Sci-Fi Plasmids

* See also ADAM Technology
* See also Example_Of_Plasmid_Progression
* See also ADAM Addled
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One Important Element For This Game To Consider :
Who is seeing this ADAM Action stuff (What WE see in the game)? Jack/Delta/Sigma/Booker/Elizabeth. First three are HEAVY ADAM users. Booker-Comstock ( in Burial At Sea), who knows ... Elizabeth is definitely 'Dimension-Whacky' ). SO the element of Perception filtered by someone being 'mentally affected' assists in the 'Not Exactly As Appears' nature of many Plasmids and Tonics therefore being justified.
The Plasmids and Tonic effects DON'T have to be quite what they seem to be. (Helps Alot to explain them ... )
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How To Make Plasmids/Tonics NOT Be Magic (Better SciFi) :
Fantasy quickly negates any relevancy to the Real World ( it is too open-ended, it lessens Players world-knowledge, disables their expectations/recognition of 'the way things work' - Even as to the other story characters Motives and Logic ). Rapture's story ( meant to be a reflection of Our World ) preferably should be based on REAL Physics - a 'potential' Science/Engineering Society - as much as possible ( Not to be some terribly Fake/Faux crap - like is perpetrated in Infinite BS ). 
In-Game (MMORPG) you might find some old technical briefings about how the different Plasmids worked. I'm sure that Cartoony illustrations similar to the Plasmid/Tonic advertisements/tutorials could be CREATED by creative Players to illuminate the Player-viewer -- Presenting the COMMERCIAL (company internal) 'selling' of ideas to The Money Men/prospective clients with semi-technical aspects illustrating how these ADAM products REALLY work. That then followed by advertising campaigns with various imaginative 'Sales Pitches' -- To sell the illusions to the customers ( standard stuff for most advertising ). 
NOTE - That EVERY time YOU (as the Player) saw Plasmids used in the game, *YOU* were already an ADAM-user and potentially mentally affected and delusional ( Why else would Jack so easily follow the Terrorist Atlas ??? )
Many more details about the whole ADAM process would be available/accumulated by the Players in their playing activities.
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Plasmids should not be Insta-Fire (activation time) giving the Player/opponent time to duck or counter
In-flight delays should be similar (NOT instantaneous).
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ADAM Projected Plasmid Effects - Some 'Magic-like' Powers Actually Being Physiological/Psychological Effects :
Some possibly related to flashing/strobing light effects on epileptics or psychic projections ( Eleanor talks to you telepathically a number of times ), etc... Various Psi powers might be explained by electromagnetic transmissions projected at recipients brains. Some biological equivalent of a radio ??? ( "Who knows - The Shadow Knows!!!" )
Otherwise, why do Bees from the 'Insect Swarm' Plasmid attack affect a Big Daddy, who is inside a sealed suit ??? Not real bees, but a psychic projection or something like them could.
Teleportation - More a magicians trick than anything - why else the puff of smoke and the ringing bell ? Distractions and misdirection ( add mind clouding psi stuff too ) while the 'obscured' Perp saunters to the new location.
Telekinesis - A combination of the Teleportation type trickery and throwing stuff manually ???
ElectroBolt is a projection of electricity ( electric eels for a biological example ). Projecting a charged plasma (gas/liquid) ??
Incinerate! is a physical projection of superheated/burning matter ( ever see a fire eater spit flames ?? )
BioShock is mostly a Sci-Fi genre that is based on abilities made possible by Biological modification of the Human Body using ADAM ( some of the 'cute' Plasmids/Tonics they came up with do require 'a bit of a stretch' to try to explain ... )
Many Tonics just improve your sense acuity/strength/speed/coordination and others jam the abilities of others ( including machines ).
Cyborg-ish Elements Facilitating Plasmid Use :
"Magic Potions are for FANTASY games.  This is SCIENCE dammit !!!!" - Master Chief
Plasmids would be more than just 'genetic' manipulation ...  Often the active components would be Injected at location in body where the structure/mechanism is supposed to form/be utilized from.   Preparation steps would be made and subsequent manipulations done when various ADAM product components are applied.
Example - Booker's BIC lighter thumb in early scenes in Burial At Sea) was injected at that hand location ( Right or Left thumb preference made ... ) -- Where some genetic markers/activators were first placed, and thus used to stimulate the rest of the mutation mechanism to form around that point ( The tissue modification required for 'flame' ).  There are parts of your body which you DON'T want a "flame" to inadvertently activate, so the positioning is preferably well 'guided'.
