Rapture Central Computing

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MD Executive Wing Exterior Rapture Central Computing Sign — *An outside view of the Executive Wing of Rapture Central Computing.*

“What would Rapture be like without automation? From self-opening doors to pneumatic deliveries. Rapture Central Computing keeps life running smoothly.”

― Public Address Announcement^[src]

Rapture Central Computing was the company in charge of regulation and safety of Rapture's automatisms. Located in Minerva's Den, it revolved around The Thinker, a computer responsible for all their calculations.

History[]

Minerva4 — *The entrance to the Operations level for Rapture Central Computing.*

Rapture Central Computing was founded by mathematician Charles Milton Porter and engineer Reed Wahl. The company provided computing services to the various systems within Rapture's infrastructure through contracts with the city's businesses. Individuals and private corporations would pay to use the Central Computing mainframe for their own services. One such business was Ryan Industries, who worked in partnership with Rapture Central Computing for the creation of the Ion Laser weaponry and the Lancer model Big Daddy, and in association with McClendon Robotics on the Vacuum Bots and Robotic Little Sisters.

At the core of the Rapture Central Computing was a computer mainframe called The Thinker, created jointly by Porter and Wahl to perform all the calculation needs of the city "at the speed of thought" thanks to ADAM's wondrous properties. The Thinker's artificial intelligence was ahead of its time and capable of great things, which lead to a growing conflict between the device's creators. Porter, still privately grieving the death of his wife Pearl, sought to recreate his spouse's speech, mannerisms, and personality by inputting data about her into the machine, while Wahl wanted to exploit its calculation capacities and eventually solve an equation to predict anything.

This culminated in Wahl submitting false evidence of Porter's collusion with Frank Fontaine's criminal dealings to Ryan's security forces, resulting in Porters arrest and Wahl getting control of the company, and gaining control over the supercomputer.^[1]^[2] Porter was incarcerated at the Persephone Penal Colony, where he was used as a test subject and transformed into Subject Sigma, one of the Alpha Series Big Daddies. With complete control of Minerva's Den, Wahl locked down the facility from the rest of the city as the Rapture Civil War commenced.

Organization[]

Rapture Central Computing is separated into three parts:

The Executive Wing, at the entrance of the Den, includes Porter's and the other management offices.
The Operations sector, including the System Programming and Data Processing departments, Wahl's office and the Climate Control cooling off the mainframe. Surrounding the place is a machine graveyard on the ocean floor.
The Thinker's Core at the heart of Rapture Central Computing and Porter's private office, quarters and bathysphere dock.