Stanley Poole

* See also Sofia Lamb for the Timeline
* See also Free_Press and Newspapers_and_Magazines
* See also Dionysus Park
* See also Johnny Topside
* See also Eleanor
A mousy Journalist character, who is involved in many of the BioShock 2 sub-stories ( with direct involvement with the Player's character ).
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(Player) Killing Stanley Poole :
You are given the 'Choice' to kill or not kill the little worm. They could have had a little more imagination involved for this. Him running in Terror from you would have been good ( the fun of chasing him down - That little creep might be pretty spry and elusive - After all he had lasted this long ... ).   ( That would have requires special scripting to make it halfway believable - so no, scratch that expensive idea. BUT lets have the MMORPG represent it ... FLASHBACK )
Deciding NOT to Kill him would give him the opportunity to try to weasel his way out of the predicament as he had before. Funny also might be : after you let him go, that he tells you something to get you to kill Sofia Lamb (thus solving his problem). He then would be off to find a new rock to hide under. You should know that Sofia Lamb was going to have him murdered, no matter what she said to you.
Where was he all those intervening years anyway ? ( Probably out of Sofia's sight as she might have some questions he would rather not want to answer ). It might have been interesting to find his spider-hole (and stash) there in/near Dionysus Park -- As he seems to have got there barely moments after YOU 'drained the place' ( and those Lil Sisters sure came running pretty fast too ... ). Strange the corpses seem to have kept nice and fresh after 10 years underwater, not to mention various other props.
That whole hyped "moral choice" thing is really such a joke though, as we go thru Rapture slaughtering HUNDREDS of Splicers 'left and right', and nobody (the writers) seems to care that THEY might be just as 'deserving to live' as any of the 'bosses'. But then, options for you to sneak by all the opponents would run contrary to the game being first and foremost a 'blast-fest'.
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Poole, Poole, We Hardly Knew You ... :
I recall that one hit basically killed Poole (or appeared to).  Is it possible he was just 'Playing Dead' to fool us and Sofia Lamb ??? ( She WAS going to kill him anyway no matter what she said ).   A convincing Decoy Plasmid, the little known "Possum, Still Like A Corpse" Tonic ( no breathing or heartbeat, simulated blood spilling from his mouth ... ) ???
So what was Poole's story ??   He had managed to survive elsewhere ( Dionysus was flooded for ~8 years, so he had to be somewhere else, and he had to avoid alot of Splicers/Sofia's goons ).  He slipped in unobserved (on an AE Train ?) once the flooding was drained - Rather good timing that. ( Did Poole step off that train as Sinclair stepped on - AFTER, somehow, Sinclair 'got another train' into the station AND amazingly after that damaged/leaky one was sent out ?? )
Did he much later slip back out again - IF you (Delta) didn't kill him, and IF Lamb's goons didn't kill him immediately ( We do seem to have liquidated most of the Splicers in the local area - At least for a while ).
Maybe he could do the reverse of what you just did in BS2, and work the Dionysus's Pumps to drain Sirens Alley and have some easy pickings there.   The AE Station was unlocked, and he could take another train to get in there. The Maintenance Airlocks (with their Safety Interlocks) down at the Sewer level can be reopened when the other side is drained.  He would probably want to get away from the place Sofia Lamb last knew him to be, quietly -- so the Sewer might be the way.
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Dionysus Park - Stanley Poole's Little Shindig,  Drowned...  :
Note this event happened some significant time previous to (within a year...) the Kashmir Incident in order for Eleanor to be 'Sister'ized' AND THUS for Sofia Lamb to previously have been put into Exile for Sedition into Persephone Prison.
IT WAS SO Convenient that the place is such a death-trap waiting to happen.  But simplistic storyline is much of what we get in this game ( its supposed to be 17+ ... not  5+  age targeted ).   You'd think they could come up with something a bit less lame ( ie - Stanley Poole with the keys to the place doesn't need a stupidly faulty 'ready to fail' system to 'fix' the whole complex as a coverup of his misdoings. )   Heh - a massive FIRE (ironicly) under the ocean, corpses burned beyond recognition, etc ... ( Defective sprinkler system allow it to flood with poisonous fumes ... ). Oops, but the 'filled with water motif assets had to be reused and to have the place empty for 7+ years until the pumps magically empty the water out...
