Ghost Story

* See also ADAM_Addled
* See also Strange_Splicer_Visions
* See also Game Experience
* See also Ghosts_In_Columbia - Quantumz goes to Derpistan ...
* See also Perceptions_Altered
* See also Storytime
* See also Zombies
== Splicer Hallucinations ==
Still some residual 'Seeing Things' for all the Ex-Splicers ( the MMORPG Players )
So, this effect can account for many interesting apparitions and other strange sightings within the game. 
BioShock(BS1) had some (alleged) "memory" hallucinations caused by the ADAM you had used ( Memories supposedly from genetic code remnants being from the Splicers the ADAM had been recycled from ). In-Game, these animated 'ghosts' were used as an alternate presentation for Rapture's environment and backstory - Helping Tell various personal stories/events in SOME previous inhabitant's lives ( often linked to corpses you saw laid out before you ).
--- --- ---
Those Ghosts Which You See ( and By "YOU" I Mean Jack's ADAM_Addled Brain ... ) :
YOU (Jack) took that first one (Plasmid) - You were not given a Choice so that the game could proceed. So, the Players has at least some ADAM affecting them - That is if Jack isn't already full of the stuff from his 'manufacture'.
BS1 Ghost Stories may be more a case of mental suggestion - with props and settings triggering one of the 'memories' similar to ones Jack was trained/conditioned with, rather than some impossible Genetic-Memory embedded in some ADAM you ingest. If that effect had been so, there should have been multitudes of mundane uninteresting memories constantly being triggered ( "Must buy milk on way home from work" ... ). Jack's brain mostly was filled with various "conditionings" to attempt to 'humanize' him ( OR we would be more seeing through his eyes something like what the Movie Terminator-Robot did ). (( See DNA Can't Contain Memories ))
In any case, if you continue to swill down ADAM ( did anyone play through with only that first one ? ), imagine how gruesomely disfigured you must look even just halfway through the game, and how warped you brain must become as well.
--- 
How to Explain Ghost Stories We Saw In BS1 ( But not in BS2 ) ? :
Stuff fed into Jack's brain while he was 'growed up' -- the N-Gram patterns used to 'mature' his thinking beyond his true 4 year old age ( Hmmm, was it seen necessary to teach him to talk ? might explain him being silent the whole game ).
Mentioned by others ( being seen by others ) like McDonagh in an Audio Diary :
"Seems like some poor blighters have started seeing ghosts. Ghosts ! Ryan tells me it's a side effect of this Plasmid business. One poor sod's memories getting passed on to another through genetic sampling. Leaks. Lunatics. Rebellion. And now bleeding ghosts. Ain't life in Rapture grand ?"
"Bleeding ghosts" 'bleeding' is also a blasphemous swear word - But was this the same thing we (as Jack) saw, or just various reported ADAM-induced hallucinations ( alot of that going on by that time ... )
--- --- ---
--- --- ---
So Were the 'Ghosts' (In BS1) the Result of 'Tears' ??? :
Assuming the writers Quantum Bullshit in game 3 ( which the MMORPG WONT ALLOW ) ...
Interdimensional echos of actual events that happened in the infinite other Raptures ( and anywhere else for that matter ) ?
Doesn't explain how we didn't see more in BS2 or BaS. ( And BTW 'Tears' are Infinite's pseudo-Science BS anyway - a bad fantasy storytelling crutch ). Shouldn't they have seen the same in Columbia ( or maybe its just an ADAM addicts take on the same thing ??? )
-
I myself really prefer Rapture to NOT BE tainted by that 'Infinite' bad-fantasy stuff. But be that as it may, we can fall back on BaS NOT being 'Prime' -- Despite what Levine (later) said ( Which itself STUPIDLY flies in the face of how this whole third game multiverse and 'infinite' lighthouse stuff was defined for and explained about, endlessly ). 
SO FRICKEN SIMPLE : It, BaS, simply is NOT the same 'reality' as our good ole (BS1/BS2/Minervas Den) Rapture.
