The Politics Of Bioshock

As the release of Bioshock Infinite draws ever close, and the teaser trailers do a fine job of grabbing the world’s attention, I figured it was about time I sat through the original installments. Now obviously, sitting here raving about how good these games are would be a little outdated, but there is one element of the franchise that perhaps hasn’t had the coverage it could, one that intrigues me, and one that promises to bring a whole raft of possibilities into Infinite. That element is politics.

I once heard a saying that resounded with so much truth as to make it almost comedic: “Everyone’s a socialist until they start to pay taxes.” While this comment have been made off the cuff, it certainly wasn’t off the mark. Think about it: How many student marches do we see extolling the virtues of capitalism? If a kid ends up listening to a band with a political agenda, what are the chances that band actually supports “The Man”? Who’s out there wearing print t-shirts of noted terrorist, murderer, and all-round nasty piece of work, Che Guevara? Sometimes it seems like all media aimed at the younger generations, anything cool that is remotely political, is pushing a left-wing agenda to one degree or another.

If you accept that it’s the youngsters populating the gaming world then perhaps it’s not unreasonable to expect that similar political themes would leak into our favourite titles, be it simply avoiding the “G-Man” in Half-Life, or fighting proxy wars for corporate giants in Team Fortress. The stark manner in which the first Bioshock presented it’s case, however, had me reeling. Consider the following: The city of Rapture was founded on the principles of the right of the individual, promoting the self at all costs, and the story of Rapture’s civil war is one of an excessively-egocentric society imploding through its inability to co-operate. In Andrew Ryan we have the ultimate capitalist, locked in his ivory tower and controlling the lives of the mere mortals below him while reaping the profit. Under his egotistical stewardship, society has crumbled into a collection of self-obsessed lunatics whose destructive habits and uncaring attitude have reduced them to animals. To top it all off you’ve even got a true “corporate war” between Ryan and Fontaine providing the sinister undertone necessary to drive the story forward, with two superpowers colliding in what results in an almost apocalyptic battle. It really is a union leader’s wet dream – all puns intended.

But what if you don’t accept that gaming is for kids? Recent studies have put the age of the average gamer in the mid-thirties, reflecting the fact that the world’s first gamers have grown up in parallel with the Spectrum and Atari consoles they started out on. I’m not quite at my thirties yet, but I’m a gamer who’s grown up with his hobby and I’m no longer reliant on pocket money to expand my library of cassettes and cartidges. I also don’t readily subscribe to the ideals of the welfare state. I expect a little more from my gaming than childish Student Union propaganda, and so the sheer overt political drive behind Bioshock made me wonder if 2K/Irrational weren’t just having a joke at everyone’s expense. Bioshock 2 just proved that they most certainly were, and no doubt they were loving every minute.

Having torn apart a failing capitalist state in a way Lenin could only dream of, you continue the series plunged into the back end of its aftermath. In a damning indictment of human nature, oh so evident across the US, UK and parts of Europe right now, we see how the societal swing from far right to far left can be just as perilous. Irrational’s representation of Rapture’s new political climate is at least as extreme as Andrew Ryan ever managed. Sofia Lamb, aside from offering a scary warning tale of what could happen if Jacqui Smith had access to plasmids and ultimate power, is the epitomy of the communist tyrant feared so greatly by the American people throughout the fifties and sixties. The “Rapture Family” of which Lamb talks is regularly referred to as a “commune”, continually touting the benefits of the collective over the will of the individual.

The representation of the downfall of this communist utopia is perhaps even less flattering than that of Ryan’s Rapture. The whole concept of Dionysus Park, aside from being a blatant reference to the subversive, unconventional nature of its inhabitants (a reference noted by Ryan himself), is one of bribery and coercion. By tempting powerful, influential people disenfranchised with Andrew Ryan’s society into a “safe” haven, Lamb expected – and succeeded – to exert her own influence, building a following of people bent to her ideals, far removed from the individual expression desired by Ryan. Pauper’s Drop and Siren Alley both demonstrate the effects of a population weighed down by depression and a lack of ambition; a population supposedly supported and loved by their glorious leader, yet rotting in the depths of Rapture. Even the little things, like the 1984, Big Brother-style “Lamb Is Watching” graffiti, and the reference to personal ID cards and travel checkpoints, demonstrate the advanced subtlety with which the developers poke fun at Lamb’s Marxist utopia. Hell, even the fact that she’s exploited all her power, all her followers, and all her collective wealth to the advancement of her own selfish ends – namely recovering and training Eleanor – reminds me of the British MPs’ expenses scandal. I’m also pretty convinced there are more security cameras in BioShock 2 than there were in the first, but maybe I’m being paranoid!

