Rapture Amusements Park

Rapture Amusements Park is a large amusement park in Rapture. Built as a joint venture between Drake Enterprises (a company headed by Ferdinand Drake) and Rapture Essentials {a company headed by a partnership between Arab-born businessman Ibrahim Al-Khalid and Martin Poepjes, a Dutch-born businessman), the park was built in 1954 to compete with Ryan Amusements, offering a no-propaganda, thrills-and-spills filled alternative. The park today has suffered similar fates to the rest of Rapture, with crazed Splicers roaming the halls.

Background and opening
Drake Enterprises and Rapture Essentials were two of the largest companies in Rapture (having offices, factories and shops all over Rapture), and were firm rivals in many areas, including banking and industry. For example, both were huge players in the manufacturing industries of Rapture, making everything from girders to security systems and food products to toy dolls. Drake Enterprises was headed by a Ferdinand Drake, a fairly young European businessman who started up his Rapturian business by getting contracts (from construction to catering) in the building of Rapture, as well as using his excess funds from the service to buy out smaller home businesses and to buy up other companies and products. Rapture Essentials, on the other hand, was formed by the merger of two relatively small companies in late 1951. Ibrahim Al-Khalid was a superstitious, quick-witted entrepreneur from the service who made his fortune on the surface in oil and weaponry. Martin Poepjes was a Dutch stockbroker and accountant who used his financial skill to invest in and buy up other people's companies and assets. While in Rapture, Al-Khalid's business was fairly small and seemed vulnerable, so Martin decided to try and buy it up. However, Al-Khalid's business soon found large numbers of caviar, pearls and oil in the seas around Rapture, and became millionaires overnight. With a hostile takeover now out of the question, Martin decided to get in the pie and offered Al-Khalid a merger. He accepted, much to Martin's surprise.

Following the construction and grand opening of Ryan Amusements, both companies had an idea; to make a rival amusement park, focusing less on propaganda and more on thrills, spills and money-making capability. The two tried constructing their parks individually, but they could not gather the resources and money needed, and they frequently committed corporate sabotage on the attempts of the other company, for example stealing blueprints, starting labour disputes amongst the workers or vandalising construction materials. That was until a low-level accountant suggested they build it together; that way, no-one would get in their way and they had more expertise, money and resources to use. While they otherwise remained bitter rivals, both sides saw the benefits to this, and started construction on the park in early 1954, with both sides doing half the work and owning half the shares in the park.

The park was finished in November 1954, and after a few tests and some finishing touches, was opened in time to celebrate New Years Eve. It was one of the biggest attractions of that year, with over 15,000 customers on New Years Eve and New Years Day (business, for the most part, got better after that), with businesses setting up shop there to try and claim some of the profit and posters advertising the park cropping up all over Rapture. The park was linked up both to the declining Atlantic Express (being the last new station the network had) and the growing bathysphere network.

The Glory Years
The park enjoyed prosperity for many years after that, despite (or perhaps because of) the growing problems in Rapture thanks to ADAM and the Civil War. Things only got better, in 1955, a theatre and auditorium was built in the park to help attract more "cultured" visitors, and was home to films, stage performances, concerts and cabaret acts. It even had a resident magician, the "Great Vaarsuvius", famous for his escaping tricks and use of fire and explosives. In late 1955, construction began on a zoo in the park, overseen by a renowned physicist and playboy named Dr. Fayed. The zoo opened in early 1956, mainly having smaller animals (like birds, insects, rodents, amphibians and smaller mammals and reptiles) brought in from the surface, as well as a petting zoo (using farm animals, an increasingly expensive commodity in Rapture) and a large aquarium section (arguably the most impressive aquarium in the world, however its impact was dampened slightly as the customers only had to look out of their window a lot to see many of the creatures on display). New rides were built for the park as well, including an underwater rollercoaster and an underwater train ride, connecting different sections of the park.

In 1956, Fontaine Futuristics offered to build a new wing to the park, including a new Plasmid showroom. Drake hesitated, as he did not trust Fontaine and viewed him as an amoral conman, and was also reluctant to give a third party, especially such a controversial one, control of a whole section of the park, but Poepjes and Al-Khalid convinced him. Several stalls, side-shows (including an "Incinerate! shooting gallery") and shows (including the Great Vaarsuvius) already incorporated ADAM in some form, and now the park had a dedicated showroom and store for selling and showing off new Plasmids and Tonics, including a new line of Plasmids aimed at kids. The centerpiece of the "Fontaine wing", as it became known, was the Fontaine Playhouse, a playhouse aimed at kids. This also marked the beginning of cooperation between Poepjes and Al-Khalid, and Fontaine.