-
A MORE PERFECT EXPLANATION :
True 'Twistiness' - It (Infinite_BS) can be all an extra lucid 'Ghost Dream' of some demented Splicer, who used to write fantasy stories, and who eventually went down the 'harvested ADAM' rabbit hole, and it got warped and pelfed into seeing what WE saw in that game. WE are actually sitting in a stupor in Le Marquis D'Epoque ( %27civil war%27 period Rapture ) after excitation by some extra 'good' recreational chemicals of some kind, while staring at some freaky 'acid' artsy 'mobile' non-plaster decoration hanging from the ceiling. ( Yes, the 'It Was All A Dream' cliche solution. )
"Clever writers can fix even the smelliest garbage which other writers hath made." - Elon Musk 
-
DAMN, BioShock Coulda had at least one 'Ghost scene' in one of the Restrooms : titled "Bad Clams" ( Actually that's a David Letterman Show Joke for a "Top 10 Worst Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Illustrations" list ). Realistic vomiting ( its been done before ) and other such activities ... ( Poor quality 'knockoff' ADAM products could bring a whole range of unpleasant side-effects - as could abuse of various 'recreational' substances ...).
--- --- ---
Ghost Memories Improved :
A weird twist ( another missed opportunity to be a more clever story ) would have been a 'Ghost story' showing some incident(s) as seen from two different peoples 'memories' - Conflicting and showing differently from each persons' point of view/interpretation/perspective.
You could also have the 'memory' show what that person remembered, but have a twist of the event actually being caused by something both didn't see - Some hidden prop the the Player can (still) see at the scene ... ( That 'Reality is Perception' stuff philosophers argue about endlessly ). I'm sure it could be done such that it isn't 'Too Subtle' for the average Player, but without having to 'spell it out'. Actually easier to do that even with a single person 'Ghost story'.
BTW, You actually cannot store 'Memories' in DNA/RNA, so I would have had the Ghost Stories explained thusly :
The scene having enough props present at the site of the situation (which tell a story), and then what is 'seen' (the vision) is the result of the Player's ADAM_Addled mind filling in the 'story', and it becomes a delusional hallucination. With all the Splicers we see muttering to themselves and doing their strange antics, this would not be implausible after all the different ADAM concoctions the Player's character takes in a very short timespan. Even better would be these 'Ghost Visions' becoming more and more bizarre as the Player took more and more ADAM.
--- --- --- 
Ghosts in Rapture - a Better Explanation (Since DNA/RNA Cannot Hold 'Memories') :
Audio Diary, Bill McDonagh, BS1 Arcadia :
"Seems like some poor blighters have started seeing ghosts. Ghosts! Ryan tells me it's a side effect of this Plasmid business. One poor sod's memories getting passed on to another through genetic sampling. Leaks. Lunatics. Rebellion. And now bleeding ghosts. Ain't life in Rapture grand?"
Rumors .... Real 'DNA memory' does not work except for very simple organisms, which have their nerve control patterns wired as part of their genetics.
Sorry, RNA/DNA containing memories is a 30 years gone Sci-Fi idea/myth/impossibility. There is NO way to build brain patterns either of temporary electrical patterns or billions of physical synapse-links FROM one or more long DNA/RNA molecules that encodes about 20 million(DNA) protein patterning 'A C T G'(nucleotide) combinations ( or even less for some RNA or DNA 'patches' the Plasmids were supposed to be ) -- to make this 'Video-Recording-like' Ghost Story effectively work as shown.
Recycled ADAM might rather have breakdown contaminants which exacerbate Brain Behavior Disorders leading to ghost delusions .
Subliminal whisperings ( Someone hiding in the woodwork ? PA systems, whatever ... Hidden wall scrawlings ) ? Jack, who is now a Splicer and potentially insane, hears them accumulatively and subconsciously, sees in some places the setting/props/results of the events that allegedly unfolded. More likely is : He has some conditioning images which are being triggered and his brain fills in an apparition to his conscious (4-year old) mind. This 'brain filling in the details' is a well documented physiological phenomenon.
Possibly the 'ghost' story he sees is not real ( something different than what actually occurred - if anything did ) but again the result of ADAM's effects on his mind. We don't ever SEE the original events to compare. We do get to hear some events via Accu-Vox recordings in which similar scenes are detailed and played out/hinted at. Some happen to get heard after the ghost story apparition though, so we're back to subliminals in the ambient location *OR* (Heh) we hallucinate those played recording ( think we hear it a certain way ) to match the apparition we already 'saw' ??? How's that for being Philip K Dick ?? 
Also possible : Coincidence that Jack imagines pretty much the same 'story' as the tapes reflect ( If they hadn't been heard yet ... ) Note - an awful lot of 'coincidence' contrived in these games, so what does a little more oddity matter ???
-
What a mess : If it was DNA re-harvested with 99.9% of it not being related to the Plasmid, then being dumped into someone's body, which would cause Immune System overload - Pretty much the same thing as blood poisoning. Pulling RNA 'Plasmids' out of body tissue would be harder than just growing new exact Plasmids in the Little Sisters gut ( So why NO synthesizing ADAM ... ) .
