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“ | Mr. Bubbles, Mr. Bubbles, are you there? Are you there? Come and give me lollies, come and bring me toffees. Teddy bears… teddy bears. | „ |
~ A Little Sister in Bioshock. |
Little Sisters (originally called Gatherers) are genetically modified young girls. They appear in the Bioshock franchise, mainly in the first two installments.
They have been genetically altered and mentally conditioned to reclaim ADAM from corpses around Rapture. Little Sisters are almost always accompanied by a Big Daddies. They generally are immune to damage, outside of being "harvested", and have no offensive abilities. Attacking them, however, will incur the wrath of their Big Daddy protectors.
In the first two games, the Little Sisters play the role of a moral plot device. The endings of those games depend on whether the player kills or reverts them back into their normal form. Little Sisters also appear in both Burial at Sea DLC's for BioShock Infinite. However, they do play the same role as they did in the first two games.
History[]
Origin[]
Little Sisters were created by Brigid Tenenbaum to increase ADAM production as the amount produced by Sea Slugs alone was not enough to meet the demands for more Plasmids in Rapture.
The Sea Slugs are implanted into the stomachs of young girls who are genetically conditioned to seek out ADAM-rich corpses to drain with their syringes. They then drink the harvested ADAM and later regurgitate a larger load of fresh ADAM made by the Sea Slug.
Young girls used for the Gatherer program were initially taken from Frank Fontaine's Little Sister Orphanage, but after Rapture founder Andrew Ryan nationalized Fontaine Futuristics, the girls were taken from the streets instead and the orphanage was shut down.
Tenenbaum began to feel remorse and hatred for what she had done to the children, and fled with a number of kids to a secret safe house beneath Olympus Heights to create a cure for the Little Sister conditioning.
Meanwhile, it became apparent that many Little Sisters were being attacked by Splicers and robbed of their ADAM. In response to this, doctors Yi Suchong and Gilbert Alexander were tasked with making guardians for the girls, which resulted in the creation of Big Daddy protectors.
Bioshock[]
Little Sisters live in the underwater city of Rapture, where they gather ADAM from corpses. They are guarded by Big Daddies, whom are also genetically modified to protect them. It is up to Jack to brutally harvest them for maximum amounts of their ADAM, or to rescue them by returning them to their normal, human states, which yields less ADAM (but gives the player rewards in other ways later).
Little Sisters are among the first inhabitants of Rapture that Jack encounters when arriving in Rapture. While not a threat on their own, Little Sisters are enemies to be avoided while he wanders the halls of of the deep-sea city. The girls are practically invulnerable, but should one stray bullet or misfired Plasmid strike them, the Big Daddy escorting them will turn his full fury on Jack. Consequentially, they should be approached with caution, and only when Jack is prepared.
There are 21 Little Sisters which can be rescued or harvested, disregarding any extra Little Sisters which may appear as a result of glitches. If the player harvests all 21 of these Little Sisters, they will gain a total of 3360 ADAM throughout the game. If the player rescues all of the Little Sisters, and finds all of the gifts from Dr. Tenenbaum, they will earn a total of 3080 ADAM and a number of Gene Tonics.
Accessing the start menu will reveal the number of Little Sisters in the player's current level, as well as their current status. If one exploits the "Extra Little Sister Bug" at every occasion, this total extends to 25. Every three Little Sisters rescued nets the player a reward in the form of a teddy bear clutching a present left at a nearby Gatherer's Garden. The cured Little Sister who delivered the present can sometimes be seen running to the nearest vent.
Every three Little Sisters that the player harvests will grant 480 ADAM (160 × 3), whilst every three they save will grant 440 (80 × 3 + 200), plus many excellent Gene Tonics, the Hypnotize Big Daddy Plasmid, and a quantity of First Aid Kits and EVE Hypos.
Harvesting represents the short-term solution. Not only will the player end up with more ADAM than if they had saved the Little Sisters, but the first few levels of the game will be much easier to pass. Coupled with the potential for sampling many different Plasmids and Tonics at once, this is the ideal strategy for someone playing BioShock for the first time. However, the drawback is that this will lead to the unhappiest ending to the game.
Saving, on the other hand, is a long-term investment. While it is harder to survive the first few levels with this path, it ultimately offers greater rewards. The Tonics and Plasmids the player receives are among the most powerful in the game, and cannot be obtained otherwise. The ADAM gap between a harvester and a rescuer (280 ADAM in total) is also compensated by these bonuses.
However, these rewards may or may not suit one's play-style, so it is recommended to either look up the rewards individually, or play the game as a harvester first. This option is recommended for experienced players and for those who have already played the game. This strategy will also unlock the happiest ending in the game, which is also the canon ending.
Mixing both strategies is not excluded, however. By both harvesting and saving the Little Sisters, players offer themselves a generous dose of ADAM, with unique Plasmids and Tonics to boot. The player only gets their rescue reward after saving three Little Sisters, so if one is feeling scrupulous, do so in blocks of three, so as to get that reward as quickly as possible. This strategy will never get the player as much ADAM as a harvester, nor as many unique rewards as a rescuer.
However, with efficient planning and harvest/rescue alternation, one can combine the advantages of both paths, making one's time easier during the first stages of the game, whilst being able to use a Big Daddy as a bodyguard. This option can be taken by any type of gamer, regardless of their skill or experience level. This path will also offer the player an alternate ending to the game, similar to that of the harvester ending, but less miserable.
