Delta

* See also Johnny (the MMORPG RE-Resurrected Delta from BS2 ending)
* See also Big Daddy
* See also Protectors_Too_Soon
* See also Where Delta Died
* See also Alphas
* See also Sigma
* See also Test Subjects
AKA "SUBJECT DELTA"
Delta was the Player's Avatar in BioShock Two. He was an 'Alpha' Series early 'Protector' (cyborg) who was revived by Eleanor Lamb to Save her from her insane mother Sofia Lamb ( who controlled some small section in Post-Ryan 'Chaos Era' Rapture ).
AKA Johnny Deep ??? "Johnny Deep" - For a new "Pirates of the Rapture" series 
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"Delta - What is Truth ?" :
It is US playing the part and the perceptions being fed to us, as WE might have taken it in the ACTUAL circumstances ( although the game writers may count on your modern (ignorant) thought patterns in their clumsy manipulations ). So it was with Jack, Delta, Sigma and even every version of Elizabeth and Booker. Would/Should you play the Character to reflect who the character is ? ( See Ludonarrative Dissonance ) 
IF You as Delta (playing as moral 'good') take too long advancing through the game ( being so nice to all those poor unfortunate Splicers and Little Sisters ... Avoiding violence, maybe not even stealing stuff that isn't yours ... ) when YOU were all but programmed with "MUST SAVE ELEANOR !!!" -- And then you start hearing things like : "Mother is now sticking electrodes into my skull .... HELLLLLP me Daddyyyy!!!!"
Of course taking that directive ( largely programmed into you by Eleanor ) can turn you into a psychotic killer - Taking all possible resources available, not leaving any enemies behind to risk THE MISSION ( like Grace Holloway being a liability - There's no question of leaving HER alive to stab you in the back and prevent you from saving Eleanor -- 'Metal Daddy' got no Soul ... )
This approach to the game can justify many of the things we saw in the game NOT actually being true or complete. Rather them being (warped/adjusted) interpretations from THAT (Your) character's mentality/mental state/conditioning. We certainly WERE manipulated with all the vague/biased/incomplete/illogical information fed us, while being led along through the plots.
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Who Is Delta ? :
4th letter of Greek alphabet. Is that 4th test subject of the "Alpha" Series Protector Project ? Or Test Subject #4 of Plasmid Testing ? Or is he the 4th Successful conversion ? It is not known how many conversion subjects died or were rejected to get that far ( OR if the numbers were recycled on failures ).
Before his arrival in Rapture, the man nicknamed "Johnny Topside" ( who possibly would become Subject Delta ) was a 'deep sea diver'/explorer/adventurer who conducted an investigation of the many ship and submarine disappearances in the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Iceland. Allegedly, while surveying the area in an advanced 'diving chamber', he accidentally discovered the hidden city.
Diving bells require large support ships ( which they don't move far away from ). It is rather hard to believe that the ship's crew did not first see the Rapture's Lighthouse, which IS in close proximity to Rapture. Undersea Surveying usually takes place from a 'mothership' and using sensors dangled down into the depths, often for a period of weeks. Only when they find something, does a human go below in a 'diving bell' for a closer look.
Possibly to Andrew Ryan this sounded suspicious, and he did not trust the story (Johnny T's). Eventually Ryan was convinced enough that the man must be a government agent sent to spy on Rapture. Ryan thus removed him from the city, and had him incarcerated at Persephone Penal Colony.
It is never made clear what happened to the 'mother' ship, and that the diving bell would have to remain sealed while it was taken into Rapture ( through an airlock OR if opened out there the pressure of several hundred feet of water would have killed its occupant instantly ).
It may have been Stanley Poole, a journalist who had written a story on this visitor, who may have created the nickname "Johnny Topside".
SO was Delta this guy or someone else ? Does it matter ? That, using the Zombase Tonic "Daddy Don't Remember Squat No More" ( originally used to wipe unwanted personality from Big Daddy candidates - a body shell now readied for conditioning and training in their new 'life' ... ).
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Delta's "Memories"/Mind - Restored by Vita Chamber ? :
Not necessarily 'all' his memories, we can say 'some', possibly as shown by the low detail seen in the 'ghost stories' in BS1 ( whether DNA/RNA based of not ). Delta's restored memories actually may be only a few and random, and of dubious usefulness ( memories maybe , but Knowledge ? Experience ? Muscle Control ? What happens when those things start to conflict/overlap ? ). The Little Sisters didn't seem to gain much from similar absorption, except confusion, and a 16-17 year old (Eleanor) does not do all that much better ( if at any age it could be handled ). Sofia Lamb saw the basic effect ( probably in her patients ), and may have deluded herself in how far it could work ( Her thinking on 'Changing Human Nature' sets her amongst the most crazy people in History, as well as with some of the most murderous ). The resulting insanity in Gilbert Alexander should probably have given her a clue.
