Jack, Andrew Ryan, Atlas,

 Jack is the protagonist of BioShock, whom the player controls throughout the game. He is a young Caucasian male and prior to his unwilling arrival in Rapture, he was a passenger on an airplane that crashed near the lighthouse that provided entry to the underwater city. During his journey through Rapture, he comes across a number of various gene altering substances, known as plasmids, that he uses to empower and protect himself. His face can be seen on two security photos which lie on the desk in the child acceleration project status room in Rapture Central Control desk.

Shortly after the middle of the game, it is revealed that Jack is the illegitimate son of Andrew Ryan and Jasmine Jolene. This fact and other Audio Diaries explains how the Vita-Chambers work on Jack and not splicers.

An Audio Diary by Jasmine Jolene (Pregnancy), Ryan's mistress, and photos found on Ryan's desk indicate that Jack was purchased by Bridgette Tenenbaum on behalf of Frank Fontaine as an embryo. When Andrew Ryan discovers this arrangement he kills Jasmine. Andrew Ryan's shoes and pipe are found at the scene, and Jack can smoke his father's pipe with the same effects as cigarettes. This is one of only two pipes found in the game.

On Jack's wrists are tattoos of some chain links. This could be a reference to Andrew Ryan's "Great Chain" or more likely that it is symbolic of Jack's enslavement. The tattoos could also be explained as a reference to Dagny Taggart's chain link bracelet in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. (Note: the chain links on the right wrist are visible during the cutscene where the first plasmid is acquired, and when the player is wielding the wrench.)

Background
Jack was raised by the scientists in Rapture who were responsible for his mental conditioning at the order of Frank Fontaine for the purpose of assassinating Andrew Ryan. According to Audio Diaries by Dr. Suchong, who was responsible for Jack's development, Jack weighed 56 pounds and had the "gross musculature of a 19 year old by the age of one". Dr. Suchong also reveals in another Audio Diary that he is responsible raising Jack and the mind control imprinting that Frank Fontaine requested. Jack is sent to the surface as a sleeper agent living in his pre-programmed life until Frank Fontaine 'activates' him. Upon Fontaine's command, Jack boards a plane that passes over Rapture's entrance, then hijacks it, forcing its crash landing, using the trigger phrase "Would you kindly".

Jack eventually finds a cure for the conditioning with the help of Bridgette Tenenbaum, a chemical produced by Dr. Suchong called Lot 192. Jack completely frees himself from Fontaine's mind control. Once free, Fontaine challenges Jack to a showdown. In order to pursue Fontaine, Jack is forced to become a Big Daddy however, this transformation is not complete, as he does not have the suit grafted onto him (he never wears the gloves either), nor is his mind altered in the process - The only physical change he undertakes is the automated vocal chord surgery, which Frank Fontaine (truthfully or not) warns over the radio beforehand is irreversable in an attempt to stop him. Afterwards, Jack confronts Fontaine and finally kills him with the aid of Little Sisters. Depending on the player's actions throughout the game Jack will either become the new ruler of Rapture and leader of the splicers or he escapes to the surface with the Little Sisters, raising them as his own daughters until dying of old age.

While Jack's face is never directly seen in the game or in cinematic cutscenes (both of which take place largely in the first person perspective), a few pictures of him can be found throughout Rapture. His voice is heard twice, in the beginning cinematic and in the Mind Control Test audio diary.

Taking his biological father into account names the character Jack Ryan, a character created by Tom Clancy with whom he shares some thematic aspects: Both have an "everyman" quality about them, that of a tough but relatively normal person thrown into circumstances for which they are psychologically unprepared. Andrew Ryan initially suspects that Jack is a CIA spook, then comes to the conclusion that he is not based on his behavior. In contrast, Clancy's Jack Ryan actually is a CIA employee whose mission requires him to impersonate a naval officer. Both are forced to engage in gun-play underwater to survive.