This manual tagging of body locations and other manual assistance to the genetic modification would make the product simpler to achieve ( and thus could make early Plasmids more possible, quite a while before more sophisticated 'self starting' ADAM products could be created/developed ).
Many/Most of the early Plasmids/Tonics were applied by 'professionals', instead of being 'auto-installed' by a user via some self-injection/ingestion.   The processes carried out had multiple steps which had to be done in sequence, and with precision and timing.
As noted elsewhere - in-game we most often go to a machine which introduces the new Plasmid/Tonic into our system (it doesn't come in a 'bottle') and the process may take ALOT longer than the moment we see it done.  Brevity for playability - much as we don't see Jack/Delta/Sigma tear the head off a Little Sister and extract the Sea Slug, and then wring out all the tasty ADAM from it, and into a convenient container ( or whatever the 'Raw ADAM' is stashed in before it can be delivered to the Gatherers Garden machine ).
Another advantage to manual processing is : The ADAM product can be manufactured simpler and use less ADAM ( skipping the automatic 'convenience' features ).   When Ryan/Atlas were allegedly 'Splicing up their forces', they could make use of a manual process and have trained personnel implementing it, with no 'consumer convenience' being required.
Reminiscent of scenes of military personnel induction where inoculations are being done assembly line fashion ...
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More Signs Indicating Those Plasmid Effects Are 'Faked' :
A Splicer is Plasmid-firing at you repeatedly.  If you are far away, the projectile ( like a Winter Blast iceball ) takes the flight time to reach you, but the Splicer doesn't fire again until it hits ( you or misses ).  The closer you are, the shorter the cycle is ( when they hit ) and lots of Damage ( pretty fast when they are that close ).   This implies some limit effect the Splicer/Plasmid is actively managing per shot.  The psi-effects for the 'faking' ( I've mentioned elsewhere ) have to be continued while the projectile is doing its action, and the Splicer is finally released only when the shot terminates, and then can proceed with another shot.  It is not 'fire and forget' as a simple self-contained projectile system would be - the firer is still involved ( there's no reason they should 'slow down' when wanting to 'whale on you' ).
I noticed this where lots of 'Wintery' and normal 'Houdini Splicers' are in Minervas Den ( not overly effective to try to blast them at close range in 'Hard' mode with many weapons ) ...
Some part of the Plasmid's effect is separate from any active physical mechanism -- in my 'Sci-Fi' story universe the Iceball is actually more a glueball, in order to tangle 'freeze' you and the psi makes you THINK you are frozen solid ( stunning/paralyzing you ).  The 'breaking into bits' effect may be illusional to the firer ( you cannot actually project enough supercold whatever - immerse the target fully for sufficient time and draw out a sufficient amount of heat to make them brittle enough to break on being struck - even immersed in liquid nitrogen that trick is done for real with things of large surface-area-to-volume ratios and fairly small objects ( the item is put into a bath of the 'super-cold' freezing liquid ).
Incinerate! actually DOES fire a ball of fire at you -- a Bio-Napalm potato cannon armgun, but this might  be magnified by stunning you to stay more still to be easier to hit and extra damage imagined, bigger flames obscuring the targets view, etc...
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More Attempts at a Plausible (Sci-Fi) Plasmid Explanation :
How NOT to burn your own arm off ?
The flaming 'Incinerate!'  chemical (whatever it is) doesn't have to be ignited inside the body ( ever see a fire eating/breathing act ? ).  Super-heated chemicals on contact with air might burst into flame, but why not just have a body/room temperature fuel that isn't likely to do damage to the body ( even with genetically mutated insulation built in (or whatnot) flame heat is bad ).  Some mechanism to ignite it in flight...
A Bombardier Beetle (google it) actually produces steam internally to PROJECT its foul liquid a good distance.  That mechanism might be useful for the 'fuel' blob projection, or alternately, there could be a muscle contraction Super-Soaker-like structure formed into the body ( a muscle surrounded tube that constricts - seriously you might no believe how far your heart can squirt blood out of a chest wound ).
Spew an alcohol/paraffin/some-other HydroCarbon fuel with some air-reactive enzyme/catalyst to ignite it, etc...   No need to parboil yourself on the inside.  Just spew the self-lighting material at the target.