Delta may instead have been largely intact ( body in storage after his 'death' which the 'lab boys' investigated ). Eleanor also could have found the research tapes of Delta's mind, to be restored and edited. How much they might have done before they put Delta into 'storage' is unknown. No doubt Eleanor would want to restore/add memories which would make Delta inclined to come rescue her. You see her play other 'memories' to you (Delta) along your journey. Perhaps Eleanor is quite a bit better at manipulating YOU than her mother was.
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"How about the Story of Selling 'Johnny Topside' into Slavery ?" : 
Where's the complete story ? Where are most of the details about it at all ? Did he volunteer for Experiments ? ( a common practice in 50s for prison inmate to volunteer for testing to get better treatment/early release - That Poster on the wall there ... ) Was Johnny T Spliced-up BEFORE he even was sent to Persephone (drugs is drugs), and maybe so deranged (to sign himself away?) that his only fit use was 'testing' service ( and IMAGINE! the pull to a 'thirsty' Splicer of the bribe of getting ADAM IF you go and do this 'testing' job Fontaine Futuristics offered ... ). 
Delta has "Forgotten about Persephone" ? : That place Sinclair built for the City - that combined prison/jail/insane-asylum ? Alot was going on there : Sinclair says he got access to some technical expertise possessed by some of the inmates ( I seriously question the extent of Sinclair's "Brain Trust", if you size up the likely prison population and spectrum of people in it ). Sinclair probably would have been very interested in talking to 'Johnny Topside'.
Did Sofia Lamb work on the man and coerced him into 'volunteering'. Sinclair mentions Sofia Lamb doing that to inmates, Don't he ?? Done either to preserve her 'followers', or to preserve HERSELF ( Sofia has shown how she considers OTHERS as EXPENDIBLE -- the usual modus operandi of collectivist tyrants ).
Lots of WHAT IFs, and lots of missing story there ( and a great opportunity for the MMORPG to expand fully ). 
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A Formula for Stuff To Happen :
Delta, with his shreds of humanity ( an early Alpha, which might NOT have been 'wiped' as much as the later Big Daddies ), and with Eleanor inheriting (by nature or nurture) her mother's manipulative abilities ( which WAS made easier upon mind-adled ADAM-imbibing Splicers ). Delta then being further programmed with his legacy involving Eleanor. 
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If it was all some kind of (magic) Psi Power thing, then WHY need physical 'ports' for Plasmid use ???
I'm not sure the gamemakers understand how complex such mechanisms would have to be to operate, let alone to be robust enough for the work being done.
Fingerprint ID system ?? 
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The Cyborg known as Delta played an important part in the MMORPG Rapture Reborn story. He was fundamental in the founding of New Rapture. One Delta died in BioShock 2, at its end ( or possibly fell back down to Rapture from the Surface and regenerated ).
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"Alexander The Great" (Gilbert Alexander) said Delta was a well known Tester Demonstrator at Fontaine Futuristics :
He most likely was "Spliced" routinely for the 'Demonstration' Shows, while still in ordinary human form, BEFORE the ADAM excesses causing his physical and mental deterioration ( to the point of insanity ? ), at which point ( possibly gibbering in a isolation cell ), when the Big Daddy development Program came along, he became an early (Alpha series) development candidate - a well documented test subject.
If Delta actually was "Johnny T" ( an explorer who was sent to the Persephone Prison by the Rapture City Council as a suspected spy ) then there was an obvious long span of time during which : First he was incarcerated at Persephone, 'recruited' to be a test subject, his Show stage-run as a Plasmid Demonstrator, and then his being recycled into a 'Big Daddy' Alpha test candidate, and eventually being deployed as an operational Protector ( possibly One of the First ).
Those ADAM Demonstration Shows seem like something that would happen BEFORE the 'civil war' started (Kashmir Incident), and before too much Chaos began in the City. The need for Gatherer-Protectors would come only WELL AFTER there were sufficient casualties to justify them ( Otherwise you just don't have bodies left in the streets -- It is only after the disruptions/destruction/disorder happens significantly ).
As a test subject upon which a Protector project followup development inquiry would be carried out (to find out what went wrong), Delta later may have just been left 'on ice' in one of the facilities ( 'civil war' disruptions having him being forgotten ), to still be there for Eleanor to find years later.
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 "But Delta was brought back from nothing, Except some DNA" ?? 
Not really (if we seek Sci-Fi) :
The First successful Alpha model cyborg : 'Delta', had been heavily neural recorded (N-grams), so that his conditioning could be mapped and monitored ( after the costly/messy failures of Subjects "Alpha" - "Beta" - "Gamma" ). That brain data was found and used by Eleanor Lamb to regenerate Delta -- Using a convenient 'body', or possibly the actual "Delta" (corpse) which had been frozen and left in some warehouse/lab-storage. THAT IS : Physically still existing, NOT from the DNA for the body, and then mind partially restored with the N-grams. We might assume that very few Test Subjects were recorded/reconditioned that way, and certainly not the majority of people in Rapture. Even so, it is debatable how much of the original personality was present/intact after all that.
The likely story is : Delta's body wasn't just left there ( after Sofia Lamb's executing him ) to rot but was picked up by the Big Daddy program's personnel to investigate what went wrong ( that program was still at the time in testing phase ). And Delta's remains would have been put into storage, for Eleanor to find later. 
