Contraband

* See also The_Smuggling_Operation
* See also Smugglers_Hideout Level in BioShock 1
* See also Smugglers_Den_MP
* See also Laws_in_Rapture
Goods imported or exported illegally, either in defiance of a total ban or without payment of duty.
" Smuggled · Black-market · Bootleg · Bootlegged · under the counter · illegal · illicit · unlawful · prohibited · banned · proscribed · forbidden · interdicted · hot "
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Smuggled Contraband should be something valuable ( to some People in Rapture ) for its weight and size. EXPENSIVE. Being an illegal operation, there are many added difficulties and costs (overhead).
Reverse Contraband might be goods being moved OUT of Rapture to be traded or sold to get money to BUY the desired goods. ( Such goods would have to be traded to buy the imported Contraband. )
Even before the strong measures against smuggling, there still would be a desire to NOT have such activity attract attention -- prevented so as to protect Raptures Secrecy ( and thus its survival ).
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Somewhere in Rapture there is a huge warehouse filled with seized Contraband ( smuggler crates and such ) and who knows what horrors from 'The Surface' might be contained in them ??? There are probably other locations where similar caches exist in Rapture.
Splicers dream and talk of this 'gold mine' ( 'El Dorado Lounge' might cross some wires in their ADAM_Addled skulls ).
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Smash That Glass (NOOOOOOOOO!!!) :
Glass ( after all the smashing .. years of it) is a rare commodity in New Rapture, and you might want to go to the trouble to bring intact objects back to get that premium price for it ( or to impress your acquaintances with the quantity of glass in your Private Residence ). Glass is also a raw material useful for making new objects ( and a with Bounty offered for it for all the expansion going on in New Rapture's City Center. )
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For Rapture 'Smuggled' Booze ? :
Historically, Fake Champaigne was made with generic ethyl alcohol and raisins and bubbly carbonation.
A great many Americans learned alot about flavoring Distilled Ethyl Alcohol during Prohibition ( and THAT kind of person sounds like the type that would come to Rapture ).
Contraband truths about need for Smuggling : Anyone can make 'Booze' Anyone can make 'Booze' - Except perhaps the 'not in real world' makers of computer games .... So that fact limits shipments to better/expensive 'Smuggled' stuff for 'Rich' People ( fits the logical cost profile ). Thus Booze Smuggling being a tiny market segment of such goods -- a small potential 'market'. And where do you buy GOOD Booze in Iceland - So Smugglers have to bring such luxuries a greater distance -- adding to the difficulties and risk, and raising the cost and prices accordingly. 
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Tan Suan Co La (San Juan Cola ?) More Weird Contraband :
I never did figure out why this is such a mangled name ( Maybe it is purchased by Fontaine's smugglers in Iceland, or something like that ?? )
SO, they importing a 'cola' ?? ( Seriously, there are far more valuable/profitable things to smuggle ... ITS More gamemakers 'logic' - loose as a Splicer's bowels after eating a 'bad' clam ).
When cocaine and alcohol meet inside a person, they create a third unique drug called Cocaethylene. Cocaethylene works like cocaine, but with more euphoria. Originally a wine drink was commercially offered with cocaine added ( giving that combination effect ), but public sentiment named it too much ( various racist issues down South ... something about certain ethnicities losing control/inhibitions a bit too much ). So along came someone who combined it with Caffeine (from the Kola Nut) - Coca Cola ...
But Fontaine isn't limited by much, so some brands might have been laced with Heroin, for all we know.
If Smuggled, it would be in the form of Syrup ...
Locally Bottled ( recycling of battles was standard in those days - a deposit on the bottle )
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Soda in Rapture Would Be In Bottles :
They're Recyclable you know -- You actually just cleaned them back then ... ( Steel Cans take alot of resources ).
Why would Soda be shown to be Imported (Contraband), when much more valuable and lucrative items would better serve Fontaine's limited cargo capacity of his smuggler subs ??? ( Just Lazy thoughtless ignorant designers ?? Harder for them to make a recognizable 'Packet of Heroin' Asset ??? )
Smuggling in just the Syrup might be a bit more practical ( They can make fricken ADAM Plasmids, so soda water should be really easy ... Even the know-nothing game writers might manage something like that ).
Just picking up stuff at the trading post on Iceland ??? No. Fontaine's Smuggling would have to be a bit more organized than that.
Unfortunately, it is a case of general lack of knowledge on the game writers part that they thought mostly of historic Bootleggers, smuggling booze to a hundred million Americans, as their model. That, instead of what really could ONLY BE a small operation, smuggling luxuries. The overhead costs of such Rapture smuggling are substantial, and the whole operation isn't worth the 'Crime Penalty' risk, unless it made a substantial profit. Beyond the writers/designers understanding, I guess.
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Never clarified : Why Commit the crime of Smuggling when you could ship the same stuff into Rapture legally - BEFORE the isolation (~1952 ??) Limits on imports in the earlier period weren't really talked about ( and NO you're not gonna have 'self-sufficiency' while the population is still adjusting and organized itself that first 5 years. )
Ryan's "I make only One Law" - No Smuggling ... WHEN did that happen ?? ( Probably around time of that Isolation starting, and THAT does not give Fontaine much time to build that fortune he needed to later build his ADAM industry ).
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Fontaine the King of Tea :
Smuggling high value items (value density) was so important ( and the only plausible way it would work ).
* Drugs
* Tea and Coffee ( when many people's drinking water might not be so tasty )
* Data
* Spices
Having Bulky Crap be Smuggled is only Writer Ignorance.
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Bibles seem to be a fixation for the makers of this game. Seriously, how many more would they possibly smuggle in IF the population wanting them all had them ? That is with a preponderance of non-religious types so to lower that number of customers significantly. We saw pallets of Bibles 'seized' as Contraband.
Biggest GAFF : Bibles are not 'Organized Religion' or 'State Religion', which Ryan is actually against ( and BS2 has him SAYING he doesn't care what 'fetishes people bow down to' ). 
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Pornography Law 1945-1959 ( US ) 
Porn might have been one of the Smuggled Contraband ( those stacks of magazines in BS1 ??? )
MMORPG Idea : Trading Porn for food ( post-smuggling ) - Genericized game Objects ( or visible stuff being the 'tame shit' that they even have on 'kid shows' today ... ). 
'Play Slug' magazine ? ( and creepier Splicer Created stuff )
Obviously something subject to the scrutiny of the game's Vetting Process.
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Film Smuggled In From The Surface Causes Panic :
Some non-affiliated enclave in the City has found disturbing evidence that the Surface World has been taken over by some kind of Aliens after massive catastrophic destruction of the old World.
Planet of the Apes (1968) Trailer ...
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Strange Things Ordered From The Surface (post 1952) :
* 600 lb of "fresh" Chimpanzee Brains (Mc X Electronics)
add more here
ie - odd tastes in foods ...
creepy art ?
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WHOLE LIST : Simply_Copy_the_Previous_Games_Elements_BUT_BADLY#WrongLoot
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Sander Cohen has esoteric tastes and would avail himself of various Quality Contraband.
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