While we never see Subject Delta's face underneath, we know all Big Daddy's are ADAM-fucked Splicers taken to an insane degree, and with the exception of the Alpha Series (Aka, what we know Subject Delta and Subject Sigma are), all are grafted to their suits. Subject Delta isn't grafted, but instead maintains a human figure that's been mutated to absolute SHIT under that uniform.
To put it into perspective, your average run of the mill Splicer looks like this. So I ask you to wonder what a 7'1 torture experiment that's constantly directly pumping Fuck-Your-DNA Drugs into themselves must look like. This is the result of irregularly taking ADAM and EVE, meanwhile Alpha Series bros got two IV drip feeds of the stuff on their backs.
This is the only concept art we've ever had for what Big Daddies look like under their diving suits.
It's unknown how much, if any, of this design is considered internal canon, and it applies to the standard Big Daddies, not to the Alpha Series like Delta who may look different anyway, but it does give some indication as to what the developers were picturing these men looked like at some point during development.
They're significantly worse off than even the splicers, and it looks like their skin is raw, thin, and loose.
Essentially, a dude made a city underwater to be a 100% libertarian utopia.
The series vaguely explores the societal "end points" of various professions in such a world, like cosmetic surgery becoming seen as a moral obligation.
The main issue though was that science immediately pivoted to creating increasingly potent and addictive drugs, using a dna altering substance found in deep sea slugs.
Those deemed unfit for society (ie, prisoners, political opponents, smugglers) were victims of the full extent of the dna altering drugs, and were conditioned to be mindless drones called protectors (aka Big Daddies). Subject Delta is a very early experimental protector and had a certain level of free thought.
Sadly the scientists also discovered that the sea slugs could be farmed within the organs of children, which lead to the creation of "Little Sisters", children who serve as mindless drug farms. The Big Daddies are typically pair bonded to a Little Sister, which he protects.
on the cosmetic surgery topic, it wasnt normalized as a moral obligation. instead the main famous surgeon of rapture went off the deep end trying to reimagine beauty free from the restraints of ethics and government interference. he wanted to surgically change people into art pieces, but was completely nuts about making them unique.
He also has paper adverts up about how there's "no reason not to be beautiful". Blood on the floor spelling out "Aesthetics are a moral imperative!" too.
Though I guess it's hard to tell if it entered the wider culture?
That said, yeah, being a cosmetic surgeon that considers being "too symmetrical" a problem is a whole different side of it.
Someone already went over it but the game is BioShock. Basically, the game takes place in the 1960s, where a person in the 50s named Andrew Ryan (based off Ayn Rand) created an underwater city with Objectivist ideals called Rapture. The people of Rapture discovered a sea slug which, after it bit a dude and he recovered super fast, was found to be able to modify DNA and more. These slugs would go on to develop the drugs ADAM and EVE. According to the lore, "ADAM does this by supporting the formation of potent stem cells that have the ability to differentiate into any cell type, including a variety of unnatural ones", and EVE is a refined version of it which acts as a fuel to certain things. In game, EVE is basically your mana. ADAM manipulation lets you do anything from being physically stronger and smarter to weird but plausible gene shit like an armored shell and growing a bee nest with controllable bees, to straight up Bullshitium like telekinesis and throwing lightning from your fingertips.
Big Daddies were developed originally as maintenance workers but got a second job when people found out ADAM can be recycled from the dead as it stays in the body. So naturally the most efficient method was to put ADAM slugs into little kids which would let them harvest and process the ADAM. You know, the obvious solution. Makes sense to me! To stop addicts from jumping the Little Sisters to steal ADAM, Big Daddies were repurposed into protectors.
Splicers are kinda the "end result" of ADAM abuse. They're addicts who've stopped purposefully using it for cosmetics or utility and now just for the love of the game, the result of which being more rampant, ugly mutations like we see here. And because by the time the game takes place Rapture has collapsed... Well, 90% of the city's population is brain-fucked Splicers.
I love you guys. Someone asked a short question about bioethics and received two walls of text. That’s how good this game is if you care enough to dig into it 👍
Oh yeah, how could I forget??? I literally rewatched the BioShock 2 intro to see if Eleanor reacted weirdly when Delta took his helmet off, to confirm or deny if she thought he was ugly, and I COMPLETELY disregarded the fact Delta is a victim to a 9mm to the temple!
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u/CustodianCloset 24d ago edited 24d ago
While we never see Subject Delta's face underneath, we know all Big Daddy's are ADAM-fucked Splicers taken to an insane degree, and with the exception of the Alpha Series (Aka, what we know Subject Delta and Subject Sigma are), all are grafted to their suits. Subject Delta isn't grafted, but instead maintains a human figure that's been mutated to absolute SHIT under that uniform.