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One wonders if the 'execution scene' mental-imagery wasn't fabricated by Eleanor to instill motivation into "Delta", who she was counting on for saving her from her insane mother.
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== Details of The Process Where Delta Was Regenerated : ==
Quantum Entanglement is BS ( commenting when it sounds like that malarkey was some Sinclair advertising gimmick ... ) - Originally the Vita-Chambers were meant to (and productized to ) 'adjust' a person's bio-chemical balances to 're-energize' and/or 'rejuvenate' them ( and possibly eliminate some of the genetic turbulence or side-effects caused by 'splicing' - Which Ryan was very interested in ). A theoretical/experimental potential-use was the regeneration from death ( or more likely near-death ).
The Vita-Chambers were already all over Rapture (seen in-game) because they were operational for the simpler function and Ryan had plans to use them for more advanced features -- Perhaps as a stopgap measure to try to keep the Splicers insanity in check, and as the avenue to eventually Cure them ( maybe to give them a 'booster' of pheromone ?? ).
DNA does NOT store human 'memories', and neither does RNA. I will (elsewhere) have to come up with some other mechanism for the 'Ghosts' and this 'Memories in the ADAM' myth ( maybe they were just all from TV commercials shown ad nauseum ?? ). Telepathic Little Sisters communing with dead 'Angels' ( direct contact with body and immediate adjacency of the brain -- Where real memories are stored ) has more prospects than memories (somehow) encoded in DNA/RNA. If we delve into the shaky realm of 'Psi' metaphysics, you start getting ghosts mentioned as 'mental signal resonances', which could remain at locationsPsi/ghosts - Like the Sounds of Roman Legionaries marching heard in ruined Roman Forts in Britain, and other manifestations/tourism seeking stories., or from matter(objects) that once was part of the people involved ( Yep, it is getting shakier and shakier here ... )
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Eleanor's Use of Little Sisters as Her Eyes and Hands :
* Took years of work thru 'remote control' ( we got a taste of controlling one of them, and it is done thru a lens of their Conditioned Delusion ).
* The Little Sisters could also do other simpler tasks (willfully), when not directly controlled ( like just locating needed items ). Their Big Daddies may have helped --- Those Little Sisters could be pretty coercive. Tenenbaum and Sinclair may have played a part also.
* FAR Simpler for Eleanor to have 'faked' being asleep, and sneaking around doing most of this stuff herself ...
Getting the DNA samples and N-grams (neural pattern recordings)
Delta, being an early Alpha, had alot of Data recorded while Fontaine Futuristics were figuring out how to modify/condition him ( Early work may have been Fontaine trying to create the ultimate THUG LACKEY for his plans to take over Rapture ). Later the process was streamlined and under Suchong went into production. The Quantum Entanglement "stuff" mentioned may have been related to the recordings ( 'neurally holographic' or somesuch ) needed to restore a brain's state *(neural pathways). That 'mind' is alot of information, so that magnetic tapes/etc ... hadn't a fraction of the capacity needed, and a new medium with 'quantum' level recordings may have been developed by some Brainiacs on Brain Boost ( or likely just a huge mass of improved magnetic 'tapes' ).
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Hacking the Vita-Chamber :
Details :
* Lots of messy accidents and failures before success. Sometimes it took Little Sisters with buckets and scrub brushes to remove the goop that resulted ( and saving alot of the ADAM for the next try ).
* Eleanor picked a Machine in an out of the way location where Sophia Lamb's thugs didn't go much ( poisonous coral growth blocked the way ).
* Various Tools were needed ( one's to fit smaller hands ). Good thing Little Sisters regenerate, because there were many short circuits and melting components involved in the complex 'hacking' process.
* Reprogramming the logic ( think of a BS1 'pipe-layer' puzzle with 1000 x 1000 squares ) - SO it took awhile.
* Research and engineering details had to be found ( Fontaine Futuristics and other nasty places -- good thing Little Sisters can get Big Daddies to follow them and move things and break open doors ).
* Eleanor had to learn a great deal of knowledge about genetic manipulations and ADAM technology, as well as what the Vita Chamber 'special features' were.
* Delta's "data" had to be found and preserved ( a few 'memories' from some technicians gave her clues)
* Modifications to restore 'free will' (sort of) had to be made - Delta starting with almost no Plasmids/Tonics helped. A few messages to Tenenbaum provided some additional clues.
* The conditioning to 'Save/Protect Eleanor' Big Sisters quotas didn't take too much cleverness to cheat, and for the wastage from repeated attempts.
Sorry - The Vita-Chamber does NOT recreate the clothing. The Vita-Chamber thing was added to have a Save-less game flow and had to be shoehorned into the story - rather clumsily, and it added too much of a fantasy magic element to the game in its given justification.
