Perceptions Altered

* See also ADAM_Addled
* See also Strange_Splicer_Visions
* See also Game Experience
* See also Ghost Story
* See also Hijacking_the_Plane
* See also Infinite-All_A_Dream
* See also Merging ( Opportunity for Better 'Splicers' in Columbia )
In BioShock (Rapture) Your Character/Avatar is always someone who is under the influence of either some physical substance (ie- ADAM) or some previous Conditioning the character was subjected to. This very well would influence what YOU The Player SEE through their Eyes and HEAR with their Ears.
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I Prefer Sci-Fi to Fantasy : 
Fantasy, especially inconsistent Fantasy, allows the writers to make up whatever Philosophy/Politics/Social-Issue comments they want, allegedly for reflecting some reality/relevance to the Real World. In a history-invoking 'Story' game, this instead can become irrelevant/questionable. It is like arguing about "Wage Discrimination for Munchkins in Oz", or "Slavery of those Flying Monkeys" there ... 
SO, I would have the MMORPG try to bring the BioShock games context back to being Science Fiction - Making it MORE ***What-If***, instead of some fantastical ***Who-Knows*** / ***WTF*** / ***Just Lemme Shoot Things***/ ***Cuz***.
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It struck me some years ago that so much we SEE in these games should be interpreted more from the character's point of view. AND Every one of the Avatars/Player-Characters have a potentially Warped Perceptions in some way. Jack/Delta/Sigma are all massively ADAM-affected ( as well as by other things ) by their conditionings, and Booker is a massive Drunk with various other mental issues. Elizabeth is a semi-autistic/isolated/home-schooled nascent dimension-god ( and the later BaSx Elizabeth is some further mutated extension of that ). Even the character avatars in the Multi-Player BS2 DLC game are all ADAM_Addled.
This Realization could go a-long-ways to explain alot of the weirdness we see in these games ( Heh - AND being 'way more' reality challenged in that third game ). Even the Insect Swarm 'Bees fired out of your hands' ( the weirdest Plasmid in BS1 ) might instead be more hallucination of some 'Sales BS' - rather than being exactly 'as advertised'. The ADAM-affected Splicers/Player see what they THINK they see. The gamemaker-pushed fantasy crap is thus more in people's heads, instead of being fantasy fact/real.
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Jack is a Golem - Construct :
Consider : WOULD you always be aware of it being so Unbelievable - IF you WERE mentally 'warped' ? If that warped state is your norm ? Jack (you) isn't aware of what he really is, isn't THAT a bit of a 'Warped' reality ?
Your Seeing of Hallucinations ( "seeing things which aren't there" ) ... Is that NOT what I'm referring to ? ( Sorry, DNA/RNA is not able to contain 'Memories' - that is a whole separate issueDNA Memories : Discarded decades ago even by sub-par hack pulp sci-fi writers. - I think that idea was discarded by most Good Sci-Fi authors over 30 years ago. ) Instead, ADAM-caused Brain damage is such an obvious explanation for it.
A 'Telepathic' Bond with Eleanor ? She was the one who put 'Delta' back together, wasn't she ? We get little information about how that was achieved, or what might have been injected into his mind initially and then triggered later. She WANTED to be rescued from her crazy mother, and seems smart enough to arrange alot of things ahead of time to that end. That radio 'red vision' glowey effect being communication from her also can't be discounted as a symptom of a warped brain.
Delta could just be some human shell that had been conditioned with reconstructed 'memories' and mind ( like Jack had been ). Remember, how ALL of Jack's mind was a fabrication in BS1 ? SO That's NOT being 'warped' much ??? ... "No of course not (Derp!!)". It fits quite well.
I'd hate to see what Splicers likely see in their heads. Maybe we can get to see in the next game/MMORPG.
Oh right - "Little Sister Vision" in BS2 - THAT was NOT 'warped' ?? It certainly was.
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ADAM-Disease Affectation of The Player :
Think, IF they (the game makers) had thought of some embedded psychological drama/underlying demonstration - like a subtle but building Warped Vision/Delusion of the Rapture the Player SEES ( instead of it supposedly being plain/real ) - This effect being caused by you (Jack) using more and more ADAM, and going more and more INSANE. 