--- --- ---
RNA memory - Sorry Doesn't Work - So where does it leave us with 'The Ghosts' ?? :
The ADAM containing RNA memory stuff ( dodgy 'theory' back in the 60's and then used for some Sci-fi ) is BS (as I've said before). Genetic encoded memories simply cannot work - simple chemical sequences do not convert to the bio-chemical structure "memory" operations of the brain.
So other explanations are required for the "ghost stories" (in BS1) and this would be one of them : N-gram scan recordings ( CAT-scan like technology developed for the Big Daddy program(s) ). Crude recordings of brain activity patterns in response/relation to standard images/sensor inputs, which could then be reapplied to another brain to impart the information ( crude - as we saw - the ghostly outlines and vague spotty dialogues ).
"Fontaine gives Suchong history for child that he wants to imprint into child's head." -- a technology had already been used to train/condition Big Daddies.
-
For the MMORPG : Masses of such conditioning recording had been found in the City research facilities, which would justify allowing Players Missions to 'experience' various happenings ( which in reality many Players would get to view - if they were interested ). Imagine the Player Creations possible of this ...
No doubt there was commercial research into possibly turning this into some kind of entertainment ( people on Brain Boost came up with all kinds of odd ideas ... )
Rewards ( for watching these recordings 'for the City' ) may bring clues to some goodies somewhere out in the 'Ruins' ( which the City wants, and which Players can go retrieve ), or some similar piece of historical/technical information.
Its also evidence of the malignancy of Sofia Lamb who required people to die to hand over their memories/experience/whatever with which her "First Utopian" was being fed -- When it could have been recorded non-fatally from living people ( I guess Sofia Lamb was too busy trying to subvert people into her delusions to have time to read the old research extracts ).
--- --- ---
The Problem With This Alleged 'Genetic Memory' Writer's Explanation Is :
DNA doesn't/cannot encode such things - its all environmentally (life experience) generated upon the basic 'blank' structure of your brain. The detail 'info'/'data does not go down to that fine a level ( and with 20 million crude bits of data, even if it did, it is not enough info for the literally billions/trillions of very specific synapse connections in your brain required to holographically build up just one of these Ghost Stories ).
As for the memories fed into the (BS2) "First Utopian" -- Remember THAT it is quite likely ( only ?) a delusion on Sofia Lamb's part. Apparently it never actually worked -- did it ? Gil Alexander was turned into a freakish monstrosity and he doesn't actually say that anything of the sort worked on him. Sofia Lamb was already crazy as a loon thinking she could eliminate human nature from humans ( apart from doing THAT somehow being something superior ). SO she might believe in that 'DNA Memories' Idea, but it has no basis in reality beside some 'Ghost Story' effect some people think they saw, but she couldn't directly analyze it herself, as she wasn't a Splicer. Has Sofia really even seen any such result ( and Eleanor as the 'second try' (Utopian) might be clever enough to play along and use it against her mother ), or had that part really even gotten started yet. ( Vagueness is largely what we get in the games ).
BTW - since 'Ghost Stores' were explained to be missing in BS2 because they (allegedly) became too muddled with too much recycling - passing through too many people - weirdness with the Big Sisters and such ... BUT THEN What kind of 'memory' gibberish in the ADAM might still be left/remain to use for Sofia's Utopian goal ?? ( Assuming that idea even worked ... ) 
Little Sisters seem to see 'dreams' ? Well maybe the same effect ? Its explained as mentioned way above ( Little Sisters are as ADAM_Addled as any Splicer ). Who knows what they have seen or heard from some combination of Splicer talk, their previous life, their conditioning, media they come upon, etc ... They already have that weird view we saw thru their eyes ( However THAT was supposedly done ). We took POSSESSION of a 7 year old child - and we saw not just through their eyes but through their conditioned filtering how they see things ... Neat, but who knows what weirdness Lamb and Gil Alexander had done to them ( these newly kidnapped ones ). Since I rely on Pseudo-Psi effect stuff NOT any real Psionic magic power as I've detailed in the Plasmids page to try to turn the Plasmids into Sci-Fi (instead of fantasy) -- I can allow some kind of simple guided mental stimulation projection - potentially with lasting results.
Eleanor herself ... the same thing. She might think she sees dreams from Little Sisters ( who share her genetics (?) ... whatever that means ) but she's been subjected to even more ADAM ( first as a LS and then later with whatever Sofia pumped into her, AND whatever other horrors were done to her ).