Smuggling
The increased cooperation with Fontaine held several benefits for the park, from a business perspective. Not only did Fontaine Futuristics give them cheaper prices on items like Plasmids, but he also began supplying them with smuggled goods and substances, such as construction materials and exotic foodstuffs. The zoo in particular benefited heavily, with more animals, more exotic species and bigger specimens being brought down. Dr. Fayed even began genetic experiment on the plants and animals on the side using ADAM. Martin and Ibrahim basically ran this newfound "alliance" with Fontaine, who was secretly using the Playhouse as both a recruiting centre (that became increasingly pro-worker as he formulated his plan to become Atlas) and a smuggling warehouse. It had a small role in Fontaine's war as a whole and Fontaine personally had little to do with it, but he was of the view every small advantage and every new customer helped. In other news, the park continued to flourish, especially under the clever management of Ferdinand (as Ibrahim and Martin focused on cultivating business relationships and growing other interests), a new Kiddie-Land and a small museum (relatively unbiased by Rapture standards) was finally finished in 1957, and business boomed as a whole.

Drake's Disappearance
In September 1957, Drake (unaware of the heavy involvement the park had in smuggling, that mostly being the domain of Al-Khalid and Poepjes) was worried about the falling numbers of steel and other such materials in Rapture, and fearing a critical shortage and not trusting official sources to solve it, he decided to ask at the next casual meeting with a few other captains of industry (including Martin and Ibrahim), in-between their discussions about politics, the economy and idle chit-chat. He explained their fears, and while most viewed it as a long-term problem to be solved after the short-term problems had been erased, or even a situation to take advantage of, Martin and Ibrahim took him to one side and explained the benefits of going to Fontaine. While morally repulsed by the idea, he accepted the necessity of it and went to one of the FF factories a couple of nights later after the appropriate preparations.

Al-Khalid received a tip-off from a friend on the council saying a massive raid of Fontaine businesses were planned on the night Drake was making his visit. While he and Martin initially thought of warning him, they decided against it, as it would more viable from a business perspective to let him suffer the consequences. Drake never returned from his visit. He was presumably holed in in the inside of a storeroom by a massive explosion, and no rescue effort was ever mounted. In the confusion and under weaker temporary management, Drake Enterprises suffered heavily, but Rapture Essentials soon brought out many of their more profitable ventures, including his shares in the park. Ibrahim and Martin now had full control of the park.

However, the attack did have other impacts. The smuggling operation, while by no means shut down for good, was struck a heavy blow. The bigger smuggling plans were mostly called off. The area most affected was the zoo. Dr. Fayed, the zoo's resident bureaucratic, morally grey genius and head warden, devoted to little else other than his genetic experiments, was no longer able to bring in bigger animals from the surface. In the mean-time, he turned breeding programmes up to maximum to try and compensate for the loss, and continued his ADAM experiments on half the zoo populace (the other half being kept as "control" and back-up.) The experiments consisted mostly of experiments designed to give or enhance a creature's practical use, but many were simply to make the animals more entertaining or frightening, or just to satisfy his wild curiosity. The zoo, while an increasingly dangerous and frightening place to work in and visit, was kept relatively safe by the security measures and plans of Dr. Fayed and his dedicated team. For the most part, the aquatic creatures and a few of the more mundane, "useless" creatures and plants were left alone, unspliced and fully natural.

The Civil War
The Fontaine Wing was also searched by a division of Rapture Security, who made several arrests and confiscations, however after some well-placed money and political maneuvering by Martin and Ibrahim, the Wing was given to the control of Rapture Essentials. With full control of the park, Martin and Ibrahim were left in charge of the park. They consolidated their power and began increasing their business and political influence, but like everywhere else in Rapture, the park was affected by the Civil War. Not massively, but they were harmed by Ryan's increasingly draconian measures, the frequent chaos and fear in Rapture and the strong anti-business sentiment amongst the lower classes of Rapture. Things begun to fall down hill, with worker disputes, vandalisms, bathysphere lockdowns, even the occasional crime spree or fight and more. However, compared to other places, such as industrial, commercial, residential and governmental districts in particular, the damage was light, and despite the park's growing problems, many viewed it as a relatively safe place to take the children (especially with Fort Frolic closing down, Dionysus Park flooding and Arcadia being taxed, and Ryan Amusements getting even more over-the-top in its political messages.)

While neither of the two owners were massive users of ADAM, they were still going insane. Rapture was falling around their ears, and they were becoming increasingly paranoid of someone coming to get them or their businesses failing. Tensions began to run high between Al-Khalid and Poepjes, and the two took as many opportunities to start up their own businesses and spread bad words about the other as they could. They both became irritable, paranoid and increasingly grouchy, defensive and selfish. It even reached the point where they were basically in charge of two companies, sending hitmen and saboteurs after the other. The quality and safety of the park began to decline, and the Civil War and the tensions and suffering of the rest of Rapture began to spill into the grounds of the park.