They should(could) have thrown in some verbiage that Poole 'thought' that Ryan would reward him for "doing in" Lamb's little socialist haven, but then remark that Ryan would NOT be happy with the inadvertent death count ( besides disrupting the AE route passage ). Poole likely was hiding from Ryan more than Sofia Lamb.
BTW - I thought the AE was supposed to be long shutdown/bankrupted and superseded by the Metro ( I've explained  elsewhere how that could be ).
The timing is also a bit suspect -- This 'Gala Opening' that is held somewhat late after Lamb became a jailbird?? ( or shouldn't there be no general knowledge at all of her being exiled to Persephone ?? as is alluded to ).   Who is left to talk the rich people into handing over money to support Dionysus.  We see advertisements around inconsistent with a place 'just opening'.
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More Canon Fodder - Poole's Fate :
Assuming the Player did not Kill Stanley Poole, and he managed to elude Sofia Lamb ( who lied about her not caring anymore ),  then what became of him ?   He obviously was a survivor ( evidenced by his lasting until BS2 ) and the MMORPG takes place not too long after that.
This MMORPG's backstory would seek to retain many of the characteristics (and characters) from the original games . You can only add so many 'new characters' before Players start saying "This Isn't Rapture any More". We can fill in details and show how many of the characters interplayed and operated ( the challenge is making it cohesive with the clues we have been previously given ).
^^^
So how would a still living Stanley Poole interact in the MMORPG ?  
Is he welcome in New Rapture ?
He had resources of some kind to survive so long ... ( Like Hobbits, perhaps he 'was insignificant and able to escape notice' )
What strange adventures did Stanley have during 'the lost years' ??
Timeline !!!!!
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Stanley Poole Might Have Been Creepy, He Might Have Been Weaselly, But He Was Perceptive :
"Eyes Wired Shut" "Eyes Wide Shut ? (last movie) by Stanley Kubrick - The strange parties of Sander Cohen as reported by Stanley Poole
* Rabbits Wearing Pope hats !!!
* I will have to find out what this "Pee Control" is that Sander mentioned.
* The Food all tasted of Plaster for some reason, but maybe it is all the RecDrugs doin that ....
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Did Stanley Poole Ever Splice ? 
During Delta's Flashbacks via Eleanor, we see Stanley inject an EVE hypo into his arm, yet there's no physical evidence of him having any Plasmid powers.  Could citizens have just used EVE hypos as a way to get high or something of the sort ?   Supposedly injecting yourself with ADAM (or some combination of it) provided some sort of high/rush (Remember that there were many ADAM treatments used for medical purposes, and no doubt many others ).  Poole seems perfectly sane and (relatively) healthy by the time of BioShock 2 Poole : Maybe some creepy rumor about him eating corpses or some such ??? .  It is possible that with moderation, you body can undo the genetic damage, or that it took ALOT more Splicing and mixing certain combinations to thoroughly screw up your body and head. 
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Killing Stanley Poole :
So easy, just one whack and he's dead -- hardly satisfying.  But then it denies Stanley Poole the opportunity to weasel his way out of the predicament, as he had before.  Funny would be after you let him go that he tells you something to get you to kill Sofia Lamb (thus solving his problem).  He then would be off to find a new rock to hide under --- Where was he all those intervening years anyway ? ( Probably out of Sofia's sight as she might have some questions he would rather not answer ).  It might have been interesting to find his spider-hole (and stash) there in Dionysus Park as he got there barely moments after you drained the place ( and those Lil' Sisters sure came running pretty fast too )- and the corpses seem to have kept nice and fresh after 10 years underwater -- That's strange cuz ocean life loves eating corpses .