Upto a fairly early point in BS1, you being initially ADAM-Free, you would get a more real experience ( Even to starts with the Plane Crash - There is an excuse of a mild Concussion ). Perhaps, bypass that with what Jack really was (as you in the game were NOT informed) - an artificially created mind/body ( Pre-warped in its very makeup - Especially likely that alot of ADAM was used to create you. )
IF THEY HAD THOUGHT OF THAT ASPECT, THEN they WOULD have spelled it out for the Players in the end (or claimed it later) to demonstrate how clever they were The many BioShock Writers all patted themselves on the back in all those interviews trying to show how 'clever' they were - THAT was just so sad and pathetic. Perhaps if they had instead put as much effort into the actual game instead ???. Since they didn't, it seems they really didn't think of it.
"Warped Reality" in a game takes lots of effort and 'effects' to imply/present it. The MMORPG could do much more with many Role Playing perspectives, and employ lots of the intended Player Creator imagination. 'Have it Done' slowly with Hinting, Subtleties, etc ... ( "Rapture Reborn" Forums would be able to explain later if the Player didn't "Get It" ... SPOILERAGE - via online game forums - That would be something hard to minimize ... )
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Consider : The original story had 'ADAM Use' NOT be quite so obvious in its Negative Affects ( to hide its pervasive effect upon some significant portion of Rapture's population ). But when Jack takes ADAM, it is in a later more powerful form ( you get a Combat Plasmid in BS1 almost immediately ), and possibly cruder ( though it is from Ryan's Vending Machine, but others you just 'find' ). That's a possible justification of Jack's immediate zap-crackle-pop side-effects -- cuz Jack is a 'messed up' 4-year-old, and maybe also reacting to the Pheromone Control additive ( which Ryan has laced the Gatherer's Garden ADAM machines with ) ...
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An interesting idea to justify all those ADAM goodies (Plasmids/Tonics) you just find lying about - They are left there by Atlas to BOOST the conditioning affects ( Some additive he doesn't mention - just for Jack as he is guided by the nose (like a dumb steer) through 'the path' by Atlas ). It is possible you were 'on ice', waiting for your being sent to Rapture, and once activated YOU start to deteriorate, and those 'boosts' are needed ( Suchong prepared it all ahead of time ). That wouldn't bode well for a "purist" Player who tried to play all the way through MINUS all the Plasmids/Tonics ( Those that weren't forced on you - required to advance -- Electro-Bolt/Incinerate! ).
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Plasmids Get Too Magic ? Well ... :
ADAM-crazed perceptions might be misleading you ( and the suggested effects of the Plasmid(s) may often be a sales gimmick - But who cares, as long as it achieved what it was supposed to : upsetting/zapping an attacker ... ) 
Bees - Insect Swarm Plasmid ( Right ... Bees grow inside your hand )
Photo-optical over-stimulation ( epileptic stun flashes )
Accentuated by a hallucinogenic compounds ( organically produced and hurled at opponent )
Druggy Cliche : "BUGS !!! THEY'RE CRAWLING ALL OVER ME !!!!" ( Spiders might be Worse ... Oh Yeah ....)
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More Messed Up Perception :
Since they writers put Vigors ( Plasmids by a different name ) in Columbia, the same effect could be present in the third game. Infinite BS was so messed up that having it all be some similar crazy delusion is by far the most plausible/logical reason for it.
An awful lot of what you see in the BS:I game could be just in Jack's head.
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Barrel with "Provisions" Written on it as a Label ... : 
Is it 'Just Lazy Game Makers' who couldn't think of something logical/plausible ??? Or figured the mindless 'bin diving' was not player-interesting enough to bother with anything more imaginative ?? 
BUT What do you expect from a delusional Dreamscape of a half-lobotomized escapee from a Mental Asylum ?
I'm talking about Elizabeth, here ...
Like in Rapture with Jack and Delta and Sigma ( all subjected to previous and on-going mind warping influences ) - which is shaping their ( And OUR in-game ) perceptions skewing what WE get to see.