One day, Al-Khalid received word that a hit squad from an unknown source was coming to assassinate him and his family, but not before Ryan's men came and kidnapped his precious little six-year old daughter for the Little Sister programme. After sorting out his affairs, he took his family (his wife, two sons and three daughters) on one last visit to the park, with only his wife aware of what was going to happen. He was depressed, calm and melancholy, and strangely went out of his way to help others, and even donated a large sum to charity behind his family's back. The family commissioned a private ride on the rollercoaster. Just as it was reaching the top of the first big jump, he said his goodbyes and his prayers, made his family do the same, and, with a tear in his eye, detonated the bombs, blowing up the carriage and the waterproof glass tube around it. He and his family had escaped the madness and evils of Rapture, having their resting place in the waters around Rapture. That night, both a squad of assassins and a "talent scout" for Ryan Industries came back empty-handed. The rollercoaster never reopened.

Aside from the damage to company property, Poepjes was ecstatic, laughing maniacally and spending the next few days partying and taking over various assets and consolidating HIS power. He brought up almost all of his dead friend's valuable assets, and convinced himself everything would turn out gravy. He was now convinced he was in a great position to benefit from the decaying situation of Rapture and massage his own ego. However, just before he could started, he was greeted by "the Great Vaarsuvius" in his office while he read the paper and arranged a business meeting. Like many of the park employees, the magician was now a washed-up, insane Splicer, a tragic shadow of his former self who had fallen from grace with Rapture, and he killed Martin in cold blood with a few Plasmids and a blowtorch and ransacked his office, searching for supplies.

Currently
After the death of Poepjes, the business failed and the affects of ADAM and the Civil War hit the park in full force. Like the rest of Rapture, the park now lies in ruins. Crazed splicers roam the halls, the rides broken and dusty, shops and stalls are looted and trashed and bodies and rubble are scattered around. The auditorium is now the personal playground of the "Great Vaarsuvius" and his cult-like band of followers. The zoo is arguably the safest place in the park, with only the occasional escaped animal (some spliced, some not) or curious Splicer to worry about. Dr. Fayed, who hardly spliced himself, and a few of his colleagues, friends and relatives, also relatively sane and unspliced, have locked themselves into the zoo office and continue their experiments on the animals.

Entrance area and gates
After visitors left the Atlantic Express or Rapture Metro station, the first area they encountered was the gate. After going through the ticket booth, security booths and the entrance gates, the three-storey entrance area stood before them. On the ground floor, there was the information booth and the head security office, to help keep everything running smoothly. There were also lockers (for storing valuables), toilets and a gift shop and arcade. The gift shop sold a variety of merchandise and goods, most of it tacky low-quality branded stuff, and the arcade had the latest in Rapture entertainment technology, as well as a gambling room for the older patrons (or the younger patrons who could forge an ID card or bribe a bouncer). There was also a station for the park's private train system. The first floor contained a upscale bar and club named The Oyster's Pearl. The second floor had a family restaurant named The Happy Diner, as well as serving as a viewing platform over the park.

The Central Plaza
After you left the entrance area, customers entered the Central Plaza. It was connected to all the other areas of the park, as well as had the hub for the park train station. The Central Plaza was home to a variety of stalls and small establishments, ranging from retail outlets (from record stores to clothing stores, from souvenir shops to toy shops) and food outlets (such as small restaurants and bars, and ice cream and fast food stands) to small sideshows (like shooting galleries and games, mostly of the rigged, tacky variety.) It also was home to several large rides; the Central Plaza had a large, ornate Ferris Wheel, serving as the centre of the plaza. It was also home to a swing ride named the Swinging Rapturian, a pirates ship ride named the Smuggler's Transport (renamed after smuggling became a serious problem to the much less controversial and much less inflammatory, yet unfortunately rather bland, Pirate Ship) and a couple of other large rides. The queue and boarding platform for the large park rollercoaster was here as well.

Water Land
A water-based section of the amusement park, with a Caribbean beach-style decor. The park managers tried to get this place having as close to a beach-style climate as they could, with complicated temperature systems, advanced water purification technology and apparently the best "sun-simulating" lights in Rapture. Fake beaches were also installed. Shops selling ice cream, goggles, and other appropriate items were very popular here, as were sunbeds. Water Land was home to a large block of changing rooms and a series of well-lit swimming pools, water slides and other attractions. There were two lazy rivers; the more gentle Relaxation River and a torrent river named Excitement River. There were also various slides and a log fume.

