Outer Persephone

* Connects From Fontaine_Futuristics_(game_level)
* Connects To Inner Persephone
* See also Rapture Map
* See also BS2
* See also Fontaine
* See also ADAM and ADAM_Technology
* See also Persephone
* See also Amended_Game_Level_Maps
( Main floor of Outer Persephone you go thru in the game and some extrapolated parts of Inner Persephone )
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"In the house of upside down, cellar's top floor, attic's ground. In the house of upside down, found is lost and lost is found." - Little Sister Song
Outer and Inner Persephone are intermeshed ( They overlap in the area, OP/IP floors part of same structures ) so I did both together. I have done my text descriptions separate.
The elevator from the seabed above ( from Fontaine Futuristics ) looks to take you well over 100 feet down deeper, which adds yet more water pressure ( +3 atmospheres) which the structures have to deal with. A likely reason Persephone's style largely resembles a German WW2 bunker.
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Part of the puzzle for the Persephone game levels is the rock areas that have to be contiguous between level maps, but also leave open areas near the various existing windows, which have to look out onto open water. The rock supports the building structure (from above in most places). Near the top of the cavern there are large irregular pockets of water (instead of one large simple 'dome' shape). The building structures run between and through the interleaved hanging cavern ceiling rock. The water opens out downward into the main volume of the 'Cavern', which edges onto the Abyss.
Note- the windows in the Little Sister's delusional area are not real -- when you flash back into the real world a few times the real cells all have solid walls where bright indistinct window views are seen by Little Sisters.
Outer Persephone's Map Orientation is dependent on the connection to Fontaine Futuristics map via that first elevator. A mystery - you enter an elevator when leaving the Fontaine Futuristics level, which is a cylinder shape and when the Outer Persephone level starts (with you in the same elevator, descending) it is now a rectangular shaped elevator ( maybe the plasmids are causing you to see things ... ). The MMORPG is one contiguous map, so inconsistant design errors like that wouldn't happen ( plenty of other things to flub, but the Player Community can spot and correct those ).
At the beginning of the level, you are facing an elevator door that opens (the button is gone so you really cant tell for certain which way is which -- like if you somehow turned while it descended. That makes your facing uncertain - DID you turn and are you now facing North (the door side you entered the elevator thru) OR South if you did NOT turn and are facing where that button was ( and a opposite side dual-door opened onto the Outer Persephone reception area ).
Pick one - North and Persephone is directly under parts of Fontaine Futuristics. Pick South and Persephone is furthere South towards the Abyss (which it is supposed to be). I selected the South facing so Persephone is not below Fontaine Futuristics (the Lifeboat has to ascend somehow to open water and better it not be right thru the Fontaine Futuristics' buildings).
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Big concrete statues seen as you enter Outer Persephone. Maybe that (impressive) facade is a Wales Brothers design? I doubt Sinclair would have paid for largely needless decoration (might at least had it visible from inside where the inmates would be impressed by it). They could have at least been used as part of some building structural reinforcement (for a place hanging precariously over a near bottomless pit...). Of course concrete statuary doesn't have to be anywhere as strong as the building walls (they do not have to hold out water pressure) and only have to support themselves. They can even be largely hollow to decrease even that weight (and have them use less cement to make). Their expense would be more the shaping and the transport/installation than the cement/concrete that is relatively cheap in Rapture.
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The Little Sister Crazy Dollhouse (the area you see while in Lil-Sister-Vision) was once the City Insane Asylum (long before the entire City was turned into an Insane Asylum). When you (in BS2) temporarily break out of the Lil Sis conditioned delusion, you can see the cells there have padding in them (might also be sound proofing to help muffle the screams).
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Stalactites-like rock formations (hanging) above building structures (some over Viaducts) If I was building there, I would have had such a hazard cut/trimmed off to minimize possibility of catastrophic failure (such rockwork is trivial to do with the technologies used to build Rapture - Plaasma Cutters vs drilling and blasting).
Found one of those exterior walls with window (near Examination Room) looking out upon it and it has no real width to it (when it is supposed to be many-feet-thick pressure proof construction).
There are some very odd free-floating rocks outside the window in Lamb's Office. They may have been meant to be glued to the stalactites in their immediate vicinity.
Window under the floor in "Lamb's Office" --- perhaps there had been a different purpose for that odd room. It would have made a lousy office originally, with all the insane inmates having to pass thru it to get into the Asylum, so maybe it was used somehow for processing incoming crazies. It is another odd thing which is a puzzle for its being expensively built.