The Alpha Suits - Little Sisters looked for and found an Alpha Suit, and dragged it to the "Our Daddy Building" Vita-Chamber location ( Maybe they used those little Red Wagons we've seen so many times ). Probably had a little help from some kind Big Daddies ( "That's it Mr B, Drag that big thing this way. Please Mr B, Eleanor is expecting us. But don't let the evil queen see us, No No NO..." )
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Memories - Not All From ADAM For Delta (OR Any ?) :
* Original set of memories came from the original recording done while Delta was being tested/conditioned
* The 'Lamb killed me' episode was recounted from Eleanor -- and Delta got those other 'transmissions' (memory activations) from her too.
* Not really sure how intact 'Johnny Topside' would be, the process likely wasn't too exact or complete, and who says that his original conditioning as 'a Demonstrator' ( and ADAM saturation, and later as a Big Daddy ) didn't wipe out alot of his brain. 
Is this part of a "Telepathy" implant (memory store) Eleanor had added to Delta ( or Big Daddies usually have as a coordination device guiding their work ) -- *OR* ( since psychic powers are VERY dodgy for any real Science Fiction ) at least a memory infusion device using data sent by Radio which could handle transmitting picture-like images The way Dreams work in the brain -- With no real optical image, just the embedded neural patterns behind the visual imagery.. Probably someone's ADAM-based project, which Eleanor found during her long search, was used. ( Perhaps something 'Mommy Dearest' Sofia shoved into Eleanor's brain to maintain 'control' OR had used to 'condition' her followers ?? ). Maybe it is simpler to be Radio/TV transmissions to units built into every BD suit ??
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In The MMORPG - Another Delta :
How could another duplicate Delta could be accidentally created ( 'Johnny 3.0' - "Send in the Clone" - Who assisted New Rapture's start ... ) :
* That Vita-Chamber machine still in Adonis Spa was not turned off ( things got 'busy' for Eleanor and she forgot ). Little Sisters were not told to stop - they found another Alpha suit ( actually had quite a pile of them stashed around there by then ... )
* Quantum Entanglement side-effects ???? Apparently Schrödinger's Cat was Alive ( must've forgot that other thing about cats and the number '9' )....
* Johnny 3.0 finds Eleanor gone - Doesn't go into 'shut down' - not all Alphas did, many instead became insane/unstable to varying degrees ( and 'Johnny 3' apparently not so much ). He does eventually 'Head for The Surface' to find Eleanor in the MMORPG plotline after helping to start New Rapture.
* Vita-Chambers got reprogrammed to fix Delta - the Central VC(Vita-Chamber) system ( computer with customers records/data ) - Plus more stuff Eleanor had done trying to make it work ...
* The Lock Box Gnomes are utilized as part of this experimental "Regeneration-from-Death" system ( How it is supposed to work for the normal re-anmimation/resurrection - Ryan perhaps was going to market it within a year, but didn't get the chance ) : Using a body which "Isn't Quite Dead Too Much" is dragged to the Vita-Chamber for 'repairing/resuscitation', utilizing ALOT of ADAM and the person's original DNA profiles ( hence the central database ), adding the Vita-Chamber's cell revitalization process ( some Ryan magic - remember he was a genius too ). The system was to work fast enough that 'brain death' would usually not have occurred ( and maybe the Deluxe Death Insurance plan was to include frequent 'brain scans' for extensive memory restorations - at least that was promised ). A Tonic was developed which reinforced the brain to last longer without the oxygen - paid subscribers would gain use of this Tonic. ( Heh, maybe one of those 'cloned' Brains in a Bell Jar storage devices, being stashed in the vault somewhere ... )
Delta's brain tissue was mulch after 10 years, so Eleanor had to dig up his brain recordings from the Alpha Testing Project at Fontaine Futuristics or an Annex ( Delta had extensive recordings made while he was experimented upon ).
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Delta Wakes up in a Puddle -- NOT inside a Vita Chamber :
What significance ? Every other time we've been inside the VC, you had to activate something to be let out ...
So Delta wasn't quite awake when the Vita-Chamber kicked him out ( some automatic mechanism for customers who delay other customers access to the machine - some Splicer still had an account ...) ???
It would be kinda (extra) traumatic being brought 'back from the dead' - being completely reconstituted ( versus the simpler more common 'revitalization' or healing or resuscitation - though it may likely have been just some Frozen Alpha 'reprogrammed' ).
What we are NOT shown is how many times Eleanor's efforts failed -- probably alot of mess to clean up before the next try. Maybe it became simpler to eject the patient (Delta) immediately, rather than have a Big Daddy have to come clean out the mess inside of that Vita-Chamber (again)..
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Reason That Delta (a Fricken Big Daddy) is So Pathetic At First Against Opponents :
(( Really it is Just Set that way in the game to justify the Player's Advancement Ramp, which all these games have ... ))
* He was still groggy from being brought back from the dead (You would be too). Zombies have terrible headaches when they wake ...
* All his ADAM was gone, and Plasmids/Tonics run down, and he was needing a tune-up.
* He forgot how to use his Armor/Suit/Strength to pulp opponents ( You don't get much exercise being Dead for 8 years ). Since Delta may have been 'any ole convenient corpse', which Eleanor used to reconstitute 'Daddy', there may be little reflex/skill-memory for operating the BD suit in that body ( and the training tapes is 'Book Learnin', and no substitute for the real thing ).
