "The Thinker" computer came into existence for the statue to have any meaning/reason.
* For Wahl to be driven mad by splicing, then that is AFTER ADAM became a consumer product -- post Fontaine smuggling profits and ADAM's discovery, after lots of research and development (by mid 1950's?).
* Wahl then plans to take THE THINKER ( which would be operational sufficiently at that point) for himself (framing Porter by making use of Porter's verbal output system ... ).
* Rapture Departure Protocol text mentions "Metal Daddies" -- a name created while the BDs are being developed, which is AFTER the %27civil war%27 starts ( when corpses exist en masse, etc ... ) That's at soonest 1959.
* Thats also after ('dead') Fontaine's smuggling operations have been "Seized" (1958) and evidence of who Fontaine had as partners/customers in his Smuggling could be investigated.
It is possible that the whole 'Thinker' thing was a computer sales gimmick before "The Thinker" computer was developed ( look at old Real World computer company ads for similar - and THEY certainly weren't AI systems, though they used many of the same verbiage ). Having it as a company icon early is logical.
-
All these wall mounted/embedded computer racks are bothersome when you can't get to the rack's back side where all the wire/cabling runs ( You can't have those at the front because you have to pull the racked modules out frontward for access/servicing/replacement ). The racks need to be all hinged and then open out to give access to their works.
-
Tenenbaum Warning that "Minervas Den is falling to pieces because The Thinker is shut down"....
First - where is she (watching this) and why hasn't she been any help sooner ( or been assaulted by the numerous Splicers ) ?? Second, if the place ( Rapture or just RCC) will fall apart when one computer is down because it stupidly has been made so critical to everything - makes me think that they were insane -- making the people there pretty crazily inept even BEFORE they were ever Spliced ). How exactly did the place stick together before the computers were even operational in Rapture ? I know it is for 'suspense', but a little realistic creativity can go a long way to improve things ( Wasn't Star Trek's Enterprise threatened with a computer failure every other episode that would "blow up the ship" too ??? )
-
"Sorry to send you into the Pit" - Thinker-Porter speaking as if from back in the day when all was normal (pre-leaky days) -- 'the Pit' ... Again I'm not overconfident in the design of this place -- COMPUTERS AND WATER DON'T MIX. Wasn't it even worse back in days when they used 100+ volts for Vacuum Tubes ( This wing with The Thinker was built later in Rapture's history (mid 1950s), because the ADAM technology had to first exist, and then be well developed. )
-
Any sophisticated technology we see in Minervas Den would have come late (1954+) to make use of the ADAM-enabled Bio-Electronics ( needed for things like the computing power required to actually fit into a Bathysphere -- BTW that's well after the Bathysphere system was supposed to be running, ~1952 ). And No, remote Radio control from Rapture Central Computing is only a recipe for fatal disaster and many drowned/suffocated/crushed citizens. Even my cable-driven Metro Bathyspheres would need some 'smarts' to automatically handle basic operating function ( if not free maneuvering navigation ).
-
Interesting - that a Security Flybot's central control unit will (have to) be something the size of a single large vacuum tube ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/RCA12ax7.jpg ), even if the Flybot is directed by radio links. Tubes and transistors are just too bulky. It will be a Bio-Electronic multi-layered glass substrate module ( Raptures version of Integrated Circuits ). Flybot Processing Ratings vary from 20 - 90 SB ( Slug-Brains - each equivalent to the processing of 8000 nerve cells ). Earlier versions might have attempted to use actual 'converted' slug brain sections for their processing structure, until the technique using cultured/trained nerve cells was developed, which could result in much more capable/flexible abilities.
-
Oops, the "Administrator Punchcard" on Wahl's body was burnt to ashes by that last Incinerate! you fired at him. ( Seriously, Punchcards to do things like this ?? ) Anyway you now quickly have to go find the 'Reset' Button to override the Thinker's Shutdown. Better yet, it is a security handprint ID thing, and you have to drag Wahl's corpse over to the 'reader' to authorize your reset command.
