Journey to the Surface (Amusement Park Ride)

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“Rapture is a secret… So, your parents bring you somewhere to feed you ice lollies and terrify you out of ever leaving the perfect city all around you. That's Ryan Amusements.”

― Sofia Lamb

Journey to the Surface is the main attraction of Ryan Amusements, the theme park of Rapture. It details a journey beginning in the country on the Surface and finally to the Lighthouse, down into Rapture.

History

Ryan addresses the visitors.

A pastoral scene on the surface segues to…

…ruin and dismay.

A debased Ryan automaton.

“You would take your children here, to scare them away from the surface. When they come out… they no longer care to see the sun.”

― Brigid Tenenbaum

Journey to the Surface was the main attraction of Ryan Amusements. Andrew Ryan came up with the concept as a way to deter children and young adults from leaving Rapture and traveling to the surface topside. Ryan strongly believed that any contact with the surface would destroy the secrecy of Rapture, allowing the parasitic governments above to muscle in and take Rapture by force, controlling it as they wanted.

The attraction was engineered by Carlson Fiddle, who was hand picked by Ryan. He designed the track system layout used for the ride and was responsible for creating all the animatronics used, including the ones that were made to resemble Ryan himself. Carlson and his team constructed movie-style buildings and layouts that were used to represent the world topside.

Actors dressed in costumes would come out of the buildings and from behind alleyways explaining why the world topside was a terrible place to go. The animatronics displays and Ryan's speeches were always the same for each ride through, but to keep guests interested in riding more than once, the actors would be placed in random places in the areas that represented the world topside, and they would interact with one another in different ways. This allowed for a dynamic experience.

On December 31st 1958, Ryan Amusements was having a sleep over party for young children while their parents attended the Masquerade Ball, hosted at the Kashmir restaurant. Just before midnight a bomb went off at the Masquerade Ball, and the explosion was heard all over Rapture. The bomb caused the lights to go out at Ryan Amusements and the security system put the place under lockdown. The citizens inside were unable to leave the park. The men, women, and children were trapped in the park while Ryan's security forces were frantically trying to regain control of the city. While a civil war was being fought in the halls of Rapture, people started looting food and supplies from El Dorado restaurant and the Gift Shop so they could survive.

When food got scarce in the museum, citizens started looting areas of Journey to the Surface looking for food. The food supply greatly decreased after two weeks. Carlson Fiddle was one of the many people trapped, he locked himself in one of the workshops used to repair the ride cars so he could survive. He could hear the cries of children as they banged on the doors begging for food, after a few days their cries got quiet and stopped. The park never officially reopened, and all the people who were trapped inside were presumed dead.

When the lockdown was finally lifted, a security team started removing the dead citizens from the park, but during the middle of the removal process they were attacked and killed by Splicers.

When the park was abandoned by Ryan's forces it became a lawless area of Rapture. There was an attempt to take back control of the park from the Splicers and it was successful for a day. The park was quickly searched and artifacts of importance were taken to be preserved. One Journey marquee and a single ride car was saved. Areas of the park were photographed and filmed while other items were loaded up and taken away under the protection of armed guards.

The Ride

The first part of the ride is a speech by Andrew Ryan as he sits in his office, while the audience is standing in the queue. Here, he talks about why he built Rapture in the first place, and whether or not the Surface has changed since.

Then, the customers enter carts shaped like bathyspheres on a track and ride up to an allegorical recreation of the surface world. The first stop is at a peaceful farm, with a man working and his wife and child holding each other in the background. While Andrew Ryan narrates, a big hand labeled "God" and "Government" takes the roof off the house and proceeds to steal its contents. Second is a scientist working amongst his peers in a laboratory, who slowly begins to rise above the rest. Suddenly, another huge hand shoves him back down as an act of forced mediocrity. Third, an artist shows off his work, only to have it obscured by the symbolic hand of a government censor. The last stop is inside a family home with a happy couple and a ten-year-old boy sitting in front of a television. A giant hand emerges, and the boy is dragged from his parents to die in war. Interspersed are sets depicting a recreation of Andrew Ryan's office, complete with his signature golf club and ball off to the side. There the ride pauses momentarily, and Ryan lectures the riders on the horrors of "The Surface" and the superiority of Rapture.

In between scenes, the ride takes its audience through a run-down surface city, with symbolic buildings such as the Censorship Bureau and the Ordinance Hall lining the streets and side passages with names such as War Street and Curfew Alley. The end of the Journey to the Surface shows a mannequin child inside a tiny bathysphere in front of a miniature lighthouse, the path back to Rapture, symbolizing the children's escape from the fearful Surface world to the safety of the underwater city.

Interspersed throughout the ride, behind the scenes, are different maintenance and upkeep areas for employees. There are workshops, storage areas, maintenance junctions, and even access points back up to the museum. One of the workshops, the Ride Cart Garage, has an auxiliary bathysphere that is out of service.

Park transcript

The "Parasites" demand their share.

Staggering scientific discovery.

An exhibition of censorship.

The child is mine!

Escaping to the sanctuary of Rapture.

“I am Andrew Ryan. Welcome to Ryan Amusements. Please, enjoy the park.”