* The Diving Suit which Eleanor found for him was missing all the good weapons and ammo ( and probably stripped of any/all of its upgrades ).
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Eleanor/Delta, Daddy Must Return :
Eleanor did massive modification ( and possibly had to try many attempts ) to reconstitute Delta. That, versus merely using the alleged Vita-Chamber 'Resurrect' function ( normally done on a still warm 'not quite dead' body dragged to the machine ), which probably was unsuitable for a 10 year old rotted/mulched/frozen corpse ( someone long previous probably took his Daddy-Suit (and cleaned it out) ). (( The whole 'Reconstitute you from your DNA' thing was a severe flaw in the game ))
Changing genetic 'locks' to access the VC machine would have been only a small part of the work/modifications which needed to be done. The Thinker or Tenenbaum probably could have done that much for Sigmas reactivation. 
We don't know if Delta really came out of a Vita Chamber at the start. We (as Delta) wake up on the ground in front of the machine, AND NOT in one. So Delta's Resurrection didn't have to be fully processed right there. He could just as easily (or more likely) have been regenerated on some distant operating/lab table where Tenenbaum had been working on him. There should have been a wheel barrow discarded nearby to move him.
Sofia Lamb might have booby-trapped many of the Vita-Chamber machines ( ALSO, after 7+ years, how many of the machines would still work ?? ) But then, if the machines had not worked for the Player -- THAT would have gotten in the way of using that Save-Dodger game-play mechanism. 
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A Link Broken :
For Delta, Eleanor WANTED him to still have his linked/Bonded conditioning ( or the appearance of it ) to get YOU to come save her. Possibly, her hacks to the Vita-Chamber could only do so much, and numerous other modification processing was required ( like what Tenenbaum did for Jack in BS1 ). So the whole process is a little more involved than the game implied ( and might seem alot of bother than just sneaking in and having a Little Sister poison Sofia Lamb with some sea life venom. )
We don't know (in BS2) where Tenenbaum got out of the AE Depot. She later (?) did something with Sigma/Porter in Minervas Den around that same time.
Interesting ( as in conveniently being contrived for story purposes ) how the "body (in Delta's case) begins shutting down when a bonded LS's heart stops" -- being the one aspect of the Big Daddy conditioning that they somehow couldn't remove. Shouldn't Delta have built up some immunity by now ? Remember not all Alphas ( as in the many we see all over the place ) die when their 'bonded' Little Sisters are Kaputt. So it is rather convenient plot-wise when this happens to Delta, no ? Maybe he really wasn't going to die, but was just having a reaction. Since he doesn't die from that in the BS2 plot, then I guess we will never know for sure.
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Reanimation of the Long Dead - Delta was an Exception :
Few 'dead' people had as much information recorded and stored about them ( and Sorry, no 'Entanglement' magic BS - This isn't Infinite BS Fantasyland ). The mind shaping techniques used on Jack apparently were used again by Eleanor to rebuild Deltas mind -- to his heavily disrupted and later repaired corpse ( maybe with various help - by Tenenbaum, The Thinker, Gilbert ? ).
Delta, being an experimental Alpha unit, there would have had LOTS of research data stored about him while they were testing and debugging the process. That might be expanded with his ADAM 'demonstrator' role.
Idea - Delta was put on 'ice' when Sofia Lamb 'killed' him in 1958 ( recovered by his test handlers and forgotten during the %27civil war%27-caused Chaos ). But what actual damage did Delta sustain ? He was a heavily 'spliced' BD, and bullets going through the brain are not always fatal ( assuming the bullet didn't graze him, but still resulting in his disablement ), and BDs had alot of self-repair capacity. And how much work did his 'Alpha' handlers do way-back-when to stabilize him while they were analyzing his state ?
Jack was 'conditioned' from-scratch into think he was a person, so similar techniques probably existed (first) for remolding/shaping Big Daddies from the brain-dead Splicers they were recycled from ... The corpse used by Eleanor need not have even been the original - just the recorded mind of Delta need be installed/reshaped.
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Delta - Back From the Grave :
We really don't know all the ins-and-outs of how the Vita-Chamber operates -- maybe the Corpse Gnomes(tm) bring your body and stuff-it into the machine BEFORE you are fully dead. You are unconscious, so who is to say how long or what is involved in fixing you up ?? It could take a while to do its work, depending on the injuries. Those Medi-Packs we otherwise use do seem to work awfully fast, and likely fix up some pretty horrendous damages -- so why can't this machine and whatever chemicals it might pump into you ??? This is a little more reasonable than 'Quantum Entanglement' upon macro objects or Real Teleporting ( versus Fake-Teleporting ). (( Speediness can be mitigated as a 'game' requirement to get things back moving again without some boring delay. ))
SO this advanced 'revitalization' process might just be a fancy resuscitation system that works as long as you aren't brain dead yet.
Corpse Gnomes(tm) might also explain what happened to all the 'Little Brothers' ... 