The memories Eleanor feeds into Delta ? Well his brain was reconstituted ( or never became mulch and was intact enough still to revive ), and who knows how selective SHE was to pre-pick 'conditioning'/imaging/memories to foster Delta coming to save her. Delta has a 2 way radio ( and a TV transmitter that seems to be used to watch what he sees ??? Why not a image receiver of some kind built into the suit too ? ). Other brain injection mechanisms were possibly designed and used for BDs ( or at least attempted with his experimental model ) -- to issue them repair orders and such. 
Funny : That the whole construct of 'Delta seeing Lamb order him to kill himself' could have actually been some conditioning Recording, and this (OUR) daddy 'Delta' is just some (any) available 'Alpha' body/brain into which those memories were impressed by Eleanor's modified Vita-Chamber.
-
The above brings up an interesting point in that Sofia Lamb's delusion required lots of Memory-rich ADAM to be 'extracted' to build her Franken-Utopian. Did that mean that anyone who wasn't already a Splicer would be forced to become one ( likely with nullified Tonic/Plasmids that would be useless/non-empowering to the 'Future Extractee' ... ). The addiction certainly would make them more susceptible to Sofia's coercion ( if her thuggery/brutality wasn't being effective enough ).
Note- That some 'memories' (ideas/thinking patterns) that Sofia Lamb might NOT like would also go into her 'Utopian'. How could she ever control that? It may explain why Gil Alexander went insane, and why Eleanor also eventually would have.
--- --- ---
A Strange Explanation for (Some of) the Ghost Stories :
Since Genetic Memories are physically impossible ( explained elsewhere above ), and this is 'Classic' Rapture ...
Ghost Stories ( assisted a bit by ADAM hallucination/derangement ) are actually done by crazy "Mime" Splicers covered in phosphorescent/Bioluminescent paints ( BUT some talk ?? - I DID say 'crazy'... )
They act out their little skits ( which they practice endlessly ) and have a good laugh at their confused ADAM-addled victims, and run away before the victims realize ( or use it as a distraction to mug them ).
This is a much better/plausible/possible explanation than the aforementioned (impossible) genetic vector ( with memories supposedly transmitted via recycled ADAM ), or some metaphysical alternative ( or some interdimensional time portal or whatever ).
--- --- --- 
ANOTHER POSSIBLE EXPLANATION : 
Splicer Dream (visions) 'DNA' scenes - it is not actually recorded in DNA (physically impossible) - It is Splicers who are 'Mental', remembering/misremembering frequently aired TV commercials ( Jack somehow sees some while being 'grown' in Suchongs Lab )
* The one in Arcadia had been an ad for Medi-kit social disease preventive
--- --- ---
Shadow Plays (Ghost Stories) :
Distorted Memories of the Players past - more reason to have this explanation than some "DNA memories" crap Hallucinations. You can have them anywhere - replaying a life scene, and Vague enough that it might even be a tale once told or seen on TV (etc). Kinda like LSD flashbacks ( but without the pretty colors ) ??? 
Brain memory distortions which is not fixed by ADAM therapy ( long term side effects ) unless you want to wipe out alot of the Citizens personality (not recommended). 
--- --- ---
Coulda Had At Least One :
Ghost scene in one of the restrooms - titled "Bad Clams" ( actually that's a David Letterman Joke for a "Top 10 Worst Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Pictures" list ). Appropriate sounds of intestinal distress to be heard ...
--- --- ---
New Ghost Stories and Flashback Asset :
Flashbacks (in middle of MMORPG game) to your previous life as a Splicer, or before that ( scenes from normal life in Rapture ... ). Presented in similar style to the 'fake memories' Jack had flashes of -- 'still' pictures, many of them with some panning effects ( easy to generate as an Asset ). Many can be absurd situations -- flashed for a mere moment ( to foist an subconscious reaction ).
It is yet another Asset for Players to create ( so that there can be many-many of them, and they won't repeat for a long time ). Topic associated ones possible for mission scenario use ( backstory of some related element ).
The ghostly shapes we saw in BS1 are fairly crude looking ( so pre-canned figures can be used - NOT have to be re-created for use here ). The dialog ( music ? Sound effects ? ) and matching animations are then the critical parts to make work, but even they don't have to be 'polished' overmuch to transmit their intended idea/information.
Funny Idea - Ghosts themselves experiencing a 'Ghost Story', and freaking out, etc ...
Along with the various commentary from the living NPCs about how stupid certain things are in the BioShock World, have 'Ghost Stories' show more such comments from back in the Golden Age of Rapture.
--- --- --- --- ---
.
.