Booker in Infinite BS may simply be at Coney Island, spaced out on his Toothache-Medicine-induced Fever Dream and interacting with various annoying fellow customers ( those ones with a British accent particularly ) and on the Rollercoaster, the Shooting Gallery, and all that strangeness in the "Fun House". It would explain things more simply and logically than that warped delusional plot Ken Levine gave us.
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Conditioning :
Humans are not very good at experiencing reality ( the World as it REALLY is ). There are countless examples and experiments showing how people perceive a given stimuli in totally different ways. Memory is even worse when it comes to accurate recording of events. The whole ADAM story could be a grand delusion, created through brainwashing, hypnosis, conditioning, etc. Jack has certainly been conditioned, and sees and behaves according to what he believes to be true. The same is also probably true for Delta. We as Players, looking through the eyes of the conditioned brainwashed heroes are really no different than the way the delusional Little Sisters see their world. In other words, we see Rapture through the eyes of a delusional character -- if Delta saw pink elephants, we would also see them and whether they were real or not, is mostly immaterial. 
Elizabeth had a really F@#$%^&d Up isolated childhood, so who knows how she perceives the World. There's also the whole 'Back from Death' thing, etc ... So many 'easy alibis' so to 'churn out' all the weird contradicting crap in BaS.
( In BioShock 3 the player could be given the task to find out what is real and what is delusional, in the game and game story. Who and what do you believe to be true, an expansion of the Atlas/Fontaine story theme, but happening throughout the whole game. ) 
The MMORPG could have plenty of playable delusional sequences, with the appropriate disclaimer/indicators ...
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Jack was NOT a Robot. And at anytime, he could have Killed Himself when he realized what he was being made to do.
WYK was never said to 'blank the brain'. Jack being aware of his heinous crimes WOULD have been an interesting Psycho element for the game.
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Q : "Jack - What is Reality ?" :
The problem is IF you were conditioned, how would you know you broke out of it to see things as more 'reality' ( which is normally based on your previous experience for how you recognize or value things - something Jack might have very little of ). 
You might have to start with someone never 'conditioned', and not a ADAM Splicer, to at least avoid the usual ways you would be 'warped'. Discovery would just then be walking through things ... But now there wouldn't be that interesting "Oh, None of it was Real" gimmick. 
Also, if you 'broke out' of your conditioning, what would you have left ( How much did the conditioning wipe out, leaving gaps in how you perceive reality ... ) Simulate that in the game by having meaningless lights flash at you, and blank blocks fly at/past you could 'get kinda old' after awhile. You destroy the conditioning or just 'realize' it may not be true ( with flipping between reality and the 'filtered' view ).
The Little-Sister-Vision in BS2 had a little bit of that happening.
Jack for example was only about 4 years old, and likely would have all of that time (and brain content) taken up by 'conditioning', and there wouldn't be much else in his head. Even as Jack WAS defined, it is a little too deep/complex for the developers to simulate having us see Rapture in a distorted way. It would be hard (and a Give-Away of the 'twist') simulating all the gaps for things Jack shouldn't have known. WE saw and knew about so many normal things in Rapture ( versus what an imperfect 4-year-old with accelerated conditioning could possibly understand ... ).
It might be justified via N-grams taken from someone else being impressed on him to help fill that void .. who knows. They had those very limited flashback 'photographs' to try to imply something. There's another Meta level thing that Jack might not even realize he is missing memories or even know to question it ( We know we should have them but he might not - but WE also have no way of inquiring/remembering or sense of confusion in the game ) and the few photos they flashed 'oddly' .. they were just basic filler for his cover. He was up on the Surface for 2 years (?) doing who knows what -- Probably isolated because if someone talked to him or he saw too much it might wreck/disrupt their fragile/crude conditioning. 
I don't know how they might effectively communicate such things to players without having to whack them directly in the face with explanations. A bit deep for an FPS, and Verboten when there is that 'Twist' to force the Player into.