So having a variety of responses to your in-game decisions would be much more interesting to the Players, and even BETTER having a wider range of possible consequences to experience and deal with.  That would be one of the strengths of the MMORPG -- with multitudes of added Quest/Mission scenarios created with tools that facilitate creating many more options to their mini-plots.  Plots that are obvious are fine, plots that are obscure BUT with the playing KNOWING that they may have obscure outcomes ( so that they can compensate using the resources they have and use strategies when needed to counter the outcomes ) can be more interesting.   Having DEVELOPING situations the Player can spot and allow them time to react to, instead of the old "WHAM YOU ARE DEAD -- GAME OVER" things those SAVE and RELOAD games had long ago will be a major improvement.
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Game 'Help Notes' ? Source of Canon Conflict ? :
BS2 Help Notes on Stanley Poole -- "Stanley found himself imprisoned within his lie and had no choice but to work for Lamb and the Rapture Family."
Compare what is show in the game about Stanley Poole to that little statement above ...  I suppose one statement a hack tech writer composed for in-game ancillary game material might still TECHNICALLY be 'Canon' -- Contrary Logic : considering that Eleanor had been back with Sofia Lamb ( as of Kashmir night/whenever ) and might whisper at any moment all of Stanley's misdeeds, and Poole's overall (shown) behavior of fear and avoidance and not having him fade away to some spider-hole for the duration, not withstanding.
Is there any sign that Stanley continued working for 'Lamb and Rapture Family' ?   How late could that be? 
Didn't Poole drown Dionysus Park before Ryan was dead ? ( Perhaps with a good laugh from Ryan ).  Eleanor he sold into slavery BEFORE Kashmir, according to BS2, and that was well before Ryan's death...  And how soon after disposing of Eleanor did Poole get rid of other witnesses/evidence of his mismanagement by flooding that place ( murdering many people in the process ) ?  He had been running it for Sofia, who was still in prison.  Didn't the game story say he heard Sofia had escaped ( the incident with killing Delta ... )  and he panicked - resulting in Dionysus's watery demise?
After that, would Poole stick around (to work for the family) during the %27civil war%27, and then stay around near Sofia, whom he continued to fear would find out about his misdeeds ?   Any mention of that anywhere, as happening ?  ( Discount his freaking out at having to be around unstable Splicers, and maybe ending up 'a Utopian sacrifice' or 'Unbeliever' - If he didn't show enough 'enthusiasm' for Sofia's crackpot philosophy ... )
We only see him reappear years later in BS2, when Delta unfloods Dionysus Park ( and Poole is STILL afraid, and trying to cover his ass ... )   There is little story detail of intervening events about him.
MMORPG would need to reconcile such 'Letter of the Law vs Spirit of the Law' Canon issues ( Poole being an interesting character which much MORE could/should be elaborated upon in the extended MMORPG Rapture backstory  -- Involvement with Sofia/Eleanor/Johnny Topside/Sinclair/The Rapture Family/etc ... )
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Killing Stanley Poole :
It is too bad you didn't get to chase him as he ran for his life in terror, gibbering ...
He's a Quick Little Bunny too, he must have been pretty spry to avoid all the Splicers and Sofia Lamb's goons. It might have given the game an extra treat for that level. He no doubt had more than a few secret 'bolt holes' to retreat to.
Since Dionysus Park had been Long Flooded, Stanley probably had set himself up elsewhere. But then he heard talk that his crime was soon to be laid open.
Of course, that might eliminate 'Choice' if the Player was offered a fun opportunity for some "Chase and Kill".
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Sander Cohen called into attendance his "Stanley-Poo" - for some groveling from that journalist to get a story ? ( Doesn't sound like Sander ? Was most likely more a mocking label after Sander Cohen got the 'Glowing Review' he wanted ). Stanley Poole probably had the sense to GET THE HELL AWAY from Sander Cohen.
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I would have thought after Delta had nullified the Little Sister witnesses, Stanley would have 'scuttled off' to some hiding place, rather than risk facing Delta ( or maybe Sofia Lamb ).
His 'Taking Off' in YOUR AE Train would have been a fun surprise
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