--- --- ---
==Oddities :==
Says Thinker-Porter: "need you to get to the computer core and print out a hard copy of the Thinker's machine code." Heh, that would be a very thick stack of paper, or worse, Punchcards. The amount of logic for anything that even simulates 'thinking' is huge. But then, it is a bit clumsy game-wise for 'Porter' to say : "Go do a Core Dump of the program to about 350 magnetic tapes, and you'd better first go find a wheel barrow ..."
Unfortunately it takes a bit more than a huge pile of punchcards to remake The Thinker on The Surface. But just for the sake of seeing how ridiculous this might be --- How many Punchcards would it take ??? ( Note --- 1 line of 'code' per Punchcard ) Windows XP (Pperating System) took 45 million lines of code, and that can hardly be called anything 'intelligent'. Stacked at about 143 cards per inch, that would be a single pile of cards nearly 5 miles high. The Thinker's AI programming and logic data would be many times that (actually many magnitudes more). Even printouts (on fanfold paper) mass alot ( and consider how LONG it would take to print ... Thinker-Porter : "First you'll have to go harvest some more kelp to make enough printer paper..." ) Buncha tall stacks of 1/2 inch magnetic tapes ??? ( All which might actually fit in one Bathysphere , but YOU would have to come back on a second trip ).
-
Porter implying that anyone sent to Persephone was going to be turned into a Big Daddy. Sounds more like a fabricated vague 'whodunit' clue for the overall plot 'Twist'. We saw Persephone in BS2, and there were plenty of felons there who never became 'Big Daddies' ( lots of corpses 'in prison stripes' and all those (still living) 'Family' whom Sofia Lamb 'held sway over' to implement her 'takeover' ).
-
As usual - the huge (to fit Sigma's BD suit) game-convenient 'secret' air duct passage is in just the right place, when you see no others ANYWHERE ELSE in-gameThe Rapture Reborn MMORPG would have a comprehensive system of all utility systems.. The Games might have been more interesting with more of such alternate/bypass paths and strange little utility shafts - and all the oddities hidden away in them. The MMORPG will have a proper and full complement of air-ducting you can traverse (many only by crawling) - Just be aware that Splicers use them too. The false ceilings of the floors in most buildings would be the usual place for entire networks of them ( and all kinds of other stuff as well ).
-
All this computer equipment mounted high on walls ( actually throughout the whole MD game ) and there doesn't seem to be any ladders at all. You would need alot of them in this place to maintain the systems. ( I doubt there would be a *Human Pyramid* Tonic/Plasmid. )
-
Amusing are the 3 levers ( 1 2 3 ) right in the front panel of the THINKER's core processor ( with the sign "The Thinker" hanging on them ). Maybe, if the thing was Steampunk, and powered by steam (or "Mole-ten Mag-maaaah" - as Dr Evil would say) ... But I don't recall the likes on any computer mainframe I've seen, anywhere. Likely meant to "Impresses the Rubes", for when tours were once given for the actual Thinker ? Maybe they cranked up the sparking effects, and made the blinking light scintillate in pretty patterns ...
-
Porter's "Bat Cave" IS a bit extravagant, and not the greatest environment (wet/leaky/drippy) for all that ELECTRICAL computer equipment. Maybe it is a little less claustrophobic, but who would have spent money building it that way ( all the irregularities within it required extra structural work ). Perhaps that whole section was used previously for some other projects ( ie- the testing of automatic systems for the Bathyspheres, or out-in-sea maintenance perhaps, or automated mining robot (McClendon's ? ) testing, or some kind of a proving ground for cheaper ways to produce living space in Rapture). With Porter later appropriated it.