It is possible that after Sofia Lamb effectively murdered Delta, that his corpse was taken back to the Big Daddy Depot (wherever) for forensics of what went wrong ( He's an early testing model, so they are still debugging alot of the BD glitches at that point ). His handlers would want to know what happened, and thus would collect his body. He may even have been put 'on ice' intact, as well as have all kinds of brain scan data and such being available for him ( again, a test model they likely had to gather data on while his conditioning was in progress - upto and including scans of his brain synapse patterns as well as the conditioning tape which overlaid mental pattern on BDs minds ). With the start of the civil car, Delta might have been warehoused away and forgotten.
So there may have been rather ALOT for Eleanor to find to piece him back together - Not just DNA, which might be able to recreate his body ( Alpha suits were likely to be obtained - DNA can't recreate that ). But no such thing as the patterns/memories in the brain can be stored in DNA/RNA ( the mention of saving his DNA was actually to compare it while Eleanor was searching for records of him ). The 'Quantum Entanglement' CRAP was Sinclair's marketing hype about the Vita-Chambers which could revive/resuscitate you IF you are recently (not quite) dead, and Eleanor modified that one to do a bit more ( maybe with more than a little help ).
SO in this case it IS the same body ...
Now how close to the original Delta his long-delayed resuscitation might make him (YOU) is questionable and many memories may have been inserted into his mind by Eleanor to assist in convincing him to come save her.
His original Alpha/BD conditioning tapes could have been reapplied to a largely empty brain ( similar process had be used for Jack ... )
He has no recollection of his life when he is revived :
Was that flashback of his 'death' by Sofia Lamb ordering him to shoot himself not a recollection ? It is from his point of view and not Eleanor's ? But who knows what limitations there are for false memories - It IS rather handy that Eleanor is his Little Sister, and Sofia 'offing' him' is a nice inducement to come and rescue Eleanor ... 
So the whole body may also BE the original Delta's and much of his brain may still be intact -- Easier to 'reawaken' then. Put 'on-ice' after some repairs ( that nice bullet hole ), he might have been pumped full of the equivalent of anti-freeze, and could have stayed in storage until Eleanor found him ( all those other Alphas were 'in storage' ... ).
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Delta Smoking Cigarettes ?? :
Maybe the flash fryer in his food intake works for this ?? Or is he eating them ?
All shall be revealed.
Obviously Big Daddies were more than mindless slaves ( Little Sisters were conditioned with Potato Chips, so why not 'reward' Big Daddies with goodies -- Booze is a renewable resource - Though the thought of a drunken Big Daddy careening about the streets gives one pause ). Later, after things fell apart, there seems to still have been alot of this stuff lying around.
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Eleanor Tells Delta The Only Way To Save Him Is To Get Him Out Of Rapture ... Huh ? :
How exactly is that supposed to work ? The 'link' was broken when Sofia won the All-time Bad Mother Award, and smothered Eleanor - Stopping her heart, temporarily - now how is THAT supposed to work - didn't see a Defibrillator in Eleanor's isolation room ... So how is 'Getting out of Dodge' supposed to fix Delta's deterioration ?? Just an excuse to use the Life-Boat thingee ( and handle all the stuff blocking that from happening ), and Sofia is 'along for the ride' - and the final disposition ( WE got cheated out of OUR final 'moral choice' ... )
Eleanor is wearing a Diving Suit, Delta is wearing a diving suit. Balloons made out of plastic baggies or equivalent would take them to the Ocean's surface ( fix a Bathysphere/steal a Sub/whatever ). Once they are there, is waiting at the Lighthouse any worse than floating in the 'Life Boat' in the Ocean 300 miles from nowhere ???
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Good Ending For Delta ?? :
At the end you die. Residual memories as 'part of Eleanor' isn't exactly 'still existing'. Hard to say how that exactly is a 'good' ending. Of course you are sort-of a zombie brought back from the grave anyway, but a 'good' ending would be Tenenbaum breaking the Alpha self-destruct conditioning - like she did to Jack's various control issues. Since you had your own will ( as far as you get it in the game ), you wouldn't be a will-less robot like the other Big Daddies/Protectors and you could have at least gone back to Rapture to do some good ( If you went to The Surface you would likely wind up as an exhibit in Area 51 ). 
Wasn't Delta still dying because of his previously severed connection with Eleanor ( when Sofia strangled her and temporarily killed her ) ?? Except that didn't happen. They mentioned not all the Alphas had that happen.
You probably were near (?) death many times in the game and just popped a Medikit and were fine, so suddenly NOT having that be true/possible when that explosion happens at the end of BS2 ??? ( or simply "the plot calls for it", so they can make happen anything they need, no matter how inconsistent or illogical or against Physics ... The same explosion would have made hamburger out of Sofia Lamb and any Little Sisters, or crushed/caved in the side of the escape 'Lifeboat'Compression waves from explosions travel through water very efficiently - much more forcefully/directly than thru air. ).