The windows on the building facade (that big building mass across the water as you enter the level from the elevator) indicate that there are many floors over there besides the one we get access to. There appear at least 6 levels (some partial) below and 4 levels above the level we enter and move about on.
Parts of Persephone complex could/should have served as the City Jail, and other parts as the City Insane Asylum. The Jail was a temporary holding place for suspects and those given short sentences for minor crimes (yes, there actually would be 'laws' that would be enforced), versus the long term (or Life) Prison sentences given for major crimes. All the facilities needed to operate and manage the Jail and Asylum would be included (and would be in all those additional floors). A Hot Water Pumping Station would also be in that building section for the Heat Pipes (from Hephaestus) you see outside above the entry Viaduct. An Atlantic Express Station is there and would have been the main transportation conduit for all of the Persephone facilities.
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Sofia Lamb was living on borrowed time : 
Looking at the state of her 'base of operations' in Outer Persephone, it is a disaster waiting to happen any minute. The drainage pumps must be going on Full night-and-day to handle all those leaks, and were they to burnout or get clogged the whole place could fill up with water quite rapidly (sorry - "Unity" doesn't equal all Drowning together, and certainly would have put a dampener on Sofia's plans).
Sofia has minions. She could have things kept in much better condition. Seal the leaks, clean/scrape off the sealife growth and other encrustations/corrosion (and their wonderful seashore smell), eliminate the fires and short circuits, get all the lights working, patch the walls and floor, give the place a new coat of paint -- how different it could have looked (and certainly would no longer be a catastrophe just waiting to happen). Keep a number of her minions busy keeping it hospital clean - "idle hands are the devils tools"... Make them obsess over what their "Savior" might think, emerging into such a mess/dump. All it might have taken was one anal-retentive tidy-obsessive ex-medical Splicer to paint/clean the whole place without even being ordered to. Likewise the minions would have been 'tidied up' and their behavior might have been interesting with obsessive cleaning just as you walk in and they start shrieking "Wipe your boots" and "Dirt, dirt, no no NO!!!" etc...
Imagine what a difference for US to have entered Persephone in such a pristine fixed-up state - the contrast to the rest of Rapture (we had just gone thru) might be startling. Might it interfere with the Lil-Sister-Vision sequence's contrast ?? No, a modern hospital-like sterile medical environment would still be significantly different than that pretty delusion which the Little Sisters see.
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Main Atrium :
All those steps/stairs, when some patients have to be moved by wheelchairs and gurneys (which we see all over). The stairs go up then down, then up again. There was plenty of room for ramps and a continuous level to deliver wheelbound patients with the least effort. Not really sure what this room's function would have been with those big glowing red water pipes and such, and an 'isolation room' hanging off it (The whole arrangement really seems to be only designed for a big blast-fest fight to take place in the game).
Perhaps when Persephone was also the City's Insane Asylum and City Jail there would have be many non-inmate present (lawyers, psychiatrists, constables delivering inmates, etc..) to justify an 'Atrium' with fancy decorative features.
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A modification on my Fontaine Futuristics map allowed a walking path between the two facilities to correct the problem of requiring a Diving Suit 'Sea Walk' to reach Persephone in the normal times. You would need that passage to still be accessible (in BS2 times) to get supplies and personnel (Lamb's minions) between the two points (as the Persephone AE station is not functioning and Submarines are mostly un-available).
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Very Bright :
Bright bioluminescence 'mass' down in the 'Abyss' - With those long distances through water, which in reality quickly absorbs bright sunlight ("almost no light penetrates below 490 feet of water depth in the Ocean, even when the water is very clear"). For an ecosystem to expend that much energy, there has to be the excess of a rich ecological environment (the geothermal heating no doubt would help). Normally such a 'rich' system would not exist in the depths, so there must be unusual circumstances down there. In the MMORPG many mysteries may be explained...
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A Twist for Every Occasion :
A Real BS2 Twist would have been there was NO Eleanor, and it was all a manipulation by Sofia Lamb for some reason or other (Maybe YOU are to be the "First Utopian" ??, for some not too torturous plot reason). The idea hit me walking across the Viaduct into Outer Persephone at one of Eleanor's little psychic messages - and I though "How do I know there actually is an Eleanor?", and its been mentioned elsewhere that Sofia was capable of manipulating Splicer dreams in various ways, as well as an assortment of 'conditioning' methods. Perhaps all those hundreds of Splicers you slaughter weren't so willing to become "One with the Unity" and the mayhem was by Sofia's design and intent to 'harvest' them.