-
Intrusions of gobs of rock inside walls/interiors doesn't really make much sense. Rock for Rapture's construction was very easy to cut and move, and such intrusions only caused weakness in a building's structure. Likely was just the level game developers 'dressing up' the terrain when they couldn't think of anything more logical. ( images of too many Bond Villain hideouts ... )
-
Not sure why there needs to be such a major production for a mere Bathysphere Dock ( Answer - Level Dev wanted something grander seeming, simply "cuz" -- that simple excuse/crutch for anything sloppy/illogical ... ). Having to walk all that way down deep into a cavern ( the needed water tunnel and airlock structures are yet deeper underneath that section the Bathysphere is sitting in ). The Bathysphere then has to go back up to the open ocean ( maybe a sideways tunnel if the whole complex is built on a northward or eastward downslope ). The Dock is ill-placed for use as general-purpose transport for the MD complex (have to haul freight thru Porter's livingroom and up in that tiny elevator ... There are crates there that don't look like they would even fit in the original elevator), and it is all a bit large to be a 'secret'. A dock like the smaller one at Fort Frolic would take up a tenth that space, and could be placed in the main building without this fancy scenic 'Bat Cave'.
-
Cavern with water - maybe Porter just liked Swimming ??? A pet dolphin named Mongo ??? "Fa luv Pa!" (talking dolphin). Maybe Porter had some strange project with mutated Tuna ( with "Frickin Laser Beams on their heads !!!" )
Needed -> 1 secret escape route to the Surface conveniently located so the Player can leave soon after "the Twist" is finished. ( Why else have that strange perp walk as the Porter Story is disclosed ? ...)
-
Parts of that Cavern appear to have been some kind of bubble/void (?) in the lava deposited by the ancient volcano ( though rather unlikely geologically ). All the exposed native rock for the walls means it would have to be fairly solid/intact, or else it would be impossible to seal it from leaks which would make it unusable ( too many small leaks and you just can't pump it out fast enough ). It is possible much of the volume was actually mined-out fractured rock or a large pocket of 'ash' material, making it much more artificial. I've added many concrete reinforcements backing many sections of the native rock.
-
I like the funny way the broken Viaduct along the way to Porter's Bat Cave (his quarters) is patched up from a collapse ... done with wood yet. THAT is supposed to hold against well over 700 tons of pressure trying to cave it in ? It is almost as ludicrous as a airplane body crashing thru and plugging another Viaduct we saw elsewhere ( wouldn't work in 20 feet of water, let alone depth of 600 feet - When it comes down to it, Disneyland's cartoon fantasies pay more attention to Physical Laws constantly, and of reality ).
-
Further computer/technology projects there (in Porter's Bat Cave) would have to be largely Porter's own, as otherwise personnel would have to traipsing through his living room to get to the working space. ( Even my ramp down to the Bathysphere doesn't help that - perhaps instead that would go into the upper Bat Cave to access all that computer stuff there, and another floor lower for the elevator would have a similar passage to the Bathysphere Dock. With the size of the equipment, there might have to be a second 'freight' elevator ... )
-
Reed Wahl talks about Porter coming back (at the time you (Sigma) are there, which in is BS2 times ... 8(?) years later), saying "How could a man just open a cell door and walk home ?". How could he not know about what had happened in Persephone, especially with Lamb in charge of the Prison (and beyond) for 7+ years. Had Porter been there still in a cell that long ?? Porter had refused/resisted Sofia Lamb in the past, and she would be likely to "make an example" of him --- Maybe that is why Porter volunteered (or was 'volunteered') for the Protector program ( just to get away from Lamb's condescending attitude )??? Why should Wahl even think Porter was still alive, UNLESS it was Wahl's paranoia that his old rival would one day return to steal The Thinker away from him.
-
Every Section of Rapture should have that (cliche) Self-Destruct Gong - Like what is sounding as The Thinker has 'Shut Down', and the place (supposedly) is going to fall to pieces ( Well, sadly this happened every other episode on Star Trek too so ... ). IT Might be Logical though to have something like this as a Standard Danger Warning for building/cluster sections to be evacuated in case a catastrophic leak was happening. ( Will have to have periodic Drills in the MMORPG in New Rapture City sections. )
-
There seems to be alot of needless ups and downs (stair steps/level offsets) which are only there to make the game map less plain (and more of a maze), with no logical reason for those level transitions ( Try rolling heavy equipment up and down stairs ).