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Delta - Why He Could Be Reconstituted :
Delta was reconstructed from mulch/rotted-flesh ??? ( Died many years earlier ), but it is possible his remains were hauled away for a 'post-mortem' by the Company who provided the Protectors ( subsidiary of Ryan Industries at that time ?? ), which might make it a little more likely for Eleanor to find more than just DNA to rebuild him from.
Audio Diary : Wheels_Within_Wheels ( Reed Wahl, Minervas Den Operations ) :
"The Thinker's algorithm is highly accurate in predicting local phenomena ... But how far can I trust the machine ? I have found it running protocols that are not mine ... the old Alpha Series are returning; someone is cutting them loose - Delta ... Sigma ... and the machine has no data on them, which makes no -- ... is it hiding them from me ? Is it ... conspiring against its master ? Sending ... someone ... ? No ! I am so close to seeing ... everything. No one will take that away. Not even the machine itself."
Sigma was probably put 'into storage' while still in one piece (sort of), after becoming unstable ( a frequent occurrence for Alphas ). The 'civil war' interfered with anything further, until Tenenbaum started reviving some to assist her in trying to save Little Sisters ( plot of the Protector Trials (DLC)- http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/The_Protector_Trials )
Eleanor could have found the records, of which one was her 'Daddy'.
So how did Delta's corpse get to Adonis Spa Resort ? How did everything else ? - Maybe a 'little red wagon' pulled by Little Sisters thru the air vents ...
Problem : How did 'Johnny' then get produced as a clone ( For that exciting story, you will have to play the MMORPG to find out. )
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Why Might It Take So Long For Eleanor To 'Make' Delta ?? :
Lots of difficulties involvedDevelopment difficulties perhaps similar to the development of Jack ... :
* Took a while just to come up with the idea, discover/remember he existed, and to find out how it might be done ...
* Find and Get Delta's DNA ( and maybe find his brain recordings/training tapes )
* Had to find a safe place to do this little project
* Modify the Vita-Chamber machine ( more than just repair/break genetic lock ) - Needing to learn how to do that - What to do, how to fix it, parts, tools ???
* Get an Alpha suit there ( that is not part of his DNA ) and whatever 'material' you need to reconstitute an entire body.
* Possibly retry again and again to get it to all finally work ( messy failures that needed to be cleaned up ).
* DO All of this while doing it remotely thru the hands of 7 year-olds ( and maybe some help from some Big Daddies ) in between the LS normal 'Little Ghoul' activities and bed times.
* All the while operating 'under the radar' of Sofia Lamb and her lackeys ( and any Splicers that might wander by ).
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Delta The Terror of Dionysus Park :
I, Armed with my wide range of Plasmids/Tonic by that point, with a weapon like the Spear Gun with its largely recyclable ammo ( and the large number of respawning Splicers constantly bringing you CASH and 'Vittles' ) you can stay in Dionysus Park indefinitely -- At least until the game crashes ( which it usually will when you played in the same level long enough ).
For a recently flooded location, there sure seems to be alot of population still around ( maybe under Sofia's regime many useful things have become rarities, and for many Splicers the opportunity for Salvage of the goodies was too juicy to avoid. )
Artful assemblages of Splicer corpses can be laid out on the floors or 'tacked' to the place's statuary.
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Delta is Alive in the MMORPG ?? :
Sigma (in the DLC) faces a large pile of 'TNT' as big as Delta had explode near him, so WHY wasn't he turned into hamburger ( Why wasn't the 'Lifeboat' crushed/disabled for that matter ? ) So Delta might still be alive ?? Sounds like an interesting mini-plot for the MMORPG where you play Delta AFTER you fall back down to the depths, minus a bunch of your ADAM ( Eleanor didn't do the usual full Little Sister vampire act on you ).
Where Delta wound up, and what he did while things moved forward with New Rapture is a story waiting to be told.
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"Johnny T" - Change All Refs To This for The Delta Clone ?
Who by the MMORPG's amended plotline, possibly WAS NOT the same person (body) as Delta originally, but was someone else overlaid with the N-Grams collected from Delta's 'Johnny' ( who allegedly was originally the Johnny Topside which Poole talks about ).
The body was an Alpha stored in the research facility ( since otherwise that's a hell of a alot of Stem Cells to rebuild an entire body from just DNA ). The Quantum BS - Let's simply completely discard the Bad Fantasy of a quantum duplicate just popping into existence. It is a really bad (feeb) Bullshit idea used to justify some game's Automatic Save-Load mechanism
Deltas N-grams were extensively recorded ( from the original Delta person/test subject ) as part of his development and testing, which wasn't done so much on other later Big Daddies, once they went into production.
It is still possible that it WAS the original "Johnny T" Delta, who being an early experimental unit, after Sofia's little murder of him, may have been recovered by the company for examination/forensics of his 'failure', and then was put into storage - to be found by Eleanor years later. ( No need for the Vita-Chamber magic abracadabra back-from-thin-air claptrap, which I'm seeking to eliminate for the MMORPGs properly Sci-Fi universe ).
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Sorry, Delta is NOT Recreated From Just DNA :
Eleanor didn't remake Delta like she was planting magic beans ( this isn't Infinite BS Fantasy ).