Andrew Ryan (voiced by Armin Shimmerman) was the founder of Rapture and owner of Ryan Industries. A former Soviet citizen, he was witness to the murder of his entire family by agents of the State. He is one of the main antagonists of the game. Andrew Ryan is heavily based on the character, John Galt, from "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. Their political philosophies are identical, and they both broke away from the world because of their views on "parasites". Andrew Ryan's name is an anagram of Ayn Rand, with the letters REW added in. References to John Galt can also be seen through the story, such as the phrase "Who is Atlas?", which is a mockup of "Who is John Galt?", Atlas Shrugged's catch-phrase.

His childhood experiences under Soviet rule led Andrew Ryan to his personal philosophy- the modern world was created by great men who strove to make their own way. Anytime "parasites" gained control of such a world, they destroyed it. He emigrated to America in 1919, believing it was a place where such men could prosper.

For a time, he was devoted to his adopted country, grateful for it rewarding his intellect and determination with wealth and fame. However, the social programs adopted in the 30s increasingly tested that devotion. Ultimately, Ryan was a very selfish individual, and considered those who benefited from others "parasites". Ryan soon came to despise the ideals of charity or generosity. In his mind, one could only own what one earned.

He once owned a large forest as a personal retreat, one that many groups envied. Ultimately, the government attempted to nationalize it as parkland. His response, before surrendering it, was to burn it to the ground.

The final straw for Ryan was the destruction of Hiroshima with the Atomic Bomb. In his eyes, the Bomb was the ultimate corruption of his ideals - science and determination harnessed for destruction, creating a weapon that gave the "parasites" the ability to destroy anything that they could not seize.

Ryan's response was to use his entire fortune to build Rapture - a community where "the artist would not fear the censor, the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, the great not be constrained by the small", in the only place he felt the "parasites" could not touch - the depths of the Atlantic ocean.

Ryan filled his city with several thousand of the world's best and brightest, and for a time, it was everything he dreamed it would be - a paradise of freedom and wealth.

There was only one flaw in his plan - the reason he built the city in the first place. To keep Rapture safely hidden from the "parasites", he strictly forbade contact with the surface - thus creating a market for smuggled goods. And this caused the rise of the one thing Ryan had been unable to imagine - a brilliant and determined man for whom freedom, wealth and comfort were not enough. A man who could only be satisfied by control - former mobster Frank Fontaine.

Fontaine's life prior to becoming a citizen of Rapture provided the skills that allowed him to dominate the small, yet unavoidable black market in smuggled goods. By being the first to sponsor Bridgette Tenenbaum's research into a mysterious sea slug, he became the primary distributor of ADAM. As Rapture was completely isolated from the surface world, few were aware of the chaos of the post-WWII reconstruction era, and Fontaine was easily able to sway the lower classes with promises of revolution. With these factors in his favor, it took him less than three years to gather enough wealth, power and support to challenge Ryan openly.

The idealistic Ryan was totally unprepared for the brutality of armed conflict as opposed to the genteel honor of economic competition. As Rapture fell into chaos due to the machinations of first Fontaine and later Atlas, he grew ever more desperate in his efforts to protect his utopia. Out of obsession with his enemy, he became his enemy. One by one, he abandoned all of his ideals until he was just a tyrant spouting monologues of self-determination while smiting his enemies like a spoiled god. He had become one of the very "parasites" he had built Rapture as a sanctuary from, and he was destroying it - just like he believed all "parasites" did to great things.

This is the state of affairs in which Jack finds the city at the beginning of Bioshock.

Ryan is an ever-present voice while Jack travels through Rapture. Although Frank Fontaine set Jack on his journey to kill Ryan using the would you kindly trigger phrase, Ryan knew exactly what was occurring.

When he laid eyes on Jack however, he instantly recognized him as the son he might have had with Jasmine Jolene, had she not sold him before he was born. His own flesh and blood, reduced to a puppet, was the ultimate insult this world could have given him.

