Ayn Rand

"What is the difference between a man and a parasite? A man builds, a parasite asks 'Where's my share?' A man creates, a parasite says 'What will the neighbors think?' A man invents, a parasite says 'Watch out, or you might tread on the toes of God.'" -Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was the founder of Rapture and owner of Rand Industries. A former Soviet citizen, she was witness to the murder of her entire family by agents of the State.

Her childhood experiences under Soviet rule led Ayn Rand to her 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. She immigrated to America, believing it was a place where such men could prosper.

For a time, she was devoted to his adopted country, grateful for it rewarding her intellect and determination with wealth and fame. However, the social programs adopted in the late 20's increasingly tested that devotion.

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

The final straw for Rand was the destruction of Hiroshima with the Atomic Bomb. In her 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.

Rand's response was to use her 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 she felt the "parasites" could not touch - the depths of the Atlantic ocean.

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

There was only one flaw in her plan - the reason she built the city in the first place. To keep Rapture safely hidden from the "parasites", she 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 Franklin Roosevelt.

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 Rand openly.

The idealistic Rand 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, she grew ever more desperate in her efforts to protect his utopia. Out of obsession with her enemy, she became her enemy. One by one, she abandoned all of her ideals until she was just a tyrant spouting monologues of self-determination while smiting her enemies like a spoiled god. She had become one of the very "parasites" she had built Rapture as a sanctuary from, and she was destroying it - just like she believed all "parasites" did great things.

Rand stock footage