Our Time Line

As those familiar with me might now, I'm a part of the Paradise Lost think tank that's ongoing at the moment. If you're not familiar with what I do, I'm the official historian of our RP. If you're confused as to what that means, it's quite simple: I check and weigh how historically accurate things are within the limits of the game's canon for our RP. I've also tried to generally take profiles of our RPers and meld it into the game's own history, hence why you'll be seeing references to your own characters! This is a constant work in progress mind you, so don't get too upset if your guy or gal isn't on here right away; this takes quite a bit of time for me, and I could always be busy. If you're ever not sure about something relating dates, or have something to bicker about theory-wise with me on this, just drop me a PM and we'll have a chat and hopefully get it sorted out.

Note: I've had to take several artistic liberties with this as lots of canon character history is very vague. But I hope you'll all enjoy this anyway! I also mean you no disrespect if I have to kind of mutilate given dates in your character's profile to get this to work. It's nothing personal, just my assigned job here.

And without further interruptions...

"Rise, Rapture, Rise!"
The World of Rapture and Its Inhabitants
A Time Line

"What is history but fables agreed upon?" - Voltaire

1907: Andrei Grigori Russulpov (who will someday become mega-industrialist ‘Andrew Gregory Ryan’) is born on November 7th of this year in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) in the Russian Empire

1916: Thomas Davenport is born this year, presumably in the United States on an unknown date

1917-1918: October 25th officially marks the beginning of the end as the Russian front of WWI begins to collapse; on November 25th, with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin taking power in Russia, now the Soviet Socialist Republic, he signs a treaty with Germany, the Treaty of Brest-Livotsk that officially marks the end to the Eastern Front

During the ensuing chaos of the Bolsheviks taking power in Russia, and the czardom of Nicholas II having collapsed after his assassination, and all of his heirs apparent, at the White Palace, the Russulpovs are killed, all except for Andrei (who had been out playing that day); this marks the beginning of Andrei’s life long hatred of ‘Reds’ and ‘big government’; this also marks his life long hatred of monarchies, absolute or otherwise, as he places blame on the Romanovs for letting the poor conditions of Russia lead to men like Lenin and Trotsky come to power

1918: On October 28th, Francis ‘Frank’ Fontaine (‘the Criminal of a Thousand Faces,’ ‘Rapture’s Prince of Crime,’ etc.) is born in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City

Frank Fontaine grows up in a harsh environment, mostly with the idea that he’ll never be able to get anywhere in the world; his father, a physically disabled veteran of WWI, takes to alcohol (despite its banning under Prohibition in the future, 11 years from now; his father will continue to manage to go to speakeasies in the future) and quickly works them out of each paycheck’s little money

1919: Andrei immigrates to the U.S., being covertly shipped out through eastern Europe to France, where he’s going to be adopted by his aunt and uncle in the United States

Andrei’s name is also officially changed to that of his aunt and uncle, taking the more Americanized ‘Andrew Gregory Ryan’

1921: Future Rapturian doctor Yi Suchong is born, presumably, during this time (he seems slightly older than Tenenbaum) somewhere along China’s coast on August 15th

1925: Ryan, at the behest of his aunt and uncle who recognize his genius, get him to enroll in Yale University

1926: Bridgette Tenenbaum is born to Jewish parents of German descent on May 8th of this year

1928: Ryan graduates from Yale University at about this time, having majored in industry, philosophy, and enterprise and even goes into philosophical book work, and first publishes his notions of what he calls ‘Objectivism’ here; he’ll soon be a major recognizable name throughout the late 1920s, having his mark almost everywhere within the United States as he cleverly manages to fund several new, promising inventions (Andrew Carnegie, sulkily, is once to have said of him: “If he’s so damned rich, why can’t he get a better name for himself?”)