Looking at his life and his works, now all in ruin - by his own hand as much as his enemies' - he decided to die as he had lived: on his own terms, by setting Rapture's self-destruct mechanism. Ryan is ultimately confronted by his son Jack. With the trigger phrase, he could have controlled Jack as Atlas did, and directed him against his enemy. Instead, he educates Jack about his true self, his birth, and the phrase would you kindly which has controlled him completely up until now. He then hands Jack a golf club, telling him, "A man chooses, a slave obeys". Ryan, insisting that he die on his own terms, orders Jack to kill him. As Jack strikes him numerous times Andrew Ryan repeatedly yells, "a man chooses, a slave obeys." Ryan orders Jack to kill him to demonstrate that he chooses his own destiny and will not be controlled. Emphasizing this choice is the fact that, shortly after Ryan's death, the player discovers that Ryan had made the decision to turn off the local Vita-Chamber to prevent the device from resurrecting him. He could have kept the device active and done battle with Jack, or perhaps managed to have merely save himself.

There are a number of opinions as to Ryan's motivations.

Some say that with his city and his dreams in ruins, Andrew Ryan lacks the courage to live in a world not under his own control, and instead chooses death; this is made doubly ironic in that Ryan, who has not hesitated to murder others for his own ends, cannot find the fortitude to commit the final act himself, instead relying upon Jack to do it for him.

Others say that this was his one chance to be a father to his son; to teach him to be a man, not a slave. Using the Vita-Chamber would cheapen his death, and only a real sacrifice would have this impact; Ryan would rather die than be a slave to Atlas's whims. If this is the case, he succeeded; Jack immediately sets out to free himself from Fontaine's control.

Atlas is a citizen of Rapture, and, like many aspects of the game, an Ayn Rand reference (Atlas Shrugged). He speaks with a thick Irish accent. He is trying to escape the city and finds out Jack survived a plane crash. He helps you by giving you advice through a radio, in hopes that you will help rescue his wife and son who are lost in Rapture. Atlas had came to Rapture in search for a better life for him and his family, although he states that he feels God is now punishing him for bringing them down there.

Atlas serves as the character's guide for the first two thirds of the game, providing to be a useful ally in the otherwise totally alien city of Rapture in the early stages of the game. He introduces the player to Rapture, ADAM and the events which occurred after New Year's Eve, 1959 - helping to provide a feel for this strange, underwater city. His goal initially is simply to escape, and he helps the player on the condition that the player aid him and his family (wife Moira and son Patrick) in escaping the now-dystopian Rapture. However, as the game progresses, Atlas' name crops up more and more in the audio diaries and even on posters, leaving the player to wonder at Atlas' own past and possible hidden agenda.

Shortly into the game, in an attempt to reach his wife and child hidden in a submarine both are ostensibly killed by Andrew Ryan. After this, Atlas' goal becomes revenge - the assassination of Andrew Ryan, to which end he enlists the player's help. It is revealed that Atlas is actually an alias for Frank Fontaine, a smuggler and mobster who rose to become powerful enough in Rapture's society to challenge Andrew Ryan's claim as ruler of the city, mostly through his control of the supply of ADAM. Fontaine has been commanding the player using the programmed trigger phrase "Would you kindly..." - due to Fontaine's conditioning, the player must obey any request made of him using the phrase. As Ryan explains, Jack realizes that the seemingly benign Atlas has been using the phrase during the game as an imperative command. It is only with the help of Bridgette Tenenbaum and the pharmaceutical expertise of Dr Yi Suchong that Jack overcomes the hold Fontaine has over him.

Atlas was a name first undertaken when Frank Fontaine was listed as dead in 1958, supposedly killed in a shootout at Fontaine Fisheries with Security Chief Sullivan's security force. Fontaine refers to Atlas as "The longest con", assuming the title as a working class hero to the people for over two years. As Atlas, Fontaine lead the longest surviving rebellion in Rapture, who became the greatest enemy of Andrew Ryan. Among the soldiers in Atlas' force were Diane McClintock, Ryan's former mistress, who later discovered Atlas was Fontaine and was killed for it, and a man named Johnny, who Jack sees being killed by a spider splicer immediately after arriving.