Heh, I just thought up another Bizarre-O-Land plot - a 'sea slug' happened to be inside that Vita-Chamber when Eleanor was reconstituting you (Delta) and now you get to live out a mangled version of the plot of 'The Fly'. Might make a good submission for one of the MMORPG's 'Twist' Contests. (Really Bizarre-O-Land-ish would be creating interactive Machinimas submissions with the viewers taking part in the storyline).
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In-game Maps Should Be Taken With a Grain of Salt :
'M' (Metro Station) marked on the map seen IN Outer Persephone ?? The indicated door is a BOARDED UP Atlantic Express portal with no security checkpoint/gates of any kind that you would expect for a Prison access. We went thru an airlock from Outer Persephone -- though you got there from the other end (which DID look like a proper reception area) via an elevator, gotten to only via a secret open Ocean entrance ... (requiring diving suits??) ?? SO that really wasn't THE main entrance.
Trolley/Bathysphere station ??? No sign. With all the people supposedly shipped to the Prison, it seems ineffectively connected to Rapture, and ditto for Lamb's minions/food/supplies to be able to get to the de facto capitol of Lamb-land. ( Boxes of fresh fish sit in the kitchen there, so some routine transportation to/from other parts of Rapture must be there somewhere.)
'Main Docking Platform' ??? - where Submarines somehow brought inmates in (like boats to Alcatraz ...)??? That's supposed to be an airlock -- with Sinclair's monstrous oddly shaped Lifeboat parked there - ever since the 1958 prison revolt ?? Looks like it was pretty permanent (that upper viaduct to board it...), so no getting thru into Persephone that way. (And I'm sure THAT Lifeboat' was labeled as something else, and fooled everybody -- or it was just understood that the ONLY emergency Lifeboat in Rapture was reserved for the City's prison inmates).
The fact that Inner Persephone is in a cavern/edge of the Abyss trench and is deeper in depth than [Fontaine_Futuristics_(game_level)|Fontaine Futuristic]] makes it rather harder for any of the 'Metro' systems we've seen to reach it (both Bathysphere and AE stations are also rather large facilities -- and nothing like them appears on the map). Maybe there was a Atlantic Express track siding going there long before (one of those extra lines on the AE map, perhaps ??), but that AE line seems out of commission in BS2 times (when it actually would have been convenient for Lamb's purposes).
http://www.game-archivist.com/rapture/img/museum/skyboxes/fullsize/Skybox_10_Gulag_Cave.jpg
Outer Persephone does have LOTS of nice holding cells (you can see many more of them by using the Fly/Ghost cheats when you are the Little Sister and have the 'sudden reality' view when you pickup the items for Eleanor's Suit.)
Sinclair's monster 'Lifeboat' looks like something that could have originally been planned as a replacement for that ridiculous Lighthouse that screamed "Here We Are" (and should have been torn down in 1952 when its purpose had largely ended). A submersible Lighthouse that could rise when needed (a few sanctioned cargo runs from outside were still needed to stock up on critical materials and items that Rapture simply could not be 'self-sufficient' in), but could hide the rest of the time.Perhaps Ryan was having that problem solved, but then the Civil War and his death intervened, and then Sinclair (who possibly had the contract to build it) repurposed it for his own use (possibly as always he intended).
Not sure why many parts of Persephone have similar marine growths like Dionysus Park had (which WAS completely flooded for many years). Mere leaks are not enough for barnacles and seaweed to grow on walls(and I don't think the Prison complex had a planned/manicured 'Sea' motif like the Adonis Resort had). They (the level devs) must've run out of thematic terrain details and simply reused existing ones, whether they made any sense or not.
During the 'civil war' while Sofia Lamb was hiding in Persephone, the "revolt" in the Prison must've been kept secret (the Warden Nigel Weir was co-opted), or Ryan (especially later when he was definitely getting the upper hand in the civil war) would have cut off their food or their Power/Heat if he learned the poison that was brewing there.
Those weird flowing water columns all over in Persephone - pretty looking effect, but a liability (especially since they are breakable - apparently not made of Ryanium). Why not instead have had giant Lava Lamps to assist in 'calming' the inmates (or maybe driving them batshit crazy). Pretty Bioluminescent colors with psychedelic patterns based on some artifacts the Big Sisters brought back from The Surface on their Little Sister collecting expeditions -- it WAS the 60s after all.
Persephone - not the most well laid out prison. Most modern prisons (like from 1880 onward) had alternate paths for the guards to traverse to safely/quickly get anywhere in the prison outside of reach of the inmates. It makes no sense for the Warden's office to be right in the middle of the cell blocks and ONLY accessible by having to go thru inmate inhabited areas. Likewise having a single security door between the Warden's office and dangerous inmates simply was not done. But then "The Plot Demands It !!!" ...
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