History of the ride.

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 alley ways 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.

The four animatronics displays showcase different scenarios:

1: A farmer works hard to till the soil and provide for his family with very little he has, while the government and church demand their share.

2: A scientist makes a miraculous discovery, but can't make money from it, because it must be regulated and handed over to the government to control.

3: An artist paints an image that does not serve the cause.

4: A family sitting around the television believing they have done everything right, then the government drags the child away to go to war and die for the good of the nation.

To make it clear that Rapture was the safest place for children, Ryan had Carlson construct a miniature of the lighthouse and a bathysphere with a mannequin child inside, showing the audience the child reached the safety of Rapture.

Once the ride was completed, Ryan stopped over for the grand opening of Ryan Amusements, it exceeded his expectations. He spoke to a young man while he was leaving and the boy told Ryan doing chores didn't seem so bad if his parents promised not to send him topside.

Ryan wanted to keep the attraction looking new all the time. To accomplish this, Carlson's team made extra components for the animatronics and a small group of people would polish the attraction and repaint the mannequins when needed after Ryan Amusements closed each night.

The attraction was very popular among citizens of Rapture and some used it as a way to break the ice on a first date. It remained operational until New Year's Eve 1959.

The Lockdown of 1958

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, 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 door begging for food, after a few days their cries got quiet and stopped.

The park never officially reopened. All the people who were trapped inside were presumed dead. There is no record of how many people were at the park that night and there is no record of anyone surviving.

The Aftermath

When the lockdown was finally lifted, a security team started removing the remains of citizens from the park. During the middle of the removal process they were attacked by splicers and the process was stopped and never resumed.

When the park was abandoned by Ryan's forces it became a lawless area of rapture, vandalism of the museum and the ride occurred. 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 brought away under the protection of armed guards. Most of the items that were saved are displayed in our archive.

The Ride Mechanics

technical information goes here.