It is possible that after Sofia Lamb murdered Delta, that his corpse was subsequntly taken back to the Big Daddy Depot ( Fontaine Futuristics or wherever ) for forensics of what went wrong ( He's an early testing model so the are still 'debugging' alot at that point ). He may even have been put 'on ice', intact. He likely would have various brain scans and such being available for him ( again a test model the likely had to gather data on while his conditioning was in progress - upto and including scans of his brain synapse patterns, as well as the conditioning tapes which overlaid pattern on BDs minds ). With the start of that so-called 'civil war', he might have been largely forgotten after being stored away.
So there might have been rather ALOT for Eleanor to have to find, to piece him back together - not just DNA, which might be able to recreate his body ( Alpha suits were likely around to be obtained - DNA can't recreate that ), but no such thing as the patterns/memories in the brain can be stored in DNA/RNA ( It is possible that the mention of saving his DNA was actually to compare it while Eleanor was searching for records of him ). The 'Quantum Entanglement' BS sounds much like Sinclair's marketing/sales hype. The advanced features of the Vita-Chambers could revive/resuscitate you IF you are recently dead/near-dead, and Eleanor modified that one at Adonis Spa to do a bit more than that.
Now how close to the original Delta his long-delayed resuscitation might make the one WE play is questionable, and many memories may have been inserted into his mind by Eleanor to assist in convincing him to come save her. We never heard how long it took Eleanor to do this.
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Deltas Fun Time ( Delta MUST Die, the Plot Says So ) :
Not sure if the Daddy-Lil Sister link (with Eleanor) being broken would have been the cause ( like what happens if its reestablished - seemed to be a combination of mental conditioning and physiological ).
That explosion may have severely damaged Delta ( the 'flesh to hamburger making' effect of powerful blast compression waves ) - It might have been more realistic to have his suit appearing well mangled afterward. Funny thing is the explosion was close enough to do the same thing to Sofia Lamb/Eleanor inside the 'Life Boat' or else collapse its pressure hull and drown Sofia.
They were out in the water and they went up quite fast, so weren't close to any Vita-Chamber (??) And it would take a long time to get back (sink down) near one ( no data on how long you have for that VC system to work, or the distances involved ... )
It is actually possible that as Delta 'died' and sank back down to Rapture and had a Vita-Chamber intercept him ( it is all largely unexplained how that Vita-Chamber mechanism even worked -- Flying Monkeys ( or Little Brothers ) carrying/dragging your corpse into it to be repaired, THAT'S a bit easier to explain than the given (Physics breaking) 'Teleporting', or worse, reconstructing entirely from nothing but DNA ( or just Quantum Bullshit ) --- INCLUDING the diving suit/equipment which is definitely NOT part of your DNA ). Unfortunately, that sad crutch for the game mechanism made it part of the plot (Canon). Too bad they couldn't have had a better thought out explanation - This isn't some fantasy magic laced game like Infinite BS.
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Delta Just Appears ?? (BS2 in The Spa) :
Wouldn't this required a body sized mass of ADAM (or Stem Cells) ?? Or it only uses ADAM for part of its operation ( which later when you use one (or many) in the game it doesn't seem to need any ADAM supplied ... ). The whole Resurrection thing is pretty vague ( and is pretty weak and was really included as a unneeded "quick replay" game mechanism anyway ).
BTW, 'Quantum Entanglement' is between existing micro-micro/nano particles at near Absolute Zero degrees Kelvin(temperature), it is NOT creating matter out of thin air. And when 'Entanglement' ends ( after you just poof back into existence ), then what about the next six times you get 'resurrected' in a Vita Chamber ??? Once 'Observation' happens, and dis-entanglement results, THAT'S IT - It only works once ( and quantum states are supposed to be RANDOM from "a probability of possible states" ). BTW, 'Entanglement' is only between particle 'A' and particle 'B' ( without correlation/relations to complex assembly of particles X Y Z and the Octillions (10^27) more atoms which make up a human bodyHumans are definitely NOT Quantum Objects - They are NOT subject to these Feeble Fantasy Game Writers' misapplication of Quantum Physics ). So if you tried to do this magic, then don't you just come back as a frozen slimey soup of bio-matter ???
The Vita Chamber auto-reload game 'death' mechanism was one of the things furthest in the game from anything plausible - Problematically pushing too far into Fantasy. We can 'write it off' as just a lazy dodge to facilitate the gamemaker's automatic 'Save' Game Mechanism -OR- We can try to pad it out with a little more of the game-supplied elements, and (try to) say how it really might have worked ( Magic Free, and to properly work - beyond any advertising hype ). Same for this Delta case for its use in the game ( ie- Eleanor found the Alpha corpse labeled "Subject Delta" ... )
AGAIN -- the gamewriuters are throwing around Quantumz, and making it whatever is needed, without regard for any real Science. Unfortunately, the stuff in BS2 opened up for some real abuse in that later Infinite BS game ( which was not just Fantasy, but self-inconsistent Bad Fantasy ).
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