-
Heavy Art-Deco decoration - Style costs money, and for most businesses, it is reserved for the customer areas. With computers being 'the future', some designers may ( Rapture is Freedom after all ) have eventually gone with the more Post-Modern look, or just plain functional simplicity ( It would be interesting gamewise just to show a difference ).
-
Big Pipes seen outside the Viaduct as you are heading towards the elevator down to Porter's secret Bat Cave - They have large control wheels on the pipes, but they are way up high away from any access/standing surface ( being Inside would be better accessible ). No worker could get to them without a great deal of difficulty, so there is no point being where they are. SO : Yet another non-sensical "dressing up the level" detail. Alot of the pipe sections also are not aligned and are mismatched - Just plain-sloppy level dev work.
-
Porter's Shrine to his dead wife - down in Porter's Bat Cave, they lay the sentimental bits 'on thick'. ( BTW, you Devs, leaky/dripping ceilings and computers don't mix, big drippy/slimey caverns moreso ... ) 
OK, Who keeps all those Candles ( more than you ever saw at any of the 'Lamb' "Family" Shrines ) lit ??? Does The Thinker itself have some minions we never got to see, who lit them up for Sigma-Porter's arrival/departure ??? (( Little Sisters were probably conditioned not to play with matches, and Big Daddies can't kneel down to light the ones down on the floor ... Incinerate! would just leave a big melted puddle of wax on the floor. ))
-
Big Sparking thingees around The Thinker's 'Core'... Note what looks like high voltage machinery around 'the core' - this isn't Dr Frankenstein's laboratory. Really must be just there 'for show' ( since they earlier gave paid Tours ( You didn't pay $5 just to see that Statue ), and real computers just sitting there humming is not overly impressive. Arrays of blinking lights ( the usual image of a 'computer' from TV and movies ) is good for a little while, but quickly gets boring. Someone in Rapture likely had a business making & selling apparatus which generated such sparkly effects for advertising displays and commercials ( Things like that were expected for all mysterious technological things - You have to remember how little ordinary people knew about computers back then --- and still do. )
-
The leak at the window off one of the 'lobes' of the 'Core' ( very handy that there is a step down in floor level there to conveniently retain the resulting pool of water ). REPEAT - Water and computer circuitry just don't mix. I guess it looked too plain to the level designer to resist adding just one more leak, and why not a weak spot in such an important structure (like a window) thrown in as well. Actually having so much electronic equipment in proximity to anything that can produce water is a very very bad thing ( as in the whole place is poorly/unworkably designed - contrived as a maze for the game... ). Having things that might fire bullets or having explodey things nearby the computer equipment - That is not a great idea either ( of course, those likely came AFTER the place is being run by half-insane people ).
-
Mainframe racked equipment/circuitry is glued all over the ceiling walls of the Bat Cave Cavern (and other places) as if they were the plain metal wall plates used in BS1/BS2 maps -- actually a very impractical and unlikely arrangement. Anyone who has seen what real mainframe computers look like ( or a modern server farm) would laugh derisively - "looking neat" doesn't justify being "absurdly reality-challenged" ).
-
Thinker-Porter: "You'll need to confirm your genetic identity to start the printing process" .. WHY ? ( Why should Sigma, some Alpha Big Daddy have to do this, when the computer usually directly controls the printers ? ) It seems a bit contrived to get YOU to the Control Stand to do the 'Twist' ID reveal. Not clear why Thinker-Porter couldn't just tell Sigma-Porter who he really is at any point ( It is implied that's why The Thinker was doing all this crap all along wasn't it ?? The "familiar voice" stuff, etc ... Creepy if it suddenly switched to Pearl Porter's voice ... ) If just telling him wouldn't work, why should this 'ding' ID system break through Sigma-Porter's conditioning/brain damage any better ? Maybe it might have been more logical for Tenenbaum to act (somehow) at that point, and inject some of her Whatzit-sauce into Sigma to do for him what she did to Jack ( and maybe helped Eleanor do with Delta ) ... "Sigma, go put a new box of printer paper in Printer #7." ... "Hello Herr Sigma. Here let me injekt du vith zis ...."