Culture Avenue
This area was home to a series of more upper-class shops, bars and clubs, as well as two bookstores, a small urban beach and an antique store. Aimed at more cultured or richer Rapture citizens (usually above the age of 18), it had several key attractions. One of them was a public park and gardens, named the Poepjes Gardens after Martin's love for gardening and insistence such an area was included. It was also home to rentable allotments. The auditorium was another major attraction, and was home to everything from concerts and presentations to theatre shows and film debuts. While it came nowhere near to achieving the fame and success places like Dionysus Park or Fort Frolic had, it was still popular. The last major attraction here was the Rapture Amusements Hotel, a high-quality hotel. In 1957, a small yet informative history and science museum was built in Culture Avenue.

Kiddie-Land
What initially started off of as a small group of child-friendly rides and shops and a daygroup centre for children and a family-friendly diner, it was expanded in 1957 to include a whole new range of rides, including a "Haunted Mansion" and a massive adventure playground. Today, it lies in ruins, remains of the past like teddy bears and litter scattered throughout, a sad reminder of what happened to Rapture.

Rapture Amusements Zoo
The zoo was one of the park's main highlights, opening in 1955, attracting everyone from surface-curious children and former nature-lovers seeking nostalgia to famed biologists and geneticists. Run by a scientist named Dr. Fayed as well as a team of zookeepers and scientists, it had a variety of exhibits, ranging from aviaries to insect houses to a large aquarium. A few souvenir shops, a restaurant and a couple of sideshows (including a trivia booth to test the knowledge visitors had on the animals) were also at the zoo. Initially, there were no large land-based animals, but as Fontaine began smuggling such creatures the zoo, that all changed. Meticulous attention to detail was paid in recreating the natural habitats of the creatures. Today, it is relatively calm and safe for sane survivors, especially compared to the rest of Rapture. While serving as the genetic experimental playground for Fayed and his team, they keep the animals under control and the Splicers out, and are fairly sane themselves.

Fontaine Wing
A new wing to the park built by Fontaine and his company in 1956, it stood as a symbol of Fontaine's influence throughout the city and also the fast development of the park. It's main attraction was arguably a Plasmid showroom, where citizens of Rapture could see, test out and buy new Plasmids, tonics and other ADAM enhancements. Despite many people having reservations about Plasmids and certain regulations being imposed when used in the park, it was arguably the most popular shop in the park at some points. There was also the Fontaine Playhouse, a playhouse for the kids. Several other rides and businesses bearing the Fontaine name were installed in this section of the park.

Maintenance area
This large part of the park keeps everything running smoothly. The maintenance area runs underneath and around the park, connected to all the sections, and is, obviously, off-limits to visitors. While some of it, like many of the storage spaces, closets, emergency repair rooms and the ride repair station, are on the same level as the rest of the park, much of it is underneath the part of the park it services, connected by a series of tunnels, corridors, lifts and stairwells. Composing mostly of storerooms, repair shops and control booths, the employees here, mainly technicians, repairmen and cleaners, are in charge of everything from water purification and the fake climate in Water Land to oiling the swings in Kiddie-Land. Currently, it lies in ruins, many of the corridors populated by Splicers and much of the technology rusty and failing and many of the supplies looted. However, a small colony of sane survivors resides in a series of small warehouses and workshops beneath the Central Plaza.

Management area
Composed of offices, this area houses the workplaces of all the financial workers and bureaucrats and managers of the park. Everything in the park, from the scheduling at the auditorium to the menus in the diners to the security team policy, is decided and enforced from this section. The large, ornate offices of the three owners are notable attractions here. The park's main medical office is based here, as is the main security office, including the private office of Security Chief Mr. Singh, a grouchy former soldier turned security officer. Like the rest of the park, today it lies in ruins, populated by crazed Splicers.

Housing
The area of the park, off-limits to visitors, devoted to housing some of the poorer carnies and employees of the park. Before Ferdinand's disappearance, it was a definite step-up from Pauper's Drop and Apollo Square, but afterwards it received a lot less money and became noisy, smelly, poor and began falling apart. Unrelated was Martin's standalone house, built on the seabed and having facilities for both him and his servants. Built in a unique architectural style and one of the few actual "houses" in Rapture, it was a luxurious, well-built house for Martin until the day he died.

I'm in charge now
"Al-Khalid decided to blow himself and his family up while they were on the rollercoaster with him. Wanted to give them a quick, painless death on their own terms, rather than facing fate like fucking men and going down swinging. Poor paranoid fuck. Nasty mess, sent the rollercoaster outta commission, had to refund a few punters. That's the problem with having a family, your enemies have another way to get at you and you want what's best for them. And I was having such a nice day. Still, look on the bright side. I own everything now. The park, Rapture Essentials, girls, booze, ADAM, money, everything. I WILL CONQUER THIS FUCKING CITY! STARTING FROM THIS PARK! LOOK OUT WORLD, MARTIN POEPJES IS ON THE WAR PATH! HAHAHAHAHAHA....."

- Martin Poepjes