1929: Ryan begins to have his first misgivings about the U.S. government during this time as Prohibition begins

1930s (whole): U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected and Ryan quickly becomes disturbed and distrustful of him due to his New Deal programs, which attempt to gave aid to America’s increasing number of those out of work; he famously denounces FDR as ‘just another Bolshevik stooge’ during this time as well; despite his misgivings over the current administration, he aids the government in inventing a water-decompression device that will displace water with air when placed in certain environments that is originally meant to be used to aid third world countries that are mostly ‘dry’ of water; despite this, the U.S. government buys it off of him, and quickly begins to look at how it may be used in weaponry (a central foundation to building his dream city, Rapture)

During his teenage years, Fontaine will take to working for local crime bosses and will quickly rise through their ranks, becoming one of the most feared men of New York City

Suchong would likely graduate from whatever school he attends at this time as well

1936: Despite studying for a degree in theology, Davenport meets briefly with Ryan, who’s visiting to possibly fund Yale University at a reunion, and becomes fascinated with Ryan’s Objectivist philosophy; he will eventually switch majors to communications and advertisement

1939: World War II begins with Germany’s and the Soviet Union’s joint invasion of Poland

1940s: Suchong also manages to avoid the wider fate of most of his fellow Chinese by running a lucrative opium trade throughout Japan’s controlled areas

1942: Having managed to escape evasion before this point, Bridgette Tenenbaum, at the age of 16, is finally captured by Hitler’s Germany and thrown into a concentration camp in ‘Gross Deutschland’; her parents are killed, but she manages to survive due to her astounding aptitude for experimentation on the human form, earning the favor of Nazi doctors despite her Jewish heritage

This assures her discrete change to ‘Aryan’ status and earns her the nickname of ‘Das Wunderkind’ (‘The Wonder Child’) among her contemporaries; she quickly becomes obsessed with the notion of genetics and will pursue this career after the war’s end in Rapture

1945: World War II comes to an end with the destruction of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Ryan, utterly fearful that such destruction is now in the hands of his hated ‘Parasites,’ decides that the only way to get away from these people is to go where they’d never expect to find him: under the sea and construction begins on Ryan’s fantastic city, stretching all the way into near the end of 1946 for a place founded by ‘free men for free enterprise’ somewhere about 260 some miles southwest of Iceland’s capitol, Reykjavik; Davenport, by now an old friend of Ryan’s by now, is invited to a summit where he reveals his plans of Rapture this year

1946: On November 5th, Rapture opens her doors for the first time to the world’s ‘best and brightest,’ with these people encouraging any who they know to come to Rapture to share in Ryan’s dream; at her peak, Rapture’s population will boast about 10,000; Davenport also becomes an important intellectual and economic contributor to Ryan’s dreams in the early phases of Rapture, even providing a book to further Ryan’s own Objectivist philosophy: “Manifesto Regarding the Rights of Man,” which will go on to become one of Rapture’s best-sellers

Suchong and Tenenbaum are presumably brought here around this time, both escaping the horrors of WWII relatively unscathed compared to their countrymen

Sander Cohen also comes to Rapture this year, where he’ll immediately be put in charge of the ‘artsy’ area of Rapture: Fort Frolic; he’ll become one of Ryan’s most ardent sycophants in the future and he forges an alliance with Davenport to form the Rapture Broadcasting Company (the RBC) this year to be the one to give Rapture all of its daily news and events

1948: Frank Fontaine arrives sometime during this year, pretending to be a humble businessman in search of a better life, and quickly begins to set up shop near the wharf, Neptune’s Bounty, for a smuggling ring that will bring valuable commodities (such as the Bible, one of his best sellers) to the people of Rapture, all under the guise of a tiny fishing company, Fontaine Fisheries, one that quickly asserts a monopoly over the entire industry, further cementing Fontaine’s tiny economic empire

Quickly realizing already how classes have formed within Rapture, he covertly begins to build one of his more successful enterprises as well: Fontaine’s Home for the Poor; during his time here, he begins to play off of the widespread discontent among the poor against Ryan…

1951: Dr. Bridgette Tenenbaum discovers the fated sea slug while exploring local sea life down at Neptune’s Bounty one day, after buying it off of a local fisherman whose paralyzed arm it’d healed; quickly realizing her finds potential, she attempts to find a company to fund her research