Actually, you hear Wahl give the plot 'Twist' away when he says you are the one he 'stabbed in the back' just before the boss fight.
Might have been funny to have Sigma have to "Jump-Start" The Thinker using his Electro-bolt Plasmid, or (Heh) change a fricken Big Fuse ( or perhaps refill 'The Well of Souls' ) ...
-
The Thinker's processing Core - all those round things you see on that big central cylindrical machine are 2 foot long 'processing rods' which are made of layer after layer of glass discs covered by Bio-Electronic logic processors ( based on Sea Slug Brain cells (?) ). They are all assembled in close proximity to each other to intercommunicate efficiently ( required to speed up the computer and implement the 'AI' ). Some of the processors would be in the form of 'Fuzzy Logic', rather than the more conventional/common processing modules.
-
Round flashing things on all the wall racks (supposed to be 'Tubes') could be Magic_Eye type status indicators on all the processing modules ( lotsa 'blinking on and off' like all computer caricatures ).
-
The 'Memory lobes' of the Thinker are memory banks and secondary logic processors ( for things like data storage/search/retrieval ). The 'Core' coordinates all of these to work in unison.
-
You'd think Tenenbaum/Porter would need the Blueprints when he "returns to the surface along with the programming for his mainframe" ? Porter wasn't the only one who designed and built that system, and the things HE didn't design/develop would also have been important to be able to try to build the new one.
-
The Computer equipment (tape drives, etc ...) placed "higlety-piglety" in Porter's Bat Cave - It really isn't 'all that hard' to line them up and certainly be done to make them easier to wire. They also aren't exactly equipment you "just brought in" to use quickly - Tape Drives and Printers and such are basic equipment. You have all those neatly installed racks of 'computer banks' -- looking like old-style row upon row of vacuum tubes ( which BTW would NOT add up total to the logic that's in your cheap digital watch ). Those 'computer bank' components would be something that Porter might have had to add incrementally more when he was attempting to achieve his Voice Mimicking Project ( and thus they should be the stuff that looks kludged together ).
-
We should have found a whole pile of audio tapes marked 'Porters Voice' in Wahl's secret room, which Wahl used to generate the voice patterns he fed into The Thinker's Mimic program, used to generate the false evidence against Porter. It seems Wahl was good enough (technically) 'to figure out' that voice generating system, to get it to do what he needed ( Wahl may have gone way past what Porter did - programming late into the night drinking the bottles of caffeinated soda seen in his office ).
-
Sinclair perhaps created his own statue : "The Stinker" to preside over his Rapture Central Sewage Farm, one of his enterprises which recycled much of Rapture's effluents and effluvium to produce valuable products much used by the City's farms. Many of those 'farms' were his own, as he DID truly believe in "cutting out the middleman", through what he jokingly referred to as "The Great Circle of Shit". (( Sinclair perhaps WAS on the short list of the 'Richest People in Rapture' ))
--- --- ---
The Pearl Shrine in Porter's Bat Cave...  Who keeps all those Candles lit ???
We didn't hear of (or run into) any Coven of Porter Worshipers in Minervas Den to explain this 'scene'.
This is Reuse of the Candlelighted Shriney 'mood' ( the existing Asset 'candle' lighting effect which they already had working in those Lamb Shrines from BS2 ) -- it was already paid for and working (it IS DLC after all).  
Anyway, it is all rather unlikely - unless it was part of some strange Wahl delusion. Hard to think that the 'The Thinker' would have the obsession, and have its own secret (from Wahl) followers doing the weirdness.   Perhaps they ( the candles ) were some kind of Rapture-tech consumer product - 'Eternal Candles' using Bioluminescence ... (( Nah, was just 'artistic license'. ))
--- --- --- --- ---
.
.