Bioshock 2[]
In BioShock 2, the tactics of gaining ADAM are similar to the first game. Once the player comes across a Little Sister, Subject Delta can either harvest her, or adopt her. Little Sisters rarely carry much ADAM when she is first encountered. However, the player can choose to pick her up and look for an ADAM-rich corpse to gather more ADAM from. This will attract the Splicers' attention, forcing the player to set up a perimeter to defend the Little Sister while she gathers.
Once she has finished harvesting the ADAM, the Little Sister will drink a small bit of it through the rubber teat on the end, before giving the player the rest of the ADAM she has gained. After that, the player has a choice of either saving the girl and sending her through a Little Sister Vent back to Tenenbaum, or harvesting her, since the girl will contain a lot more ADAM after gathering.
This system is meant to be a harder choice for the player, since the potential gain from harvesting is much greater. However, by saving Little Sisters, the player can earn a present, including a Tonic called Proud Parent, increasing the ADAM harvested by 20 per corpse, and the Demanding Father Tonic that increases the speed at which the Sister gathers ADAM.
Additionally, the Little Sisters in BioShock 2 have an added ability; they are able to heal their wounded protectors over time. When a Big Daddy loses health from attacks by Splicers or Subject Delta, the Protector's bonded Little Sister can refill his health by injecting ADAM from their syringes into his body through the palm.
To acquire a Little Sister, her Big Daddy protector must be killed first. Afterwards, she stalls for a few seconds before recognising and greeting Delta (if he is a rescuer), or reacting with fear to his presence (if he is a harvester). This is due to Eleanor Lamb's psychological affinity for Subject Delta. Because of her past as a Little Sister, and her additional ADAM augmentation, Eleanor Lamb possesses a psychological link to all the Little Sisters.
This allows her affection for Subject Delta to transfer over to every Little Sister, and allows the player to adopt any Little Sister in Rapture. As a result, the Little Sisters call Subject Delta "Daddy", and treat him as if he were their true father, instead of calling him "Mr. Bubbles" or "Mr. B" as they do the other Big Daddies.
Near the end of the game, Delta is captured by Sofia Lamb and is immobilized. To help him escape, Eleanor sends a Little Sister to him with a Plasmid to take control of her. Upon the Little Sister injecting Delta with the needle, the player will take on the viewpoint of the Little Sister. During the brief time that Delta takes control of the Little Sister's consciousness, we see first-hand what a Little Sister sees: Rapture, but more beautiful than it really is.
The nightmarish prison cells and environment will be completely replaced by spotless white curtains, plush red carpeting, and toys. Splicers are replaced by masked men and women in tuxedos and ballroom dresses, corpses replaced by peaceful angels lying on the ground with drawings of wings on either side of them blood stains replaced by flower petals, etc.
The whole level will look pristinely beautiful, an illusion, since the Little Sister's mental conditioning affects her perception of the world around her. However, depending on the choices that the player has made throughout the game, the Little Sister may see different statues throughout the level depicting Delta's actions.
The only times the view will show the level's reality is when moving towards a Splicer held in a cell, harvesting from corpses, picking up parts of a Big Sister suit, and heading back to Sofia Lamb's office. Once Eleanor has been given the suit parts, she will save or harvest the Little Sister that Delta was controlling (depending on the player's actions towards the Little Sisters), returning him to his own body. The player's choice of whether to save or harvest Little Sisters affects the ending of the game, and how Eleanor treats the other Little Sisters. There are 12 Little Sisters with whom the player can interact in the game.
There's a unique type of Big Daddy in BioShock 2 known as the Alpha Series, which was the first type of Big Daddy ever created in Rapture. The Alpha Series failed in the end, but the trials they were put through were informative enough to create successful new types of Big Daddies more commonly seen in both games. Each Alpha Series was bonded to a single Little Sister, though the bond was proven to be too strong, because if a Little Sister was out of range or somehow killed, the Alpha Series would either fall into a coma or descend into sheer hostile madness.
Burial at Sea 1[]
Little Sisters can be seen being trained outside a Little Wonders facility in Market Street. Judging from their non-glowing eyes, the girls have not yet been implanted with ADAM slugs. However, they do appear to have been put through some mental conditioning, as they stare at their surroundings in a dream-like trance.
Prior to the civil war, Little Sisters may have worn pancaked makeup to hide their identities from their previous parents/guardians, who may attempt to take them back by force. In their search for a Little Sister named Sally, Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth venture to Fontaine's Department Store and later attempt to entrap her.
Burial at Sea 2[]
When Elizabeth is forced to search Dr. Suchong's Free Clinic during the early days of the civil war, she finds two Little Sisters, Masha and Leta, in the facility's secret research laboratory. She convinces the girls to save a dying Big Daddy by using their ADAM to heal him, and by doing so, successfully creates the pairbonding method.
If Elizabeth examines certain objects during her journey through the Housewares department, she will have visions of the future depicting Little Sisters during the events of BioShock. A teddy bear in Ryan the Lion Preparatory Academy will show her the rescued Little Sisters in Tenenbaum's Sanctuary, a Little Sister's Orphanage poster outside the entrance to Bathyspheres DeLuxe will show her a Little Sister accompanied by a Rosie in Neptune's Bounty.
A syringe in Frank Fontaine's hidden panic room will show her the girls killing the mobster in the first game's ending. These visions appear to Elizabeth again during her final moments in the episode's ending. Before dying, she also has a final vision set some time after BioShock, depicting Sally and two other rescued girls being brought up to the surface in a Bathysphere by Jack.
Gallery[]
BioShock[]
BioShock 2[]
Other[]
Licensing[]
This article contains content derived from the "Little Sister" article on the BioShock Wiki, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
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