So what can we draw from this? Well, not much. Irrational Games obviously have a knack for political satire, and have developed two masterful examples to take on both ends of the political spectrum. One might argue, as I have, that they spent more time vilifying the far left than they ever did the far right, but I’m sure there’s a counter argument for that. What interests me the most, however, is where they go next.

What do we know about Bioshock Infinite? Well, the early indication is that it’s completely separated from the timeline and events of Rapture, taking place in a floating airship of a city called Columbia in the year 1912. Your character is caught in the middle of (yet another) civil war, between two factions vying for control of Columbia, with your character apparently refusing or unable to take a side. This leaves plenty of scope for Irrational to get their digs in at the philosophies of either faction – and both sides do indeed subscribe to some quite stereotypical views. The thing is we’ve already seen them do the far right and the far left, so where do the developers go next? Would choosing one over the other hint at any particular bias? Having positioned themselves so neatly on the fence after the first two titles in the series, what direction can be taken?

From what I’ve seen of Infinite so far, I’m pretty convinced that Irrational have pulled off yet another masterstroke. This is for a number of reasons, the first being the very basis for the political setting: Exceptionalism. Columbia is built upon the idea that the US is simply better; in a class of its own. Quite how or why this is true is open to interpretation, and people will always argue that it was their contribution, their style, their beliefs that were the defining factor in the past and the main hope for the future – so no real wonder it led to war. Founding the city, and the game, on such an ambiguous tenet gives the story writers a blank canvas and lets them position themselves and the main protagonist at any point of the political spectrum.

Next up is quite a subtle change in focus. From the overlords of Rapture to mob rule in the sky, Bioshocks One and Two were all about the individual egos and personal agendas of Ryan and Lamb. Columbia, by comparison, appears to be in the grip of the masses. At first glance there doesn’t appear to be much change in appearance or gameplay; you’ve still got plenty of murderous, crazed loons running about trying to kill you, but now they do it for themselves and not necessarily at the whim of a hidden dictator. Sure there are leaders in the background, but they appear to be much more a simple mouthpiece for a collective agenda than anything else. In terms of identification, one group does seem to rely on its figurehead to define them (the “ruling class”, under the politician Saltonstall, act as a collective but at this stage don’t appear to have an agreed moniker) but when you’re in charge, I guess you don’t feel the need to give yourself a catchy name. Where you really see the difference is with their opposition: Vox Populi is very much a collective, with common aims, and is the best indicator of this change in focus.

This brings me nicely on to Vox Populi, so feel free to insert a Monty Python “People’s Front of Judea” quip at this point. The “voice of the people” party is just that; a stereotypical revolutionary group with all that entails. Once again we’re introduced to the idea of the far-left battling The Man, the oppressor, and are given a plausible back story to support their cause. Vox Populi are all about the rights of the people, and opening the city of Columbia to all comers in the face of stiff racial demarcation by the ruling party. What we are actually getting is a fractured collection of smaller groups each with their own plans and, having apparently lost touch with the original goal, each is resorting to brutal, vicious tactics to achieve their ends. This is an obvious reflection of so many “people-led” revolutions – Cuba, Ireland, most failing African states and plenty of Animal Rights campaigns – that devolved into feral, criminal activities; all the while clinging onto the original cause as an excuse for their actions.

Up against Vox Populi we have the people still in charge of Columbia: an ultranationalist group dedicated to keeping the city “pure”, rejecting immigrants of unsatisfactory genetic background. This blatant jingoism draws obvious parallels with Nazism, the Aryan master race, and all tattooed, shaven-headed political movements (and bar fights) since. That this is another far-right counter to the far-left perpetrator is obvious, right? Well here, perhaps, is Irrational’s greatest play to date. By exploiting the common misconception that Hitler’s Nazi party were the ultimate embodiment of the far-right, Irrational will send most players home with this view of polar-opposite parties colliding over disparate aims. Hitler was, in fact, a fully paid-up socialist; the term Nazi is merely an abbreviation of the German for National Socialist German Workers Party, and Hitler’s persecution of all things Jewish (developing into his belief in the Aryan master race) stemmed from a hatred of what he perceived as Jewish-led capitalism. Nationalistic tendencies are generally thought to be the domain of the right wing, but history has shown otherwise.

So there you have it. Having covered dictatorships at either end of the political spectrum, it seemed an impossible job for Bioshock Infinite to provide us with anything new. Instead, Irrational Games have given us a selection of new environmental factors to keep things fresh. Political conflict doesn’t have to be about friction between complete opposites, and Infinite looks to be giving us a subtle yet important lesson in both the ability of relatively similar philosophies to clash, and the misconceptions we have about “fascism”. As Ken Levine himself put it:

“If you think about the founding principles of the United States, if you think about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, what’s interesting to me is how two different people can look at the same set of documents by a single group of writers and come away with entirely different opinions about what those writings mean – so different that they’re willing to kill each other over them.”