A much harder Plasmid to justify is the Cold Projection type (ie- Winter Blast) .  It is much harder to pull heat out of something than to generate heat on a target - cryogenic fluids in the body can be bad (hard to generate/store) - that's why I would substitute some kind of fast-setting crystalizing/gluey gunk for some 'frozen effects', though the 'shatter' effect shown in the game needs something else to work as seen - Stuff shatters and the body is gone ??   Well how does a body turn into a 'lockbox' magically, or eventually disappears by itself - some of these game facilitating mechanisms just have to be dismissed from any needed explanation short of "They couldn't figure out a better way for the Game - and it looked so neat THIS way" ( AND we NEED to remove bodies, or our rendering budget is blown for people with mediocre game computer/console GPUs ).
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Players Warped Perceptions :
Consider that all game observed uses of Plasmids (and everything else), are seen via the eyes/brain like those of the 4-year-old ADAM-Addled programmed-pawn Jack, OR the ADAM-steeped mutant Sigma/Delta, OR even a Tear-crazed Schizo-Elizabeth, and the alcohol-damaged Booker. SO everything may not be quite as it appears to them ( AND YOU THE PLAYER, who sees it through THOSE CHARACTERS eyes ). (( This also might be handy to help explain the "against-physical-laws" pretty effects/actions added to spice up the games. ))
THUS : The application/installation of Plasmids do NOT have to be as instant/automatic as seen IN the game ( those same warped reality perception issues can apply ). Human tissue does not instantly and drastically transform in ANY non-fantasy biological process. The near instant game transition you experience may thus actually be a warped perception of a significantly longer tissue transition.
As to rapid Plasmid swapping : The Player's Plasmids - some similar tissue mechanisms (with some components reused) might be 'shared' by several Plasmids. Such (switchable) Plasmid multi-installation might be more complex. Possessing multiple Plasmids was seen for the Player/Atlas, but for few Splicers. It would be simpler ( less complex/costly/failure-prone ) to just have different obtrusive Plasmids installed on opposite arm/hand (or other appendage ?). Ditto with Tonics reselection ( you do that waiting at a machine, so who really knows how long you stand there - NOTE : Some artists concepts actually had a chair to sit in ( they realized it shouldn't be an instant process ).
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How to Justify Teleport ? :
Teleportation  - We (Real World) really don't have anything close to it technology-wise ( and 'Quantum Teleportation' that is spoken-of is only information transfer ).  I figure it would (for Sci-Fi Rapture) need to be some other explanation ( to avoid the Infinite BS careless magic fantasy ).   I have to lean on technological/organic pseudo-Psi effects - People not seeing really what's happening, and instead have it being some kind of mental-block/jamming/distraction mechanism.  Even the User of the Plasmid could be fooling themself  - The Teleport's advertised "getting there quickly" could be more a case of : the time seeming less - some temporary amnesia or warped perception.
Was actually a perception-changing mechanism : Where the User thinks they just "Teleported" place-to-place, but without realization of the intermediate walking/climbing/jumping. A 'Combat' expansion of this was the 'jamming' of nearby people so that the interim movement is lost-to/masked from the other's consciousness ( perhaps only added AFTER the 'civil war' made its use as a fighting tactic valuable ). No doubt there could be included : some optional psychological inducement on the user of a 'restful state' (de-stressing the user), so that there were no signs of exertion. We generally see it only used for short distances in-game so this might not exist. 
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Insect Swarm ( Sorry, not real Bugs Living in your Hand Entomophobia (fear of insects) - This seem another one of Levine & Co's phobias, to go along with : Little Girls and Big Mute Goon strangers, and Lobotomies ... ) :
My theory ( when I try to make these things they gave us more 'Sci-Fi', instead of fantasy ) is that it could be more a projected Psychological/Psi effect  - a signal blasted at the targets brain ( remember the cliche of a drug addict seeing spiders (or whatever) crawling all over themselves and screaming "get them off me !! ... get them off me !!!!" ).
So in THAT case, it is put IN the target's mind, and you can do alot of harm to yourself ( if we need  damage - the Big Daddy thrashing inside their own suit in reaction to the perceived  'insects' stinging  them ).