― Upon entering the attraction.

“Why, hello there, my name is Andrew Ryan. I built the city of Rapture for children just like you, because the world above had become unfit for us. But here, beneath the ocean, it is natural to wonder if the danger has passed, if those we left behind will ever come to their senses. So, let us imagine, you and I, what might befall us… on the surface.”

― Second Ryan display.

“On the surface, the farmer tills the soil, trading the strength of his arm for a home and lands of his own. But the Parasites say, "NO! What was yours is ours! We are the state, we are God, we demand our share."”

― Farmer Display

“The Parasite makes nothing for itself. Its only tools are taxes and tithes, meant to trick you into offering what it has not earned. In Rapture, we keep what is ours.”

― Third Ryan display.

“On the surface, the scientist invests the power of his mind in a single miraculous idea and naturally begins to rise above his fellows. But the Parasites say, "NO! Discovery must be regulated! It must be controlled and finally surrendered."”

― Scientist Display

“On the surface, an artist strives to frame his ideals in an image, to challenge his audience and make his vision immortal. But the Parasites say, "NO! Your art must serve the cause! Your ideals endanger the people!"”

― Artist Display

“Lacking its own ingenuity, the Parasite fears the visionary. What it cannot plagiarize, it seeks to censor; what it cannot regulate, it seeks to ban. Rapture was founded on an idea, and here they are held inviolate.”

― Fourth Ryan display.

“On the surface, your parents sought a private life, using their great talents to provide for you. They learned to twist the lies of church and government, believing themselves masters of the system. But the Parasites said, "NO! The child has a duty! He'll go to war and die for the nation."”

― Family Display

“Unable to provide for itself, the need of the Parasite grows until war is made to justify it. Your parents brought you to Rapture, where you need never fear the Parasites again. So you see, there is no place for you on the surface, but you may bring the world to you! If you know someone who belongs in Rapture, write a letter to the Ryan Industries mailroom. And you never know! The next new face… might be familiar.”

― Fifth (vandalized) Ryan display.

“(No Dialog) "Rise, Rapture, Rise" plays in the background.”

― Upon seeing the model Lighthouse.

New Discoveries

A Splicer examines a Power to the People machine.

Single Use Events

• There is 1 Power to the People vending machine.
• There is 1 ADAM body.

Plasmids and Tonics (Found)

• Booze Hound

Audio Diaries

• Nina Carnegie - You, Me, and 1959 - On a desk in the Ride Maintenance room at the entrance of Journey to the Surface.
• Carlson Fiddle - Escape Plan - Beside a gatherable corpse in the Ride Maintenance area.
• Andrew Ryan - Lamb the Problem, Sinclair the Solution - On crates in front of Conformity & Co. exhibit of Journey to the Surface.
• Sofia Lamb - Truth is in the Body - On desk in the workshop room above Collapse Ave. in Journey to the Surface.
• Nina Carnegie - Deterioration - Beside a corpse on a ledge, accessed by climbing up a hand in a storage rack at the back right of the family exhibit.
• Stanley Poole - Working for Sinclair - In an alcove of the flooded room with a Power to the People vending machine.
• Mike Novak - Doctor Lamb - Near the Security Camera, in a small room blocked by breakable wooden boards.
• Andrew Ryan - Efficacy - In the maintenance hallway across from the Lighthouse at the end of Journey to the Surface.
• Devin LeMaster - Dating Tip - In the locked "employees only" room at the beginning of Journey to the Surface.

Gallery

Concept Art and Models

Early concept for the "amusement" ride.

Concept sketch of the entrance to Journey to the Surface.

Concept sketch of the first ride scene.

Concept sketch of the second ride scene.

Concept sketch of the third ride scene.

Concept sketch of the last ride scene.

Another concept sketch of the final ride scene.

The hands of the "Parasite".

One of the paintings in the art censorship exhibit.

In-Game Images

A Thuggish Splicer in Journey to the Surface.

The Ride Cart garage.

The lone bathysphere in Ryan Amusements.

A Vita-Chamber in a maintenance area.

The Censorship Bureau.

The Courthouse from the ride.

Spare heads.

Returning to the Lighthouse at the end of the ride.

Behind the Scenes

• Horace Heidt and his Musical Knight's "Dawn of the New Day" plays in the Puppet Workshop, the official theme of the 1939 New York World's Fair. In the novel, Carlson Fiddle explains that he got the idea for the park's "animated mannequins" from the 1939 Westinghouse Electric Corporation exhibit which featured "Elektro the Moto-Man", a 7-ft tall robot that could talk, walk, smoke cigarettes, and distinguish colors. Following the 1940 World's Fair reopening, he appeared with his dog "Sparko" who could bark, sit, and beg.

• The periodic table of the elements in the Science exhibit of the ride bears the label "Arrangement by CIENCIAS CIENTIFICAS, 1945." It is actually an exact copy of a periodic table arranged by Glenn T. Seaborg, with only his name removed.
• The portraits in the Artist exhibit of the ride are in the style of Tamara de Lempicka, a well-known Polish Art Deco artist whose works adorned the covers of the Penguine Modern Classics editions of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.