1952: This year is mostly spent by Tenenbaum fruitlessly finding any major scientific laboratory in Rapture that will take her and her sea slug discovery too seriously; all of them turn her down and she nearly gives up hope

1953: Tenenbaum, despite nearly giving up hope, finally manages to convince an investor, Fontaine, after having a small chat with him on the future of genetic science in Rapture (Fontaine, however, does originally meet her in a café...Fontaine had wanted a quick 'roll in the hay,' and to Tenenbaum's credit, she pushed off his advances due to her largely asexual personality); despite her amazing discovery, they quickly realize that they’re going to need more sea slugs to even be able to consider the necessary amounts needed for business distribution possible and so Fontaine Fisheries begins to collect more of the slugs covertly…

Despite discovering that ADAM can potentially be addictive, they go ahead anyway; Fontaine Futuristics is founded this year to start up Tenenbaum’s research, with Fontaine’s mole in Ryan’s inner circle, Dr. Suchong, being brought in to help with the research (he will go onto create most of the ‘weaponry’ plasmids)

1954: After a year’s worth of research, Tenenbaum hits another road block: spending is becoming far too costly to continually pull in fresh slugs from the seabed and Fontaine is beginning to make noises over it; in response to this, Tenenbaum suggests that perhaps it’d be possible to implant the sea slug into a human host as a parasite to live off of said person, and in theory, consequently produce all the ADAM they need; despite being hesitant to do much at first, Fontaine caves in and forms Fontaine’s Little Sisters Orphanage

This will be the base of operations for most of the conversions of the most physically and mentally fit little girls into their new Little Sister positions

1955: Preliminary testing for the Little Sisters falters as many of Generation One Little Sisters are killed off by a bad pandemic of influenza that sweeps through the poor districts of Rapture; Fontaine, outraged that his money is being wasted, quickly tells Tenenbaum to speed up the process on her research and demands hormonal growths to induce the slugs to produce more ADAM (and its byproduct, EVE)

Early preliminary designs begin to appear by Suchong and Tenenbaum for things called ‘plasmids’ (bio-weapons generated by the human body) and ‘tonics’ (simple modifications that usually have superficial commercial affects)

1956: Fontaine’s existence becomes known to Ryan this year due to many of the poor flocking into his poorhouses set up around the outskirts of Rapture; also worrying to him is his near stranglehold on the genetics market from the outset of Fontaine Futuristics gobbling up many of the smaller businesses

Wisely, Ryan becomes determined to keep a close eye on Fontaine’s activities

1957: Fontaine’s quest for total domination of Rapture becomes more and more apparent this year as he starts to make bolder and bolder moves against Ryan’s various monopolies and puppets in business; much to Ryan’s dismay, Fontaine usually manages to keep himself on a clean slate…though not enough to know he shouldn’t be screwed with

Due to Fontaine’s bold movements, Ryan becomes increasingly paranoid over those who he can trust and begins to make Soviet-style purgings of areas, feeling around for those who’re loyal to him and exterminating those who he begins to perceive as threats to his power

The Little Sisters are also begun to be used as ‘farms’ for ADAM, as it begins to be distributed to the populace of Rapture where it’ll be quite the commodity as its effects of addiction and need to feed this become more and more dominant; the ADAM and EVE fad won’t die, even after Rapture’s future collapse

To once again earn the favor of the poor, Fontaine sets up his series of “Power to the People” armory upgrade stations all over Rapture; this is a success, further making his popularity with the lower classes skyrocket

Davenport begins to crack down more and more this year with his radio show quickly turning into just another mouthpiece of Ryan’s to spout more of his ideology; many of Fontaine loyalists will quickly decry him as ‘Ryan’s Goebbels’

Ryan will also begin his fatal romantic affair with Mary Jane 'Jasmine' Jolene here...

Widespread dissent also finally begins to reach its peak, as along with the purges, Ryan refuses those who wish to return to the surface world their right as he fears questioning from the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.

Just putting things in order. This is WIA?'s impressive timeline!