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That Infinite BS : "Creating His Own Memories" Aspect ( While Shifting Dimensions ) :
Some Wackojacko kindof idea the game writers came up with : 
Some Fantasy effect allegedly caused by MELDING/MERGING of two universe dimensions ( Sorry, "NOT part of Quantum Physics there, boyo" ). It is MORE of their quantumz-fakery based on a 'Quantum Collapse' buzzword they'd heard. PROBLEM : IF these realities/dimensions/whatever 'Collapse' together, THEN shouldn't there be a huge jarring occurring ( If you notice, the two universes they cross between are sometimes SIGNIFICANTLY different -- OR WHY ELSE would they NEED to jump through the Tear in the game 'in the first place' - so to use it as a Plot Continuance device ????? ) These game Quantumz Rules are NOT particularly systematic, in the way the writers apply them to their plot/story/setting, no ?
Apparently BOOKER'S MEMORIES ARE CHANGED :
* What memories are these ? 
* How do WE see these 'New Memories' - AND WHAT are/were his 'Old' Memories ? 
* WHAT are they supposed to be different from ( which is significant ) ?? 
SAYING it is happening in the Game is easy, while DEMONSTRATING it is another thing :
* Having Booker utter blatantly different comments ( have to spell out to the typical player WHY he suddenly does this ... )
* Modified Flashbacks shifting each time you do one of these Tear 'memory' shifts MIGHT have been a good game element here. 
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Do Memories Form Your Personality ? 
Some people go a completely different directions with the same memories ( It be a 'Quantumz thang' there ). Anyway, it probably won't help their lame hokem game logic to mention here that : PEOPLE are NOT Quantum Objects !!! ( Neither was much else in Infinite BS - in Real Science it applies to teeny-tiny particles only ). Roll the die for what the two or more Bookers' memories finally MERGE to be ( There's wholesale indeterminacy for REAL quantums you know ... The writers apparently did not ).
Oops, "Merging" with DEAD Booker ( in one of the game's Tear transitions ) ??? That shouldn't be good. A BIG conflicting Transition "Merge", No ? But, it magically wasn't that big a deal to Booker, for some reason. Google the word 'Contrived". (( Brain hemorrhaging Insane/Cretin-ified Booker should have resulted, shouldn't it ? Does Elizabeth's MAGIC prevent it ? Yes, those are very 'scientific' rules of the universe this game has. ))
Consider that Comstock creates his 'past' ( museum history, persona, propaganda ) but those aren't really "his memories", and we can't really know what HIS memories (old or new) are EITHER ( no internal narrative inside his mind for you to see/hear in the game ... ) And Comstock also is "collapsing" as these Tear MERGES happen too ??? What a farging fecking mess there, boyo.
Booker is a mystery to us -- No 'thought bubbles', just his outside actions/words, which might really be disingenuously smarmy/two-faced 'to get what he wants' (Like Atlas) -- That is, when Booker is not busy murdering other humans "At the Drop of a Hat". (( Hearing many/lots of his 'thoughts to himself' might have been VERY INTERESTING -- REMEMBER THAT FOR THE REDO ))
Maybe Elizabeth is also affected by this "Creating Memories" thing too ?? Isn't SHE ALSO merging with the Elizabeth already in whatever alternate reality they move into through a Tear ??? ( I don't recall THAT ever being mentioned - But the Magic Princess won't/can't be allowed to have her brains scrambled - DE PLOT WON'T NOT ALLOW DAT. *OR* even hint that it is possibly happening to change the Player ).
So applying the above issues/effects, your experiences as Booker can ALL potentially be fake/delusional ( much like 'Jack' the super-Splicer ). What you do (and who you are) in the game can be (and was) something else -- including that final scene - a delusion that everything is fine (( OOPS except if Booker was drowned, then HOW then is there a baby Annabell ?? -- So NOT real ??? -- CAN'T BE ...))
Perhaps it is all in Elizabeth's head, as SHE is being kept in a padded cell in a Sanitarium back in the non-quantumized normal world in Kansas ( as the attendants approach to prepare her for that new Trans-Orbital Lobotomy procedure !!! Ooh, that will be fun with more interesting results. Necessary because all the electro-Shock therapy hadn't worked ... )
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