Similar Psi attacks/effects (what kind of genetically ADAM-caused biological mechanism can do something like this to someone else ??? )  could account for many of the various Plasmid's effects/partial-effects ( even if they don't do precisely what the Player/target thinks they are doing, or precisely what their name implies ).
Jamming would be easier ( like possible, versus impossible ) than projecting a precisely controlled image into someone else's brain, so I lean heavily on that simpler jam/stun mechanism.   Real World analogies  -  flashing lights causing epileptic seizures, Baking parts of the brain with microwaves to disrupt normal brain activity, effects of projected hallucinogenic chemicals ( may not work on BD if he's on internal air supply),  Ultra Sonics jangling nerves ( --- there IS real tech that police are testing today of THIS type ).  Fortunately most of the distances we use in BS are not very far and line of sight ( which makes it easier to justify the above mechanisms ... )
We need some kind of 'projector' addition to our body to make something like this happen. ( Lets not discount subliminal messaging of some kind - the so-called Placebo effect is real and the target's human brain can do alot to assist in perceived effects. )
Funny thing is, tossing a real blob of fire (Incinerate!) at someone from your hand is child's-play compared to what a Psi attack mechanism requires. ( And it doesn't take much of a chunk at 400 degrees touching/contacting someones skin to get the dancing ... )
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Oh, and the BD suits aren't impenetrable armor. Electricity may go thru them fine - metal parts/wet parts, and medieval knights stopped using metal armor largely because bullets could go thru them like butter, and were still vulnerable to impact forces,   Burning could work ( alot of many suits appears to be canvas ), or at least the heat could penetrate ( and who says their conglomeration of suit equipment/machinery is impervious ).   Real insects might be one of the few things which can't get into the BD Suit (being waterproof), but bugs swarming over the faceplate might get some reaction (discounting a Psi attach).
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How Does Jack NOT Burn Himself ?  Incinerate! -- Hand Not Burning Itself is Simple.
* Ever see a 'fire eater'  you ignite it outside the body - perhaps a chemical that reacts with air for ignition versus the 'rocket engine flamejet'.
* You have tissue around the fire hole ( bio-napalm potato cannon in your arm) resistant to heat that has little time to transfer/conduct heat (ie- fire walkers) )   A biological equivalent of asbestos is possible ( especially if the 'flame-on' duty cycle is short. )
* Inside the 'feed tube' there's no oxygen so combustion doesn't take place til after it shoots out ( in  case of flashback )
The user's Hand-on-fire may be more a psychological (mental suggestion) image than a physical one ( see 'Psi' crap above )  -- Remember ADAM makes you kinda crazy ...    You might not actually burn, but you might still feel the heat and you brain fills in the rest.
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The Minervas Den Gravity Well Plasmid (Uhhhhh.... Yeahhhhhhh.......) :
Sorry 'Genetics' doesn't justifying breaking the Laws of Physics. ( It is in DLC, so expect Sub Par writing ... )
SO how might it work ?? ( Let's see how creative one can be to explain this ... )
Polyp that explodes throwing liquid fibers in all directions which when they instantly dry contract and pull objects towards the center ( pulling things on all sides to offset the forces ).  This also explains why the 'gravity' doesn't work thru walls ( and why they had to have those absurd holes above the walls the player had to cast the Gravity Well through to make them work on the other side ).
As with several other Plasmid effects, nerve janglers (high frequency vibrations) are employed which disorient those nearby and obscure what is actually going on.  
Tasty explosive center then goes off ?  Or Splashes nice-fun Acid all about --- Who thought of that little gem ??  Why not on the 3rd upgrade have whatever it was thrown at DISAPPEAR putted into a momentary black hole (direct hit only) ????   Seriously ... Acid ???   Why not radiation burns.  You could still have the nice glowy effect linger afterwards.
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 "They Add A Player Resurrection Feature With The Vita-Chamber Which Teleports You On Death ..." :
Done just For a game easing feature ( wasn't needed - it is just an alternative to the manual "Save-Die-Reload" ) Thus, they added some magic crap into the game. Allegedly a 'quantum entangled' copy of you pops out in the Chamber (or somesuch) using your DNA - or Whatever ... SO with that existing, then what is so strange about a bunch of extro-Physics Plasmid magic powers getting included in the game ?
And maybe it set the stage for Infinite BS's Quantum Faux-Science and Pinky god power plot crutch. THAT Game went "Full Quantard" ...
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